TurnHere Blog

Even with companies paying more and more attention to Twitter followers and Facebook fans, email marketing is still a key leg of any marketing strategy. And as a marketer, it hurts to see any of your email subscribers leave and it hurts even more if you're Derrick from Groupon. If you've ever unsubscribe from one of Groupon's emails, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

On the Groupon unsubscribe page, there is a video where you can “punish” Derrick for sending you an email that you found irrelevant. If you decide to punish him, someone (maybe his boss) comes over to yell at him for the unsubscribe and throws some water at him. At the end of the video, your able to repent for your vicious act and resubscribe to his emails.

Groupon's known to be a little quirky and this is just one example. Even if the no one resubscribes, their creative use of video has people tweeting and blogging about an unsubscribe page! Ingenious if you ask me. It's a great example of the power of video and a company really using their personality to engage you or in this case re-engage you.

Firstly, Happy Thanksgiving! For folks not in the United States, then Happy Thursday! Thanksgiving is a day full of family, football and of course TURKEY. Not sure why I wrote that in all caps, but it’s a part of the title so I think it deserves a little more attention. I personally don’t eat TURKEY (did it again) at any time of the year except on Thanksgiving which made me think...is there something to be learned here?

Frankly, I don’t really like turkey and actually would prefer a burger or hot dog on Thanksgiving, but for some reason or another I’ll gobble up my fair share. Sorry, wrong choice of words there. Anyways, after doing hours of research on turkeys (really just a few minutes on Wikipedia), I do feel like there is something we can learn from our good friend, the Meleagris gallopavo.

Associate Yourself with a Holiday

Okay if you’re a turkey, you probably want to disassociate yourself from Thanksgiving. Sorry probably not going to happen. However, the thinking applies to business. Too often we find ourselves wanting to be associated with so many things. Here at TurnHere, we provide video production, marketing, distribution, editing, promotion, player, etc. It’s difficult to sum up what we do in just a few words. Unfortunately, saying all that will fall on deaf ears. The lesson here is to stay focused and be associated with something, not everything. You should associate TurnHere with video for the web. Done!

If you’re a restaurant, be associate with romantic dinners or family atmosphere. A dentist? Be associated with being not painful. You can’t be everything to everyone so be something to someone.

Strut Your Tail Feathers

According to Wikipedia, male Wild Turkeys display for females by puffing out their feathers, spreading out their tails and dragging their wings. This behavior is most commonly referred to as strutting. Now that you’ve associated TurnHere with video for the web; we’re going to strut our tail feathers and tell you that we’ve created videos for over 20,000 businesses including Audi, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Pottery Barn and more. Okay this is turning into a commercial.

The lesson here is don’t be timid with your accomplishments. If you were voted the best burger by pregnant women then put it somewhere. A lot of times being a little silly with your awards or accomplishments work better than the serious stuff. Manpacks is one site that does a good job of this - Girlfriend Approved.

Be Courageous

A trusted source (Wikipedia) tells me that Benjamin Franklin once wrote a letter to his daughter denouncing the Bald Eagle as the national bird and suggesting it be replaced by the turkey. The reason being that a turkey is “though a little vain and silly, a Bird of Courage.” If Benjamin Franklin tells me to jump...I’m already in the air.

Don’t be afraid to be a little different is the lesson. When Tony Hsieh of Zappos made customer service the number one priority, people thought he was crazy. Now? Zappos is synonymous with great customer service. The primary sources of the company’s rapid growth have been repeat customers and numerous word of mouth recommendations.

I think one phrase can sum up this blog post. “Don’t be afraid to be associated with strutting your tail feather like no one else.”

Now that 2010 has arrived, it’s time for business owners to take stock of their marketing assess what worked and didn’t work the year before, and determine what, if anything, new to try in the coming year. In an Entrepreneur.com post 10 Marketing Trends for 2010, marketer Susan Gunelius lays out the top 10 trends that will affect all areas of marketing, advertising, branding in 2010 and beyond.

The article is certainly worth a read for any small business owner grappling with marketing strategy and priorities. We spend considerable time focusing on how SMBs and local businesses can leverage online video marketing, and certainly appreciate that online video made the list “Both online video and mobile marketing are set to explode, and we’ll really start to see that happen in 2010”.

However, we were even more excited to read Gunelius’ first point: Transparency and trust are paramount. She wrote, “[Companies] that ... make a concentrated effort to be honest and open in their marketing communications will generate positive consumer responses, which can lead to brand loyalty and brand advocacy.

These words echo the real-world results we see each day when it comes to online video that works. Today’s consumers are savvy. They’re highly attuned to weed out sales pitches. And the Internet puts them in full control they can instantly navigate away from something that rings hollow or sounds phoney.

As a result, we find that small businesses are most successful with authentic videos where the company owner, employee, or customer tells their story in their own words. Less reliance on scripts and a more organic production process result in an honest, emotionally engaging product. This personal approach differentiates a video from the clutter of marketing jargon on the web today compelling viewers to want to know more.

Our VP of Corporate Development Jared Simon was interviewed by O’Rourke at Ad:tech NY this month. Jared told the Award-winning Hotel Marketing Firm about our InterContinental Hotels & Resorts case study and how online video is proven more effective than T.V. spots.

By John McWeeny, COO, TurnHere

Last week, Mashable editor Josh Catone published the story 5 Important Web Video Lessons for Small Business Owners on both Mashable and the American Express OPEN Forum.

Now I’m a big fan of Mashable. And we definitely appreciate any discussion on the power of online video and the opportunities for small businesses. However, at TurnHere we’ve produced more than 20,000 online videos for companies of all sizes. And as someone who’s been on the front line of online video marketing for years , and has seen first hand what strategies drive clicks, calls, and ultimately purchases, Im compelled to toss a few thoughts into the mix.

First, the consensus. I agree with Josh’s assertion that web video offers an important opportunity for small businesses online and agree wholeheartedly with his statement, “Stodgy sales pitches dont work on the web.”

However, the opposite of stodgy isn’t necessarily wacky and goofy. And the drive to create the next viral sensation can lead many business owners down a misguided path to nowhere. For small businesses, particularly those serving niche or local markets, the size of the audience isn’t always the key to success. Wacky stunts and funny clips can quickly spread throughout the web, instantly delivering hundreds of thousands (or millions) of viewers. And that’s a lot of eyeballs for a relatively low investment.

But how many of those viewers will actually turn into customers? In the Mashable article, do we think that the people forwarding and sharing the giant stuffed snake video were actually in the market for a giant stuffed animal (or realize now that they need one)? How many people will suddenly buy a mattress from Bensons for Beds because of the falling domino video?

That’s not to say that these strategies can’t generate sales. But in the rush to be viral, businesses can end up ignoring their most important asset their customers and potential customers. The web offers an enormous opportunity to reach these people at the most critical point in the purchase process: during online research and decision-making. Business owners should be focused on creating content that will help people make decisions about buying from them vs. walking down the street (or, scrolling down the search results) to their competitor.

Here the focus should be on aligning content with the information demands of a targeted audience. And to return to Josh’s advice, this should never be a stodgy sales pitch. It should avoid generic industry footage, stock images, bad actors, and even worse scripts. In fact, we’ve found some of the most appealing, engaging, and effective video has been created without any of the above involving real business owners telling real stories about products and services. It may not generate as many views and forwards as a dog on a surfboard, but it will resonate with the true audience customers ready to buy.