Jimmy Fallon recently took over the Tonight Show. Now I don’t actually mean super recently, but he’s definitely only a few years into the talk show biz. But what’s great is that he was given the show and has brought it back to its former glory. I give his days on Saturday Night Live the credit. They know how to write catchy short videos that are perfect for YouTube, think The Lonely Island.
This has allowed him to create some great video segments for his show which then go viral on the internet. One of the best bits that he has created are the lip synching competitions. These are great to watch, you don’t even have to see the actual show to appreciate these. Just check out his YouTube channel and you’ll spend hours on there watching celebrities fake sing to popular songs, and they just get crazier and crazier as they go.
My favorite is Emma Stone or Joseph Gordon-Levitt. If you haven’t seen them before, here you go.
These have become so popular that Spike even gave him a spin off TV show. It just premiered about a week ago and has some pretty amazing clips from it already. It’s hosted by LL Cool J.
He’s also started to have celebrities do other singers impressions. See Christina Aguilera do Britney Spears or Ariana Grande do a pretty good Celine Dion impression.
He created the “Ew” video which people can’t stop quoting. And he even started hashtag wars. We all know people loved to hashtag everything they do in their daily lives but Jimmy Fallon took advantage of this and now it’s hilarious to say ironic hashtags in real life. They don’t even posted it on social media but verbally say, “hashtag workflow,” or whatever else they feel like hashtagging.
So what can you learn from Jimmy Fallon? Everything.
Just visit his YouTube channel and search through it. This is how you should be creating your videos. They need to be funny, original, and serve a purpose to your audience. He has also created a video specifically aimed at the YouTube audience to subscribe to his channel.
Make your videos fun. Make them funny. Make them unique. Make them watchable. And make them shareable.
Why is this year any different from any other year?
It’s not. This year has been lovingly dubbed “The Year of Video Marketing!” It’s also been called the “Year of the Pixel” and about a million other things. But let’s be real, every year should be the “Year of Video Marketing.” It’s just that people are finally figuring out that even if they don’t think their product or service can really be shown in a video, they really need to put it into one.
And it’s obvious why. YouTube is the second largest search engine, and if you create and upload your video properly, you can get that video to pop up on page one of Google for your keyword. It’s pretty amazing, so why isn’t everyone doing it? Who knows.
Videos stand out on social media, and they are easily shareable. People are always more inclined to click on a short video than they are to click on an article that could be who knows how long. I mean, are you even reading this now? Probably not. Wouldn’t it be better if I was explaining this all in a video and then had a transcript underneath it, giving you both options? The answer is a definitive yes.
Videos can give your audience a quick overview of your product or service without overwhelming them, and most people are visual learners anyway.
People often worry about giving away too much information online. They think if they tell people what they are doing and how they are doing it, then no one is going to need their service. This is just wrong, wrong, wrong. In fact, when you put up lots of information about how your product or service works, you give off the impression that you are an expert in that field, and therefore people want your help.
Video Marketing is fantastic because it opens the door for so many options. You can have simple short videos explaining who your company is, videos introducing each member of the team, tutorial videos, explanation videos, and all of these leave the door open to turning them into series, which your audience will begin to expect and come back to learn more information from you.
So what are some awesome ways to use video marketing to capture leads?
Well, the goal of any video should be to capture a lead and get people onto your site.
Redirect Your Audience
Instead of embedding the video on social media and within emails, we recommend creating an awesome image from the video and place a play button over it. When they click the button it will actually drive them to your website. Now if you have the proper pixels in place you’ve just captured an audience member. Plus once they are there, they might click through some of your other pages and posts.
Explainer Videos
People have a lot of questions before they buy anything. An explainer video is the fastest, easiest, and well…best way to let them know who you are, what you do, and why they need your company to make their lives better. Remember, the whole point of any product or service should be to fulfill a need. And we think explainer videos are some of the best video marketing videos that you can have. Definitely look into getting one.
Explainer videos should be fun and interesting, while informative. That’s why we love Ydraw whiteboard videos. They are interesting and engaging and fun while still giving you important information.
Set a Schedule
Create videos on a set schedule. Better yet, come up with a plan for a series, and your audience will check in on those days to find the next bit of information that you have for them. Even if you don’t have a series, let you audience know that you will be posting videos once, twice, or thrice a week. Yeah I used thrice, deal with it. You want your audience to know that you are active and around. That you have new ideas and information for them all the time, and also that you’re actually there! This allows your audience to feel like they know you a little bit better and that they are able to get ahold of you if needed.
Call to Action
Everything you do should have a call to action. Even if it’s a simple blog post. You should always be telling your audience what they should do next. To find out more information about we are the bees knees, read this article. Get in contact with us and find out why we are the greatest office to work with. Buy our service because you’ll be making it rain with all the extra income we get you. Ya know stuff like that. Always have a call to action, but make sure it’s not salesy. If there’s one thing I always talk about it’s that you have to be smart with how you word your call to action in certain areas. No one wants to be sold to; it’s awful. So be clever with your CTA.
Your email campaign should be a major deal to you, and here’s why.
There are a few things here at Yinc that we deem pretty darn important. And one of them is your email campaign. Oh, you don’t have an email campaign? Then what are you doing with yourself?! Haven’t you ever heard the saying, “The money is in the list?” Because it is.
Your site should have a few forms on it. Something like a general form for visitors to get into contact with someone at your company (probably located on your “contact” page). And you probably should have one somewhere else that allows people to subscribe to your newsletter, or give their email address for some awesome offer. You always want to offer something to your customers in return for their information. This is how you will capture emails for your email campaign.
If you’re a health or fitness company, allow site visitors to download some recipes and boom! You’ve got an email. Maybe you have totally awesome guides that help people accomplish something. Allow them to download these completely free as long as they give their email. Or just give them an option to subscribe to your monthly/weekly/daily newsletters. But let them know you are going to give some good information in these emails, something of value. Make sure they are excited to sign up for what you can offer.
And then make it worth it!
How?
By creating an awesome email campaign. I know, I know, you probably delete the majority of emails you sign up for without ever opening them. You’re probably thinking, I never open emails so why should I waste time creating emails that people aren’t going to read?
That’s when your subject line comes in! If you create an amazing subject line, people are going to want to open them up and read them. It’s the same with writing headlines. If you create a gripping ad headline, people are going to want to click on it…so create a gripping subject line and get those people clicking!
Here’s a little bit of information that we’ve learned about subject lines and what gets opened and what gets tossed.
Bad words to not use in your subject line:
Discount -38.8%
Trial -45.6%
Learn -35.5%
Report -23.7%
News -34.8%
Even the word “free” gets a -3%
Some good words to use in your subject line:
Weirdly enough “free delivery” gets a 50.5% opening rating
Alerts 38.1%
Sales 23.2%
Breaking 35.4%
Review 37.1%
Limited 28.7%
If someone is signing up for you list, it’s usually because they want information that you can provide or are hoping for deals or exclusive information. So start with great content right out of the gate, and they will want to open every email from you that comes into their inbox.
So what should your email campaign contain?
It really depends upon your demographic, but you’ve probably heard our rant about the 4 happy chemicals and the one sad one inside your brain. If not, go read it, it’s fantastic and a real insight into how we make decisions as people. Basically you’ve got to get these people craving something right off the bat. Right in that subject line. Make it something they can’t pass up. Think about what gets you reading articles that pop up on your social media? What entices you? Then replicate it. Get your readers dopamine going.
Now for the good stuff, the meat and potatoes of the email.
We like to write our email campaigns like you would a movie. The introduction (headline) the pain, peril, and problem, then the solution, and then a call to action at the end.
So, what need are you going to fill for your clients? What can you offer them that helps their lives? What are they stressed about right now? Get their cortisol flowing so they feel a little tense.
Then hit them with the solution. How you can relieve that stress from their lives. Make them feel okay again, that you have a solution for them. And then end your email with a strong call to action.
But be careful, you want to sell your audience without them realizing you are selling them. Because no one wants to be sold to.
Make your emails fun and funny for your reader, but make sure they have a point and your reader knows what that is.
We really enjoy throwing in what we call a “Seinfeld Story.” Seinfeld is a whole show based around nothing. So throw in an email that’s about nothing. Write about what you did today, or some other mundane story. Make sure it’s still fun and entertaining, but make sure it’s also not a sales pitch. We like to add this one in around email 4 or 5. Which brings me to my next point…
How often should you send out emails?
We go off the Fibonacci sequence. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and then we like them to go out once a week. If you can’t do once a week, link your service (Infusionsoft, MailChimp, Aweber, etc) to your blog, so that your blogs will be sent out. Either way let your clients know that you’re still around.
And then when you have a new product or service, or maybe it’s sale season, send out a separate email giving discount codes or exclusive offers.
Just remember, the money is in the list, so work it baby, work it!
Have you checked out the latest and greatest interactive video ads created by Ydraw?
If not, you should…
I have been running some video marketing test on YouTube to see what type of engagement I get with interactive video compared to other styles. First you might want to watch the video to get an idea of what an interactive video is.
Many of you know that I am a big fan of YouTube ads (trueview ads). I think they provide an amazing opportunity for you to get in front of your target audience at an extremely low price. Plus if you create the right video you can increase your engagement 10 fold. So let’s look at some numbers.
On February 18th I started a simple test and here are the numbers.
Those numbers are looking awesome. I kept the budget extremely tight because I wanted to show you guys that YouTube ads do not have to cost you a fortune plus I wanted to restrict Google. You do not see these types of numbers with YouTube ads, but I did a couple of things differently.
1. I created an Interactive Video that would get my audience engaged.
2. I targeted my Remarking Audiences.
Interactive Videos
Trueview ads continue to supply more and more features that will drive YouTube visitors away from YouTube to your landing pages. You can use annotations, Overlay Call Out, Logo, etc.
Here is an idea
Lets assume you are going to be selling Dish Network or DirecTV. We all know how the game is played among sellers. If you have Dish Network, they will try and get you over to Direct. If you have Direct, they will try and get you over to Dish. We can use this to segment our audience and run them ads.
Step 1: Create a video that gives your audience a choice. Below is a simple example of what you can do to give you audience a choice. This is not a video, it is a simple gif because I didn’t care to create a whole video to show you (sorry, next time).
Why would you want to do an add like this?
Because you do not want to pay for viewers who are not really interested in your product or service. When they see your add you want them to either click it or move on before 30 seconds hits. That way you are not charged.
Now if they click on your add and they choose DirecTV then you send them to a landing page that talks about Dish and the benefits they can get by switching…plus you put a remarketing pixel on there computer to run them more ads throughout the internet. This could be much more cost effective compared to Google PPC ads.
Step 2: Select the right target audience. For the interactive video ad I used the Remarketing feature. I had a small list built up from earlier views plus I let Google create similar audiences.
Which brings me to my next point.
Last week I had the chance to attend the Traffic and Conversion summit in San Diego. One of the “Big Ideas” was that 2015 is going to be the year of the pixel. Meaning that you need to start building audiences. In other words you capture and pixel as many people as you can. If you are going to spend the money to drive people to you website, why not put a cookie on their computer so that you can run ads to them later on.
It can be done on YouTube also. Basically YouTube will cookie anyone who has watched your videos. This allows you to run video ads to them later on. It’s cheap and very effective.
So there you have it…I hope you can see the big benefit to running interactive videos. So far the numbers have been amazing and we are just getting started.
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Are you struggling to get the traffic or revenue necessary to grow your business? We have a limited number of spots open for future clients. If you can not implement this strategy, we would love to do it for you. Everything we do is based off of ROI and will help your business. Sign Up and we will get you started right away. We will manager your Video Ads Campaigns, Email Campaigns and Autocomplete Services. They Work and we use them. Sign Up and see if we are a good fit. We may not be…but it’s worth seeing. This could change your business.
Charlie Day Inadvertently Teaches Marketers To Tell Stories To Sell
What is there to say about this speech? This speech is amazing and inspiring. Charlie Day is the last person that I would think, yeah he’s a great speaker and he would give some of the most insightful inspiring statements, but he did.
Now, I love Charlie Day. So when I heard he did a commencement speech I thought, sure I’ll watch that, just sort of thinking it would be a funny 20-minute video. There’s a reason this video almost has 2 million views on YouTube. It’s refreshing, inspiring, and REAL. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything.
While he’s now in the “honorary doctorate” group with Mike Tyson and Kermit the Frog, and how Doctor Charlie Day sounds like a club DJ, he actually gives quite an intelligent and coherent speech. Very unlike what his character from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” would do.
One of the great things about Charlie’s speech is that he tells stories to prove his point. Three to be exact. If you check this blog we have mentioned time and time again that it’s important to tell stories, because it get the audience interested and is one of the best ways to get the viewer to relate to what you’re selling.
He talks about his time at college, his struggles, and how your diploma means almost nothing in today’s society, but not in the sense you think. He basically breaks down three stories about how your diploma can’t do anything for you. YOU have to do it. It’s up to you to create your future. To follow your dreams. To work hard. To take a chance. And to struggle. The struggle is inevitable.
Don’t let the struggle break you, let it build you. There are three fantastic quotes in his speech, which I’ve included below if you don’t feel like spending the 20 minutes to watch it (although I think you should).
“You cannot let a fear of failure, or a fear of comparison, or a fear of judgment, stop you from doing what’s going to make you great. You cannot succeed without this risk of failure. You cannot have a voice without the risk of criticism, and you cannot love without the risk of loss. You must go out and you must take these risks. Everything I am truly proud of in this life has been a terrifying prospect to me.”
“You do not have to be fearless. Just don’t let fear stop you.”
“Do what’s uncomfortable, and scary, and hard—but pays off in the long run. Be willing to fail.”
