I encourage you to take a look at the New York Times  psychology study on “The Psychology of Sharing:  Why Do People Share Online?”, described as “A first-of-a-kind inquiry into the motivations behind why we share”.  The audience for this study appears to be marketers-    “Understanding the motivational forces behind the act of sharing will help marketers get their content shared.”  Identifying “distinct personalities with different motivations” is a highlight of their study.

It is visually very engaging.  But, what excites me the most is we have all been reading, writing and living the realities of social media marketing-but rarely have we gotten some real live data on why this tsunami has taken such a hold on our shared universe.

I am currently reading “The Referral Engine” by John Jantsch. His focus is to leverage knowledge about the  sharing phenomenon to positively impact the sales process. Understanding sharing is the central thesis of his work; people who refer are driven to share.  As I read it (every time I see the word “refer”, I think “share”), I say to myself, yes this makes sense, this so applies to my business.  Some key quotes from Jantsch that have stayed with me are:

There is a tiny part of the brain, the hypothalamus, that-among other things-helps regulate sexual urges, thirst and hunger, maternal behavior, aggression, pleasure, and, to some degree, your propensity to refer. …

“We rate and refer as a form of survival.”

So, when I saw the data in the Times study, I thought:  yes John Jantsch is correct.  People actually reported in the study that they were motivated to connect.  This may sound so obvious now, but it is so critical for us to not get so carried away in the tsunami that we do not stop and take note of what is going on and why, and what sales can do with it.  This is particularly important because our efforts going forward are SO intertwined with the power of this earth changing movement.  We need data to confirm our hypotheses so that we can better harness this fast moving phenomenon.  We have an opportunity right now to use the power of social media to fuel our economy (read sales) and our sense of well-being (read survival) if we make sure we truly understand what is going on with your potential clients.  If we just make assumptions about why we think the social media movement is upon us, and do not use the scientific method to go deeper, we are missing a huge opportunity…

What are some of your assumptions about this sharing revolution?  What questions would you like to see tested?

Dr. Peggy Kriss, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in Newton Massachusetts and a consultant to VisibleGains.  Stay tuned for more psychology informed blogs by Dr. Kriss.

Building Trust through Content

Before you can sell your services to a customer, you need to build a relationship. In business, the relationship between the salesperson and the customer is based on a foundation of trust.

One of the easiest ways to generate profitable publicity and to build a foundation of trust is to establish yourself as an expert in your niche. The point is to create a reputation as being the source for information about your product or service. – and the best way to provide information is via content.

Here’s six ways to use content to increase sales:

Be the Expert

First impressions are everything, and chances are your customer will first ‘meet’ you on your website. In a study by FOCUS two-thirds of a prospects mind is made up prior to engaging a sales rep. So be sure to fill your site with content that establishes you as a well-informed authority on your product or service. Your website should not be a supermarket of content with relevant  information buried under layers of lingo and buzz words.  Creating landing pages which are specific to the individuals you are trying to converse with is important.  This is the cornerstone of trust.

Don’t Sell, Teach

People love to buy stuff, but they hate to feel sold. Avoid this turnoff and focus your content as providing information. Fill your website with educational, tutorial-style content that will decrease sales resistance. Create content that allows the viewer to self direct their education. Consider using Video, PDF’s, Slides, Pictures, Lists and anything else that will speak to them about their concerns.

Don’t Just Tell, Show

Video is an excellent way to provide engaging content to your potential clients in a unique format. Consider making a how-to video. If you make a demonstration video, the content should focus on the benefits of the product or service.  Video does not have to be overly produced consider – business casual video.  Clean and clear recordings with good audio conveys and honest and direct approach which will be appreciated.

Engage

Follow blogs and social media sites that deal with your product or service to see what customers are talking about. And then engage with them in a conversation by offering pointers, answers and advice.

Write for Others

Chances are there’s a trade publication, blog or site dealing with your sector. Why not write a guest article for it? Just make sure the article doesn’t preach but provides valuable information to the reader.

Don’t Forget SEO

When writing your content, don’t forget to make sure it’s search engine optimized. Customers will only find you if you show up on the search engine results!

Customer testimonials are typically hard to get. I thought I’d list a quick way that I have gotten video testimonials from customers in the past using flip cameras and dropbox.

1. Step one buy some video cameras Kodak Playtouch ($179) or Flip Cameras ($80) with your loaded logo (as of today you still can) – see picture to the right.
2. Step two send the cameras to your clients with an email & document asking them to find a quiet room that’s well lit.
3. Step three ask them to turn the camera on, sit in front and read the questions aloud and then answer (its also helpful to send a “best practices how to record”).
4. Step four ask them to upload the raw footage to your dropbox folder you have just shared with them – or ship the camera back.
5. Step five edit the video down to under 1:00 in total time.
6. Step six load the content to your site with appropriate tracking codes to see who watches and what they do next (don’t forget a call to action).
7. Step seven ask for their final approval and tell them to keep the flip as a gift.

Marketing should exploit the immediate connection and effectiveness of using video in their referral process. Video is an effective and simple way to make a connection. These types of clean videos come across as very honest as there is very little “production”. I’ve gotten five testimonials completed in 30 days using this method.

It might be obvious to some but the web is becoming a broadcast system. People love consuming content this way and it really has an impact. You don’t need large budgets or time to enable this component of your demand generation marketing engine.

Twas the weeks before the webinar with registrations at stake.

The team gathered around, all heads in an ache.

The invitations had been scheduled and sitting in cue.

They know they need conversions, and more than just a few.

“We need a solution, a better way to convert!”

“How about making a video?” … “Ugh! That’s going to hurt!”

“I know a producer, he’ll script and he’ll shoot…

However, the downside, he costs a lot of loot.”

“Forget it, there’s no time, we need to be frugal!”

“But wait! There’s hope, I just did a quick search on Google.”

It was VisibleGains, and its self-service solution.

One might even call it a video revolution.

So easy to use with it’s templates and scripts.

A few tips from a coach, and they were creating their own clips.

An image or two, a bulleted list.

Everything they needed to promote what not to miss.

Into the invite, they called out with action.

“Click here to watch our webinars attraction.”

Out went the invite, with video and all.

In came the registrants, the most ever seen they recall.

“Our webinar will be such a success”

“And just to think, we used video with such little stress!”

“Up next, testimonials! Let our customers be heard!”

“Video without VisibleGains, would just be absurd.”

Yes, this is a plug, but it’s an important one. Yesterday we announced an important partnership for our growing company. While we continue to preach how easily and cost-effectively you can produce video, we realize that some companies could still benefit from professional guidance and/or extra arms and legs, at least early on.

As of today, our clients in the U.S., Europe and Asia can outsource the production of their video-enabled marketing apps, including event promotion, customer testimonials and product/service demos, to MEDIAmobz, a marketplace for creative services, particularly video production. Once you contact us (or them) you’ll immediately be matched with a team from their global network of video producers and you’ll be off and running. Video in less than 24 hours has never been easier.

To learn more about our partnership with MEDIAmobz and discover why they are such a strong global partner, please see the press release we jointly issued yesterday

Also, please don’t’ forget our upcoming Business Wire event on April 27 in Boston where MEDIAmobz will provide examples of how video-enabled marketing apps can be beneficial to your business. You can learn more about that event here.

Image Courtesy of djcodrin

In his recent USA Today column for small business, Steve Strauss suggests that “maximizing your web presence is key to building your small business.” We couldn’t agree more.  We especially like Steve’s point that “video is probably the top Web 2.0 tool out there right now.” He points out that if you have video on your homepage, upwards of 80% of your visitors will click on it first.

Steve isn’t talking to Fortune 1000 businesses here; instead he’s providing advice to small businesses looking for an edge. So, if you could get a video up on your web page in less than one day, for less than $500 (assuming you already have a decent camera), would you consider it? Of course you would.  Especially if that video – the first thing eight out of every ten visitors will click on – was proven to convert better than text alone.

Still not convinced? Here’s how you might get started.  Let’s say you’re an accountant and this season has been slow. Perhaps more people are doing their own taxes. You take your handy Cisco Flip Camera, place it on your desk (it will stay up, trust us) and you push play (one red button), covering your key points (you spent 30 minutes earlier today creating these).  “Hello, I’m John and I know many of you have put off tax preparation until the last minute….I have some good news…we have people standing by to help…please click on the button to my right if you’d like us to get started on your return within 24 hours and guarantee that it is filed before the IRS deadline.”

To stay with the simple theme, let’s say that because time is running out, you decide to do a simple email campaign. You add your newly created video into your HTML email, select your current mailing list and hit send.  Now, within minutes, you can see that potential tax filers are accessing your video. You’ve created a personal connection and made a clear appeal (I’ll get started within 24 hours) that is driving people to your offer.

The following example is simple, but it underscores how easy and cost-effective video creation can be. As you become more experienced, you’ll likely experiment more, but it’s unlikely you’ll need much more than your honest appeal to customers or clients, your simple, but compelling offer and a means to distribute or promote your campaign.

So go head and give it a try. Use it for new products, upcoming events or special offers.  And be sure to let us know how many new prospects you convert with video.

Video doesn’t have to be difficult or costly to produce.  Our mission of late has been to help businesses see this firsthand by starting slowly, measuring and then comparing BV (before video) and AV (after video). So, here’s a recently completed example to which many companies can relate: using a video app to drive higher webinar attendance. Building Engines was eager to try the simple BV/AV test. They were looking for new ways to draw people into webinars and adding video seemed like a cost-effective solution. For them, the goal was simple and easily tested – add a short video promo to traditional webinar promotion (through email) and see if it converts more attendees. So, instead of just sending an HTML email with a registration button, Building Engines included a video promotion with the email.  See below.

By clicking on the video to the right (in the image above), the prospect would go to the following landing page to get a taste of the event:

Click here to play the Video App.

So, did it work? Yes. The campaign kicked off with the email distribution just one week prior to the webinar. The company sent 11,000 emails to their house list, which typically returned a click-through rate of approximately 7%. This time, however, the click-through rate was 13.8%, twice that of its BV distributions. So how did the video app perform in this case? It was quadruple the number of registrants over the prior month and was the second highest webinar ever done by Building Engines. In addition, more than 65% of the attendees were “highly interested” during the actual presentation itself as rated by GoToWebinar’s engagement tool. But don’t just take our word for it. Choose what you would like to hear from Sarah Fisher below as she talks about parts of her first successful BV to AV experience.