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Last week while on vacation I visited the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. On the plaque next to the panda exhibit read something like this, “Pandas must spend over 50% of their time eating bamboo because they have difficulty digesting it and it has very little nutritional value.”

The panda spends so much time trying to survive on what he’s used to that he doesn’t have time to try something new.

What if the panda stopped eating bamboo and started eating energy bars? What would he do with all his spare time? What could he accomplish with a larger family and a larger network of pandas? Would he still need to spend the other 50% of his time sleeping? Would he still be restricted to living in the jungle or could he get the beach front home he’s always dreamed about?

What are you doing in your business that eats up a lot of your time and produces little results? Make the change now or tell your friends and co-workers they can find your exhibit next to the panda.

Well just two days after my GM bad marketing prediction I saw two new commercials.  One was a nationwide commercial where GM talked about GM for 60 seconds.  Not about how they are going to help their customers, they talked about THEIR new vision, THEIR new cars, THEIR new company.  Not once did they mention a single benefit to their customers.

The second commercial was for a local dealership challenging the viewer to be patriotic and buy GM.

I must be a sorcerer……….some call me Tim?

GM has problems. Lots of them to be exact.

Their biggest problem will probably be winning back the trust of the consumer and the taxpayer who is footing their bill.

If I were them I would take every dollar set aside for advertising and instead use it to help their current customers.  I would hold town forums and not only invite GM automobile owners to give their feedback, but actually take note of it and make the desired changes.  If they actually listen and take care of their existing customers, the genuine word of mouth it would create may be just what they need to actually survive this mess.

GM probably won’t do this though.  They’ll probably run TV commercials and print ads encouraging us to be patriotic and buy American.  Or worse, they’ll go the ex-girlfriend route and try to make us remember the good times while pretending the bad never happened.  Marketers, business owners, and ex-boyfriends take note.

At some point in just about every relationship I’ve had, someone I’ve known for a while randomly tells me a story that I’ve never heard before.  In the past they’ve omitted this story because either they think it’s not a big deal, they don’t like to talk about themselves, that I wouldn’t care about it, or all of the above.

However, because I’ve known them for a while and have never heard the story, it comes to quite a surprise and is quite interesting, sometimes it’s the most fascinating thing I’ve heard them say.

The other day I was around a colleague of mine whom I’m getting to know, a holistic practitioner of sorts.  We’ve had several conversations and I thought I had a pretty good feel for who they are and what they do because most of our conversations have centered around those topics and not a whole lot of new information has come to light.

Until yesterday.

We had a few brief conversations and then I overheard them say to someone else that they partner with other practitioners to go to the cancer ward and volunteer their time to give free therapy sessions to cancer patients.  As soon as I heard that I instantly changed both my opinion and my interest level in that person.  Wow!  What a great idea and what a great story.

Now I’m certainly not advocating that you go out and perform good deeds as a PR stunt ala the politician who always has a camera around while he shakes hands and kisses babies, but by all means if you have a compelling story, don’t be selfish, share it with others.  You never know who will connect with it and better yet, you never know who will want to become part of the story.

Ok, so your online video marketing doesn’t suck, but there’s a good amount that does. Why is that? Let’s look at the top 5 reasons and why you should avoid them in your online video marketing efforts.

5. Wrong Audience

Because the internet is so vast and accessible, it’s easy to think that you can just make a video, post it on the web, and cross your fingers hoping that the right people will see it. Although the internet has created the possibility that any video you make and post online can become the next YouTube sensation and garner 5 million views, the odds of that happening are slim to none and those hopes will most likely work against the realistic goals you should have for your video.

Instead of making a video that you hope 5 million people will like, focus on creating a video that 20, 50, or 100 people will not only like, but will act on. At the end of the day, one sale or one new client is much more valuable than thousands of views. Also, odds are that the person who acted on the video will likely forward it to someone else who will act on it as well. Sometimes the best marketing plan is to connect with that one person that is connected to everyone else. Keep that person in mind and make the video for them.

4. Too Long

Welcome to the ADD culture of the world wide web. People will gladly sit in a movie theater and watch a 2 hour movie, watch a 1 hour TV show on their couch, and 15 minute segment of the news when they’re getting ready for work, but usually won’t want to watch videos longer than a few minutes on the internet. Experts have determined all sorts of reasons for this, but it essentially comes down to expectation. When people are on their computers they expect things instantly. If it takes too long to find what they are looking for, they will quickly move on and look somewhere else.

Like the stranger sitting next to you on an airplane showing off every picture in their wallet, business owners want to show and tell everyone about “their baby”. Once they start going into the realm of TMI (too much info), people quickly tune out and regret their initial interest. Remember, the point of video marketing is to get your audience interested and that’s it. Once you know they are interested (based on their response to the video) then you can feel free to share a little bit more with them, but if your video is too long and doesn’t get to the point, the viewer may not stick around long enough to get interested.

3. It’s Boring

This one goes right along with reason #4. If your video doesn’t engage the viewer then you’ve not only wasted your money, you’ve wasted your audience’s time. The major advantage that video has over every other form of marketing is that it can draw on the emotion of seeing real people in action. If people want facts and data about your company, service, or product they can read about it in your brochures or on your website. People watch videos to experience stories and emotion.

Video marketing is a show and tell medium. Show them something unique about your company and tell them a funny or heartfelt story. Make your audience feel like they’re apart of the video and a part of your company and you’ll be well on your way to accomplishing your goals.

2. Features and Commodities instead of Benefits and Help

Listen to me carefully, this may be a little painful at first, but unless you are marketing to a group of engineers or techies, people DON’T CARE about the actual product or service you are marketing. What they care about is if it will help them.   Do you care about the tech specs of your car’s spark plugs or do you care about your car reliably and dependably helping you reach your destination?

Instead of spending your entire video talking about the actual product or service, show and tell them how your product or service can benefit them. You may have the best technology or the best method of servicing your clients, but if you can’t communicate to your audience how they will benefit from it, you won’t get their business. Your product or service should make their life better somehow and every second of your video should be communicating that.

1. It’s All About You

Video marketing is not a mirror for you to check yourself out. There are better times and places than your online marketing to see how you look. From start to finish your video should only be about one person, the person watching.

Customers and clients want to know that you care about them, the more personally the better. Treat the viewer as if they just walked into your store or office. Start off with the “How can I help you?” mentality as opposed to the self-centered “Let me tell you about myself” one. Let them know you care and want to help them.  Make it your goal that they have a fantastic, personal experience for the duration of the video.  Do this and not only will your video not suck, it will start achieving your goals and improving your business.

So last night was the end of the Men’s College Basketball Tournament with North Carolina putting a beat down on Michigan State for the championship.  Although my team lost,  the game and the tournament served as a great reminder of how the most tested and consistent winning efforts rise to the top 99.9% of the time.

If you’re not a basketball fan you’ll have to forgive me on this one because March Madness (the basketball tournament) is my favorite event of the year. Each year 65 teams from across the country compete in one huge tournament to determine the national champion. In the first couple of rounds there are exciting upsets where smaller, less talented teams create a unique (and sometimes gimmicky) game plan that catches the better team off guard so much that the lesser team wins the game.

This creates some great excitement, but as the tournament wears on, the better, more talented, and more tried and true teams rise to the top to become the national champion. Not once in the long history of the basketball tournament has an unheard of, little school won the entire tournament.

So how does this relate to marketing?

Much like the basketball tournament there are all sorts of companies and marketing efforts trying to win the attention (and sales) of their audience. At the beginning it is a free-for-all. Infomercials, web banners, tv commercials, in-person networking, conferences, social media marketing, direct mail marketing, etc. Everybody has a fair chance at winning.

Some of these marketing efforts are tried and true, consistently delivering results and some are new, unheard of, and unique (and sometimes gimmicky). Because of technology and the creativity involved, sometimes a new, cheaper, more creative marketing plan can catch an older, more established effort off-guard and produce better results.

However, as consumers become familiar with them, they begin looking for what they know is tried and trusted. Need an example? Remember tele-marketers and pop-up ads? When they first burst on to the scene they had success, but after consumers wised up, they quickly became a gimmicky annoyance and are no longer a serious threat to other, more authentic marketing efforts.

Much like the two basketball teams that played last night, who are very disciplined and concentrate their efforts on fundamentals that have proven themselves reliable and successful over time, you need to do the same with your marketing efforts.

While it’s important to utilize new technology and new strategies, remember to keep the tried and true characteristics of building relationships with your customers at the center of all your marketing efforts. While there may be the occasional upset when a new technology or plan comes along, over time the referral from a satisfied customer or a trusted friend will always prove more consistent and valuable.

So as you see the national champion North Carolina Tarheels in the newspapers and on TV over the next few days, remember that real victory is achieved by a consistent, well executed, long-term plan for success.

Like April Fools Day jokes, viral marketing is enjoyed by half the people, hated by the other half of people, but known to all.  If there is a prank that is pulled at your office or school, it doesn’t take long for word to spread.

Maybe the prank was hilarious and loved by everyone or maybe the prank was tactless or failed in its intention, either way by the end of the day everyone heard about it.

There are a few key characteristics of the April Fools Day prank that we should all keep in mind when planning a new viral campaign.

A good prank is:

• Unexpected
• Entertaining
• Communal

Unexpected: For any sort of advertising or marketing to be effective you have to first get the attention of your audience.  All day we go through routines and mundane processes that we become used to and start to tune out: brushing our teeth, the drive to and from work, eating at the same restaurants, etc.  When something unexpected like a prank comes along it provides a momentary jolt from that routine and stays fresh in our memory.  We may not remember what papers we filed on April 1st, but we’ll never forget the time when someone put a whoopee cushion under our boss’ chair.  In order to capture the attention of your audience, give them something unexpected.

Entertaining: Once you give them something unexpected and have your audience’s attention, the rest of your message needs to be entertaining.  Like a joke that starts out with a great one-liner but quickly fizzles into a long rambling story, your audience will start to tune out if you don’t entertain and engage them throughout the message.  This is best done by keeping your viral messages short and to the point.  If they can’t sit through the whole thing, don’t expect them to pass it along.

Communal: Possibly the best result of a good April Fools prank is that it starts conversations and creates a sense of community.  All the sudden those coworkers who don’t talk much or don’t know each other are sharing the story and laughing together.  By enjoying something together as a group, a special connection is made that could continue to grow from that day forward.  Likewise, word of mouth and the sense of community are the lifeblood of effective viral marketing.  Including your audience as part of the story and empowering them as the storytellers will make them feel valued and motivate them to spread the word.

Feel free to share your favorite April Fools prank with a comment below and we can see if it meets the standards of a good viral marketing effort.

So we’ve all been in this situation before. Whether it’s out at a bar, in the doctor’s waiting room, or even at a business networking event, we’ve all ran into that person that won’t shut up. You meet them, say hello, ask them a question, and then it’s off to the races. In the next 10 minutes you learn everything you need to know about them including almost everything you didn’t want to know about them. They may even be a nice person that is somewhat interesting, but after 10 minutes straight you realize they are only interested in talking about themselves and you’re searching desperately for a way to get out of the conversation. You finally escape and all you can think is, “What a waste of 10 minutes”, but perhaps we should thank this person because they’ve just provided a great example for us to learn from.

When you are promoting your business, whether it be in person or through a direct advertising effort (print ad, video, web, etc.), you want to be able to categorize your efforts as attraction marketing. The goal should be to create enough interest with your target audience for them to take the next step towards doing business with you. The strongest indicator of interest from your audience are questions. Do they want to know more?

Like that random person at the bar, it can be easy to get carried away talking about yourself and your business, especially if you’re a passionate business owner who loves what you do. However, be attentive to your audience. Are they asking questions or are they looking for the nearest exit sign (or the email trash can, the stop button on the video, or the next page in the magazine)?

Instead of telling them anything and everything about your business, keep your efforts brief and focused. Engage them, ask them questions, and give them one or two unique ways that your business can help them. If they ask questions, pick up the phone, or write you an email, you’ve done your job. Remember, attraction marketing is all about creating interest. If you’re not creating interest, analyze your efforts and see if you are becoming that random person at the bar.

Sustainability.

That’s a word I’ve been hearing a lot of. Recently I’ve heard it in the context of venture capital start-ups, government tax policies, and health habits, but as always my mind started drifting to how sustainability relates to video marketing.

Certainly for any long term business goal success comes from sustainability. There have always been big fads and get rich schemes, but now they are no longer snake oil salesmen riding into town on horseback. They are brand new products and services, that with the right amount of money can be marketed just as well or even better than the trusted products and services we already use. One only needs to browse the internet for 30 seconds to know what I am talking about.

Many of these products and services will quickly fade away, but not without grabbing a good share of the market before being replaced by the next big thing. So if there is always going to be a certain market share occupied by this group, how can you grab and keep the attention of your customer base?

Authenticity.

After the snake oil salesman hopped back on his horse and was off to the next unsuspecting town, it probably didn’t take long (unfortunately it likely took some longer than others) for the hype to wear off and the townspeople to re-appreciate the local, trustworthy vendor. In between snake oil visits, it was top priority for the local vender to take that time and continue to slowly build authentic relationships with the townspeople. However good he was at accomplishing this would directly effect how much of his market he would temporarily lose when the next salesman came riding through town.

Unfortunately, the local vendor had a few advantages over us today, which is why his principles are even more important now. He probably had less local competition, scarce national competition, and no global competition, all things we face daily. This dilemma however, has also created new opportunities and new tools for us to utilize.

As we use these new tools such as video marketing, social networking, emailing, and texting, it is important for us to not get sucked into the gimmicky world of snake oil. Step back and make a conscious effort to center your marketing efforts around the authenticity of your lasting relationships.

Authenticity = Sustainability.

I’ve met a lot of people lately who are attending seminars for social media marketing and email marketing. When they arrive they are hesitant to join in with these “new” marketing methods. Being unfamiliar with them they are naturally a little skeptical and the first question they ask is, “Why should I do this?”.

There are several reasons why, but today I’ll just cover one: Market Familiarity.

Now I’m not sure if Market Familiarity is an actual term (if not maybe Donald Trump can help me trademark it and it can become the new “You’re Fired!”), but let me provide an example from my life and then I’ll elaborate:

Back when I was in high school I would visit my cousins a lot and they would always play this weird music in the car. It wasn’t my style and because it was new and unfamiliar I hated it. We had music that we all liked, but they never played it anymore. I would try to switch out the CDs, but they would only play this one band I had never heard of before, the Dave Matthews Band, and it drove me nuts. This continued for some time.

Fast forward a few months later and I’m in the car with my best friend and this familiar tune comes on the radio. He immediately perked up and said “I love this song” and turned it up. I recognized the tune and instantly decided that I liked it, too. 20 seconds into the song I realized it’s the Dave Matthews Band, the band that I hated! However, because the tune was now familiar having been exposed to it several times from several sources and because I also gained a second recommendation from a trusted source, I was suddenly open to liking the music.

Fast forward a few weeks later and I bought the album my cousins had been playing and listened to it exclusively for the first 4.5 months of having my driver’s license.

Since then, the Dave Matthews Band has gotten their fair share of sales from me: CDs, Posters, Concert Tickets, Fan Club Membership, etc. All of this revenue that they probably wouldn’t have received otherwise had I not been exposed to their music from several outlets and received recommendations from several sources. And this is where Market Familiarity ties into everything.

While creating a Facebook page, starting a blog, or creating an email marketing campaign might not send your sales through the roof the second you click your mouse, it will set up your company to gain long term exposure in front of an unlimited audience. At little or no cost you can have all of these marketing sources in place and with the interactivity offered, someone like me can be exposed to something new, read feedback from several sources, and become a fan (or customer, client, employee, volunteer, etc.).

So don’t shy away from new marketing methods.  Be confident in who you are and what you do and realize that there are people out there who would love your product or service, they’re just not familiar with it. Actively give them the opportunity to get familiar and you’ll be surprised with the results.

And if I’m riding in your car, please please please don’t play country music.