Increase Credibility Of Your Offerings With Video Testimonials

Nothing adds credibility like word-of-mouth. One advertiser talking to another over lunch at a Kiwanis meeting about successes using your station's advertising is the best. The next best is having a testimonial from a happy advertiser you can share with prospects.

It is easy to capture video testimonials with today's available technology. If you don't have the equipment, you can buy what you need for less than $160:

1. Video camera (Kodak pocket camera Zi8 with external mic input is $120 on Amazon.)
2. Tripod (Digital Concepts 5SE-SLV7 is a collapsible tripod that can be carried in a briefcase, yet extend to 41 -- enough to put on the floor and shoot a client sitting. On Amazon for $14.)
3. Lavaliere microphone (Audio Technica omnidirectional condenser mic is $17 on Amazon.)

Next time you visit one of your satisfied clients, ask if you could video their comments in an interview. Ask them about results from advertising with you, how they found your service, what they like best about your station's advertising, and any follow-up questions. Here are tips for recording:

1. Use a tripod to hold the camera steady.
2. Use an external mic to get best audio quality -- or get within about 3 feet of the client if using a built-in mic.
3. Make sure there is as much light as possible on the client.
4. Have the client look at you as you are just to the side of the camera.
5. Keep the videos short -- generally no more than a minute.
6. Edit your video (Windows Movie Maker is free from Microsoft).
7. Post your video on your website and YouTube and other video sharing sites.
8. Have a smart phone? Copy your video to your phone so you can play it for a prospect on the spot.

FOR A GREAT VIDEOGRAPHER CALL SHELLY SOMERSET TODAY @ 818-430-5968 OR GO TO SOMERSETPRODUCTIONS.NET

On buying unmeasurable media

Should you invest in TV, radio, billboards and other media where you can't measure whether your ad works? Is an ad in New York magazine worth 1,000 times as much as a text link on Google? If you're doing the comparison directly, that's how much extra you're paying if you're only measuring direct web visits...

One school of thought is to measure everything. If you can't measure it, don't do it. This is the direct marketer method and there's no doubt it can work.

There's another thought, though: Most businesses (including your competitors) are afraid of big investments in unmeasurable media. Therefore, if you have the resources and the guts, it's a home run waiting to be hit.

Ralph Lauren is a billion dollar brand. Totally unmeasurable. So are Revlon, LVMH, Donald Trump, Anderson Windows, Lada Gaga and hundreds of other mass market brands.

There are two things you should never do:

1. Try to measure unmeasurable media and use that to make decisions. You'll get it wrong. Sure, some sophisticated marketers get good hints from their measurements, but it's still an art, not a science.
2. Compromise on your investment. Small investments in unmeasurable media almost always fail. Go big or stay home.

WE'VE ALL HEARD IT SAID...

Radio is a marathon runner. Try to use it as a sprinter AND expect it to perform for you over the long haul, and you're dead meat.

Meaning that, the way radio works best is when you come up with an engaging, salient brand message. Then, you repeat that message endlessly until you worm your way into the hearts and minds of your market. In the end, you gain category dominance (i.e., you win the marathon) by becoming the first name people think of when they need whatever it is you sell.

A perfectly valid model.

However, what about a campaign that spans various media?

Not just radio but, say, print and web as well?

Is it still a marathon?

I say, yes--and no.

Consider this: a proper ad campaign is a triathlon.

WE'VE JUST HEARD ONE OF THE BEST THINGS A CUSTOMER CAN SAY

One of our clients is a New England optometrist. He was mentioned here about a month ago when discussing expectation management.

We presently have him running on radio, in local print media and online.

Each of the radio commercials is the good doctor talking about a different aspect of eye care.

Each of the print ads is a "quote" from the good doctor, talking about a different aspect of eye care--reflecting what's in the radio.

The website is all about the good doctor's particular brand of eye care, and maintains the same simple, folksy language as the radio and the print.

It's all working together.

And recently, a new patient was asked how she had found the good doctor.

Most business owners are waiting to hear something like, "Well, I heard you on Joe Blow's WXYZ Morning Zoo yesterday at 8:12, and I immediately picked up the phone and called for an appointment."

This, of course is not what she said. (Almost nobody ever says anything this specific and if they do, they're probably mistaken.)

What she said was, "You've been popping up all over the place. Your advertising is working."

WELCOME TO THE BRAND

For the last 10 weeks, this woman has been routinely pelted with the doctor's message.

It's on her radio.

It's in her newspaper and her local supermarket giveaway rag.

If she's been to the website, she's finding the same messages coming out of her computer.

There has been absolutely NO offer-driven advertising of any kind.

No "mention this ad for 10% off" inanity that so many advertisers try to push into their ads in an effort to "prove" one particular medium is working better than another.

What this woman has been hearing and seeing is a man who has no interest in anything other than delivering good care at a fair price with a respectful and comfortable manner.

The doctor has been running each event in his marketing triathlon consistently and intelligently--and it's paying off very nicely.

RUNNING THE TRIATHLON IS ALSO PAYING OFF IN ANOTHER WAY...

We were recently talking with the doctor's operations manager (who also happens to be the doctor's wife), and she said something very interesting.

It seems the good doctor is "becoming something of a local celebrity."

You want to talk about feeding a client's ego?

You want to talk about "proving" that his advertising is working?

Put the man (or woman) in the advertising in an intelligent and engaging way, and watch the fun begin.

But the good doctor's celebrity is only the icing on the cake.

The real substance of the campaign's results?

DOUBLE THE NUMBER OF NEW PATIENTS FOR THE LAST TWO MONTHS

That's right.

This is one of those "useless" brand-building ad campaigns we're always told to avoid--and it has doubled the number of new patients for August and September.

Which medium is working better?

Who cares.

All the advertising is of a piece and it's all working in concert to produce the desired result: endlessly reminding the local populous that the good doctor is there for them when they finally decide they want proper eye care.

Now, let's also put this into local perspective.

One of the good doctor's main competitors was running this offer on their website: a contest to "Design our new logo and win a $100 gift certificate."

Really? You want to entrust your marketing image to an amateur artist willing to take a chance at $100 worth of product and service at your business?

I'm sure this was entirely well intentioned. It's also dangerously naïve.

WINNING A TRIATHLON REQUIRES STRENGTH IN ALL EVENTS

I am an amateur triathlete. And I mean Amateur with a capital "A."

Last August, I went into my first triathlon knowing my weaknesses and having exactly one goal: finish in the middle third of the pack.

Understand this: I have never been a competitive runner. But I have run hard on frequent occasions. I have never, ever been a competitive cyclist, but I have frequently ridden hard. I have absolutely never been a competitive swimmer by any stretch of the imagination, and I can't even begin to say I've ever swum hard.

In my first triathlon, I had no hope in hell of winning anything other than the free t-shirt they hand to everyone who crosses the finish line.

But I put it all together as best as I could, knowing exactly where my strengths and weaknesses lay.

And I finished solidly in the middle third of the pack my first time out.

Goal attained.

THE MARKETING TRIATHLON ISN'T ANY EASIER

Few businesses are going to do blazingly stupendous advertising across all media, especially their first time out.

But it is learnable.

If a small business can run it smart and understand why they're saying what they're saying and make all media work together, they can do something most of their competitors can't: they can raise their profile and be noticed.

They can go from being a struggling non-starter to being a reckoning force. They can get their competitors running scared.

BUT THE FIRST REQUIREMENT IS KNOWING ONE'S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Then it requires not treating your audience like they're idiots.

Don't ask them to design your logo for a hundred bucks worth of your product.

There's plenty of material out there on how to do marketing properly.

There are plenty of examples of businesses who are doing it well.

One must go into it realizing that no matter how much communication media change, the fundamentals still apply.

Be fundamental and aim to finish solidly in the middle third of the pack--and climb to the top from there.

As always,

Blaine Parker Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City

Michael Harrison annual State of Talk Radio event at the NAB-RAB Radio Show

drew a packed house in the Latrobe room, and the future-thinker and Talkers magazine publisher didn’t disappoint. He offered “ten principles”, and I don’t think he’d mind being quoted. I thought #7 was particularity interesting! wanted to share...

#7 – Qualitative is the new quantitative. “You can make a fortune with a small audience, or lose your shirt with a big audience.”

Charles Osgood signs off on his CBS Sunday Morning TV show with the line: “See you on the radio.” Osgood, a member of the Radio Hall of Fame, explain

No television set that’s made

No screen that you can find

Can compare with that of radio:

The theatre of the mind

Where the pictures are so vivid

So spectacular and real

That there isn’t any contest

Or at least that’s how I feel

Resilience and the incredible power of slow change

Most existing systems (organizations, cities, careers, governments) are resilient to external shocks. If they weren't, they wouldn't still be here. Earthquakes, edicts and emergencies come and they go, but the systems remain.

And yet, it's the emergencies we pay attention to.

No single event demolished the music business. It was a series of slow changes over the course of two decades, all the way back to the CD.

Smoking killed far more people than terrorists ever did. It's just not as dramatic.

No single technology destroyed the business model for newspapers. Sure, Craigslist hastened their demise, but the writing has been on the wall for a decade or more.

Your career won't be made or broken on the back of one interview, one meeting, one sales call. Sure, it might help (or hurt), but the sudden impact of one event isn't sufficient to change everything forever.

The slow changes in the media landscape are accelerating and virtually every pre-digital system is in danger. The slow changes in the marketing landscape are in their second decade and these changes will have their effects on every business and cause as well.

Cultural shifts create long terms evolutionary changes. Cultural shifts, changes in habits, technologies that slowly obsolete a product or a system are the ones that change our lives. Watch for shifts in systems and processes and expectations. That's what makes change, not big events.

Don't worry about what happened yesterday (or five minutes ago). Focus on what happened ten years ago and think about what you can do that will make a huge impact in six months. The breaking news mindset isn't just annoying, it may be distracting you from what really matters. As the world gets faster, it turns out that the glacial changes of years and decades are become more important, not less.

Good joke....

A man walks into a pet store and says, "I want a talking parrot."

The clerk says, "Yes sir, I have several birds that talk. This large green parrot here is quite a talker." He taps on the cage, and the bird says, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." He knows the entire Bible by heart. "This red one here is young, but he's learning." He prompted, "Polly wants a cracker." And the bird repeated back, "Polly will want a cracker." Then I've got a mynah bird but he belongs to a sailor, so if you have children you won't want that one."

The man says, "I'll take the younger one, if you can teach me how to make him talk."

"Sure, I can teach you," said the pet store owner. He sat down with the man and spent hours teaching him how to train the parrot. Then he put the bird in the cage, took his money, and sent the man home to start his training regimen.

After a week the man came back into the store very irritated. "The bird you sold me doesn't talk."

"He doesn't? Did you follow my instructions?" asked the clerk.

"Yep, to the letter," replied the man.

"Well, maybe that bird is lonely. I tell you what. I'll sell you this little mirror here and you put it in the cage. The bird will see his reflection and he will start talking right away," responded the clerk.

The man did as he was told but three days later was back in the shop. "I'm thinking of asking for my money back, that bird won't talk."

The shop owner pondered a bit and said, "I bet that bird is bored. He needs some toys. Here, take this bell-no charge. Put it in the bird's cage. I bet he'll start talking once he has something to do."

In a week, the man was back angrier than ever. He walked in carrying a shoebox. "That bird you sold me died." He opened the shoebox and there was his poor little dead parrot. "I want my money back."

The show owner was horrified. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know what happened. But. . . tell me . . . did the bird ever even try to talk?"

"Well," said the man, "he did say one word, right before he fell off his perch and died."

"What did he say?" the clerk inquired.

The mean replied, "Fo-o-o-od."