“What’s hot in B2B marketing?” I recently asked my colleague JD.<\/p>\n
“Video,” JD replied without hesitation.<\/p>\n
I smiled, because I have been writing video scripts for over 30
\nyears – ever since I worked in marketing communications for a
\nlarge defense contractor in the late 70s.<\/p>\n
Back then, people had more time and greater attention spans than
\nthey do today, so many of our videos ran 10 to 12 minutes.<\/p>\n
A few were longer. We had an introductory video to educate new
\nemployees and others about the company that was 23 minutes long.<\/p>\n
TS, my boss, told me he had wanted Burgess Meredith to narrate
\nit.<\/p>\n
But Meredith was anti-war and would not work with a defense
\ncompany.<\/p>\n
Back in the day, production standards for marketing videos were
\nhigher than they are today.<\/p>\n
All our videos were shot by professional crews using
\nprofessional equipment.<\/p>\n
Because of this, TS had a rule: the videos we did had to be of a
\nproduction quality that matched or came close to what the
\nprospect saw on TV.<\/p>\n
Today anyone with a cell phone thinks he can shoot an acceptable
\nvideo.<\/p>\n
Because of that and YouTube, today’s prospects are much more
\nforgiving of middling quality in marketing videos posted on the
\nweb. Some marketers even say videos that look home-made actually
\npull better than those that are “slick.”<\/p>\n
Many of my corporate clients tell me, as if it were an
\nindisputable fact, that no one on Earth will watch a video
\nlonger than 3 minutes today.<\/p>\n
Yet many of my direct marketing clients in financial and health
\ncare routinely ask me to write video sales letters that are 20
\nto 25 minutes … and these videos generate higher conversion
\nrates than static landing pages. So much for “indisputable”
\nfacts.<\/p>\n
You see, when someone tells you a “fact” about marketing like
\n“no one reads copy anymore,” they are almost always basing it on
\ntheir subjective opinion and personal preferences – yet they
\nproclaim it as the gospel truth. Their mistake.<\/p>\n
Copywriter PB once told me: “Never let personal preference get
\nin the way.”<\/p>\n
For example: I strongly dislike sweepstakes direct mail
\npackages. And I throw them away the instant I get them.<\/p>\n
But does my throwing them away have any bearing on whether they
\nwork? Of course not.<\/p>\n
If you are a direct marketer – someone whose marketing generates
\na measurable response – as so many online marketers are these
\ndays, it’s easy enough to test and know for a fact what works.
\nYou don’t have to leave it to opinion.<\/p>\n
One client, the marketing director of a software company, had a
\nrule for the direct mail packages we produced. She said, “Always
\nhave a picture of a bearded programmer on page one of the
\nletter.”<\/p>\n
This, however, was not her subjective opinion. They tested this
\nmultiple times, and adding the photo always lifted response.
\nWhy? Well, their target market was programmers, so perhaps this
\nhelped them relate to the letter writer.<\/p>\n
This brings up a broader principle: People buy from people they
\nlike, and they like people who are like them. Therefore, it
\nmakes sense to have the copy written in the voice of and signed
\nby someone who is a member of your target audience. For
\ninstance, if you are sending an e-mail to nurses, have the
\ne-mail coming from a nurse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“What’s hot in B2B marketing?” I recently asked my colleague JD. “Video,” JD replied without hesitation. I smiled, because I have been writing video scripts for over 30 years – ever since I worked in marketing communications for a large defense contractor in the late 70s. Back then, people had more time and greater attention […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":912,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}