Future of video marketing

With video becoming increasingly more popular and together with enhanced analytic, its important that marketers either continue or start to engage with their customers through this channel. Video marketing is a consistently evolving platform and its very important for marketers to keep up-to-date with the latest technology. Here are some latest things happening in this area:

1) Interactive video tools - Major proportion of the online videos are static, however, a some new companies are providing the tools to make interactive videos that will increase user's engagement level. This is a great tool for marketers to showcase their products and for customer's to learn more about the products they are interested in.

2) Its not good enough to just run TC commercials online. Marketers need to create short-form video ads that can make use of autoplay video on Twitter, facebook, Instagram and other social channels. Also, its important that the videos are created such that people can consume it in their feeds without sound as they are typically muted when launched.

3) With the innovation happening with wearables, its important for marketers to create content that can easily be viewed in all devices. Also, user's attention span on these devices is varied, so the video length needs to take that into account.

More detailed information can be found here:
http://www.ustream.tv/blog/2015/10/21/are-you-ready-for-the-future-of-video-marketing/

Key tips for designing website for mobile

With the increase in usage of smart phones, it is critical or marketers to make mobile part of their digital marketing campaign. I really liked this article (http://www.sitepoint.com/7-best-practices-designing-mobile-user-experience/ ) that focuses on key elements to keep in mind while designing your website. they are:
1) Having clear, focussed content
2) Simple menus and navigation
3) Fluid layouts
4) Utilizing touch functionality
5) Minimal forms
6) No images
7) Leverage mobile specific features

Google starts punishing AdBlock users with unskippable YouTube video ads

Google has built Youtube to surpass the adblocker. rather, it has started punishing users that are using ad blockers. This seems like a reasonable step for the company that heavily relies on online marketing for its revenue. Further, a large proportion of its revenue comes from Youtube. Full story can be found here: http://www.geek.com/apps/google-starts-punishing-adblock-users-with-unskippable-youtube-video-ads-1633305/

It will be interesting to see that with increase in adoption of Amazon videos, netflix and other video content delivery services that are more user friendly and dont rely on video advertising, will this step by Google impact Youtube's usage.

Video marketing for startups

When it comes to marketing, startups often dont put too much effort on video marketing. However, here are some stats that enforce the importance of video marketing:

• Online videos have 100 million watchers everyday
• 75% executives admit watching work-related videos at least once weekly
• Videos influence purchasing decisions of 90% online shopper

 Here are a few steps that can help you create a great video for marketing:

• Create a personalized video
• Make it simple and clear to get the message home
• Offer some value
• Include a call to action add the end
• Add a demonstration to make it convincing

More information can be found in the following posts:

http://www.videobrewery.com/blog/18-video-marketing-statistics

http://www.steamfeed.com/top-5-tips-describing-video-marketing-startups/

Mobile Marketing Trends

 91% of smartphone owners have their device in arms' reach 24/7.  This means, though, is that we need to be prepared to handle our customers at all times. Shopping, product support, service issues, and plain ol' complaints need to be managed so that customers also see you as available when they want you as well. 

With this, there are certain key things that marketers need to identify in order to get to the customer:

1) Identify the mobile usage habits of the customer

2) Customization and self expression 

3) Localization

4) Simplification

https://econsultancy.com/blog/65928-five-new-mobile-marketing-strategies-for-2015/

Is email marketing dead?

With the social media marketing coming up, people may think that email marketing is dead. However, it is still generates the most ROI as compared to other techniques. Hard part is to build a quality email list. A good way of doing that for a small/new business is to have a sign up page on your website. Also, Asking for confirmation is also crucial for building a quality list. Other things to keep in mind while drafting your email
- It should look good on mobile
- Consider how often you should be sending the email
- Dont include too many videos or images

Here is the link to the article: http://www.inc.com/dave-kerpen/is-email-marketing-dead-and-can-it-make-you-money.html 

Is email marketing effective?

Most marketers believe that email marketing is a lot more effective than mobile marketing. A forbes article looks deeper into this and comments that is email marketing suppose to be better because its effective or easy to measure. Email marketing is quite direct, hence most marketer know how to track its effectiveness. However, mobile marketing requires a lot more tools to measure its performance. That's the reason most marketers find it difficult to measure. More details about the article can be found here:


http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2014/09/26/email-marketing-most-effective-mobile-marketing-most-difficult/

How wearables are changing digital advertising

With the preview of Google Glass, advertisers have been wondering how the product will impact the digital marketing world. Though at present Google has no plans of showing any ads on Google glass, it is hard for the company that solely relied on advertising for 80% of its revenue to not utilize the new platform.
There are a couple of things that digital advertising on such mediums can take advantage of:
1) Coupon ads- Key to this is to find the exact location of the user and its intentions and then providing relevant coupons
2) Personalized Ads - This is again based on identifying what the user wants next. Companies such as Google are spending a lot of R&D to get more information about customer behavior which is key to providing personalized ads
3) Game-fication of everyday life - Including game in everyday life. For example, you are walking somewhere, I you suddenly receive another lifeline which is a free coffee from Settle's Best Coffee. Apps such as Foursquare are already making use of such techniques.
4) Video recording - You record a 10 sec video of a new perfume that you bought that you can share with everyone.

More details on this can be found here:http://mashable.com/2013/01/23/google-glass-advertising/#JKtsABZoDEqQ

New 5 sec ad by Vessel

Vessel is a subscription video service launched in 2015 by the early team behind Hulu, including former CEO Jason Kilar.
They company is helping brands generate 5 sec ads, the amount of time it takes for the 'SKIP' button to turn up. The company is providing creative services for these 5 sec ads to initial advertisers.
In my opinion, its a creative way to send your message across in 5 sec, however, its not sure how Vessel is providing performance based payment to its advertiser. With the current model, its hard to estimate if the user was truly engaged in the ad.

More information can be found here:http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/several-major-brands-are-already-investing-youtubes-next-challenger-162464

Facebook targets emerging markets with ‘Lite’ app

Facebook Lite is available in eight countries: Bangladesh, Vietnam, Nigeria, Nepal, South Africa, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

Facebook Lite takes less than 1 megabyte of storage space, according to a description of the app on the Google Play store for Android apps – substantially less than the standard app, which takes around 25MB of storage.

The new app is designed for 2G networks and "areas with limited network connectivity.
So far, it has been downloaded over 10,000 times and has a rating of 4.6 stars out of 5 on the app store.

Given the social network reaching saturation point in many western markets, the move to new territories is a natural progression.

Analysis

However, some data shows it may not be quite as simple as making a lighter version of the app to contend with the mired of devices and slower connection speeds. To succeed in these countries Facebook will also need to have local understanding.

Marco Veremis, CEO at Upstream, comments on the move: “For some time now, Facebook’s own figures have revealed that the social giant is reaching saturation point in the US and many Western markets. For example, of the estimated 353m people in North America there are currently 202m monthly users on Facebook already. Meaning that while there’s still room for growth, it’s nowhere near the exhilarating rate the company has enjoyed in its relatively short life to date. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the social network is turning its attention to emerging markets for its next billion users and these regions are already showing potential – with usage in Asia increasing 26% year on year from the second quarter of 2013 to 2014.

“However, with new markets come new challenges. Facebook is dealing with the issue of device diversity and connection speeds with the launch of its ‘Lite’ app, but to become truly ubiquitous the business will also have to be careful not to alienate new users by failing to cater to local nuance. According to research we commissioned from Ovum, polling people in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria and Vietnam, consumers from these markets praised local brands. 78% liked the fact they use local language and dialect and 76% because they use cultural references. As such, while Facebook is heading in the right direction in providing the right technology for emerging market consumers, it will have to be careful to provide the right content if it wants to become a truly global social network.”