Online advertising with the best execution will drive the highest ROI’s.

But is the investment in online video advertising worth it, when advertising can be done easily with just words on search?

Google Adwords can be optimized and monitored to have extremely high Click-through-rates if executed properly.  But video is generally much more engaging – but maybe even more annoying.

The trick to manipulating words to build your business is by creating headlines that speak to the view – a combination of compelling words and understanding your audience – be persuasive, have a call to action, and differentiate your points of difference compared to your competition.  Video can adapt these elements to build into their campaigns as well.

The initial investment in creating a video campaign is significantly higher than it is to create a Google Adwords campaign – where setting up the initial campaigns, adgroups, and keywords is free.  So this comes down to a matter of scope – whether you choose to advertise with video or simply with adwords should depend on the size of your scope of the campaign which will probably be a reflection on the size of your business.

There are a lot more risks associated with the costs of advertising through video, but as any finance 101 course will teach you – higher risks have the potential to turn into higher rewards.

For example, Virgin Airways recently released a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtyfiPIHsIg that has got viral.  The concept of an Adwords campaign doesn’t even exist.

But know your target demographic, where they are looking, you can leverage your understanding of contextual advertising for both text and video advertising online.

But, in either case – the highest ROI is a reflection of the execution.

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Since 2007, an annual “youth empowerment” charity event called We Day has gone across North America.  As of this year, they are now going Mobile.

We Day and Telus have paired up to create an App Called “We365”.

This year I volunteered at We Day (because striving for A’s in 5 fourth year marketing courses, working out five days a week, and juggling two jobs obviously leaves tonnes of time to volunteer) on October 16, 2013.

Speakers included Kofi Annan, Martin Luther King III, Adam Beach, Karina LeBlanc, Spencer West, Molly Burke and many more.  Performers included Hedley, Avril Lavigne, Chad Kruger, and Down with Webster.  This event filled Rogers arena with students who – did not buy tickets to the event – earned tickets to the event via hours of volunteer work.

I also found it ironic that I was volunteering for an event for volunteers.

Watch this video to get a feel for We Day.  

Teachers chaperoned their classes here – to what must have been the most incredible field trip ever.  (Yet somehow this still inspired one teacher to go on a negative rant about the great event).

We Day teamed up with Telus to make an app that would not only inspire youth to change the world one day a year – but every day of the year.  And to share this with their friends on a social media platform shared specifically for them.

The app aims to keep young students connected, engaged on social media, and motivating each other about the change-making that they are doing. They can win points, prizes, and scholarships. The app is free to download.

It is moderated, there is no geo-tagging, and it is apparently parent-approved. This makes it a safer form of social media rather than Facebook.  This also fits with the trend that the younger generation is moving away from social media sharing platforms and towards social media messaging platforms.

It communicated that no act is too small to make a big impact, so it encourages kids to take action, share what they have done on this mobile app, and Telus will reward them – just in case that fuzzy warm feeling of “changing the world” isn’t enough.

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How patient are you online?

If you can’t make it through a 140 character micro-blog, I’d give up on this commentary now.  But really, would you watch a 20 minute YouTube video? Would you read a 2000 word blog entry? Recent studies show that online attention spans are shrinking. And what are the implications of short online attention spans for online marketers?

Marketers have always been fighting to grab and hold consumers’ attention – and online there are stimulants competing for your eyes, impressions, and clicks.  But you better be quick and bold with captivating content, cause your window of opportunity is minimal – and shrinking.

Ouch!  Coders slave away making a beautiful, “engaging” pages, and 17% of views leave it in less than 4 seconds.  Only 49% of of webpages with 111 words or less are read?  Well, these stats are making me fairly confident that NO ONE has read to this point.  *sigh*

Let’s set a website up for success.  Take these Six steps offered by e-consultancy to try and earn your consumer’s time:

1)      Chunk Content

2)  Make Skimming Easy

3)  Use Analytics to Identify the Most Boring Parts of Your Website

4) Polish Your Copy

5)  Don’t Forget Visuals

6)  Put Yourself in the Customer’s Shoes

It’s like a vicious love-at-first-site-or-you-don’t-have-a-chance dating world.  This parallel’s with Proctor & Gamble’s concept of ‘The First Moment of Truth’, which explores the science of the 3-7 seconds in which a consumer makes up their mind about a product with their initial exposure to the product on the shelf.

Let’s learn from the historic brick-and-mortar marketing lessons that P&G spent copious amounts of money figuring out.  Whether it’s the prime position on the plan-ogram, or the first fold of a webpage – find a way to WOW the customer’s eyes, take advantage of that initial impression, and earn those purchases and clicks.

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Twitter brought the hashtag mainstream, but it was  instagram that made it cool.

This photo sharing social media platform has taken image crafting to a whole new level and by hashtag-ing photos with words and phrases to attract even more followers “likes” have been giving instagram users the validation that they crave.

Whether its with a Waldern, Earlybird, Toaster, Nashville, or Valencia filter, users are sharing their photos and counting the “likes”.

Instagram has essential created online communities, and by following the hashtags, you can find the interest group that you want to communicate with.  It may be #fashion, #winesofitaly, #planningmyownwedding, or #crossfit, and then the users can “like”, “follow” and engage with others.

But like in any community, there needs to be some governance.  What does instagram do to protect users?

Aside from the option of private accounts and the ability to report inappropriate behaviour, instagram has banned certain hashtags.

This is an extremely smart tactic to keep users from sharing and connecting over certain topics.

Hashtags that pertain to sex, sexual origins, kik (an app that people were soliciting sex on after connecting with people on instagram), drugs, discrimination, and eating disorders were also banned.

Many companies – especially for companies that have an aesthetic appeal to their business – have accounts to showcase their work.  It is good that instagram puts safe-guards in place to protect the content that is being shared.  for example, when kik was created it was not intended to be known as an app that people solicit sex on, but by not policing their own app they lost control of being the author of their own brand identity.

User generated content is something that successful digital marketers know they need to monitor, so it is good that the application itself has taken measures to police their own app.

Sources: 1, 2, + 3

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