Video survives, TV fades...

Video is the single most important marketing strategy. Traditionally, marketing was a complex and expensive endeavor (and still can be), any business that wanted to promote its brand had to set aside large quantities of money to allocate for marketing purposes. The job of the marketer was to get data for the costumer (focus groups, research), choose a delivery strategy (TV, radio, print, film, billboards, etc.) craft the message for the costumer (write a script) get the talent (spokesperson), produce the ad, and contact the local TV sales rep for ad placement. Once the message (ad) was put out in the marketplace (airwaves, classifieds, sponsorships, etc.), everyone crossed their fingers expecting the biggest return on that investment, that message mission was to create more costumers and increase the loyalty of the current ones. Here is a list of some of the most common problems with the way marketing was done back then:

a)   It can’t measure success. There was no way to see who actually saw your message, and even if they did, it was impossible to know how much of an influence that ad played in the costumer decision’s making process.

b)   Expensive. Everything from creating a message, to producing it requires time, resources AND money, lots of money. 

c)    No control. If the costumer that you were trying to reach got sidetracked your ad became a voice crying in the wilderness. There was no way for the costumer to pick where he left, or to trace it nor for you to deliver it at your costumer’s most convenient time.

All those challenges meant that only big companies and corporations could afford a whole marketing strategy, small businesses and freelancers would have to mostly rely on word of mouth –which is great, but, takes time--. Now things are different. Social Media has changed the landscape, data can be gathered, success can be measured, prices have been reduced, and you have control over who sees your message, when they see it, and even gather their response to it (comments = research). All that for a fraction of the cost, without signing contracts with TV reps and/or publicists, in other words, it’s a different game. This dramatic shift has caused a panic crisis in traditional media; they can’t figure out how their role in this new world. Finally, the small business, the freelancer, the independent contractor has a real shot of reaching out costumers through marketing, all you have to is create a nice professional-looking video, choose the platform (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) and upload it. Welcome to the new media era…

Next up, I will explain why video should be your main marketing strategy on the second part of this post.


- Luis

sales.luismedina@gmail.com