I like to think of new media marketing as entertainment marketing. This term
helps paint the picture for entrepreneurs as to what's involved in new media
marketing if they want their campaign to be successful.
If your company wants to get exposure by creating buzz and runaway
word-of-mouth marketing, it's not going to happen with a paid advertising spot
on TV. Rather, it must be something so entertaining and engaging for viewers
that they feel compelled to share your video with a friend and talk about you at
parties. You want to create something buzz-worthy that makes people actually
smile as they talk about your latest YouTube video or podcast.
Before I share an example of someone who is so buzz-worthy you've probably
heard about him or seen one of his videos, let me share a few cautionary words
so you won't get banned.
A Word of Warning
There is a right way and a spammer way to engage in new
media marketing. First, let's look at the wrong way--a way where you'll get
banned, not buzzed.
The wrong way to think about new media marketing is by thinking that just
because you're creating a video, you're engaging in a better form of advertising
and you're using Web 2.0 strategies to get a buzz going.
I'm seeing some of the best internet marketers of their time fall into this
trap. They merely use the same old tactics of the '90s that they used for e-mail
marketing, except they're putting it on video instead of paper and they're
calling it Web 2.0 marketing.
Sure, when they send me an e-mail, they send me a video to go with it.
However, every time I click on the video, I feel like I've been tricked into
watching something entertaining only to find out it's a pitch for a product
they're promoting. This is not new media marketing. It's not even permission
marketing. It's just a sales commercial stuck on video and sent to me to
interrupt my day and bore me.
A sales page put on video is also not new media marketing. There is a place
for that--on your web page or blog, where you are specifically selling something
and telling your visitors what you're doing so that they know what to expect
when they watch your video.
If every video you send to your list has some type of pitch or product that
you're pushing, your subscribers will come to expect it and then avoid it if
they're not in the mood to hear a pitch.
But if you apply basic psychology to your marketing efforts and randomly
pitch at the end of your videos, your viewers will never know when your video
will simply make them laugh, smile or give them the chills--or when there might
be something you're selling in addition to triggering their emotions while they
watch your video.
Use what's called random reinforcement. Give them what they enjoy at least
three times as often as you send out videos with a pitch. That way, they'll be
addicted to your video style and won't mind watching the occasional commercial
at the end or in the middle of your entertaining video.
Entertaining is the key word here when it comes to successfully marketing
with new media.
Now let's look at an example of how one company didn't even have to create
anything of its own to get in front of more than 8 million people with a very
entertaining video.