If You Want Your Marketing To Be Profitable…Read This!

Brandweek, July 10, 2000 by Brandan Nakamura

Compared to any other form of marketing, marketing with video, CD-ROM and DVD is your license to print money! Here's why...

Is the Internet the quickest way to marketing bankruptcy?

The press loves to talk about the Internet. But from a marketing standpoint, exactly how effective is the Internet in marketing your product? The answer is: not at all.

While the Internet remains a highly effective way to disseminate information on products and services, it has yet to evolve into the kind of dynamic, response driven marketing tool that it has the potential to become. This is fact. In the distant future, when broadband connections become widespread and every household has access to high-speed Internet connections, that's when the Internet will become a viable marketing tool. But not today.

Broadband? What is broadband? In the future, high-speed Internet connections will allow for full-motion, digital quality video streams. This will be a marketing breakthrough. In the distant future, consumers will be able to log onto the Internet, search for a product or service, and then watch full-motion video streams that inform the viewer about that particular product or service. This will be a win-win situation, where both marketers and consumers will have their needs met. This will be the ultimate in precision, permission-based marketing.

But broadband isn't here yet. What is broadband in today's marketplace? Video. CD-ROM. DVD. This is broadband marketing. High-speed, full-motion video that consumers can watch when they want it, in the comfort of their own homes, at a time that is convenient for them.

If you log onto the Internet for live video today, you get choppy, low resolution, unstable video that can take an extremely long time to download, depending on your Internet connection speed. This is no way to market to consumers.

Also, and this is key, the Internet requires the consumer to go to the source of the information. This is in complete opposition to direct video marketing. Waiting for and expecting a consumer to come to you is no way to run a marketing campaign. By placing the video marketing message on a video, DVD or CD-ROM and sending it directly to the targeted consumer, a company has a much higher rate of response and sales success. This is the biggest difference between direct video marketing and the Internet. While the Internet requires a consumer to go to the Web site, video direct marketing goes directly to the consumer and says, "Here we are." The implied message of video is that a business is willing to go the extra mile of going to the customer, right into their homes or offices.

Navigating a Web site can also be frustrating for many consumers. Poorly developed Web sites cause the marketing message to be diluted with errant clicks and wrong turns. Video allows for a cohesive marketing message.

The Internet is also perceived as being primarily informative. Video is still perceived as an entertainment medium. Given a choice between reading a sales brochure (doesn't exactly induce excitement), talking to a sales representative (could take forever), or watching a short video at your leisure, the video can certainly be appealing. Video can often present a message in five minutes, whereas a sales person may take half an hour to deliver the same message.

Given the fact that video delivers a powerful, clear and focused message, in many ways, video may prove to be one of the most cost effective and reliable selling tools available.

The secret why marketing with video, DVD and CD-ROM compels people to buy!

Mass marketing is being replaced by target marketing.

Modem technology and information management has changed everything. We now know who is buying what, where, and how often. With this powerful knowledge, we now look at consumers as individuals, not huge amorphous groups of potential buyers. The faceless mass market of the past has now evolved into "an audience of one."

Enlightened marketers take advantage of this information, Why waste time, money and effort marketing a product to a mass audience when the great majority of that audience has no intention of ever buying your product?

If you're selling a $55,000 automobile, why waste money advertising to all of the people out there who can't afford a luxury automobile? If you're selling a woman's product, why market to men?

This is where direct marketing comes into play. Companies, large and small, now send a videotape directly to the people most likely to buy their product or service. It makes so much sense, it's hard to understand why anyone would market something any other way.

This is a key component to the success of direct marketing with special media. The first component is targeted marketing--mailing only to those in the target demographic for the product or service. The second is the value that consumers place upon video, DVD and CD-ROM. Simply put, consumers respond positively to video and its brethren. While it may cost as little as one dollar to manufacture and mail a single videotape, many consumers are unaware of this fact and consider a videotape to be worth somewhere in the area of $10 to $20. This is why consumers keep the videotape and why they also view it. When was the last time that consumers considered a marketing tool to be something of value? When a corporation sends a consumer a videotape, that consumer is highly likely to view that tape as a gift, not a marketing tool. What more could a marketer ask for?