News
“How Many Minutes Should My Videos Actually Be…?”
Here’s a quick breakdown of what we witness on a daily basis:
Some videos are 2 minutes and feel like 10...
Some videos are 3 minutes and feel like 1.5...
Some videos are 12 and don't feel long enough because the audience wants to know more...
The 'secret to the right video length' has nothing to do with video duration, it has everything to do with whether or not the audience CARES about what's happening, thus making the video FEEL short or long. We've all been there: we started watching a video, and about 10 seconds in we pause the video to see how long this is going to take us to finish. It's right-then-and-there that we lost our audience.
The goal is to tell your story and make sure your audience cares: not to think about a specific target video duration.
Stop Being the Hero of Your Own Headlines (On Social Media)
What exactly is the point of your company's presence on Social Media, anyway? If you look around, you'll quickly notice that many of the most reputable brands around you haven't exactly 'figured out' why they are on Social Media yet, either. Most, it seems, are on there because someone at the company said 'we need to be on Social Media, someone here in the office should do that...right?' - and that pretty much sums up the entirety of the strategy: "I think we're supposed to this". That's a fine starting place, but not a solid long-term strategy.
How does the Facebook / Apple Privacy Disagreement Impact Your Company?
Before we can dive into the heart of the disagreement between Facebook and Apple, we first must understand the term 'Remarketing/Retargeting', as that's the most direct impact for businesses leveraging Facebook's tracking abilities. The best definition I've found is the following:
Illustrating The ‘End-Run’ Video Strategy
Merriam-Webster defines 'End Run' as the following:
"a football play in which the ballcarrier attempts to run wide around the end of the line"
So...what does that have to do with marketing? And more specifically, video content? Well, to answer that question, we need to back up a bit and look at a project we're actively working on with F&M Bank.
Year in Review // Integrated Marketing Edition
This year has brought each sector their own sets of challenges. This brief article isn’t about the pandemic’s impact on those sectors, but instead about the three main takeaways from The Downtown Creative’s sector: Integrated Marketing, and more specifically Content Marketing. The first two are observations of strengthening trends, the third is about the marketing goal-posts that seem to be moving over time.
SEO is Dead...and Other Good Content Marketing Reads
It's satisfying to read this perspective, especially written by an industry veteran. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard clients discuss SEO as something that can be outsmarted, gamed, or bought. It doesn't work, it goes against the point of 'Search', and breeds confusion. And because of this confusion, it's created a cottage industry of nonsense. There's a difference between making your website is optimized for 'Search' and buying/manufacturing backlinks to make your brand seem like an authority on a specific topic.
Strong Corporate Photography Requires the Human Element
Brands implement many tactics in achieving their marketing goals, one of which is often creating and publishing strong images of their business in-action. Instead of getting into the nitty-gritty of the creative processes, technical details, or publication platforms, this article is about the common thread that most corporate photography contains: the human element.
Interest and Behavioral Targeting In Action
Paid ads have come a long way over the last decade - not just the duration of the ad (shorter), the number of hard cuts and length of each clip (increased and shorter), or the strategic voice of the ad (authenticity, not authority) - but the targeting of the audience has changed just as much.
Sell the Experience, Not the Property
The word I find myself using every single day, as it relates to content creation and content integration, is Strategy. It’s the foundation, the core, the root of any successful campaign - everything comes after strategy. So what’s happening with this campaign and what’s the strategy behind it? I like to make lists so we can see the problem-set and draw conclusions from it, so let’s examine the problem that needs to be solved. Here’s what we have…
Half of Your Ad Budget is Wasted Every Year
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” - John Wanamaker
That wise old adage tells us two very important things:
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Analytics often fall to the back-burner in favor of novel marketing efforts
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Businesses are often much more interested in expanding their marketing efforts without taking a slow, calculated approach at what works and what doesn’t
So how do we track what’s working? Let’s look at a case-study.
Why Storyboarding Matters
When you have between 20-30 seconds to get your message across to your audience, every single second counts. Not only that, you need to make sure the first 5 seconds really, really count if you are running ads on YouTube/Facebook (more on that in a future article). Storyboarding is driven by strategy.
The PESO Model: A Quick and Easy Explanation
PESO is a 4-quadrant model that helps you analyze how your business/brand’s content appears to your audiences. It’s incredibly simple, and helps you see your business’ content strengths and weaknesses at a glance. We have:
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Paid
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Earned
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Shared
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Owned
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