Check out the article, “Un-Advertising: the Power of Testimonial Video in the Post-Advertising Era” on MarketingProfs by Ted Page:

Customer video testimonials – done right – offer the following:

• Credibility: Having real people on camera who have had a great experience with your brand lends unassailable credibility to your message. Your customers are your very best salespeople.
• More referrals: Customers are honored to go on camera and praise your business. They know that what they say matters and that you value their opinion. It’s a source of pride for them. And what do proud people do? They talk with their friends about what they’ve done. They become, in effect, a more motivated ambassador for your brand.
• Your website is a TV channel. Make sure it has good content that people want to watch: Your web TV channel is on 24/7. And the best part is, since you’re not paying a network to air your commercial, or a magazine to place your ad, your media costs are zero

It’s tough to find another marketing tool that works this well for so many different audiences.

Sample Customer Testimonials

• Video Testimonials
• Happy Customers Do All the Selling
• A Portfolio is even more convincing

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Purchase intent increases with a presence in both top organic and top sponsored listings, even for branded queries
• The Caffeine update will focus on speed, so ensure your site loads quickly
• People click on videos more than other SERP links, and that’s why Google is moving video up in the results
• Blogs and social media marketing are moving up in Google search results pages

In the article, he argues that be competitive in 2010, marketers need both organic and paid links in the SERP (search engine results page). Historically, Google users have indicated they prefer organic listings over paid listings at the rate of 70% to 30%. Regardless of user preference, recent research by Google and Enquiro reveals that purchase intent increases with a presence in both top organic and top sponsored listings.

Of significant note:

Another prominent presence in the SERPs is video links. People seem to click on videos more than other SERP links, and that’s why Google is moving video up in the results. When considering video, plan to create content that is worth sharing and of high quality.

See the full article here

Click  the thumbnail above to watch the YouTube video interview of Bruce Clay sponsored by ReelSEO or read the full article on www.bruceclay.com here

Last year at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose, Bruce made some great points about “engagement objects” (video, audio, etc) and a very bold prediction that in 2010 “video will be a must on your website”.

Some takeaways:

• Video and other “engagement objects” are crucial when it comes to organic (SEO) and universal search
• If your website contains engagement objects, it has the opportunity to rank better

“…In the case of video, we believe that as one of the more important engagement objects, google has actually started to build it into the algorithm.  To us, that means if your website has engagement objects on it,  video or mp3…  it is going to be received by the algorithm better and your site will actually have an opportunity to rank better.

Now today, we haven’t seen it much as an incidence of ranking, mostly because not everyone is doing it. …I dont think weve yet seen even the tip of the iceberg.

I think, that a year from now, we are going to be sitting here saying – ‘if you don’t have video, if you don’t have engagement objects on your website, you are just not going to rank.  It will make you last amoung equals if you don’t have it.”

MarketingSherpa (www.marketingsherpa.com) published an interesting compilation of “stories from the trenches” – 70 stories and lessons learned from MarketingSherpa readers, all in their own words. Touching on everything from traditional tactics – direct mail, telemarketing, to the rapidly growing role of social media – a few common themes emerged during the compilation process:

• Trend #1 – Social media is everywhere. Read how peers are using social media on its own, and how it can enhance PR, search, email, lead generation and more
• Trend #3 – Free tools and tactics helped while budgets have shrunk

Table of Contents – Main Sections:

• Social Media
• Email
• Search
• B2B Marketing
• Consumer Marketing
• Testing and Metrics
• PR
• …and more

Download Free Report Now

Visit Free White Paper Library here

You’ve heard the buzz about online video – but do you know how it can be leveraged to increase the impact of your marketing initiatives? Online Video can be used at every stage of the customer lifecycle to acquire, engage and convert site visitors.

This webinar will cover:

• The drivers behind the growing use of online video
• Real world examples of how B2B Marketers are leveraging online video
• Strategic applications of online video across the customer lifecycle
• Key considerations for producing and publishing content
• Steps you can take to start using online video right now

Watch the webcast here (registration required)

SUMMARY: Finding the right message for your website can be difficult when you’re trying to appeal to multiple audiences, such as consumers, businesses and investors. This is when a good test can help.

Read how a coffee company tested consumer messages in display ads and videos before incorporating them into a new website, resulting in an 18.5% lift in traffic.

Creative Sample from MarketingSherpa

Read the full article here (open access for limited time)

SUMMARY: Chances are your overall marketing budget was hit hard by the economy in 2009 and the prospect of recovering a substantial portion of these funds in 2010 is not very likely. Still, there is good news for social media marketers.

Change in Social Marketing Budgets: 2009-2010

This chart (click above to enlarge) shows that social marketing will benefit from significant budget increases in the year ahead, regardless of what industry your organization is in.

What comes to mind when “social media” marketing becomes part of your marketing mix? Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Let’s not forget…Video is a “social medium”, itself!

But how do people discover videos online*?

• 45% of all videos are found on a video site, i.e. going to YouTube and doing a search or clicking around featured and related videos
• 44% of all videos are found embedded in blogs
• 6% of all videos are found with search engines, like Google
• 2% of all videos are found in social networks, like Facebook
• 2% of all videos found in social bookmarking sites

The most shocking stat above? 44% are embedded in blogs! That’s a big number – and what that means is you need to have your videos embedded in your blogs for your readers – and for search engines to crawl.

* source: TubeMogul, 2009

MarketingSherpa’s how-to article documents how Nike 6.0 got thousands of event attendees to take a break from the action at surrfing/skateboarding/BMX events and spend some time in their branded tent. Their secret? A part-virtual, part-interactive video strategy.

This “wow-factor” pulled crowds away from the sports action:
o More than 15,000 visitors played the interactive game during the five-stop Dew Tour
o More than 10,000 visitors played the game at the US Open of Surfing.

Read the full article at MarketingSherpa for a limited time (open access for 10 days) here photo/creative sample above from MarketingSherpa.com

Some highlighted results:

• The eBook attracted 8 times as many readers as the downloadable white paper
• 65% of all microsite visitors viewed the video eBook
• The average viewer spent eight minutes interacting with the video eBook
• Response to the direct mail promotion exceeded forecasts by 80%

MarketingSherpa’s full article is available for open access for a limited time here

MarketingSherpa is usually a great source for interesting, outrageous, and sometimes even the obvious – but effective. This week’s free “How-To” article (limited time) examines 5 strategies and case studies showing how great content can be redistributed via digital media for extended reach.

SUMMARY: Your marketing content library can be an incredible resource in lean economic times. You have opportunities to repurpose, reformat and reuse that content for new lead generation campaigns.

We’ve collected five examples of clever content repurposing strategies that B2B marketers shared with us over the years. Includes tips on generating audio and video from text and finding new content for nurturing emails

Strategy #5. Turn boring-but-necessary documents into video

Technical specifications and other product details play an important role in the later stages of the buying cycle — but they can make for pretty dry reading. Breathe new life into old docs by converting them into videos.

Brian Ellefritz, Sr. Manager, Customer Relationship Marketing, Cisco Systems, created five-minute videos of product managers guiding prospects through the company’s two- to three-page product data sheets.

Within six months, video files accounted for 21% of all product data downloads

See full article here