Changes in Construction Marketing: 3 Trends You Can’t Ignore

I recently heard from an experienced construction company executive on the topic of referrals. The executive was concerned because the new generation of leaders in his company was spending less time building personal relationships with strategic partners. Word of mouth referrals had always been the foundation of his business success — but he was beginning to understand that the marketing approaches of the past would not be enough to sustain future growth.

Construction marketing has changed — repeat business and referrals are no longer enough. Construction firms must now see marketing through a different lens. To help you see, let’s look at three important ways construction marketing has changed:

Read Full Text

Cost of Video Production vs. Benefits for Professional Services Firms

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

As professional services firms increase their use of online video the issue of budgeting is coming up with increasing frequency.  How should a professional services firm approach the topic?

At Hinge, we find that most firms are open to the topic.  They feel that they should be producing video but are not sure of its true value or how to use it effectively — let alone how to budget appropriately.

We’ve recently published an article on the cost of video production which lays out the basics on the cost side.  In this post I want to address the benefits side of the equation.

Here are five guidelines for figuring out the benefit side of online video for your firm’s cost benefit analysis:

Read Full Text

How to make a viral video (Hint: Don’t)

By Dane Frederiksen, Guest Author

Viral Video. I get all twitchy just writing those words. When a client asks me to produce a viral video, I can’t help but roll my eyes and think “here we go again!” The lure of free distribution on a massive scale is understandably tempting, and I can’t blame marketers for wanting to capitalize on it. But when clients start fantasizing about taking their corporate marketing agenda viral, I have to gently yank them back down to earth.

In all but the rarest examples, viral videos don’t have heavy brand messages. And the vast majority aren’t about company products or services at all.  Cats, explosions, kicking of balls — those usually work better.

What Makes a Video Viral?
Videos become contagious because they go to extreme lengths to stand out from the (very large) crowd — and tap into strong emotions. Videos that go viral are shared for a reason. They are exceptionally “_______” (amazing, funny, shocking, horrifying).

Now ask yourself honestly:  “what about my company’s product means any of those things to the general population?”

Read Full Text

5 Lessons Michelangelo Can Teach Us About Online Marketing

By Sean McVey

Spending two weeks in Italy got me thinking: Are there any lessons can we learn from the artistic geniuses of the Renaissance and apply to modern day marketing?  Is this a stretch?  Perhaps a bit… but it’s also fun.

So after admiring countless works from the Renaissance man himself, I came up with 5 lessons we can learn from Michelangelo about online marketing:

1. Learn From Past Greats – Today’s best practitioners are inspired by great artists of the past.  Michelangelo spent hours every day stroking and observing the ancient Belvedere Torso statue from the 2nd century, and he used it as inspiration for several great works.  When you are planning your online marketing efforts, always consider what others have done. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to have success online.  Evaluate competitors, watch and read free resources on the topics of social media and SEO, and find ways to apply proven strategies to your marketing.

Read Full Text

What’s All the Buzz About Engagement?

By Dane Frederiksen, Guest Author

There’s a lot of buzz around the concept of “engagement” these days. In an increasingly crowded and fragmented online marketplace, marketers are on the lookout for new ways to capture their audience’s attention. And video is proving to be a terrific engagement tool. Let me illustrate my point with the metaphor of a bee and a flower:

• The bee wants nectar (see, it’s Googling “delicious nectar” right now!)
• The flower wants to spread it’s pollen (its message)
• The flower has nectar that bees want, but so do other flowers
• The flower wants to give the bee pollen, so it invests in a little “marketing”:

1. It creates petals that bees find attractive — and that stand out from other flowering plants
2. It keeps the bee engaged by supplying something of unquestionable value … nectar

 
The bee hangs out for a while until it gets full, bored or is late for a meeting. And the flower gets to spread it’s marketing message — er, pollen — to the bee.

Your well-designed website is the flower. But to attract prospective clients and employees — the bees — you need to hold their attention and give them the information they seek in an entertaining format. (Ask yourself, “would I honestly rather read an article or watch a video that contained the same information”?)

But getting those prospects to your website presents it’s own bee-flower challenge. Fortunately, video offers an answer. When used in email, video dramatically improves open rates. And video blog posts and tweets stand apart from the usual text-based pieces. In addition, video lends itself toward sharing, especially among the fast-growing mobile crowd. Videos go viral, articles don’t.

Read Full Text

Inbound Marketing for Professional Services Firms

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

There is a big shift underway in how we market professional services. I’ve blogged about it as the move from traditional to digital marketing. One of the key features of this evolution is the emergence of the concept of inbound marketing.

Put simply, inbound marketing is a strategy in which potential clients find you. It’s contrasted with outbound marketing techniques such as advertising, trade shows, direct marketing and networking in which you actively seek out new clients. At the core of inbound marketing is the notion of developing content that is so compelling clients will find you as they search for solutions to their business problems.

While sharing expertise has long been a staple of professional services marketing, two technological trends have moved it to center stage. The first of these is the rise of search engines. Got a problem? Gallop to Google. The second is the rise of social media.

Taken together, content, search and social have made inbound marketing a viable strategy for professional services firms. Need some proof? See if these results don’t open your eyes.

Read Full Text