GM, and welcome back to Marketing Qualified! Here are today’s topics:
How to create internal champions. 6 steps for winning friends and influencing people.
Why do people watch? Some interesting findings from YouTube’s recent “Why We Watch” Report.
🏆 How to create internal champions.
If you want to crush your marketing goals or move up the ladder within your company, you need allies. We call these allies “internal champions.” These are people who support and advocate for your ideas and initiatives.
But how do you get them? Start by following these steps:
#1 – Build relationships across departments.
Don’t limit your focus to just your team or the higher-ups in your department. Reach out to people in other departments as well.
You’ll create natural allies if you can prove to them that you understand their challenges and show how your ideas impact them.
#2 – Focus on benefits.
Like with any type of marketing, it’s always best to focus on benefits.
Always highlight how your initiatives solve problems, save time, decrease costs, or drive results. Tailor your message to the person you’re talking to—what matters to an executive might be different from what matters to a team lead.
#3 – Show, don’t tell.
Whenever you can, offer a pilot or demo of your idea. Giving people a tangible experience helps them see the value firsthand and makes them more likely to advocate for it.
#4 – Don’t discount your peers.
Many people only focus on creating champions higher up than them in an organization. This is a mistake!
Champions at your level are just as valuable as senior leaders—and, in fact, could be more valuable if they’re more involved in the business’s day-to-day operations.
Building champions across all levels ensures stronger and more widespread support for your projects.
#5 – Pull people in early.
Loop in potential champions from the get-go. Seek their input, listen to their feedback, and make them feel involved in the creation process. If people feel ownership over the idea, they’re more likely to promote it.
Plus, you’d hate to wait until the last minute to ask for feedback only to find out you need to make all kinds of changes.
#6 – Deliver.
Earn trust by delivering on your promises. Champions will start coming out of the woodwork when your ideas create visible, measurable results. As you gain a track record of success, you’ll win long-term champions, not one-offs.
📰 In the news this week.
🎧 Google’s viral AI podcast tool just got even better.
🎥 Creators are using faceless videos to gain millions of followers.
🎯 Reddit Ads introduced new keyword targeting features.
📈 3 ways to boost your marketing using Google Trends.
🤖 Adobe launched an AI video tool.
🎥 Why do people watch?
Most marketing gurus and online guides will tell you that to succeed on social video platforms, you must make “quality” content. But what does that really mean?
YouTube recently published the second edition of their “Why We Watch” Report. In it, they explore how viewers perceive content quality, what people look for in video content, and what content keeps them coming back for more.
Here are some of the findings we thought were the most interesting.
It’s most important to capture and hold attention.
All viewers agreed that the most important emotional marker was that videos should capture and hold attention.
Beyond that, answers differed based on age. Viewers 35+ cared about compelling storytelling and trustworthiness. Younger viewers cared about personal relevance and creativity.
Viewers care about a lot more than visuals.
The study noted that:
“…our data suggests that the number of viewers who only care about visuals is now vanishingly small, at less than 1%. Audiences have come to crave a deeper connection with the content they consume, and even the most traditional media has had to adapt.”
Stunning visuals don’t create engagement. Creative stories do.
This is just further proof that having high production value videos is irrelevant if the content in the video isn’t compelling.
This is why kids with cell phone cameras constantly beat out brands that spend millions on staff, sets, and equipment to produce social media videos.
Viewers on YouTube were most open to ads.
The study also looked at how viewers respond to ads across video platforms.
Viewers on YouTube were the most open to ads of all the platform types examined in the survey — as long as certain quality criteria were met.
YouTube viewers said they didn’t mind ads if they were…
Interesting
Related to the content being watched
Personally relevant
Supportive of a favorite creator or cause
These are important factors to consider for brands running video ads on YouTube or other platforms.
😂 Marketing meme of the week.
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