What is your favorite story from your childhood? I don't mean what's your favorite book, or your favorite movie, or your favorite tv show. I mean STORY truly. Perhaps it's a story your grandfather told you, or your mother, or a story your deceiving older brother told you which you later found out was a lie.Do you have your story yet?
Mine is a story my grandfather used to tell about growing up on a pancake farm and growing Arkansas pancakes. (a close second was the story about the sometimes mean ghost Matilda that lived in his attic).
Why is this my favorite? Probably because I remember it so well. Why do I remember it so well...
Because he told it ALL the time. Every time we had pancakes for breakfast, and even sometimes when we didn't, he'd tell us this story.
The biggest mistake I see with marketers trying to use internet video isn't that they don't tell a story, it's that they tell one story. Once. And then they're done.
Seth Godin gets it spot on today with "The long tale":
"The hard part is getting a little bit of permission to start telling your tale. The overlooked part, the part that wastes all that permission, is that you forget to keep telling your story."
Most marketers only tell their story once with internet video because they THINK they don't have the time or resources or dollars to do it more often, but that's because they haven't embraced internet video. They're still producing video like it's for tv.
It's time to take advantage of the biggest benefit of online video marketing - the ease of telling your story on an ongoing basis with close to zero distribution costs.
Powered by Compendium Blogware
Comments for Marketers know they need to tell a story, but do they really get it?