We’re not going to lie to you, the whole lead generation process is rough – especially if you’re relying solely on traditional methods. Sending cold emails and scraping together a list can be incredibly demoralising – not least because you don’t know if those people actually want to talk to you!
What if you could still reach your goals but using methods that actually add value for your prospects? We know, it sounds like the Holy Grail. But it is a possibility. Below are 5 ways to provide valuable information to prospects that helps them instead of pushing them to buy from your brand.
1. Share success secrets from thought leaders.
Want to provide unique value in your content? Start by reaching out to a thought leader in your industry. By interviewing an expert to uncover their secrets, you prove to potential customers that you’re dedicated to delivering the best advice out there.
Below you’ll see Groove’s take on this approach through its interview with the CEO of Proposify. Groove frequently interview successful founders and ask really specific questions that everyone can learn from. They then share those interviews on its blog.
Not only is the interview with Kyle Racki chock-full of quotes, lessons, and actionable takeaways, it also features an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) with the interview subject in the comments section. This helps further Groove’s reputation as a source of expert information among its audience.
2. Make awesome Help videos to solve an issue for prospects.
Help videos can solve a real problem for potential customers in a format that’s both entertaining and easily digestible. Video Production company, Shootsta, put together a series #AtTheBar – where they invite special guests from the marketing industry to come share knowledge and expertise.
Because Shootsta is a video production company, publishing content strictly about how to use its product would only apply to people who were already customers. Videos like the one above, relevant to anyone in marketing, help the brand create value for people who may not even be familiar with Shootsta. If they learn something useful from them once, they’re more likely do it again, and may eventually come to the site ready to purchase a subscription.
3. Show what’s working for you.
Writing a transparent post that pulls back the curtain on something you’ve seen success (or failure) with can prove interesting to potential leads. Other companies going through a similar stage of growth — or approaching your size — can gain a lot of inspiration from posts like this, and avoid making the same mistakes.
This post from Classy, the world’s fastest growing fundraising platform, is the perfect example. In an effort to provide an insightful resource, it created this analysis of how its blogging strategy had evolved, and what the brand had learned, over the course of 1,000 posts.
4. Create a list of useful tools.
It’s easy to brag about the tools your company offers, but when you take the initiative and explore other helpful tools your audience could be using, it proves that you prioritise their success over your own self-promotion.
In return, you are also attracting the kind of audience that is looking for solutions like yours, which could drive leads. A great example of this in action comes from the Content Marketing Institute.
The Content Marketing Institute is dedicated to providing advice for content marketers, and this checklist is chock-full of guidelines and other tools the reader can use. Because the guide is so comprehensive, if the reader gets what they need, they’re likely to return to the blog, and even subscribe, to get more helpful information in the future.
5. Host a giveaway.
Giveaways are one of the most successful forms of lead generation. However, a giveaway can also lead to a bunch of junk leads and waste your time if not done in a logical way.
The trick? Make sure what you’re giving away is something people actually want. Stationery brand, Emily Ley, hosted this giveaway during their recent product launch that is perfect for their target demographic.
The giveaway generates leads via email subscriptions and social media engagement, and it’s a win-win for Emily Ley. Whether a user wins or loses the giveaway, they will continue to engage with the brand in hopes of winning future giveaways. Meanwhile, Emily Ley can grow its email list to continue outreach to subscribers with more targeted content.
Whichever lead generation strategy you experiment with next, make sure the content is useful to your audience so they’ll return to your website again in the future. And if you need a hand creating content, drop us a note.
Already a trusted brand in the air-conditioning market, we are thrilled to help Mitsubishi Heavy Industries promote its range of world-class, highly efficient and stylish air conditioning systems to suit any room and interior of your home.
As the cold season approaches, our new campaign aims to entice people to bring back summer so they can cruise through winter. With the opportunity to go into the draw to win 1 of 4 tropical cruise adventures PLUS claim up to $400 cash back, there couldn’t be a better time to warm up your home with a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries air-conditioner!
Featuring MHIAA ambassador Tara Dennis, the national 4- month campaign is running across Channel 7 broadcasts including a Better Homes and Gardens sponsorship, outdoor advertising, digital, press and on MHIAA owned social channels.
You can check out the website here.
Or just watch the video:
As a graphic designer with Adcorp, my days vary depending on what I’m working on. This is largely due to the stage we are at with any particular project; pitching a creative concept, developing a realised idea or presenting preliminary concepts which will be further developed. The nature of the projects can vary a lot as well based on what a client is trying to achieve and what sector they operate in.
While collateral may at times be the same (print ads, digital ads or websites prove to be recurring deliverables) the variety of brands and their goals provides creative challenges within my daily work As a designer you have to really grow and develop as visual media does, so working on such varied projects gives you the space to be progressive and to try and produce something that is not only visually striking, but serving the end goal for the client.
How that process works for me usually follows a set structure that I apply for any type of deliverable.
1. Gauging what is wanted from the brief, the client and effectively their audience
This is not only trying to gauge how they want the design to look, but also what they want it to communicate to their chosen audience. We have a range of ways to achieve a successful result for a project. Our account managers have conversations with the clients to collate as much information as possible before communicating with us, the designers, as to what we need to achieve. Establishing what is needed visually is often a furthering of this process for some projects- namely larger ones such as website designs- which can mean pitching moodboards or best of breed examples.
We also study brand guidelines to make sure the visuals and stylisation we are proposing is in-line with a client’s established branding.
Some projects are smaller than others and demand fewer steps to inspire the solution, or sometimes we have previously created collateral that is a basis for what is wanted from the client, but more often than not we get to engage in the challenge of presenting something new. This is my favourite part of my job, being able to so often pitch and consequently create some really striking and strongly communicated visuals.
2. Designing for different deliverables and platforms
Aside from designing for different brands, my day to day routine often requires designing a multitude of solutions for one project. Web banners, print ads, branding, websites, magazines, flyers, posters, bus ads, microsites and templates are just some of the solutions we get to see our creative designed for and translated to. I get to utilise a set of skills such as type design, photo editing, magazine design, web design, illustration, product design and document layout; so to see these skills utilised in a successful design across lots of varied platforms is an incredibly rewarding part of my job.
3. Developing solutions
After establishing what is needed from the design (visuals, colours, themes, messaging etc.), we progress to developing a solution. This is a process that can require as little as minor tweaks and changes to copy of a set design, to anything as great as providing several completely different visual options that are on theme with what is wanted for a successful solution. This process has me communicating with account managers, researching successful solutions, and often getting to experiment with different tones, imagery and layouts to get an optimum result. There is a lot of impact that differences in font, style, colour treatment and layout have on a design. Sometimes in order to remove ambiguity from a creative solution and achieve a clear and efficient result, several options are required to pinpoint the strongest form of communicating a particular message.
4. Achieving and finalising a successful result
There is often discussion as how to improve a design, or what minor tweaks to make to achieve a perfect result, so there is often a dialogue about what limitations are faced, what follows brand guidelines, and what is consistent with the messaging and end goal of a project. There are minor amendments as well, but at this stage of a project, most of the design is fully realised and these tweaks are usually given from the client or the account manager to ensure the end result is at its absolute best.
I’m always sure to go over my own work and utilise the feedback given to achieving the best results.
So getting it to a sign off stage is very rewarding knowing we’re providing the best results for our clients and their brands.
Ultimately, I am proud to see work I helped bring to life supporting and communicating strongly for a range of successful brands within New Zealand as part of the work the team and I produce every day here at Adcorp.
Imagine sweeping, green plains that go on for miles. Picture a skiier gliding down a mountain before plummeting over jagged cliffs. Think of walking through a house you’ve never been to.
You’ve probably seen video footage or still images of these types of scenarios. What do they all have in common? They were almost definitely shot with a drone.
Flashback five years: If you wanted any meaningful birds-eye-view footage of landscapes, people or cities, you’d have to get a helicopter up in the air and hang out the open side with a massive, high quality camera on a special attachment to smooth out the bumpiness of the ride.
While it sounds exciting, it’s not exactly easy. And certainly not cheap.
Today, consumers can get a bird’s eye view unlike any other, thanks to the remote control technology that is allowing videographers to launch video camera drones in particular areas. Sweeping, panning video of cityscapes and coastlines now accompanies nearly any promotional video, particularly in the real estate, tourism and sport industries.
The drones come flying in
Amazon arguably started the drone tidal wave. Testing out drone technology as a delivery service back in 2013, the e-commerce giant unwittingly opened up the door to infinite possibilities for drones.
Though first done by only the most elite, the accessibility of drone technology today means nearly every videographer has a drone in his or her fleet.
Chris Wells, Adcorp’s Account Director in Brisbane who has been involved in film and television for more than 30 years, says that drones offer a different way of getting in the air for an incredibly low price tag.
Before the advent of digital cameras, the cost of getting up into the air was “horrendous,” he says. Now, not only does everyone have access to high quality imagery, they can get it from nearly any perspective.
Think regional fly-overs, property walk-throughs, even 360-degree video allowing viewers to take in an entire scene as though they’re actually there. Despite these incredible film and photography shots being nearly ubiquitous, Chris says it’s about more than the raw footage.
“What you do with it is still an art,” he says.
Using drone video in marketing and advertising
The types of digital work you can do with drones is seemingly endless. For our project with King’s Row Offices, these aerial shots showed off the superb location of the office buildings, and allowed viewers to experience the area without leaving their chairs.
For Oakwood Brisbane, drone video footage contributed stunning scenery around Brisbane to the hotel’s promotional video, giving viewers even more inspiration to visit the city.
Even the still photographs taken by drones allow a completely new digital experience. For Rochedale Estates, Chris’s 360-degree drone photography was stitched together to allow prospective buyers to explore a new property development and literally get a lay of the land.
Emma Wilkinson, one of Adcorp’s Digital Producers, says drone video draws out real emotions for consumers.
“Using drones, you can allow a person to discover and experience a location – be it a new country or even a new house or city – from angles that they normally wouldn’t see when looking at a standard advert, and make them really feel that it is possible for them to be in that situation,” she says.
Emma noted sport in particular: In giving people the first person perspective of a particular sport, advertisers can actually empower people and give them the confidence to try it themselves. For those who are physically unable, this type of video allows them to emotionally engage in the experience.
Operating a drone – when, where and how?
From a videographer or photographer’s point of view, drones enable more control and access than ever. From his drone’s iPad app, Chris can set and change the course of his drone, change the shutter speed, the dpi, the height at which it’s flying, and so much more.
While most of his work involves automating a drone to fly on its own, Chris says drones also work as handheld cameras – following a cyclist up close, for instance, or walking through a home – producing smooth, uninterrupted shots.
All of this can take just a few hours, he says.
Read: Your business can afford it.
Is there still a place for helicopters and full-size cameras? Sure, Chris says, but even professional shoots, like for blockbuster films, are opting for fleets of drones.
For instance, the recent Pirates of the Caribbean film shot in the Gold Coast used six drones for their shots, sending them flying over the beaches, hovering around boats and more. This kind of operation would take several operators, Chris says.
Although there are limitations for drone video – for example, each country and every Australian state has its own guidelines on when, where and how you can fly a drone – we recommend it for nearly any property promotion, particularly when we’re promoting a development as it’s being built.
“Drones offer a truly engaging way for a person to experience the land and surrounding whilst building is commencing,” Emma says.
Are drones right for your business?
Now that drones have well and truly taken off, they’re being used by everyone from professional film crews to consumers wanting a new type of selfie. So are they right for your next marketing project?
We’re encouraging clients of all forms to give drone video a go.
“They are super fun to use and really stand out in the crowd,” Emma says.
The beauty of drone video may just be its ability to give people a whole new experience – and whole new world to engage with – that was just out of reach before.
