Not in eBay Partner Network Yet? You Are Missing Out!

As you probably know, affiliate marketing is one of the best monetization strategies you can use on a blog or website. That is because the earning potential is quite high, and yet the work involved is relatively simple. All you have to do is to promote the products of your affiliate network, and whenever one of your referrals makes a purchase, you receive a commission. That is it. The company selling the product will take care of all the rest, which includes actually delivering the product, customer support and so on.

The only problem involved is that finding a good and reliable affiliate network is not always straightforward. You’ll find some networks that promise really high payouts and commissions, but whether or not you’ll get paid in the end is the question! I have heard all sorts of horror stories in the affiliate marketing world.

If you are getting started or already have some experience with affiliate marketing and want to test new and better networks, there is one that you should check out: eBay Partner Network.

Once you become a partner (their name for “affiliate”), you’ll receive tracking links that you can use to send your audience to the eBay website (or to their partner half.com). Then every time one of your referrals makes a purchase, you’ll earn a commission.

The big benefit of becoming an affiliate for eBay is the security that comes with it. eBay has been in business for 20 years, and their affiliate network has also been around since 2001. In other words, you can be sure that the tracking will be accurate, that your earnings will be paid in a timely fashion, and so on.

Still on the fence? They are currently running a campaign where new affiliates will get double commissions for the first 3 months. Check it out!

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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Tracking Video Music Trends: How to Stay Current

Finding captivating, relevant and creative new music for your video is challenging. On the one hand, the information age has brilliantly streamlined music discovery.  Information technology has made new sounds and music accessible in ways like never before. Unfortunately, the ability to follow trends and stay ahead of the curve is still agonizingly difficult.

We get the struggle. Here are some tools that will help you to keep abreast of current sounds from today’s most creative music makers.

1. Hire a Music Supervisor – Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Consult with an expert and let them curate music for you! It’s the job of a music supervisor to stay current with the latest trends in music. With a detailed brief, a music supervisor will be able to mine the depths of their catalog to pinpoint the track with the highest emotional impact for your project. This service is complimentary when using the Bedtracks library!

It’s important to remember that without connecting to your audience on a subconscious emotional level there is no platform to deliver your message. Music is the packaging that helps your customers feel good and connected to the message you want to convey.  Had Apple used poor packing and design for their product, it may not have had the impact that it does today.

2. Demographics – Knowing your audience is essential!

Who is your target audience? Are they listening to current music or are their tastes rooted in the past? Is your goal to make the next critically claimed indie romance film or the next viral half-time commercial?  Getting inside the listening preferences of your audience can take your marketing and creative campaign to new heights.

For instance, a demographic in their 30s or 40s won’t necessarily be plugged into today’s newest top 40 sounds. Just because it’s popular doesn’t make it the right fit. Choose music for your brand that is relevant to your audience even if it’s several years in the past. Researching and knowing whether you’ve made the right choice can be daunting, but there are tools available to help you make the right decision. This brings me to my next point…

3. Next Big Sound

NYC based company ‘Next Big Sound’ launched in 2009 and they currently lead the charge in analytics tracking of artists all over the planet. NBS uses data to tell you how an artist’s music will resonate with your target audience.  If you’re seeking a band with a fresh track for your production be sure to do some foraging on NBS.  Get some data to back up your hunch before you lock it down to video.

4. Music Blogs – A hub of information.

Blogs have been around for Internet ages, but regardless of time, blogs are still a linchpin for discovering emerging artists. Blog writers are tastemakers. They hear and generate buzz on social media platforms. Here are some of our favorite blogs for finding new music:

• Neon Gold Records
• Said the Gramophone
• Birp!

5. SoundCloud – The YouTube of new music.

Want to be the one giving bloggers something to blog about? SoundCloud is a place you should look for raw, undiscovered talent. When you need to pair your project with that sound no one has, the search filters and tags on Soundcloud make it super user-friendly when discovering new music. Think of what’s trending on Soundcloud as being six months ahead of pop radio.

6. Greater Goods Co.

Heard the perfect track by that independent artist on that trendy music blog? Our friends at Greater Goods have their thumb firmly planted on the most happening music of the times. Check out their site to get an idea of the music being placed most commonly in today’s television and advertisements.  They’ll be happy to license music to you from their stellar roster of artists.

Don’t have a $100,000 music budget? Then come see us at Bedtracks. We’ll help you find a track in our library or custom-make the most relatable music for your project, on time and on budget.

The post Tracking Video Music Trends: How to Stay Current appeared first on Vidyard.

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Forrester Claims Marketing Content Not Relevant for Sales Teams, Customers

“If ‘mobile-first’ is the new rallying cry for digital design, then ‘sales-first’ should be the mantra by which marketing delivers and distributes content.” – Laura Ramos, Forrester Analyst

Research released by Forrester this month found some shocking information about sales’ use of marketing content. And there’s really no easy way to put it: sales isn’t really using the content that B2B marketers create. In fact, 90% of content goes unused because it’s irrelevant, out-of-date, difficult to customize, or hard to find (click here to tweet this stat!). Chris McLaren, VP of Marketing at Aimia, explained that his sales team has challenges even finding the right pieces of content and knowing which ones are applicable to their prospects.

In addition, a lot of the content created for sales teams are top- to mid-funnel resources. This content often focuses on features and functions but most buyers in today’s day and age have already discovered this information on their own in earlier stages of their buying journey. As a result, 62% of executives and technical buyers find the content they’re receiving useless (click to tweet this stat!). Yep, useless.

But content is a crucial tool to help move prospect conversations along. Without relevant, easy-to-find, and easy-to-use content, large enterprises are wasting millions of dollars producing content that neither sales nor customers find relevant (click here to tweet this stat!).

Getting to the Root of the Problem

Fundamentally, the problem lies in the lack of understanding from marketers in how the sales team operates. And understandably so … they’re not walking in sales’ shoes day in and day out. But while sales focuses on the individual, marketing markets to segments; and while sales is more inbound, marketing is more outbound.

And this needs to change.

At least it does if we want to create more effective content to help our sales team have relevant conversations and therefore close more business.

Laura Ramos, author of Make Sales Conversations an Integral Part of Your Content Marketing Plans, says B2B marketers need to involve sales in their content development and delivery in three ways:

1. Invest in content delivery systems and training to turn sales into content experts
2. Make it straightforward for sales to get the content they need, when they need it
3. Track what sales uses (and doesn’t)

Dive into Forrester’s latest research report and learn about:

• The dichotomy between current marketing content and sales’ needs
• The sales-focused tactics successful B2B marketers are practising
• Empowering sales to use quality marketing content in prospect conversations

The post Forrester Claims Marketing Content Not Relevant for Sales Teams, Customers appeared first on Vidyard.

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The Dirty Truth Behind 60-Second Videos

For some reason, almost every video pro I talk to today is obsessed with video length.

You put together a script over 60-seconds and they go into cardiac arrest.

The problem is everyone “knows” that attention spans are short and “people just won’t watch anything longer than 60-seconds”. In some ways they’re right.  Attention spans are shorter than ever (shorter than a goldfish by Time Magazine’s showing).

But talk is cheap.  Let’s see what the data has to say about it…

A Real-World Look: GoPro Short vs. Long Videos

To start the process I looked up some of 2015’s top videos ads (Reel SEO has a great tally they run).  GoPro is known for consistently pumping out high views.

So which does better for them — short or long?

“Owl Dance-Off” was closest to 60 seconds, but still a whopping 2.4 million views away from “Streets of Japan”.It’s easy to spot the winners.

The question is, why would longer videos get more views?

It’s a matter of breadth vs. depth.

Your best viewers (the ones that are going to convert into leads or sales) want more detailed content. 

A GoPro viewer doesn’t just want to see a short stunt clip… they want to drop into the experience as much as possible.

It’s the same for your viewers.  They want to be immersed in exciting results or a cool new process.  It’s the same logic behind Neil Patel’s blog Why 3,000+ Word Posts Get More Traffic.

60-seconds is about 150-200 words.  After your intro you’re looking at just 100-150 words.  Can you really say something of meaning that quickly?

Probably not.

But Isn’t a 60-Second Video More Shareable?!

In our deepest, darkest dreams we all want a video to go viral.  

It’s easy to picture.  Your CMO approves the video, you post it on your blog and POW!  You wake up the next morning to the blissful sound of blazing hot servers getting overloaded with traffic.

So what length of video will get you there best?

ReelSEO did an analysis of the top video lengths to boost sharing.  What they found was a little surprising…

The average length of the Top 10 most shared videos was 4 minutes and 11 seconds long.

Whoa.  That’s a lot more than 60-seconds.

But here’s a classic counterexample: we all see vines or 30-second cat videos that experience massive organic growth.  

But before I go any further on raging view counts … stop and ask yourself an important question: is your salary based off views or sales?

In order for your company to generate revenue you need more than a view.  You need movement down the funnel. How much revenue would be generated by a one-hit wonder, 60-second cat video?  Probably not much.

How much further down the funnel will said cat video get your prospects?

Usually, not very far.  

So not only is shareability increased with longer videos, contribution to revenue can increase too.

But let’s play devil’s advocate for a second.

Even If A Shorter Video Gives You Higher Engagement, Will It Give You Higher Conversions?

When it comes down to brass tacks, nobody really cares about engagement.  

Engagement is a secondary metric that you use in the hope it’s pointing you in the right direction.

The metric you really care about is probably something like:

• Direct sales
• Leads generated (which will turn into opportunities and then sales)
• Brand awareness (which will drive sales via online or offline channels)

We use engagement especially in situations where it’s tough to attribute sales to a single video or even campaign (e.g. it’s tough to attribute a sales spike to Coke’s Super Bowl commercial).

But that can mean linking two metrics that don’t tell the same story, which is a lesson I learned the hard way.

One of our clients, Peak 10 Publishing had us produce two videos for them.  In this case the length was pretty close to the mysterious 60 second mark, but engagement stats were miles apart.

The engagement for video B was more than 20% higher than video A’s.  

The interesting part is how it affected sales…  

Which do you think had higher sales?

Even though video A had lower engagement, its sales blew video B out of the water.  There was a difference of more than $10 million in revenue!

I’m not sure.  But I know if you asked me which video was more successful it’s an easy answer.Why wasn’t engagement a good predictor of revenue?  

If The Best Length Isn’t 60-Seconds, What Is It?

The short answer is, it depends.

For a video that moves your viewers further down your funnel I like to start at 4-minutes.

WARNING: your engagement will probably go down compared to shorter videos.  

Someone who was mildly curious will leave your video outraged that you would dare produce a video longer than 30-seconds.

But they were never going to generate revenue for you anyway.

It’s much more important to give your ideal viewers the content they’re thirsting for.

So instead of shooting for a short, end-all, be-all video, aim for interesting and attention-keeping not just attention-grabbing.

The #1 Problem Every Video Has To Solve Isn’t Short Attention Spans…

The real problem is boring content.  How is that the same people who won’t sit still for your four-minute video will binge-watch a 12-episode Daredevil series on Netflix?  

That might seem like an apples-to-oranges comparison, but stick with me.

The real issue isn’t videos are too long, it’s that they’re too boring.  Instead of sacrificing quality content to make the content ‘bite sized’, sacrifice popular opinion to make your video great.

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