The Funnelholic

How many times these days has the trailer been better than the movie?  Movie marketing is more important than the actual movie production itself.  The job of the Hollywood marketer is to get people into the movie house on opening weekend. That’s it.

They don’t worry how much of the plot they have given away in so-called spoilers, whether they have away the best jokes or scenes in the entire movie in the previews, or whether they market the actor  that sell vs. the actual “star” of the movie. Forget the fact that  actor getting top billing may only be on “stage” for a brief stint in the movie. You could almost argue that the shooting of the film is where the marketing machine gets rolling. How many shots of movies midproduction have you seen in the pages of “People”? And don’t forget The old bait and swith. Dark dramas have been cast as comedies in TV ads just to lure you into the movie theater. Been there. Seen that.

Case in point: “The Dark Knight.”  It should have been called: “Joker Returns.”  As a matter of fact, did we even see the actual Batman in the previews?  Batman was played by the obscure Christian Bales, whereas the movie was all Heath Ledger, all the time.  He basically had an academy award nomination from the preview alone and the record shattering box office stemmed largely from the studio’s brilliant marketing campaign. Unfortunately, the untimely death contributed  to the posthumously released film, but the marketing cogs were moving full throttle before his tragic demise.

So, what can we as b2b marketers take from this?  Two things:

1.     Get ‘em in the seats. Sound crazy?  There is a difference between marketing to get buyers to register and commit vs. overwhelming them with your overall messaging platform goals. The b2b marketer often falls trap to two things: A new, fancy acronym or market they are trying to pioneer (insert acronym flavor of the month here) or a high falutin’ value proposition that doesn’t really say anything.  Yes, you want to get your point across, but you can’t do it if no one is listening. Don’t let your ego get in the way. Yes, you know the latest terms and technologies, but does your audience? How can you convince someone that they need something when they don’t know what it is?

When you are promoting your white paper or webinar, think about what actually sells. You can explain everything until the cows come home once you have captured the audience.   Focusing on the benefits and targeting is key to get interest, not big words and obscure acronyms.  “Seven Reasons your business needs…” will work better than: “The primer on Acronym X, the dynamic, robust, dada, dada…”.  Give them a call to action. Give them something they can print out and give to their boss to justify a new investment.

2.    Don’t be afraid to give away some of your best scenes to get buyers to bite:  Yes, there is a fine line between temptation and giving it away, but there are sooo many choices today and so little time.  This is especially true in the case of business targets. Remember, they have their day jobs.  I talked to one of my contacts at ON24, the webinar platform company.  He sees what works and doesn’t work in both producing and marketing webinars.  He said one of the better advertising vehicles is to preview the webinar itself when users click on the page. Nothing sells like the real thing.

See you at the movies.

Written by Craig Rosenberg - The Funnelholic
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Tags: b2b Marketing, Business Musings

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