Are You The 87.6894%........Reading This?

You may have come across this via our website and therefore taken a look around our past work to see who we have supported and promoted, and probably recognised a few businesses too. If you’ve come across this post another way, of course I encourage you to take a look after!

(I think that is what’s known as a ‘shameless plug’.)

It’s as important to us as any other company to show evidence of our work and therefore prove that our help can develop a business. Once this is underway, we become part of the global research effort into marketing and what the best tools are for this marketing to be maximized.

Video has been on the rise for a few years now, the popularity of it accelerating as fast as the intelligence of technology in everything. I briefly scouted into bodies such as Econsultancy, b2bmarketing, Forrester Research and MarketingProf, who have researched into video marketing, and it’s predicted that by 2017 69% of internet traffic will be video. This further supports our enthusiasm for the Audio/Visual Revolution that seems already pulsating!

But where do statistics such as these belong in the world of business development? Surely it’s our foundation and key proof that, whatever our business is, the product or solution is only getting stronger and more effective. Does that mean it is part of that initial conversation of who you are, why you are and how you are?

I tried to imagine the atmosphere I would create if I incorporated statistics into my first introduction with someone, pretty much immediately:

“Hi, my name’s Gemma, I’m from MWS Media. Did you know 84% of visitors to your website are more likely to buy your product if there is video?”

“Did you know 81% marketers use video for marketing activity?”

“If there’s video on your website then your chances of being first page of Google increases to 53%.”

Now, reading this back there were aspects of these statements that caught my attention and excited me. But I did read them, not hear them from a stranger within 30 seconds of a phone call. Whilst all these statistics support my belief that video works, there’s something a little alien to me about quoting these over the phone to someone I’ve never met.

In my daily life, using statistics tends to be part of a lengthy (and either political or philosophical) discussion with a group of friends in a pub. Any time I hear statistics over the phone by a stranger it somehow deflates my desire to engage with them and therefore pursue their offer. I think it is because it is a colder approach than acknowledging the person on the other end of the phone. There is a place for statistics to act as evidence, but I have to admit I’m not sure it’s here.

On calling someone we don’t directly know, it’s important to reflect the personality of the business as much as the supporting evidence. The general route MWS Media works with is to introduce us with our personality and keen to help attitude, and then follow up this introduction with an email or link on social media that proves our skills and why we’re enthusiastic about the future of video for marketing.

Perhaps the next time you introduce yourself to a stranger when you’re in your business make-up, try to listen to the flow of conversation, be yourself first and don’t try to move away from this too quickly, and hold up your promotional banner when the conversation steers that way.

It’s our personality that makes everyone different, and statistics have a danger to imply collective, cold and one-sided, rather than the human reality that people are really looking for. That’s why I believe the who, why and how you are is a lot better represented in this way, and the facts and figures can be our muscles rather than our faces.