Posted on January 22, 2013 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , 1 Comment »
If you only have one tool…
Whenever I trek into the backcountry, I always have my Leatherman multi-tool (It’s one of my ten essentials).
We all pretty much know what these are: it’s basically a folding knife with a bunch of other handy little items folded into the housing. Mine has a serrated knife, a file, screwdrivers, needlenose pliers, a flint, bottle opener, scissors, and the housing itself is a ruler. It includes a leather sheath with a belt-strap, although I tend to carry it in the pack.
It comes in handy in almost any situation, like when I need to cut up some kindling, rig up a bear bag, or repair a torn backpack. I’ve used it for those things and more. All of these tools separately would weigh a ton, but together they weigh less than a pound. It’s a very effective little device.
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Posted on January 9, 2013 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , 4 Comments »
It’s sort of like watching your little league team get an award at Fenway Park.
For a few minutes, the kids wave, the crowd cheers, and parents beam. Then the pros take the field, the announcer says “wasn’t that nice”, and the people at home see more beer ads.
For several months, the townspeople talk about it in the barber shops, then everything goes back to the way it was.
That’s how I felt reading An Apology to Content Marketers by Shel Israel over at Forbes Magazine. For a few minutes, it felt like content marketing was getting some respect in front of a wider audience.
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Posted on January 7, 2013 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , 2 Comments »
Google. They do everything, don’t they?
They’ve got desktop document tools, a social media site, a video hosting service, a mobile device platform, a creepily in-depth global mapping tool, and will probably deliver the first flying car before long.
Back here on Earth, we’re seeing some incredible advances in learning technology, with online course providers and MOOCs popping up, as well as specialized software for building, delivering, and storing online course materials.
And Google has jammed its colorful thumb deep into that pie, too, with Google Course Builder.
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Posted on December 31, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , No Comments »
Got a New Years’ resolution yet?
We know that most people will plan to “Lose weight”, “Clean the garage”, or “Quit (bad habit here)”.
You can also do something few think of: apply New Years’ resolutions to your workplace. That could mean trying new ideas and new methods, or reaching out to new audiences.
You could also try attacking a key metric in a focused way: “This is the year we double the response on our sales videos”, or “This year I will improve message retention by 30%.”
I say you don’t have to just pick one. Try all of it. Try something new that reaches more people and improves message retention and response rates.
2013 is the year to get on board with this “online presentations” thing.
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Posted on December 10, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , No Comments »
It happens every year. The holiday season.
And if you’re in marketing or HR, that means it’s time to deal with the company’s holiday greeting strategy. Yes, there’s a strategy.
Why is there a strategy? Because everyone differs on how to send holiday greetings in business. There’s:
- “Let’s send a postcard to customers.” – but who’s designing it? And who will approve it, without insulting anyone, before it’s too late to send?
- “How about an email?” – but now you don’t have to send to just customers to keep costs down, but everyone. Now you need multiple messages.
- “Don’t worry about complaints, just blast everyone the same thing.” – but this is outside the best practice guidelines of marketing. Shouldn’t your holiday greeting campaign be as structured as every other?
Well, at KnowledgeVision we tackled one of these holiday campaigns by using a multi-pronged approach. First, by creating an online presentation to appeal to as many people as possible, then sharing it with customers and other groups through different email campaigns, and then by writing a blog post about it and sharing it on social sites (shhh – you’re reading that now).
The result, about a minute long, is called “Happy… from KnowledgeVision”.
You like?
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Posted on December 3, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , 1 Comment »
Tablets are a thing. We know that.
Since Apple launched the iPad just a few years ago, and with Google and Microsoft selling their own tablets, it’s become obvious that the tablet stands to overtake the notebook and the desktop PC.
Witness the experts at events like the Emerging Display Technologies conference this year, where research was released that predicted that tablets will overtake notebooks by 2016. Microsoft is a little more aggressive, saying tablets will beat out PCs next year. Guardian News & Media says it already sees times of the day when mobile visits are higher than desktops.
What about education? Will there be a time when a professor will look across the classroom and see the majority of students tapping along with touchscreen tablets instead of clicking around on notebooks? Will there be a time when the students using tablets on the subway aren’t cramming for the exam they’re heading to, but actually taking the exam right now?
Of course there will. It’s just a matter of time.
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Posted on November 29, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , 4 Comments »
Do you study the craft? No, I don’t mean witchcraft. Though sometimes creating an idea can seem just as mysterious as conjuring a spell.
I mean the craft of storytelling.
When we sell an idea, like a product, or show others how to apply a principle through a training course, we resort to telling a story. Some stories are whiz-bang, like a movie with poor dialogue but brilliant special effects.
Other stories are more focused on character development, witty patter and cleverly-devised situations, but not so much on the explosions.
What they all have in common is a craft.
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Posted on November 27, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , 1 Comment »
Image Courtesy ABC News
As we enter Cyber Week 2012, we know that record numbers of shoppers hit the stores over Thanksgiving weekend. Among the online shopping trends we’ve seen include multi-channel shopping, mobile advertising, and opening times that are earlier than ever.
Social platforms will be a bigger factor than before. 2012 will also be the year that Pinterest really starts to show its worth for driving online purchases, especially with apparel.
Another trend is that stores are pushing for in-store sales, using sales that aren’t available online and by guaranteed price-matching.
But the biggest trend appeared earlier in the year, when 2012 officially became the first year that online clothing purchases, or purchases influenced by the web, surpassed those made in a store. The driving factors in online retail are increased use of mobile devices and tablets, and an increasing emphasis on video. It turns out that 40% of video viewers wind up in the store or on the store’s website.
That’s huge. Do 4 out of ten viewers of television ads drop everything and head for the store? Nope. No way.
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Posted on November 26, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , 1 Comment »
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” – George Orwell
George Orwell wrote that in 1946. And it’s true today. It’s one of those timeless sentiments that can be applied to almost any situation.
Here, it’s used for an innocent purpose; to point out that putting together corporate training courses can seem difficult, but if you simply look around, you’ll find the content you need is, well, in front of your nose.
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Posted on November 19, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , No Comments »
Today we’re talking about content. Specifically, interactive content. The kind you can view online, anytime, any day, and interact with. Here’s an overview of the new white paper from KnowledgeVision called “Interactive 24/7 Content: Why Online Presentations Belong In Every Digital Content Strategy”.
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Posted on November 9, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , No Comments »
Whether you create online courses for a company or a learning institution, you know you’re on the cutting edge.
Massive Open Online Courses, known as MOOCs, aren’t the only options for online training. A lot of tools are easy to get started with, some are free, some are focused on higher education, and all of them are worth a look for corporate training courses as well.
I’ve never seen a total overview of online course options until today, in this infographic from OnlineUniversities.com. It describes the platforms and their features, benefits and costs.
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Posted on November 5, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , No Comments »
It’s the age-old question: Do you want Quality or Quantity?
When marketing delivers a dozen leads from a highly engaging event, it’s usually expected that these people will buy, or at least get into a proposal discussion.
But when marketing hauls in hundreds of leads in a day, we all know what the sales conversion rates will be: Low and lower.
But with content marketing, the funnel is getting a lot wider than it used to be, as more people find your articles and videos and respond to your calls to action. Here’s how to raise the quality of lead even as you raise the number.
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Posted on October 29, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , No Comments »
You’re in ‘The Lull’.
If you produce events for your organization, you know about The Lull. It’s that moment when you thank everyone for watching, and you click the button or shut the door, and it’s finally over.
You just spent several frazzled weeks writing, editing, putting presentation material together, meeting with your content experts, coordinating with other departments and vendors, explaining the material to executives, making sure the room is available, making doubly sure that IT doesn’t plan to swap the computer in the room until afterward.
And now it’s done. The weight is off your shoulders. Soon you’ll be assigning leads to your sales team or gathering training stats for HR. You’ll need to thank anyone who took part, including your attendees. But before all that happens, you get a few moments to take a breath.
That’s The Lull.
Then somebody asks “So when’s the next event?” and The Lull is broken.
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Posted on October 29, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , No Comments »
What’s the best type of content for online marketing? How about for online learning? Or for corporate training?
You can use presentations, webinars, video, white papers, infographics and many other types of content, but is there one single type of content that does it all?
The Best of All Worlds
If you look at the pros and cons of various content types, you’ll notice that there is no tool that gives you immediacy, sharability, searchability and trackability all at once. A completely capable content type would provide all of these attributes and more:
- It would be up-to-date, like a live webinar
- It would be multisensory, like a video
- It would be navigable, like a white paper or e-book
- It would be actionable and trackable, like a landing page
- It would be interactive, like a website
- It would be sharable, like a social update
- It would be deeply engaging, like a video game
- It would be searchable and discoverable, like a blog
- It would be simple to follow, like a slideshow
Here is our infographic showing the primary content types, and how you can tie them all together:
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Posted on October 5, 2012 by Tom Bishop , Posted in Blog , No Comments »
Ever wonder how you can build brand awareness but also track important marketing metrics like cost per lead and conversion rates? Tom Bishop attended the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum and sat in on a session that covered exactly how it can be done. Here is Tom’s KnowledgeVision presentation about the session:
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