How Video Marketing Led to Brand Differentiation and Revenue Growth for The Fresh Diet, Part 1
- Put a face on the nameless, faceless entity, as there were multiple regional and national diets competing for "share of wallet."
- Show customers and prospects alike that they're real human beings, committed to making a real difference in their lives.
- Build a community of deeply engaged and loyal customers who would "walk through fire" for The Fresh Diet.
2. Use video — and social media — to execute your brand's goals. In order to position itself as being human, The Fresh Diet had to be about fun. Dieting, if you've ever done it, is not fun. However, with the right support, it can be made to be.
The videos we created for The Fresh Diet had to be about fun. They needed to have the customer and prospect forget for a while that they were doing something less than pleasant.
We shot testimonials, but we also created video contests, and even rewarded our customers and prospects with a spoof of the TV show "Undercover Boss."
The Undercover Boss spoof was shot in a day guerilla style. We spent half-a-day shooting (in multiple locations), the other half of the day editing, all with just one high-definition camera and a cameraperson who also was an editor. It was very inexpensive. The video got well over 20,000 views — which was quadruple our customer base at the time — and a ton of positive comments and likes.
Moreover, it successfully conveyed that the actors in the spoof — The Fresh Diet's CEO, customer service manager and head chef (and even myself who was the voice of the brand's social media — were real people who didn't take "the serious business of changing lives" too seriously. Compared to those nameless, faceless diet brands, we BECAME real to customers and prospects. The Fresh Diet's trust level went up … as did its sales.
Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success.
After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth.
Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.
Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.
