Author: Staff Report

Most marketing casts a wide net. Account-Based Marketing does the opposite — it identifies the specific businesses or contacts you most want to work with, and builds everything around reaching them directly. It’s a more focused, more intentional approach, and for the right type of business, it can be significantly more effective than traditional broad-reach strategies.

Why ABM Works

The core advantage of ABM is precision. Instead of creating general messaging and hoping the right people see it, you’re crafting communications specifically for the accounts that matter most to your business. That specificity does a few things well.

First, it makes your outreach more relevant. A message tailored to a specific company’s challenges and goals is far more likely to get a response than something generic. Second, it makes your resources go further. Rather than spreading your budget across a broad audience, you’re concentrating it on the prospects most likely to convert. And third, it tends to close the gap between marketing and sales — because both teams are working toward the same clearly defined targets rather than operating with different ideas of who the ideal customer is.

The result, when done well, is a higher return on investment, stronger client relationships, and a sales process that feels more like a natural conversation than a cold pitch.

The Role of Personalization

One of the things that sets ABM apart is how deeply it leans into personalization. This isn’t just adding someone’s first name to an email — it’s understanding enough about a target account to speak directly to what they care about.

That might mean referencing a challenge common to their industry, acknowledging something specific about their business, or framing your value in terms of outcomes they’re actually working toward. When done well, it signals to the prospect that you’ve done your homework and that you’re not just blasting the same message to a list of thousands. That kind of effort gets noticed — and it builds credibility before a conversation even begins.

How It Works in Practice

ABM starts with identifying your target accounts — the businesses that are the best fit for what you offer. This ties directly to having a well-defined target market. If you know exactly who your ideal client is, building an ABM strategy around them becomes much more straightforward.

From there, the goal is to understand each account well enough to communicate with them meaningfully. What are their challenges? What are they trying to accomplish? What would make them say yes? That insight shapes everything from the content you create to the channels you use to reach them.

The outreach itself can take many forms — personalized emails, targeted content, direct outreach from your sales team, or custom campaigns built around specific accounts. The common thread is that everything is designed with that audience in mind, not a general subscriber list.

ABM also doesn’t stop when a prospect becomes a client. The same personalized, attentive approach that won the business should continue throughout the relationship. Clients who feel understood and valued are the ones who stay, grow, and refer others.

Measuring and Refining

Like any good strategy, ABM improves over time. Because the focus is on a defined set of accounts rather than broad reach, the data tends to be more meaningful and easier to act on. You can track engagement at the account level, identify what’s resonating, and adjust your approach accordingly. It’s a more deliberate feedback loop than traditional marketing — and that deliberateness is a big part of why it works.

Is It Right for You?

ABM tends to work best for B2B businesses with a clearly defined ideal client and a longer sales cycle. If you’re selling to other businesses, have a sense of which companies you’d most like to work with, and want your marketing to feel less like broadcasting and more like a targeted conversation — ABM is worth exploring.

If you’re not sure where to start, the first step is usually the same: get clear on who you’re trying to reach. Everything else builds from there.

Some things are better said in person. Most business owners already know this when it comes to client meetings — there’s a reason a face-to-face conversation closes more deals than an email.

What’s less obvious is that the same principle applies to your marketing, even when you’re not in the room.

That’s what video does. It puts you in the room.

What Changed — and Why It Matters

When social media was new, getting your business in front of people was relatively straightforward. Post some content, use the right keywords, and you could reach a meaningful audience without a lot of effort or investment. Text and images were enough.

That window has closed. Social media feeds are crowded, algorithms have gotten more sophisticated, and audiences have become more selective about what they engage with. A text post about your services isn’t going to stop anyone mid-scroll. People are more resistant to aggressive salesmanship than ever — and they’re good at ignoring content that feels like an ad.

What cuts through is content that feels human. Content that tells a story. Content that gives people a reason to pay attention that goes beyond “here’s what we sell.”

Why Video Works When Other Formats Don’t

Video is inherently engaging in a way that text and static images aren’t. A photo of your team becomes a walkthrough of your facility. A written bio becomes an interview where someone’s personality actually comes through. A list of your services becomes a demonstration of what you do and why you’re good at it.

That shift matters because it changes the relationship between your business and the viewer. Instead of presenting information at someone, you’re inviting them into something. That’s a fundamentally different experience — and it’s one people are far more likely to remember.

There’s also a practical SEO benefit. Google and the major social platforms favor diverse content, and video signals to their algorithms that your site and pages are worth surfacing. Adding video to your website and marketing channels helps you get in front of the audience you’re trying to reach in the first place.

The Hook Your Marketing Is Missing

A well-built website with clear information is valuable. Good copy matters. But none of it does much if you can’t get someone interested enough to engage in the first place. Video is the hook. It’s what gives people a reason to stop, pay attention, and start to feel like they know you before they’ve ever picked up the phone.

It’s personal without being in-person. It tells your story on your terms. And it reaches people at the exact moment they’re deciding whether your business is worth their time.

Think about the brands you recognize instantly — the ones where you know exactly who they are before you read a single word.

That recognition doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of consistent, deliberate decisions about how a brand looks, sounds, and presents itself across every touchpoint. A style guide is what makes that consistency possible.

What a Style Guide Actually Is

A style guide — sometimes called a brand manual or brand guidelines — is a document that defines the rules for how your brand is represented visually and verbally. It covers things like logo usage, color palette, typography, and tone of voice. Think of it as the rulebook that ensures your brand looks and sounds like itself, no matter who is creating the content or where it appears.

For a small business, that might sound like something reserved for bigger companies with larger teams. But the businesses that grow into recognizable brands are usually the ones that started treating their identity seriously early on.

Why It Matters More Than You Might Think

Consistency builds recognition. When your logo, colors, and messaging show up the same way across your website, your printed materials, your signage, and your social channels, people start to recognize you. That recognition builds familiarity, and familiarity builds trust. Without a style guide, even well-intentioned inconsistencies chip away at that over time.

It saves time and prevents mistakes. When everyone working on your brand — whether that’s an internal team member, a freelancer, or an agency — has clear guidelines to follow, there’s less guesswork and fewer revisions. The style guide does the explaining so you don’t have to every time.

It keeps your brand coherent as you grow. As your business adds new services, new team members, or new marketing channels, a style guide gives you a framework to expand without losing the thread of who you are. It’s much easier to adapt within defined guidelines than to course-correct after things have drifted.

It signals professionalism. A brand that looks polished and consistent communicates that you pay attention to detail. That impression extends beyond your marketing — it’s part of how clients and partners assess whether you’re the kind of business they want to work with.

What Goes Into a Style Guide

Every style guide is a little different depending on the business, but most cover the same core elements: logo usage and variations, color palette with specific values, typography choices, imagery guidelines, and tone of voice. Some go deeper into things like iconography, layout principles, and messaging frameworks.

The goal isn’t to create something rigid — it’s to create something useful. A good style guide gives your brand room to breathe and evolve while keeping the core identity intact.

Streaming has officially overtaken cable. More people now watch TV through internet-connected devices than through traditional cable subscriptions, and that shift has changed where and how businesses can reach their audiences.

If you’ve heard the term OTT advertising but aren’t quite sure what it means or whether it applies to your business, here’s a straightforward breakdown.

What OTT Advertising Actually Is

OTT stands for “Over-The-Top” — a reference to content delivered over the internet, bypassing traditional cable and broadcast infrastructure. OTT advertising is simply running ads within that streaming content, whether that’s on a smart TV, a streaming box, a tablet, or a phone.

Think of it as the modern version of a television commercial — but with targeting capabilities that traditional TV advertising never had.

Why It’s Worth Understanding

Traditional TV advertising has always had a fundamental problem for smaller businesses: waste. A commercial on a major network reaches a massive, geographically scattered audience, most of whom will never become your customers. Local cable helped narrow that down, but the options were still limited and the costs often hard to justify.

OTT advertising changes that equation. Because streaming content is delivered through internet-connected devices, advertisers can target audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and even geography. You’re not paying to reach everyone who happens to have the TV on — you’re reaching the specific type of person most likely to be interested in what you offer.

Targeting and Retargeting

One of the more powerful aspects of OTT advertising is how it integrates with other digital tools. By combining streaming ad campaigns with tracking pixels on your website, you can build a clearer picture of your audience and use that data to serve more relevant ads over time.

Retargeting — showing ads to people who have already visited your website or engaged with your content — is particularly effective in this context. Someone who has already expressed interest in your business is far more likely to respond to an ad than a cold audience. OTT makes that possible at the connected TV level, which is a relatively new and underutilized capability for most small businesses.

Measurement and Accountability

One of the longstanding frustrations with traditional TV advertising was the difficulty of measuring results. OTT advertising offers significantly more robust analytics — impression counts, completion rates, click-throughs where applicable, and audience insight data that helps refine future campaigns.

That accountability matters, especially for businesses with limited marketing budgets. Knowing what’s working and what isn’t is essential to making smart decisions about where to invest.

Is It Right for Your Business?

OTT advertising isn’t the right fit for every business — no single channel is. It tends to work best when you have a clear sense of your target audience, a message worth delivering in video format, and a budget that allows for meaningful reach. It’s also most effective as part of a broader strategy rather than a standalone effort.

That said, for businesses that have historically felt priced out of television advertising, OTT has meaningfully lowered the barrier to entry. It’s worth understanding even if you’re not ready to invest in it today.

It’s no secret that growing your customer base in today’s digital landscape is no easy feat. Organic social media isn’t delivering the way it used to. Paid ads generate impressions but not conversions. And we’re all left wondering where to spend our time, money, and resources. Facebook? Instagram? LinkedIn?

We’re wandering around hoping to find prospects, only to discover too late that they aren’t qualified or they’re just kicking the tires. Bounce rates are high, conversions are low, and frustration with budget allocation is at an all-time high.

What we want are ways to fill the top of the funnel with qualified, interested buyers. That’s where video inbound marketing comes in.

What Is Video Inbound Marketing?

You may be familiar with inbound marketing — the practice of directing organic traffic back to your website and landing pages through high-quality content. Blogs, webinars, and video are the primary formats. Video inbound marketing is simply what happens when video assets are attached to an effective inbound strategy.

The results speak for themselves. Inbound marketing consistently delivers significantly more leads than traditional outbound methods — and video leads the charge over email, social media, and blogs when it comes to engagement and conversion.

Why Video?

Google now includes video in search results. That means adding quality video assets to your inbound strategy can meaningfully increase your organic visibility, which leads to more inbound traffic — and because those visitors were already searching for your type of content, they’re far more likely to be qualified when they land on your site.

That’s the difference between chasing prospects and attracting them. First is a nice place to be for brand recognition, lead generation, and building a healthy sales pipeline.

Of course, shooting a quick video on your phone and dropping it on your website isn’t enough. The content needs to be thoughtful and well-produced — not Hollywood-level expensive, but intentional. If you don’t have the skillset to produce quality content, it’s worth bringing in someone who does.

What Videos Should You Make?

If you’re not sure where to start, our post on 4 Must-Have Videos for Filling the Top of Your Funnel is a good place to begin. These are low-hanging fruit — simple, effective, and designed to tell a relevant story to the prospects most likely to become your customers.

One More Thing

Too often, businesses think: “I just need a website so I look credible.” That’s a great start — but take it a step further. How are you integrating your website into your sales process? How are you using it to attract and convert leads? A well-built, functional site combined with a thoughtful video inbound strategy can save time, improve efficiency, and fill your pipeline with people who came to you.

Curious whether video inbound marketing could work for your business? We’d love to talk it through.

Video is one of the most effective tools in a marketing strategy — but “video” isn’t one thing. A testimonial serves a completely different purpose than a product demo, and a recruitment video has nothing in common with a brand overview.

Before you invest in video content, it’s worth understanding what types exist, what each one does well, and where they fit in your overall strategy.

The Sales and Marketing Video

This is the most common type of video for small businesses, and for good reason. A well-produced overview of what you do, who you serve, and why someone should choose you can work across your website, social media, email campaigns, and paid advertising simultaneously.

The key is specificity. A generic “here’s our company” video is less effective than one that speaks directly to a problem your target audience has and positions you as the solution. The more clearly it addresses the viewer’s situation, the more likely it is to convert.

The Testimonial Video

Written reviews are valuable. But there’s something fundamentally more convincing about watching a real person describe their experience with a business on camera. Testimonial videos put a face to the feedback, and that human element carries a level of credibility that text alone can’t replicate.

These work especially well on service pages, landing pages, and in email campaigns targeting prospects who are close to making a decision but haven’t committed yet.

The B-Roll and Brand Video

B-roll is the supporting footage that gives your other videos context — shots of your team at work, your facility, your equipment, your process. On its own, it’s not a complete video. But woven into other content, it transforms a talking-head interview into something dynamic and visually interesting.

A brand video uses this kind of footage to tell a broader story — not just what you do, but how you do it and what kind of company you are. These are particularly effective for businesses where trust and culture matter to the buying decision.

The Explainer or How-To Video

If your product or service requires some explanation, a short explainer video can do a lot of heavy lifting. These are designed to educate rather than sell — breaking down a process, answering a common question, or demonstrating how something works.

Explainers and how-to videos also tend to perform well in search. Google frequently surfaces video content in results for instructional queries, so a well-tagged, well-titled explainer can drive organic traffic in addition to supporting your existing audience.

The Recruitment Video

Hiring is one of the most underrated use cases for video. A short, authentic look at your company culture — your team, your environment, what it’s actually like to work there — can be more persuasive to a quality candidate than any job description.

Most businesses spend significant resources on recruiting but almost nothing on helping candidates understand who they are before they apply. A recruitment video fills that gap and tends to attract candidates who are genuinely a good fit.

The Training Video

For businesses with repeated onboarding or training needs, a library of well-produced training videos can save significant time and ensure consistency. New hires get the same information delivered the same way every time, and your team isn’t pulled away from other work to cover the same ground repeatedly.

Which Type Is Right for You?

The answer depends on where you are in your business and what you’re trying to accomplish. A newer business building brand awareness has different needs than an established company trying to improve its hiring process or support a new product launch.

Most businesses benefit from starting with a core sales or brand video and building from there. The important thing is having a clear goal before the camera rolls — because the most technically polished video in the world won’t perform if it isn’t built around a specific purpose.

Not sure which type of video makes sense for your business right now? We’d be happy to talk it through.

If your Instagram engagement has felt inconsistent lately, you’re not imagining it. Instagram has made a number of changes to its algorithm and content filters that have affected how posts are distributed — and many businesses have felt the impact. Here’s what’s going on and what you can do about it.

Algorithm and Content Filter Changes

Instagram uses a combination of algorithms, classifiers, and processes to determine what content gets shown to users and when. These systems are constantly evolving, and they don’t always work in a business’s favor.

One notable change is the “limited sensitive content filter,” which restricts the visibility of posts Instagram deems inappropriate. Affected content won’t appear in followers’ feeds — it will only be visible on the posting account’s own profile.

Your Feed Looks Different — And So Does Everyone Else’s

Instagram has also moved away from a strictly chronological feed. Posts no longer appear in the order they were published, which means your content might be seen minutes, hours, or even days after it goes live — or not at all, depending on how the algorithm weighs it.

What Determines Whether Your Posts Get Seen

Five key interactions influence how Instagram ranks and distributes your content: likes, time spent viewing, comments, saves, and profile visits. The more of these your posts generate, the more likely they are to appear in your followers’ feeds. If engagement is low across these categories, your overall reach tends to suffer.

Importantly, how you interact with others affects how they interact with you. Accounts that regularly engage with their followers’ content tend to see better distribution of their own posts in return.

What You Can Do

A few practical steps that can help:

• Turn off the “limited sensitive content filter” in your settings if it’s enabled
• Post consistently and keep your content focused
• Use relevant hashtags — research what’s performing in your niche
• Engage with your audience by liking, commenting on, and responding to their content
• Stay current with new Instagram features, which the algorithm tends to reward
• Use Instagram’s built-in analytics to understand what’s working and adjust accordingly

Have questions about your social media strategy? We’d love to help.