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Small Business Social Media Video Marketing

6 Ways to Use Video in Your Email Marketing

An illustration of a video player within a website in front of a teal background.
An illustration of a video player within a website in front of a teal background.

6 Ways to Use Video in Your Email Marketing

by Jassica Mendez

Email marketing is indisputably effective; in fact, you’d rarely find a digital marketer who can’t attest to its potential. From relative ease of production to massive Return on Investment (ROI), it’s among the best ways to market a business. However, not all email campaigns are equal; some succeed, generating leads and converting them, and others fail. So, should you be looking to refine yours, you may consider another powerful marketing asset; video. In this article, we’ll delve into 6 ways to use video in your email marketing effectively and, more importantly, smartly.

Laying the groundwork for effective video email marketing

But first, let us quickly establish a healthy foundation for email marketing. Incorporating video into any given campaign will only go so far without one, so let’s start with the fundamentals.

#1 Automating your email campaigns with CRM

First, should you be using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, it can offer tremendous assistance. 

Initially, customer segmentation and lead management tools, in tandem with interaction records, can offer insights to personalize your campaigns – as we’ll discuss below. Then, and perhaps most crucially, you may use CRM to support your campaigns through its marketing automation features. There are many types of emails you should automate with CRM, such as:

  • Welcome emails
  • Lead nurturing emails
  • Seasonal offers, promotions, and other customer retention emails

For the sake of text economy, we won’t delve deeper into these types here; the article linked covers them extensively.

#2 Personalizing your emails through customer insights

Then, you may use an array of tools to personalize your emails through customer insights. In this regard, consider such tools as:

  • CRM
  • Heatmaps
  • Google Analytics
  • Social media analytics tools
  • Other third-party analytics tools

In addition, consider such avenues for customer feedback as social media comments, reviews, surveys, and so forth. You may combine these with keyword research insights should you be engaging in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for maximum effect. In conjunction, personalizing your entire customer journey, from emails to landing pages, should offer a great User Experience (UX) and alleviate the confusion that might deter customers.

#3 Setting up landing pages – with video

Finally, having touched on landing pages and SEO, you may use video in your email marketing through your website. Chances are you’re already using landing pages for different stages of your sales funnel – and email campaigns can leverage them. Wordstream argues that it is an excellent use of both, citing an example from Scorpion Legal Marketing: 

A page featuring a man in a suit that reads “legal marketing with proven results”.
A page featuring a man in a suit that reads “legal marketing with proven results”.

In this example, emails direct recipients to the above landing page. There, they’re greeted by a video, as well as 2 Calls to Action (CTAs). This, they argue, is an effective way to “push [leads] further down the sales funnel.”

Using video in your email marketing – is it worth it?

Now, you may rightfully already be using video to promote your business on social media. That’s indeed demonstrably effective, as visual content does communicate information faster and captivate more audiences. However,  can the same principles translate into emails? Put differently, is using video in your email marketing worth the trouble?

Wyzowl’s Adam Hayes, writing for HubSpot, argues that yes – and he has the data to prove it.

An infographic on the question “does your business use video as a marketing tool?”
An infographic on the question “does your business use video as a marketing tool?”

 

Alt-tag: An infographic on the question “does your business use video as a marketing tool?”

Marketer perceptions aside, he also cites three tangible, key metrics, among others:

  • “87% of video marketers reported that video gives them a positive ROI.”
  • “84% of video marketers say video has been effective for generating leads.”
  • “78% [of video marketers] report that video marketing has improved their company’s bottom line.”

Thus, we may safely argue that video marketing is definitely worth your time and effort.

6 ways to use video in your email marketing

That said, however, the question remains; how can you use video in your email marketing, specifically? In no particular order, here are 6 ways to do so.

#1 Don’t embed it

Starting with the fundamentals, it should be noted that most major email clients don’t support video playback within emails. This includes, notably:

  • Gmail
  • Yahoo!
  • Outlook

Thus, embedding videos is out of the question. However, you may circumvent this restriction quite easily. The process is simple:

  1. Grab a screenshot of your video player
  2. Embed it in your emails
  3. Use the image as a link to your video

The benefit of this approach is twofold; one, you’re alluring leads into viewing your video through the screenshot. Two, you can then use the email body to add valuable text to frame it.

Finally, as showcased above, you may use this approach to direct your leads to your landing pages. This way, you won’t be directing them to YouTube, for example, but to where they may more likely convert.

#2 Retarget leads 

Another way to use video in your email marketing is to have video inform your email copy. How? Consider Adobe’s Marketo, for example; you may use it to reach out to visitors who view your videos. This way, you may use email marketing for retargeting leads and getting them back into your sales funnel.

This practice takes the aforementioned foundation into account. If your website analytics reveal visitors who watch videos and leave without finishing them, Marketo can address this. It does so by automatically sending these visitors an email, reminding them to finish watching. Should you be using CRM, you may replicate this tactic for existing customers yourself, taking additional insights into account.

Finally, this tactic is also remarkably effective as regards engagement. Vidyard notes that this kind of email personalization yielded a 144% increase in Click-Through Rates (CTR) in the linked article. That’s certainly impressive and quite effortless at that.

#3 Upsell to existing customers

Next, you may use video to upsell existing customers in your email marketing, benefitting your revenue. This tactic does primarily work for existing customers, however. Citing Marketing Metrics, OptinMonster says:

“The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%.”

A graph on the probability of selling to new prospects versus existing customers.
A graph on the probability of selling to new prospects versus existing customers.

Still, this practice should warrant your consideration, as much of any business’s revenue comes from existing customers. Yes, it does not generate leads as email campaigns might often do, but it does offer substantive benefits.

Be that as it may, why does adding video to such emails help upsell? The primary reasons are:

  • Recipients are more likely to open your emails
  • Visual content makes emails more engaging and enhances CTR

What’s more, through CRM’s lead segmentation, you may further enhance your chances of success, reaching out to qualified leads. Similarly, you may even consult customers’ purchase histories for more accurate product recommendations – and successful upsells.

#4 Enrich your newsletter

Another excellent way to use video in your email marketing is to enrich your newsletter through it. There is an absolute slew of ways to do so, so let us highlight some notable examples:

  • Product announcements. Plain text can certainly suffice for product announcements, but video can elevate them to the next level. Consider how much more creative freedom you have with videos and how engaging they are compared to plain texts.
  • Company culture. If you’re using videos to showcase your company culture, such as through employee stories, they may fit your newsletter perfectly. You may even use this opportunity to drive traffic to your YouTube account, Facebook profile, or wherever you host them.
  • Industry round-ups. Finally, you may not produce many videos yourself – or any at all. Even then, you may use popular videos within your industry as part of round-ups. Then, you may use the email body to add your thoughts or even dedicate blog posts to them, which can amount to landing pages themselves.

#5 Market your events

Similarly, you may be using emails to market your events. This tried-and-tested practice has demonstrable merit, whether you’re organizing local, in-person, or digital events. And of course, adding video to such emails can only make them more effective.

To do so, consider the two main types of video you can use to complement your event emails:

  • Past event footage and recaps. Few pieces of content can allure potential attendees as effectively as these types of videos. What’s more, such videos have meager production costs.
  • Promotional videos. These traditional videos do require more resources, but they, too, are decidedly effective. Treat these as you would any other promotional video, and let them entice attendees, new and old.

In both cases, combining the power of visual content with the reach of email should benefit your events immensely.

#6 Promote customer stories

Finally, you’re likely well aware of the power of customer stories. This type of social proof is nigh irreplaceable, and it’s why customer reviews are invaluable. People trust their peers, and a shared positive experience can inspire confidence in your product, event, or brand itself. So, why not use video in your email marketing to leverage customer stories?

The most notable example of this practice in action is case studies and endorsements by others within your industry. Consider, for instance, a happy customer that’s within your niche and has been helped by your product or service. Turning such a story into a video would surely not be easy, but it would be undeniably effective. That’s not just because of the aforementioned benefits of the video itself, but also because these videos humanize your brand. They’re another person’s living testament to your proposition’s value – one your emails can promote to significant effect.

Conclusion

To summarize, both email marketing and video marketing remain undeniably effective marketing strategies. In turn, if you use video in your email marketing you could get increased effectiveness. While there is a vast array of options to do so, hopefully, the six ways outlined here should serve as a good starting point on your way to video email marketing success.

Meta description: Discover 6 ways to use video in your email marketing, from retargeting leads and enriching your newsletter to promoting customer stories.

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Small Business

Tech Trends of 2021

Flat lay fashion feminine home office workspace with succulent, cup of coffee, blank paper clipboard, pen and clips. Top view. copy space. Mockup concept

by Steve Peter
Small business owners need to know the Tech Trends of 2021 to keep up with the current market and beyond.

As a local Phoenix video marketing company, Financial Potion, we’ve shown you at length what types of video can help your small business grow and thrive, and how you can get there with our expert help. Video itself, however, comes in many different forms, from long to short, from educational to purely fun, and from viral to almost completely unseen – depending on the platform that it lives on and who uses that platform for what. For instance, YouTube is clearly the most watched video upload service in our new technological ecosystem, but there are literally billions of videos uploaded there that have zero (0) views. So where’s the best place for your small business to upload your video – well, it depends on what’s in the video and what you’re looking to achieve with it.

A video that’s more straightforward, that simply highlights your business and perhaps a few aspects of it, can either be short or long, depending on how much needs to be explained. A good general rule is the shorter the better, after all, how much do you enjoy sitting through longer videos that don’t keep your interest? If your video can be a minute in length or less, a great place to upload it would be to YouTube and use their new feature #Shorts. #Shorts, is a new service that highlights and promotes videos less than a minute in runtime. YouTube has largely modeled this format on TikTok, a platform where going viral is almost always the goal. YouTube is a more generalized website to find videos of all sorts, but TikTok is definitely more of a youthful platform that moves very quickly and can be off-putting to those not familiar with current trends in the internet. This is not to say that just because one may not be at the forefront of trendiness, that it isn’t a good idea to post on TikTok – it’s always a good idea to post your videos everywhere that you can, to make sure that no matter what platform an individual uses, they’ll have access to information about your business.

Another useful place to post those shorter videos is Reels, which is a feature on both Twitter and Instagram – in addition to a ‘regular’ post on either of these services, Reels are designed to focus on shorter videos, and come with the added bonus of being able to easily use filters, stickers, colorful text and more to spruce up your video – these ‘additions’ to videos like text and .gifs are almost standard on social media platforms like these, and can help to get your businesses message across in a much easier and often more fun way than just the video itself.

The key to these types of videos is their length, being one minute or less keeps the information you’re putting across more bite-sized, and once people see it (and hopefully remember it) they can move on with their day. A different way to approach video marketing would be to create longer videos – half an hour, to an hour plus that really delve into specific content – perhaps things that people need to know about your business that you can’t boil down to a quick message. Zoom or podcast style interviews or conversations work wonderfully to reach deep into specific topics and can give listeners and watchers real insight into every aspect of your business, and maybe allow for recommendations or testimonials that show very specifically what your business can do for your customers. TikTok, of course, is not a great place for these types of videos but YouTube, or even hosting a video on your business’ website itself, can really grab viewers/listeners and give them a greater understanding of you and your business, and what it can do for them.

One Pro Tip that remains the same for each and every one of these videos, be they long or short, one one platform or another, which is to make sure to use captions in each and every video. They can look however you want them to – large or smaller, different colors, fonts etc. – as long as people can read along with the video that they’re watching you’re doing the right thing. Captions are not just for hearing impaired people, although they of course need these captions in order to get the full picture of the video, but people who aren’t impaired also use these captions. Think, for instance, of your usage of social media: do you stop and watch every video and turn up the volume to pay full attention each and every time there’s a video on your timeline ? No, of course not – your eye has to be “caught” so to speak, by a video – and here’s where closed captions can really help catch eyes as well as ears when viewing videos. There are also times when viewers are unable to listen to videos – maybe they’re at work, or in a public place where volume is frowned upon, but reading along to good CCs is just one more way for prospective customers to get the information you want them to have.

Lastly, as we like to do, we look to the future to surmise what might be next in the wide world of video that will help you and your business be the best all around. AR, or augmented reality, and various other similar tech like VR (virtual reality) and 3D (which has been around in various forms for more than 60 years) are being worked into different videos and advertising on various platforms to differing effects. If your business is a highly visual one (i.e architecture, or artwork) AR and VR can take your advertising via video to a whole new level – picture being able to show off 360 degrees of a new building with added notation and imagery that users can click on to learn more, or engaging with customers and their smartphones by showing off special ads that move and talk (with an AR assist) once people are in-store at your place of business.

Technology these days seems truly limitless, and video is currently the easiest way to engage with potential customers across the board, especially with smartphones in our lives the way that they currently are. Contact us today by visiting our website at www.FinancialPotion.com to learn more about how we can help you integrate the cutting edge of video into your business plan, and the many different ways in which we assist business owners of all types to grow their business organically !

Categories
Small Business Uncategorized

How to Build a Unique Marketing Strategy For Your Small Business

Small Business Planning

by: Mattie Sims

Are you looking for ways to create a killer marketing strategy? For small business owners and entrepreneurs, it can be tough knowing how to make your strategy as powerful as possible.
To ease the pressure, here’s a step-by-step guide of five items to show you how to create a marketing strategy that’s unique to your business:

1. Determine your goals

Before implementing a new marketing strategy, it’s vital to make a plan that includes an overview of the resources you have available and the actions you will take. 

Your plan should identify your budget and goals and how to plan to achieve the objectives you have set. This should be aligned with your larger business goals. 

2. Create buyer personas

The next step is to create buyer personas. This will help you massively – by defining the audience, you are targeting, marketing to them will become much easier. 

A buyer persona is a detailed breakdown of your ideal customer. It should include their demographics, like age, gender, and location, as well as psychographics, which includes their interests, hobbies, personality traits, and pain points. 

You can also create multiple personas if you’re targeting different groups. This allows you to create more personalized campaigns tailored to each group. 

3. Choose the right tools

Once you’ve identified your target audience and goals, having the right tools should be the next action on your to-do list. 

Online software can save you a load of time and streamline your marketing efforts. Even if you’re short of time and money, you can still build an amazing campaign. 

Some of the best tools include: 

Trello

Trello is a communication tool that’s ideal for small business owners. You can keep track of projects and create different boards for different campaigns or goals. 

SEMRush 

SEO is hugely important in marketing. How your website ranks will directly affect how many customers you reach. 

SEMRush is a tool that can improve your SEO ranking and has features like keyword search, audits, tracking daily rankings, and more. 

BusinessCards

If you attend a lot of networking events, you will need professional business cards. This tool provides free templates so you can create business cards that stand out. 

BuzzSumo 

For improving your overall strategy, BuzzSumo is a tool that has features to manage your content, videos, and data management. This can really boost your marketing efforts.

4. Plan your campaigns

Now you know what you’re aiming for, you need to plan out your campaigns. You can do this using both paid and organic options. 

Paid ads can work quickly and boost your exposure. Plus, they are usually very cost-effective. All the major platforms – including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn – provide this option. 

Additionally, you can use organic methods, like creating blog posts, infographics, videos, ebooks, images, and other types of content to reach more customers. 

Remember, the more shares, tweets, and comments you get, the larger the exposure. This also increases engagement, as it starts conversations with potential customers. 

The first step is to decide which types of content to focus on. This should be in line with your marketing and larger business goals. For example, if you want to get more people to attend an event, updating your CTAs should be a priority. 

You will also need to consider your buyer persona. This will impact the techniques you use, as one group might prefer blog posts, while another might respond better to videos or images. 

The strategy you adopt should be unique to your business. When planning, you should remember your goals and brand vision to make the most of your marketing efforts.

 

5. Consider using video

It’s statistically proven that people retain more information given in a video than what they read or hear. Social Media algorithms prefer video posts and some platforms such as YouTube and Tik Tok are strictly video based. Financial Potion can provide training to teach you how to produce videos on your own or can produce videos for you from thought to distribution.

 

Use these five tips to have a more successful business.

Categories
Small Business

Tech Investments That Pay Big Dividends

Small Business Tech Meeting
Small business meeting reviewing tech options.

by: Cody McBride

When you are launching a small business, you are accounting for every penny you invest, making decisions about what qualifies as “key” expenditures to ensure you start on a financially solvent footing. For some startups, tech investments can feel a bit out of reach or even “nonessential” in the early days. However, it is wise to consider the ramifications of not having something like internet security, or a website to drive traffic to your business. While you will save money in the short-term, it could cost a lot more to reverse direction in the long run. Financial Potion presents a guide to helping business owners decide what types of tech they should invest in.

What Falls Under the Tech Umbrella

Technology is a wide-ranging term, especially since tech is built into so many elements of our personal and professional lives. Realistically, both a high-end coffee maker and a full-scale cybersecurity system fall into the “tech” category.

Start with the basic “must-haves.” You and your employees will all need, at minimum, smartphones, computers (desktop or laptop), high-speed internet connection, and basic computer software, like word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation programs. You will also need project management and tracking software, company email, and an engaging and professional website with features specific to your line of business. Other optional, but very helpful and affordable types of tech include printers, scanners, a company intranet, or an automated email marketing distribution system.

The software packages and services available for small businesses also allow you to automate different parts of your day-to-day operation. For example, there are small biz software apps that can help you tackle things like payroll. Not only can these apps run payroll for you automatically, but many also provide employees with same-day direct deposit. All this tech-related automation means you can focus your energy on other aspects of your business that require attention.

Cyber Technology

Cyber technology falls into the category of tech that, while somewhat pricey, is essential – consider what would happen if a hacker got into your network and the type of problems it would create. Think of lost or compromised data, leakage of sensitive client info, or your proprietary corporate intellectual property. As many as half of all small and medium-sized businesses have experienced a cyber threat. Not only is cybersecurity a necessity from a financial standpoint, but from a reputational one as well. When you invest in cybersecurity, concurrently teach staffers best practices on how company equipment is used, how data is stored and shared, and how to ensure they are protecting the company and its clients from data breaches.

Industry-Specific Tech

Depending on the type of industry you’re in, there are other worthwhile tech investments that will keep you organized, help you save time and money, and, according to BizTech, can help improve the customer experience. For example, if you are a distribution company, inventory management and order tracking software packages are helpful. If you’re located in a remote or higher-crime area, high-tech security cameras are a necessity. Online retailers benefit from shopping cart features, automated returns, and digitized customer service bots. Companies with high call rates might find they save human time by utilizing a responsive high-tech phone system that allows for call routing, information processing, and telephone transactions.

It can be hard to justify expenses when you’re operating on a shoestring budget, but consider this: investments that save you time and money, protect your business from cybercriminals, make you look professional, and help drive traffic to your business, will all be profitable investments.

Tech Investments Can Pay Big Dividends

You don’t need to invest in everything at once however making a priority list can help you plan for your future. In terms of marketing, always look to video first as a medium.

Financial Potion offers high-quality video marketing solutions for businesses. We can help you reach customers in a more effective way. To learn more about our services, call (480) 999-5511 or text (240) 422-4154.

Photo by Pixabay

Categories
Small Business

7 Tips to Effortlessly Promote Your Business on Social Media

Social Media for Businesses
Social media post with comments in a browser window, a user is pressing the like button: social networks and community concept, collage and paper cut composition

7 Tips to Effortlessly Promote Your Business on Social Media

by Benjamin Gonzales

If you’re not promoting your business using social media, you’re doing it wrong. The number of people using some form of social media is already enormous, and there are more people being added every day. This equals plenty of potential customers for every business, no matter what you do. However, it’s easy to spin your wheels on social media, not gaining traction even though you’re posting content regularly. If that describes your marketing plan, here are a few tips on how to promote your business effortlessly using social media. 

1. Focus on User Experience

If you want people to enjoy your social media activity, you have to make it easy for them to use and understand. Do you want your audience to sign up for your email newsletter? Put in an easy link to do so. Have a link you want them to click? Put it in front and center instead of burying it in your “about” section.

2. Maintain Consistency

Keeping consistency across social media is important because it builds brand recognition. For instance, if you don’t use the same logo across social media accounts, your audience may not realize it’s the same company. Create a professional logo for free here, and use it on all your marketing material. If you have a particular tone and voice, you use in company communications, keep it in your social media posts as well.

3. Use Graphics When Possible

Humans are visual creatures, so using graphics, video, or pictures is often preferable to a long-form word post, at least when it comes to social media. Using catchy graphics can get more attention on your posts and your company.

4. Consider a Social Media Management App

If you’re managing multiple profiles on several different platforms, that can get confusing quickly. Instead, check out a site like Buffer, which can schedule posts, analyze their performance, and give insights to your audience, all of which lets you spend more time running your business.

5. Use Social Media Monitoring

In order to engage negative reviews or comments quickly (and let’s face it, you’ll probably meet a few if you’re on social media), you should consider using a social media monitoring service like Awario, which can listen for keywords like your brand name. When it sees them on a social media platform, it will give you a notification so you can quickly react. And if your brand sees a positive trend, you can capitalize almost instantly.

6. Link to Outside Sources

Your social media marketing shouldn’t be entirely self-promotional. It can get tiring seeing constant ads from a brand, and many people will stop following you. Instead, find a variety of content you can link to which delivers some value to your audience. If your potential customers are constantly getting informative or entertaining content from you from many sources, they’ll be more likely to continue following you.

7. Focus on Delivering Value

While many people end up making purchases based on something they’ve seen on social media, it’s nRot the entire reason they’re scrolling. Your business’s profile should focus on creating value for your audience, not selling them something. If you’re in the gardening industry, sharing content that helps your customers learn more about gardening delivers value. If you’re a daycare, sharing content that encourages or inspires parents delivers value. Focusing on value builds brand loyalty by helping people trust that you’re an expert in the field and you’re interested in making sure they get what they need to thrive.

Don’t look at social media as something you have to do as a business. Instead, look at it as a vast opportunity for growth, and focus on following these tips to make your self-promotion simple and less time-consuming. 

Categories
Small Business

8 Web Hosting Considerations For Small Businesses

Every Business Needs A Web Site

Anyone new to business knows they need a web site. What is one consideration a small business should take when selecting a website hosting service?
To help select a website hosting service for your small business, we asked tech experts and small business owners this question for their best advice. From customer service to load time per page, there are several things you may want to take into consideration to help you in selecting the right website hosting service for your business.

Here are eight things small businesses should consider when selecting a website hosting service:

Start With The Fundamentals
Research Customer Reviews
Allocate A Budget
Think About Security
Avoid Cheap Services
Understand Your Core Business Needs
Look For 24/7 Tech Support
Consider Load Time Per Page

Start With The Fundamentals

The most important thing to consider in selecting the best web host is determining your website’s requirements. Consider things like “what kind of website am I building?” “Do I want to use WordPress?” and “How much traffic do I expect?” These questions can seem naive, but they are critical, and the more precise you can be, the easier it will be to select the best hosting company for the job. If you want to use WordPress, consider using a WordPress hosting service that is controlled. Are you setting up an online store? Look for e-commerce-specific hosting providers.

Sylvia Kang, Mira

Research Customer Reviews

Before selecting a hosting service, I would do some research on their customer service! There are a lot of different hosting providers out there that offer different levels of technical support that can make a huge difference down the road when you need to make updates or redesigns. The better the support, the smoother the journey!

Dale Gillespie, Tic Watches

Allocate A Budget

One consideration a small business should take is the price. Look at your business’ budget and calculate how much money you can allot towards picking a website hosting service. Whether you are looking at a top of the line website hosting service or one that is more simplistic, consider how much money you want to spend. Sometimes it is okay to go with the one that is a bit more expensive because they may offer the features you need for your website. However, always keep in mind what your budget is.

Peter Babichenko, Sahara Case

Think About Security

The worst feeling in the world for a small business is to have their website hacked. All of a sudden there’s a foreign language coming up in your branded search results, and patching the vulnerabilities becomes a nightmare. When considering hosting solutions, think about the security the company offers. For example, WPEngine has excellent customer support and may be able to help detect vulnerabilities with your website before an attack happens — or may be able to help you fix the hack after the fact. Other hosting companies may not do this for you, and will push the responsibility on to their customers to fix. Small businesses should think about how their website hosting company plays a part in the event of a cyber attack, and should make hosting decisions based on their internal technical abilities.

Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

Avoid Cheap Services

As a small business, picking website hosting isn’t easy. There are literally hundreds of hosting services—often very comparable in their offerings. The competition in the hosting market is strong. Often the quality suffers, especially when it comes to cheap WordPress hosting. This leaves the question: do you actually still need WordPress hosting? Services such as WIX and Carrd.co are offering very cheap website builders without the pain of hosting the website yourself. Just sign in and start putting the site together in your browser. Once you are done, click save and publish.

Peter Thaleikis, Bring Your Own Ideas Ltd.

Understand Your Core Business Needs

I build a lot of websites for clients and the main things I consider before making a service recommendation are: 1) How does the company intend to make money? (i.e., are they selling a product or service?), 2) Is the product or service a known commodity or something new? (i.e., how much information will a customer need to understand what the business is selling), and 3) Does the company have any specific needs that can be solved by selecting a specific web service over another? By looking at all of these considerations together, I can start to identify what providers will best serve the company’s needs. The key for me is to first understand what website features are a priority for the client and then to marry those needs with the service that has the best integrated tools to support them.

Amy Zwagerman, The Launch Box

Look For 24/7 Tech Support

When you’re having a website emergency, you don’t have time to spare finding a trustworthy and affordable web developer. If your web host offers free tech support 24/7 via phone or live chat, it can be a lifesaver in these kinds of situations. Some hosts also provide additional web support services for free (or for a low fee), such as SSL certificate installation or custom website themes.

Chloe Brittain, Opal Transcription Services

Consider Load Time Per Page

One factor to consider when choosing a hosting service for your site is the load time per page. In an age where users scroll through content rapidly, any delays in their shopping time can affect their whole experience and be a detractor for them to complete a purchase, return for more, or refer a friend. The slower your web pages load, the more frustrated the visitor gets. I have found that to be the issue while shopping on other sites, which has dissuaded me from returning. Therefore, when we set up our site, we decided to choose a host that would provide optimal service in that regard.

Katie Lyon, Allegiance Flag Supply

Use Video

It’s proven that visitors will stay on a website three times longer if there is a video on the home page and they are twice as likely to buy from you. Start building trust the moment people enter your site through customized video marketing solutions. It’s important that you show your own face in videos and don’t just rely on b-roll and animation. If at the end of the day people will do business with you, it’s important they hear and see you.  Get videos produced for you by Financial Potion. 

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.

Categories
Small Business

7 Industry Specialization Tips For Businesses To Increase Revenue

Leaders who help businesses increase revenue.
7 Industry Leading Specialists to help businesses increase revenue.

Going a Business

What is one tip on how a company can narrow down their industry specialization?
To help your company narrow down their industry specialization, we asked business leaders and management experts this question for their best advice. From defining your target audience to using growth metrics, there are several things your company can do to narrow down its industry specialization.

Here are seven ways your company narrow down its industry specialization:

Find What You Do Best
Define Your Target Audience
Focus on Markets That Lead to Referrals
Find Your Customer’s Pain Points
Listen to Your Customers
Tighten Your Niche With Google Analytics
Specialize Using Growth Metrics

Find What You Do Best

I do not believe there is a one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as it is very much based on your industry. With that said, I would say that any successful business has made it because they are simply the best at what they do. When evaluating your offerings, you need to be unbiased and ask yourself, “Are we really the best at this?” If the answer is no, you either need to cut it out of your offerings or find a way to improve so you can truly specialize in it.

Carey Wilbur, Charter Capital

Define Your Target Audience

By narrowing your focus, you can minimize overhead and maximize your profit margins. To gain a competitive advantage, most companies either specialize in differentiated product offerings or focus on lowering costs to sell more in bulk. Depending on your brand, either option can work for you, but specialization can give you an advantage by tapping into newer untouched markets.

To be successful at this, you must focus on providing value to your defined target audience. One of the best ways to define your audience is by doing market research to create the right buyer personas to guide your decisions on the right product, price, place, and promotion.

Rronniba Pemberton, Markitors

Focus on Markets That Lead to Referrals

When I started my transcription service, I took on all kinds of projects. In the transcription industry, there are lots of potential markets – media, entertainment, academia, legal, business, medical, and so on. After completing a number of projects in various industries and tracking my referral business by market, I discovered that some markets are clear-cut winners when it comes to client referrals. Instead of being a jack of all trades, I’ve shifted my focus to generating leads in one or two top referral-friendly markets because those clients bring in more business over the long term.

Chloe Brittain, Opal Transcription Services

Find Your Customer’s Pain Points

Every business needs to do a deep dive into what their customers need and what their problems are. It’s only when you talk to people or do a survey that you can identify what people really want. By gathering data, it becomes clearer the kind of niche a business needs to get into.

Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

Listen to Your Customers

Paying close attention to your customers is imperative in a number of ways, including when narrowing down your industry specialization. If you deal in e-commerce, what products do they purchase? Which ones do they only view? When you do your research and find answers to these questions in the data that you uncover, you can quickly see a pattern. Use this pattern to point at your areas of expertise, popularity, and relevance. Additionally, stay active on your social media platforms, and read — and respond to — your customer reviews. What you find here will also help you center in on a specialization.

Travis Killian, Everlasting Comfort

Tighten Your Niche With Google Analytics

You need a focused niche, or your readers and customers will be confused. Use Google Analytics to narrow your niche. Go to Analytics.Google.com and then to Audience Demographics. You will see information to help you focus. For instance, you’ll see the primary gender and interests of your readers. Use this knowledge to help you narrow your product development.

Janice Wald, Mostly Blogging Academy

Specialize Using Growth Metrics

When consumers go to our website, they immediately see the live feed of user-generated content based on the brand and products they are searching for. Although our brand is in the beauty industry, we are a technology company with a video platform. When a company is launching, they should figure out what aspects of their business to focus on. For example, e-commerce may be a long-term goal when a company reaches a certain growth metric. Once we reached a subscriber metric in monthly user-generated content and subscription rate, we were able to partner with popular brands for an e-commerce aspect of our business with special offers.

Savannah Scott, Supergreat

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.

Learn how Financial Potion can help you grow your business through video marketing. 

Categories
Small Business

A Small Business Owner’s Guide to Recruiting Immigrants

If you’re running a small business, immigrants can bring unique skills to your team. As Ford Murray Law explains, an international workforce offers diverse benefits, from foreign language knowledge to innovative perspectives.

Given the advantages, it should come as no surprise that many small businesses rely on immigrant workers. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, immigrant workers play a significant role in driving small business growth.

Ready to reap the rewards of a diverse team? Read on to find out how to recruit immigrants.

Understand the legal implications of hiring immigrants.

Before going ahead, make sure you understand the legal implications of hiring immigrants. You will have to do a little extra legwork to ensure you are abiding by state and federal regulations when hiring non-U.S. workers.

NOLO explains that you should only hire people with work authorization. In addition to U.S. citizens, legal workers include non-citizen nationals, aliens with work authorization, and lawful permanent residents. You will have to ask for relevant papers before hiring.

Create a diversity-friendly culture, starting with your recruitment process.

If you want to attract immigrant workers, you have to create a workplace that values diversity. You can’t expect immigrants to want to join your team if they’re feeling excluded or overlooked.

 

A demonstrated acceptance of immigrants starts with the recruitment process. For example, you should add a “diversity and inclusion” statement to your job ad. OnGig offers a list of ten examples to inspire you.

 

You might also include an introductory video emphasizing your commitment to diversity and featuring testimonials from your international team. A video marketing production company like Financial Potion can help you create the material you need.

 

Here are some other tips for creating a workplace that welcomes diversity:

 

  • Celebrate international holidays, asking employees to share their traditional customs
  • Exchange international recipes, so team members can get to know one another’s favorite dishes from home
  • Arrange a language exchange marketplace, giving workers opportunities to bond while learning another language

Look to remote workers to diversify your team.

Modern advances in technology make it easier than ever to collaborate across distances. You can also hire remotely to fill gaps in your team. This opens up even more options to you in terms of workforce diversity and skillset.

Broadening your applicant pool can be especially beneficial for highly technical roles, which are generally harder to fill because of the specific educational requirements and skills needed. Examples include data analysis, IT, and medical transcription.

Online job platforms like Upwork allow you to find data analysis services and other technical professionals from all around the world. You can sort professionals based on traits like delivery time, cost, and reviews from former clients.

Create an onboarding process that includes social, as well as business integration.

Comprehensive onboarding can help new employees feel at ease. This is especially important for diverse teams. On Deck describes best practices for small business onboarding, like providing employees with necessary documents before their first day.

HR Daily Advisor offers additional tips for onboarding immigrant employees. They suggest using a buddy system, matching each new worker with an established co-worker to guide them through the first days on the job. This is also a chance to discuss workplace norms.

Bringing immigrants into your team can benefit your small business in many ways. The above guide provides pointers on how to ensure an effective recruitment process.

Want to create a professional video demonstrating your small business’s commitment to diversity and inclusion? Financial Potion can help. See what clients are saying.

 

 

Categories
Uncategorized

How To Market A Digital Business

Digital Business Marketing Plan
Working desk with digital tablet showing digital marketing concept.

How To Market A Digital Business

Digital Business Marketing Plan
Working desk with digital tablet showing digital marketing concept.

Getting Started

Starting any business of any kind can feel like an insurmountable task, especially if you’re not familiar with the business territory.  A ‘non-technical’ person theoretically means someone who’s not familiar with technology – but who these days isn’t at least passingly familiar with several forms of technology?  From the TV to the phone, we all have supercomputers in our palms and pockets in 2021. So you really don’t need to be a “tech” person to market a digital business but it can come in handy.

Do Some Research

Depending on what type of digital business one is looking to start,  one would need to do deep research into all aspects of that business.  Market research, probability of the business succeeding in the specific marketplace, etc. Digital business are mainly conducted through the internet, or more specifically through people’s web browsers or their app library. Studying competition and business methods in these digital playgrounds is difficult, and can lead to inconsistent results. This is where some assistance can really make the difference to a new business owner.

Get Assistance

Narrowing in on the type of assistance one needs can be difficult – there are so many aspects of digital business, and so many ways to make money as well. You can advertise on other people’s computers, browsers, or even phones. One could build a unique website, new software, or even hardware. One aspect of digital business that can be utilized across the board is video – it’s perhaps the best possible way to reach the largest audience via digital platforms everywhere.

Use Video

Most digital businesses are going to eventually use video (and YouTube) to promote their product or business. Making quality videos that improve your business isn’t quick, or easy to do but luckily Financial Potion provides customized video marketing solutions to help almost any business succeed. Video helps people retain more information and make faster buying decisions.  Production, editing, social media distribution, live stream facilitation, and training are the different service categories that can be packaged to create a custom plan for you. Connect with us for a complimentary consultation today.

Categories
Small Business Social Media Video Marketing

Photography Tips for Social Media Marketing

Photo tips blog to stand out on social media.

Stand Out in Social Media

Photo tips blog to stand out on social media.

In this digitalization era, it is only natural for every business to be active on social media to connect with its followers with basic photography tips for Social Media Marketing you can stand above the crowd. However, the biggest catch here is that you must retain them even though you may have devoted followers. To achieve customer or follower retention, it is likely that you will be posting on social media almost regularly. Visual elements are pertinent to the success of any business, be it small or large. Your pictorial elements should appeal to your targeted audience.

It would be best if you made sure that your images look professional. We understand that it can be challenging to buy fancy and costly equipment all the time, and trust us when we say that we know you. Therefore, we have cooked up together a few useful tips in handy when marketing on social media. If you follow these, we assure you that your follower retention and your brand’s image will skyrocket. For equipment to purchase please click here to look at our recommendations.

1) Lighting:

If you have to take pictures from home or your studio, it may not be easy to achieve the intended amount of lighting. For this, consider natural lighting – our preference would be the “golden hour” of the sun, either at dawn or the noontime. Additionally, consider using devices such as the ring light to provide impeccable photographs. Another pro-tip would be to avoid using flashlights because they can often taint an image with how they reflect in one’s eyes. Most importantly, you don’t need to go to a unique location to snap pictures. Any place such as your lawn, terrace, and even the lighting in your closet can do the trick if it’s good enough. You have to see what works for you!

2) Be creative:

With a plethora of companies marketing their products, you have to be creative to appeal to your audience. For instance, if you take pictures for a food blog, instead of taking the images directly from over a table, consider going to an area with fairy lights and then snapping those photographs. Believe in us when we say that the quality, lighting, and creativity of those photographs will be unparalleled. It would help if you thought outside of the box. There are unlimited possibilities to the way you can take pictures – all that is required is a little skill and thought.

3) Tripods:

The worst thing that can go wrong is a blurred picture of your content. You want your content to look flawless and be visible to your audience very clearly. Therefore, we recommend purchasing a tripod for your cameras, or if you use a smartphone, then a phone stands to prevent your photographs from getting destroyed. The better the picture, the greater will be your chances of marketing yourself on social media. Now model in maxi dresses or bikinis, you don’t have to worry about your pictures going wrong, because a tripod will always be a photographer’s best friend.

4) Resolution:

You may have noticed that as you increase your smartphones’ resolution, the quality starts to disintegrate. The picture either starts becoming a blur or grainy because the camera lens cannot focus properly. For this matter, we advise you to purchase a camera – no need for an expensive one – instead, buy a camera that has a high-resolution point. This camera makes it easier for you to take pictures without worrying that they might become blurry. Photographs on social media are a culmination of low expenses, creativity, and fun!

5) Minimal editing:

When you edit a picture multiple times by drowning it in one filter after the other, or one photoshop after the next, it ceases to have an impact. Your images should be original, and if editing is required, then the editing should be minimal. Your followers come to social media to find something unique and authentic, as well as noteworthy. They will only be turned off by those several filters that you choose to use, which is why you should employ filters only if they are a necessity.

6) Go candid:

At times, if you know you’re aware of being photographed, it may not be easy to remain in that state. For this, we recommend you take candid pictures. They will help your model feel less conscious of himself/herself while making them look like the ultimate fashionistas they are. Now, be it a photograph in maxi dresses or pictures in Bermuda shorts, you are likely to make your mark!

Conclusion:

Be it food marketing, fashion marketing, furniture marketing or any other (yes, the list is endless), all their photographs require are a little technique and devotion. Once you follow all these guidelines we have discussed, Voila! Your marketing strategies will be spot on. Remember! Photographs attract an audience by their quality. If you take them in a dimly lit room, even though the room’s interior design may be fancy, but the picture would not stand out. Alternatively, even if you take a photograph of a building, but the scenery is eye-catching, the lighting is brilliant, and the picture is clear, that picture will look out of this planet! Follow these basic photography tips for Social Media Marketing to experience more success.