How Digital Video Production can be useful Tool for Heightening Business Reach

How Digital Video Production can be useful Tool for Heightening Business Reach

Video Marketing has become a key factor in driving ROI and traffic these days. And that’s the reason marketers and entrepreneurs are so fond of digital video production to amplify their business growth. Given the current shift towards everything visual and digital, no way can a business smell success by depending on text-based marketing alone. Be it introducing new products or promoting the existing ones, video animations can benefit businesses of any size and stature.

It also becomes easier for the consumers to purchase a product that is supported by visuals or a video. As per the stats 64-85% customers or prospects are likely to make a purchase decision if there’s a video representation of any product or a service. As the consumer behaviours say, when there’s a video content that describes a product, it is easier for them to establish a connection with the brand. Plain text or just visuals that don’t have any motion, people have moved way past those.

There’s no denying the fact that images and visuals do enhance your chance of communicating with the prospects; but today’s media-driven culture is all about motion movies. They have a far reaching effect on the audience.

This is a time when nobody wants to be sold to. Consumers are smart enough to read through a click-bait ad, or a self-proclaiming marketing pitch. Today’s marketing pitch is all about showing the value the end users will get. And videos excel in this particular approach of giving the customers an up-close look at a product or a service. Even the social influencers take resort to videos while interacting with their followers, because that’s the most convenient way of reaching the mass.

There are speculations as to how does digital video work. Let’s start with promoting a business through videos. Speaking of heightening your business reach, video promotion is considered to be one the most effective marketing technique. Right from amplifying the organic ranking, to sharing the contents on the various social media channels, digital video is a multifunctional part of your digital marketing mix and every marketer must have a dedicated place for it in their marketing strategy.

The primary reason for such dynamic shareable trait is that videos allow a lot of complex information to be processed quite easily, by making them shorter, crisper and more digestible to your target audience. This creates a positive effect on your website visitors as they get to experience an improved UI. Eventually, Google and other major search engines, who give utmost priority to user experience, rank your website higher.

As the recent reports say, by 2021, 80% of traffic will consist of video, in one form or the other.

If a marketer thinks about business expansion, or wants to explore new avenues of opportunities, he/she may use video contents in a number of ways. A video content after when produced can be uploaded on YouTube and embedded within a blog. It can also be put on the social media handles.

From both of these media channels, a business or a website is ought to get quality leads. This is the diversity of video contents. If there’s any media that can bring organic traffic, that’s video. In a way of repurposing your existing video, you can simply use the audio content in the form of Podcasts, another way of driving traffic to website! People are extremely fond of podcasts these days, mainly because they can simply plug in their earphones on-the-go and listen to the piece.

So, if you are ready to publish another podcast, don’t go for creating a new, simple extract the audio content from one of your existing videos and jam it into a brand new podcast file. In a nutshell, if used and reused wisely, videos can take your business to a new growth.

For the conversion part too, videos take the cake! Websites with a video content on their homepages are likely to hold the visitors longer, which makes them prone to conversion. As landing pages are the ideal spots for videos, they skyrocket the conversion rates by up to 80%. This whopping figure is one solid reason why every marketer must think of digital video production. It is further evident that people stick around websites with videos more than websites that only have texts and occasional visuals.

We all know about the shortened attention span of people these days (shorter than the attention span of goldfish!). For a business to work out, the fundamental asset is the attention it gets from its target audience. Videos have an inherent story-telling trait that catches people’s attention in a jiffy and hold it for a long time. Simply put, humans love to get entertained. And videos do that exactly! They simply entertain. And also disseminate information in the process.

Depending on whatever your product or service is, an animated explainer or promotional video can actually make you stand out in the crowd! And what’s more interesting is, approximately 75% of professionals watch promotional videos regularly that are relevant to the products or services they are interested in.

So there’s a great deal of prospects out there whether you are interested in a B2B or a B2C business model.

With the right message, videos, whether analogue or digital put together the expertise of your sales team and marketing guys into one single package. This can of course be used for years. And thus, maximum numbers of companies are always after digital video production with high value to get across their message loud and clear, to the right audience. And it doesn’t have to be expensive at all. Any stature of business, big or medium or small, can create high quality digital video contents, leverage them and make money.

Earlier, it was only reserved for the big shots though. Today, technology has advanced to such a great point, where producing high definition animations are just a matter of few hours. With the Live video options available today on Facebook, Instagram, etc, you just need a Smartphone and a strong Internet connection, and you are sorted! Digital video examples like Facebook Live videos get a volley of likes, shares and comments creating a massive amount of online engagement.

And the best part is, these videos can be downloaded later to be used in other promotional emails or to be uploaded on YouTube or any other video streaming channel. The omnipotence of YouTube has driven a lot many amateurs and mostly video enthusiast students into digital filmmaking.

So in a whole, producing digital video contents is no longer an expensive and time consuming affair. What you need is just a good script, a positive body language (for Live videos or the ones you want to feature yourself), the right video agency, and the right message.

Now, the last rule of thumb that remains is, the right kind off video materials that your business needs. Apart from the ones already mentioned above (Live videos, lading page videos), some other kind of variations can be:

  • Buzz Reels
  • Demo Reels
  • Testimonials
  • Ad Banners
  • Training Videos
  • Fundraiser Videos

You may experiment with these different types of digital video forms, until you get the right one for your business.

Final Words
To conclude, video is fun. And is truly the best possible way to reach your audience. The factors that one must remember though are, give your audience some value, a philosophy, a topic of interest – something that is worth of their time. The more you share positive information, the more they will stick around your brand. It is further evident from the manner which netizens are in love with this media format, videos have that magic in them to heighten business reach.

However, there’s also a word of warning to the novice marketers out there. Though videos are proven to drive leads, boost conversions and increase business reach, a poor quality video can make all your efforts go in vain. Poor or amateurish production quality is a strict non-no when it is about a business or online presence. If the presentation is bad, it can drive away the prospects.

Hence, apart from the right message, target audience and script, the video production quality must also be a checklist to consider. Though there are thousands of online video makers, it is still recommended to consult a professional who provide ace digital video services, when scoping out for a business video. Digital video production works only when there’s a perfect tandem of all the necessary components.

3 Useful Tools to Help You Score that Next Big Client

3 Useful Tools to Help You Score that Next Big Client

On the internet, everyone is on a level playing field. There is no other business landscape in the world where someone working from home on their computer can compete with a multi-billion dollar company and win time and time again. I’m not saying it’s easy or that it happens all the time, but it is possible. This is the reason why everyone wants to be an entrepreneur these days, and why more people are flowing into the world of affiliate marketing as well.

With this in mind, it’s always important to realize that finding success on the internet with a business is more about resources you use and relying on numbers more than anything else. It’s not a matter of if someone is going to buy advertising on your site, or if someone is going to purchase your product — it’s a matter of who and how many.

This is where your advertising, outreach and getting creative with your marketing will come into play. For freelancers, bloggers and smaller businesses that don’t have a massive budget to spend on costly keyword advertising or mass media buying, there are plenty of outreach and research tools to help with this process. Here are a few you can start putting to use today.

Find Anyone’s Corporate Email Address in Seconds

Imagine how much more effective your time and outreach could be if you went directly to the source. We all know and use LinkedIn for business connections, but it can be a huge pain when it comes to getting someone to approve your content request, and then you still need to hope they actually check their account and DMs coming through. LinkedIn is great… but email is still one of the best ways to get immediate results.

One site that is changing the way email research and outreach is taking place is Voilanorbert. Through their email address finder solution, all it takes is a simple personal name and company search and you will be provided with the direct email address of the individual you are looking for.

When you create an account on their site you will get 50 leads for free. Once you run out, you can sign up for one of their plans, or simply pay as you go at just .10 per email search. Try it out and see who you might find the direct email address for.

Impress with Fancy Proposals and Documents

Many freelancers, bloggers or individual marketers are good at creating content and making money online. However, that doesn’t mean that have all the bases covered for when it comes to making new agreements or impressing potential clients and advertisers. In the corporate world, people still like to see professional documents, proposals, invoices and much more — which is something many smaller businesses and brands might not necessarily have in place.

The good news is, gone are the days when you need to hire a professional designer to come up with a fancy letterhead or proposal for your next client. By using a proposal software solution like PandaDoc, anyone can create an account and start building out their own proposals in seconds, while also not requiring any technical skills in the process.

While looking through the collection of templates and pre-built proposals on their site, I was impressed with the selection and quality of the PDFs. As you can see in the screenshot below, many of these proposals would fit perfectly into any online marketing, blogging or social media outreach type of business. The filler content is already provided within each proposal, it’s simply up to the end user or company to tweak the data and make it fit their own needs.

Membership plans start at $19 a month, which provides up to five different templates, unlimited docs and e-signatures, custom branding and email support.

2 Billion+ Personal Interests through Facebook

Facebook just recently passed the 2 billion member mark. While most people are using Facebook just as a way to be on the social platform and connect with friends, it’s can also be an extremely valuable resource for business and networking as well.

Outside of the traditional means of connecting with people and chatting with them through direct messages on Facebook, the real value here is getting to know someone on a more personal level and what they are interested in. In the world of quick second emails and first impressions that need to last, knowing what your next potential client or big contact has personal interests in can go a long way. More often than not, business deals are made over ‘real conversations’ and not through pitching or template based emails.

So what’s the next step here? Spend some time on Facebook and start building connections with other people in your industry that you might be able to work with. Don’t approach them with a pitch right away. Instead, first take a look at what they are writing about, posting pictures on and have a passion for — then maybe start a discussion up in this area.

Best of all, Facebook is free and the knowledge and opportunities provided through it are priceless!

Outreach and First Impressions are Key

When running a business online, always remember that we are all on an equal playing field — some just play it a little better than others. First impressions and the right type of outreach are always going to be key when creating new opportunities and business for your brand. It doesn’t matter if you are a blogger making a few hundred dollars per month, or a full-service company with hundreds of employees. Implementing any or all of the recommendations and tools shown above is a great way to give yourself an extra edge over the competition.

10 Free & Useful Google Tools No Blogger Should Ignore

10 Free & Useful Google Tools No Blogger Should Ignore

10 Free & Useful Google Tools No Blogger Should Ignore

By

Can you call yourself a content marketing expert?

Even if you answer “yes”, there are still lots of ways to enhance your performance.

Even if you’re one of the 42% of B2B marketers that claim to be effective at content marketing, you still have a bunch of room for improvement.

If you desire to make the most out of your content marketing efforts, you must know what strategies to implement, and most of all, what tools to use.

Good keyword research, the perfect social media marketing strategy, and the best search engine optimization skills all can contribute immensely to your success as a content marketing expert.

Unfortunately, when it comes to content marketing tools, a lot of the ones often recommended by the experts are very costly, and the average content marketer can’t afford them.

Now, here’s the good news: There are a bunch of free tools out there that you can also use to get the same results, and many of them are owned by big G (Google).

 

10 Best Free Content Marketing Tools From Google

Interestingly, many people are not utilizing these tools, not because they don’t want to, but because they’re ignorant of them. They still see Google as just a search engine and nothing else.

That brings us to what we’re going to talk about today…

In this post, I will share with you the ten free Google tools you should be using as a content marketer. These are tools you cannot ignore if you’re serious about your business.

Whether you’re a beginner, an intermediate, or a pro, you’ll definitely pick up something from this post.

1. Google Search Console

This is one of the best free tools you’ll ever use as a webmaster. The time you spend on Google Search Console is never a waste.

The more you use the tool, the more you become addicted to it as there’s just so much to learn.

With the Google Search Console SEO tool, you can learn about the overall health of your website and know where to make changes to ensure your site is performing well SEO-wise.

There are also lots of other amazing things you can do with GSC.

Some of the features I regularly use are listed under the “Search Traffic” drop-down:

Search Traffic

For instance, the “Search Analytics” link lets me quickly analyze my site’s performance on Google Search:

Search Analytics

If I want to know how my keywords are performing, I’ll just click on the Position button to learn more. This will bring up the average position for all my keywords that appear in Google Search:

Position

As a content marketer, you should really get used to the Google Search Console tool; you stand to gain a lot from it. Even if you’re only tracking a few key metrics, the time you spend on it will be well worth it in the end.

2. Google Keyword Planner

Are you still looking for an excellent tool to help you uncover the best keywords in your industry?

While there are a lot of tools that can do this, Google’s free Keyword Planner remains the godfather and one of the best.

Even though it’s incredibly simple to use, the more you experiment with it and the more searches you perform, the better you’ll understand how to utilize it for your success.

Using the keyword of “content marketing” as an example, one of the toughest keywords to rank for in Google, the competition is incredibly fierce.

But you don’t have to target that exact keyword. With Google Keyword Planner, you can easily dig up related long-tail keywords that will be easier to rank:

Dig up related long-tail keywords

Once you’ve gotten these seed keywords, you can now enter them into your favorite keyword research tool (like SEMRUSHLong Tail Pro) to uncover even more long tail ideas.

As a content marketer, there is a lot you can do with this free tool. Why not start making use of it today?

3. Google Sheets

As a content marketer, you need a good system for recording and keeping track of data. There are also times when you might need to share this data with your team.

You can actually use Microsoft Office Excel to do this, but it does not have an intuitive shareable feature, and it can take up a lot of space when it contains so much data. And what if you needed to check something immediately, but you’re not with your laptop where you saved the MS Excel sheet?

That’s a problem.

Fortunately, with the robust Google Sheets, this can be easily taken care of. It’s one of the most efficient, and easy-to-use tools to track changes, record data, and collaborate with others.

4. Google Analytics

This is arguably the best of all the analytical tools on the internet.

Let me ask you a few questions:

  • Do you know how many of your website visitors are new versus returning?
  • Do you know where these people are coming from?
  • What about the total amount of time they’re spending on your site?
  • What’s your website’s bounce rate?

All of these vital analytical questions and more are the things that Google Analytics will provide you answers to.

Google Analytics

It’s a free analytics product from Google that will easily track and report all the important metrics from your website.

Google Analytics can give you clever insight into your site’s traffic and enable you to understand how people are discovering and navigating your site, so you’ll know which areas to give more of your attention to.

5. Google Alerts

Google Alerts lets you monitor the web for mentions of specific phrases or keywords. Once you set it up, you’ll always get email alerts whenever these keywords are mentioned online.

For example, you can register to get notified whenever someone mentions your brand, product, company, executives, or even your competition.

As you can see on the screenshot below, I’ve requested to get notified whenever someone mentions “Shout Me Loud Blog” on the web:

Google Alerts

This fantastic tool is an excellent way to adequately manage your business’s online reputation and always react to mentions of your brand promptly.

6. Google Trends

If you’ve been finding it difficult to continuously generate content ideas for your blog, Google Trends can help you with that.

Although Google Keyword Planner and other popular keyword research tools out there can help you in getting ideas, when it comes to creating high-quality content, you can get more from Google Trends.

It might interest you to know that Google Trends is one of the places I often hang out, especially when I’m planning for fresh content on my blogs.

This tool will enable you to easily see what’s trending on any topic.

For example, when I checked the topic “hair loss”, I got:

Google Trends

If you scroll down the page, you will also see more “related topics” and “related queries” you can check out:

Related topics & related queries

Furthermore, apart from researching on your niche, you can also use the Stories trending now section to check if there’s anything that’s relevant to your industry:

Stories trending now

If anything in this section matches your niche, then you’ve identified a hot, trending topic that you could talk about.

You don’t need any experience to use the free Google Trends tool. Just enter your chosen topic in the search box and review the results that comes up.

7. Google My Business

This is one of the tools you don’t want to overlook, especially if you run a local business.

With this tool, you can easily get free advertising from Google.

Just claim your Google My Business listing, and you’re ready to go. If done well, whenever someone performs a search on Google for a phrase related to your business, your business will show up in the search results.

For example, the screenshot below is what came up when I searched for “restaurants in Texas”:

Restaurants in Texas

From the screenshot, all these businesses are Google My Business results for the keyword “restaurants in Texas”. And if you click on the More places button, you will see more.

None of these businesses paid to occupy these results.

If you haven’t created your own Google My Business account, you have to do that immediately, so you won’t lose out on the benefits that come with it

8. Gmail

There are a lot of email clients on the internet – Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, etc.

However, Gmail has always remained my favorite, and that’s because of its many helpful built-in functionalities.

With this tool, there are lots of plugins that will help you ensure that your email account does exactly what you want.

Gmail

There are lots of other really cool things available for Gmail.

With several plugins that will let you customize your email based on your needs as a content marketer, I’m sure you will fall in love immediately.

9. Google Calendar

Let me ask you:

  • How do you usually stay focused on your business?
  • How do you stay organized and productive?

Google Calendar is one of the tools top marketing experts use to stay organized. Even though it does not have all the features that most paid tools have, it gives you more than you need to stay on track all the time.

Google Calendar

Below are some of the ways you can leverage this wonderful tool:

  • Let your team members know when you’ll be available.
  • Create events for the most critical tasks.
  • Find out when you’re most free during the day.

If you’re really serious about your content marketing business, I suggest you check out what Google Calendar has in store, especially if you’re not yet using any better alternative.

This will definitely help you to improve the way you operate.

Best Free Tools For Marketers From Google 

With less than 50 percent of B2B marketers saying they’re effective at content marketing, it shows there’s always room for improvement.

Here, I’ve given you all the free Google tools that you should be paying attention to as a content marketer.

There are still other helpful tools owned by Google, but you should start with the ones I’ve mentioned here first.

It’s now time for you to take action.

How many of these tools are you currently using? Which other Google tools do you think are great for content marketers? Let me hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Like this post? Share it with your friends!

Meteora Automation Tool to Boost Instagram Engagement and Sales

Meteora Automation Tool to Boost Instagram Engagement and Sales

By now, it’s been clearly proved that Instagram isn’t something of a wet squib. It has exploded on the social media scene like a big bomb, and gone on to become one of the fastest growing social networks. All kinds of product-based businesses and influencers from...

Instagram 5xx Server Error – What is that mean? [Explanation]

Instagram 5xx Server Error – What is that mean? [Explanation]

No website can avoid running into the occasional glitch and problem, and when you consider how vastly complicated many social media websites are, it’s not surprising that their users encounter lots of different errors and difficulties at various times. There are so...

Instagram Live Isn’t Working, Why? [Quick Fix – 2020]

Instagram Live Isn’t Working, Why? [Quick Fix – 2020]

What Is Instagram Live? Social media websites are always looking for new tools and features to appeal to their users, and Instagram is certainly no exception to that rule. Instagram Live panders to the trend of immediacy, and also creates a sense of urgency to be...

Instagram, Reporting A Problem (How can you report?)

Why You Might Need To Report A Problem Instagram is amongst the most popular of social media websites, and enjoys enormous amounts of traffic and users everyday. It has several different facets and functions available to its users, so it’s no surprise that sometimes...

Instagram Hashtags Not Working [Solution – 2020]

Why Use Hashtags? Hashtags are one of the biggest trends on the internet right now. They’re a very useful tool which allows people to collate related data, connecting it across different channels and cutting through some of the noise generated by social media’s...

Instagram Won’t Let Me Log In [How to fix it? – 2020]

Social media is becoming increasingly popular, and Instagram is amongst the top ones, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t run into issues occasionally. These can occur on the browser, the app, or both, but no matter what, they often lead to frustration and time wasted...

Instagram Keeps Crashing When I Open It [Solution – 2020]

If you, like most people, find yourself checking your phone compulsively for updates, new pictures, posts to favourite, and are generally a social media addict, you may find that you do run into the occasional frustrating glitch, even with your favourite programmes....

How to Recover deleted Facebook messages? [Solution – 2020]

If you use Facebook, you know that Messenger is a great way to communicate with friends or family, business associates, and others to send files and photos, videos, links, and other content. It’s a convenient way to share information with specific contacts without...

Subscribe