Build a solid foundation in film making and digital art
3D Action Figure – 3D animator
Study.com defines 3D animation as a technical specialty within the graphic arts animation field that generates three-dimensional moving images to take place in a digital environment. It is undeniably among the best innovations that arched up film, TV, and other visual media in the Philippines. This is why becoming a 3D animator doesn’t happen just because you have the ambition and enthusiasm to be one. It requires, moreover, transferable skills that cannot be acquired in one sitting. Apart from being artistic and creative, take this beginner’s guide to give you a head start.
How to Become a 3D Animator the Sure Way
Mickey Mouse Action Figure – 3D animator
Master the Animation Techniques.
You must have the ability to apply the right movement and expression on the object. This will show how you will execute your thoughts and how you will imitate real life gestures into your object.
Learn the Program.
Curves and 2D geometric figures can create a 3D object. You need animation tools and software to build and modify the texture, lines, shapes, light, and colour of the layout. Some also use virtual cameras to zoom, focus, brighten, and resize an object. You should also develop frames to control the movement. Learn the entire 3D animation course to wholly manipulate the computer to perform the task and achieve a desirable outcome.
Hone Your Technical Skill.
Creativity is boundless, but you still have to enhance your craftsmanship. Other than that, learn how to properly use this on a computer-generated program. Consider that while computers are making the animation work conveniently, it is also complicated if you lack the digital proficiency. Developing and maintaining a strong technical skill will prevent further problems and help you create a stunning 3D animation.
REASONS THAT KEEP YOU FROM BEING A GOOD 3D ANIMATOR
Wooden human model – 3D animator
Realizing the reasons for your failure is sometimes the finest means to improve your skills and to become a 3D animation specialist. To dodge failure common to beginners, below are some of the mistakes you may commit.
Letting Perfectionism Take Its Toll.
When you’re starting, aiming for perfection can lead you to a circle of lazy depression. Thus, if you set the bar so high, the mere thought of starting can be paralyzing.
Breaking Rules Without Knowing Them.
It’s normal to break the rules in animation. Yet, if you have no firm grasp of what you’re breaking, you can’t do it. Likewise, if something goes wrong, you won’t understand why.
Doing Too Much Too Soon.
Almost every animator wants to get to the “fun stuff” such as brilliant effects or soulful character performances. With the tools available today, it’s easy to jump into them. Yet, these stuffs are likewise the quickest ways to produce lousy animation.
Learning from The Wrong School.
You’re a degree holder, but you’re jobless. Moreover, the cold reality that your first school is nothing compared to a real animation college slaps you hard. You got mediocre skills, boring demo reel, and no real connection in the industry.
TECHNICAL TIPS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CRAFT
Super Mario figurines – 3D animator Once you accepted your flaws and made amendments, it’s time to boost your skills. Furthermore, following are tips from Nigeria’s top 3D animation school, Kennysoft Film Academy.
Study the Psychology of Movement.
To mirror something, check first not only their movements but their intentions, too. In addition, knowing what lies behind every action will help you express them through your animation.
Find Real-World References.
When animating the face, it’s important to refer to something solid and real. Hence, grab a mirror and repeat the words to recreate key expressions as a good starting point.
Use Shark Fin Curves for Facial Animation.
The shark fin curve works great with facial animation. In particular, it helps simulate rapid movements such as those of the lips and eyebrows. Each part of the face moves fast, so get their movements to happen fewer than three frames.
Add Ambient Movements.
If the character is not so active in your shot, add ambient movements to keep it alive. Likewise, play with curves to get subtle movements of the head, arms, and shoulders to show your character is fighting gravity.
Lead with The Eyes.
In watching people’s daily routines, you’ll notice that each movement comes with a specific sequence. Your eyes move the most when something catches your attention. Often, the eyes move first, followed by the head, neck, and the whole body.
Nobody starts as an expert already. Besides, failures are vital for growth and they show you’re not afraid to decide. If you want to become a better 3D animator, Kennysoft Film Academy can help you. We offer classes for incoming senior high school animation students and professionals with busy schedules. Visit kennysoftstudio.com/academy/academy to view the course modules and class schedule.
Video marketing can be an overwhelming concept for small businesses and startups. It will require a considerable investment, but will it be worth it? Some business owners might think that video marketing is exclusive to established businesses, but this is not true. In fact, small businesses stand to benefit the most from this type of marketing content.
The Benefits of Video Marketing
Video marketing has always been an effective way to target a specific audience. It started at the dawn of television, and it still is an excellent way to market your business in today’s digital world. Videos in digital ads today are more relevant and catchier, and they can help boost your business in the following ways:
Better Way to Acquire Information
People today have shorter attention spans and less patience than previous generations. They grew up in a time of instant gratification. If choosing between reading an article that will take at least ten minutes or watching a two-minute video about a product, most people will choose the video. That is how effective and impactful videos are.
Visual Support
Your videos can act as additional visual support for your existing marketing materials. You can start working with your current materials and create engaging video content that will capture your audience’s attention while strengthening your brand awareness.
Encourage Conversion and Boost Your Sales
Since videos are highly engaging content, they can help boost your sales. Companies that add product videos to their landing pages can increase their conversions by up to 80 percent. Videos are powerful marketing tools. When done right, they can grow your sales.
Help Promote Trust
The best thing about videos is how they communicate emotions so effectively. Successfully creating an emotional bond with your target audience is one of the key factors in earning their trust. Trust is never easy to get or instill in your potential customers, but it can create wonders for your brand once you have it.
If you make video materials for your brand, you can try shooting interviews, testimonials, and behind-the-scenes videos to make your brand more real and relatable. These are also effective ways to showcase the positive thoughts that current customers or employees think about your brand or company. Having real people talk about an organization, a product, or a service, makes it more authentic and attractive.
You can also make engaging content to educate or wow your viewers. Seeing how a product works, for example, will give them a clearer understanding of what it does, and it will help inform their decision to buy.
Not Everyone Is Doing It
Video marketing is a highly effective marketing tool, but not everyone is using it yet. Utilize this to your advantage, and be one of the firsts in your industry to create video content. Let this be your edge over your competitors.
Shareable With Extensive Reach
Another great thing about video content is how easy it is to share them with other people. You can upload them on your social media platforms, and once it captures people’s attention, your network will do the sharing for you. As a result, you will have better chances of reaching different audiences without relying on paid ads. Moreover, videos give you better access to mobile viewers, who comprise the majority of online users today.
Conclusion
When companies and brands want to make big names for themselves, they make viral video ads. That is how powerful, fast, and massive video marketing’s reach and impact are. With the right strategy and team, you can bring your small business to the next level using quality video materials.
Do you need professional video marketing services ? We can help you in various ways, from video production and editing to strategy creation and development. Contact us today to learn how we can help you.
Animation is more than just the cartoons and films. Today animation has evolved so brilliantly that it can influence the return on investment of businesses.
Few of us have to consciously remind ourselves that animation today is more than mere entertainment. We were probably introduced to animation in its nascent stage and somehow have forgotten that those very things are actually serious stuff today. Business tools to boost your marketing and branding.
In case you’re one of them, this article is a great way to catch up on where animation is as of today. What are the types and why businesses across industries are employing them to their advantage?
Animation today
What started as multiple hand-drawn frames were replaced by the computer revolution making it less tedious and time-consuming. It wasn’t until later that CGI totally changed animation as we know it. With technology, animation is come to be known as an “intricate relationship between artwork and technology.” Its reach made endless penetrating every industry possible. We now have advanced to a stage making possible architectural visualizations and virtual tours, mechanical designs that cut development costs and educational tools for health care and learning.
The different types of animation
There are genres of animation that can be used by businesses based on factors like reach, audience profile, concept and medium. Although listed in order of their evolvement, they also exist as standalone preferences today.
Traditional animation – Sequential hand-sketches screened quickly to create an illusion of movement, are used by ad agencies today to test commercials before production.
2D animation – This is very similar to traditional animation but uses computerized software to simulate a 2-dimensional motion.
3D computer animation (CGI)– A more realistic, 3-dimensional look that is created with computer generated images to create an animation.
Motion graphics – These are often used for multimedia projects, where texts or images are creatively given the illusion of motion. Example: animated logos, movie opening titles.
Stop motion – Photographs of objects taken in sequential different positions, that when played create an illusion of movement.
Benefits of using animation for your business
Quick message delivery
You getting time to read this is great! But, it’s rare. That’s the world we’re living in. Animation in the form of stop motion or micro-videos are a great way to deal with the instant-demand these days. These six-second videos can be used to highlight unique selling features of a new product, app or service. There is no better way to explain complex features than with visuals that keep the technicalities at bay. Animation can bring life to the product and keep audiences engaged with simple and personalized visuals for better conceptualization.
Educate while you entertain
In a high-stress world, there is a universal craving for information in its most simple form. When this can be presented in the form of entertainment, then you’ve got the crowd all ears. Animations allow for easy processing of information without having to deal with the technical jargon and strain their minds. With social media trending, news spreads like wild fire. The interactive nature of social media has its advantages when it comes to micro-videos or campaigns. Remember, visitors to social media are all in for entertainment and these videos are just ideal.
Transfer the emotion
Animation is a great way to emotionally connect with your audience. Almost everyone is fascinated by a make-believe world that’s a factor that easily keeps viewers engaged. These animated videos can be commercials or campaigns that drive the point straight home even in the absence of text and dialogues. That’s the beauty of animation. The feeling of ‘being sold to’ is the last thing viewers experience when visually engaged with an animated image or object. Say, employing a friendly faced mascot to run your campaigns which can definitely boost brand awareness and promotion.
Show off your personality
So what’s so unique about your business? The benefits of signing up for your services? Who are your clients?
These are some of the questions that are often thrown at businesses. When first impressions matter the most, businesses are always in a tussle to deliver their stories in a nutshell considering optimization on prospective clients’ allotted time. With animation, there is a lot of scope to show your personality. Perceptions, ideas and concepts are portrayed when words may fail.
Influence buying decisions
Animation videos or mascots certainly are one of the strongest influencers in a consumer’s purchase decision due to the power of association. A simple example we all can relate to is ‘Cornelious’, the Corn Flakes Rooster. A simple concept of waking up to cornflakes and why it would make an ideal breakfast. These are all a boost to not just branding but assist consumers to convert. Needless to say, a familiar brand gets preference in terms of choice. The more viewers are exposed to these ads the better the promotion. The greatest strength of animation is its self-sufficiency when it comes to text or language; the universal language spoken by this creative advertising tool speaks volumes.
Boost search rankings
Videos and images are the life of any page. Animations are all the more fun, increasing time on page and giving engagement a boost. The resulting improvement in analytics signals search engines of users finding website content relevant and these positives ultimately have an impact on search rankings.
Easy share
Animations are fun. They have an element of surprise that make users want to share with their friends or group. The likes and shares on these videos facilitate a long lasting impression and identity. While these are embedded on video platforms and showcased on business websites, they could be search optimized and bring in additional traffic from video platforms like YouTube, vimeo and other social media platforms.
Animation is all about creativity. There is no limit. Guaranteed is a branding boost but not just that, you’re headed to win a lot of hearts and have a whole lot of eyes glued.
Conclusion
The importance of animation in business promotions cannot be over emphasize in today’s business world, it’s either you evolve and follow the trend or your competitors will kick you out of business. So why not contact kennysoft STUDIOs lets help you engage new audience, grow brand visibility online, improve social engagement and enhance conversion rates through video marketing.
How Nollywood Is Changing the Narrative for African Storytellers
How did the Nigerian movie industry, known as Nollywood, become one of the world’s top three movie industries in a period of just three decades, attracting an impressive degree of research interest since its debut in the 1990s and resulting in a dedicated transdisciplinary research niche called “Nollywood studies”.
Nollywood is situated as disruptive of historic and contemporary African movie culture, underscoring Nollywood’s significance as a phenomenon “fundamental to Africa’s self-representation. Nollywood represents a grassroots indigenous entrepreneurial cultural initiative.
The Nigerian film industry is undoubtedly helping create jobs in a country with an economy that relies mainly on oil and agriculture. Over a million+ people are currently employed in the industry, making it the country’s largest employer after agriculture.
Looking at the evolutionary interface between technology and entrepreneurship as a dynamic process in the progress and transformation of Nollywood. Complementing the issue of technology as a factor in Nollywood’s evolution, further matters of interest at the outset of this study include issues such as culture, ethnicity and social capital.
Nollywood is a typology of a community where process, outcomes and culture of knowledge production operate in a social ecosystem of inclusiveness and openness on a scale where the existing theory of openness does not fully capture the critical details.
In case you don’t know Nollywood films have the largest following in Africa and among Africans around the world. They gained popularity during the digital revolution of the early 1990s when camcorders replaced 35-millimeter film cameras, and digital systems replaced celluloid as recording devices. At the time, while some parts of the world adapted to the new digital technology, Nigeria continued to use inexpensive VHS tapes and players that were easily accessible and affordable to consumers. Eventually film technology evolved as movies made on DVDs started to generate huge demand. Now technology has evolved to the stage where movies are streamed via a mobile device.
Nollywood’s entry into the African and global entertainment space marks or affirms creative destruction or disruption thesis specifically in the case of African auteur cinema and also of a state monopoly of entertainment media, giving rise, in Nigeria at least, to a grassroots economic development that horizontally democratizes appropriation and distribution of benefits with equitable outcomes.
Before the Nigerian film industry, evolved and became known as Nollywood, Nigerian film makers were producing amazing movies.
In 1957, “Fincho,” became the first Nigerian film to be shot in colour. Following Nigeria’s independence in 1960, more cinema houses were established, and in 1972, the Indigenization Decree by Yakubu Gowon made possible the transfer of ownership of about 300 cinemas from their foreign owners to Nigerians, resulting in more Nigerians actively participating in the Nigerian film growth.
In 1984 “Papa Ajasco” by Wale Adenuga became the first blockbuster, grossing an estimate of 61,000 naira in three days. In 1985, “Mosebolatan “ by Moses Olaiya grossed 107,000 naira in five days. Also in the 80s, filmmakers like Adeyemi Afolayan produced classics such as Kadara” (Destiny), “Taxi Driver” among others.
It is impossible to forget the artist imagery created by Afolayan as far back as 1980. More than the narrative structure, it was the images, shots and production quality that took the older generation through a nostalgic journey, and the younger generation through an enlightening journey.
The theatrical and cinematic efforts of the likes of Hubert Ogunde, Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, Olu Jacobs, Tunde Kelani, Adeyemi Afolayan, Ladi Ladebo, Moses Olaiya, Adebayo Salami, Sadiq Daba, Jide Kosoko, Afolabi Adesanya among others, played a pivotal role in shaping the film industry which is now known as Nollywood.
Nollywood continues to exploit technology for both production and marketing. Still forging pragmatic partnerships with the informal marketing stakeholders, the industry has also embraced video-on-demand (VOD), especially for the diaspora market. According to Abubakar Yakubu, “beyond traditional marketing, we can use the internet platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Google to market content. Through internet, people can access our products and pay directly via advertising”. He rightly observes that “the marketing field is now democratized and not limited to single monopolistic medium”.
Nollywood movie producers produced a total of 1,051 movies in the first six months of 2021, 1.7% higher than movies produced in the corresponding period of 2020. This is according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The Nigerian film industry has recorded an improvement in the volume of productions over the years. The cinematic culture of Nigerians, that is wanting to express and spread our diverse cultures through film, has encouraged more movie productions, so much so that movie production has grown 477% within three years, from 2017 to 2020.
In addition, they said despite the 45% market share that Lagos cinemas represent, in the first quarter of 2021, Funke Akindele’s blockbuster movie, ‘Omo Ghetto,’ accounted for 48% of revenues and 47% of attendance in Nigerian cinemas.
Conclusion: Nollywood is a clear manifestation of the link between entrepreneurship and economic development. It also shows how openness, technology, and innovation reinforce that connection. Furthermore, Nollywood’s success reveals a constellation of factors not often considered as elements of openness and shows their ramifications for economic growth. In Nollywood, we see how historical, circumstantial and context-specific factors at national level coalesce to trigger local entrepreneurial ingenuity and are in turn leveraged to yield positive economic outcomes. This happens in ways that indicate potential scalability and adaptability of the Nollywood phenomenon to other entrepreneurial sectors in the rest of Africa. Already, the globalisation of Nollywood across the African continent and in the African diaspora is a fascinating development that has been the subject of many studies. Catapulted way beyond its Nigerian origins, Nollywood is a yet-to-be-fully-unravelled cinematic phenomenon that analysts regard as fundamental to Africa’s self-expression.
Video marketing can be an overwhelming concept for small businesses and startups. It will require a considerable investment, but will it be worth it? Some business owners might think that video marketing is exclusive to established businesses, but this is not true. In fact, small businesses stand to benefit the most from this type of marketing content.
The Benefits of Video Marketing
Video marketing has always been an effective way to target a specific audience. It started at the dawn of television, and it still is an excellent way to market your business in today’s digital world. Videos in digital ads today are more relevant and catchier, and they can help boost your business in the following ways:
Better Way to Acquire Information
People today have shorter attention spans and less patience than previous generations. They grew up in a time of instant gratification. If choosing between reading an article that will take at least ten minutes or watching a two-minute video about a product, most people will choose the video. That is how effective and impactful videos are.
Visual Support
Your videos can act as additional visual support for your existing marketing materials. You can start working with your current materials and create engaging video content that will capture your audience’s attention while strengthening your brand awareness.
Encourage Conversion and Boost Your Sales
Since videos are highly engaging content, they can help boost your sales. Companies that add product videos to their landing pages can increase their conversions by up to 80 percent. Videos are powerful marketing tools. When done right, they can grow your sales.
Help Promote Trust
The best thing about videos is how they communicate emotions so effectively. Successfully creating an emotional bond with your target audience is one of the key factors in earning their trust. Trust is never easy to get or instill in your potential customers, but it can create wonders for your brand once you have it.
If you make video materials for your brand, you can try shooting interviews, testimonials, and behind-the-scenes videos to make your brand more real and relatable. These are also effective ways to showcase the positive thoughts that current customers or employees think about your brand or company. Having real people talk about an organization, a product, or a service, makes it more authentic and attractive.
You can also make engaging content to educate or wow your viewers. Seeing how a product works, for example, will give them a clearer understanding of what it does, and it will help inform their decision to buy.
Not Everyone Is Doing It
Video marketing is a highly effective marketing tool, but not everyone is using it yet. Utilize this to your advantage, and be one of the firsts in your industry to create video content. Let this be your edge over your competitors.
Shareable With Extensive Reach
Another great thing about video content is how easy it is to share them with other people. You can upload them on your social media platforms, and once it captures people’s attention, your network will do the sharing for you. As a result, you will have better chances of reaching different audiences without relying on paid ads. Moreover, videos give you better access to mobile viewers, who comprise the majority of online users today.
Conclusion
When companies and brands want to make big names for themselves, they make viral video ads. That is how powerful, fast, and massive video marketing’s reach and impact are. With the right strategy and team, you can bring your small business to the next level using quality video materials.
Do you need professional video marketing services ? We can help you in various ways, from video production and editing to strategy creation and development. Contact us today to learn how we can help you.
Poor time management is something that is always seen with creatives and many small businesses especially here in Nigeria where everything is demanding for time from traffic jams to business meetings and a whole lot more.
What is poor time management?
Poor Time management is the inability of planning and exercising conscious control of the time spent on specific activities to work smarter than harder.
As creatives and small business owners if you don’t manage your time property it will result into poor time management and the implications of poor time management are enormous and they include.
Procrastination
Procrastination is the most obvious result of poor time management. Creatives or small business owners who don’t have control over their time end up letting tasks sit until the last minute – and then they feel a lot of stress when they try to play catch up. If you’ve let too many tasks sit, you might miss deadlines entirely.
Lack Of Priorities and Focus
The biggest single time-management problem for most people is their lack of priorities and focus. It’s even worse when there aren’t clear goals to follow. If a creative or small business owner allows themselves to be distracted by numerous unimportant tasks, they can end up wasting a lot of time. For example, getting distracted by every new email or starting one task after another without finishing anything.
Most creatives have more work to do than could be completed in one day or even one week. If you don’t know how to effectively manage your time, you can rapidly start to feel overwhelmed. If that’s happening to you, the best thing you can do is focus on the one most important task you have.
Then, you can feel like you have achieved something and met a deadline. However, you’ll most likely need to leap straight into the next crisis to meet another deadline, never having enough time to get ahead of the curve. Getting proactive about your work can greatly help you meet all your deadlines early.
Sometimes the issue is that a lot of creatives and small business owners won’t delegate other tasks that they really should they want to do everything their self. Small business owners, in particular, can be guilty of this. You must delegate when appropriate. Then you can focus on the tasks where you can add the most value. This results in higher quality work from everyone involved.
Missed Deadlines
If you are currently exhibiting poor time management skills, you will likely miss deadlines. This can have drastic effects on your work performance. It will also affect many of your colleagues who may suffer from the fallout. Perhaps you are late for meetings, miss calls, or anything else that delays work getting done. This affects much more than just you and your role. Anyone who is always unprepared can cause issues for everyone else. It wastes the time of people who have prepared their own work. Make sure you do anything in your power to not miss deadlines.
Unprofessionalism
Missed deadlines show that there is a serious lack of respect and professionalism. This will surely impact the career of the person in question. It can also act as a demotivator for the team because no one wants to put the work in only to fail because of someone else. This effect is worsened if the person with poor time management is their manager. More widely, unprofessionalism can lower the good reputation of the organization. Any client would be upset if you missed a deadline related to their project.
Financial Implications
Deadlines being missed can come at a huge cost for the company. Without proper time management training, deadlines may be missed time and time again. As an example, if you create products for a shipment leaving the next day, the shipment goes whether or not you’ve filled it up. The cost of this can be massive. These conflicts can make your client relationships suffer as well as you having to lose out on profit.
Damaged Customer Relationships
One of the biggest time management problems is that when we produce low quality work at the last minute, our clients are sure to notice. They will no longer be happy with the service and may choose to go with another provider.
This loses the company money but also tarnishes its reputation. It’s even worse when you have contracts with the client, but it includes a service level agreement. If you don’t meet this, you may have to pay.
Ending Thoughts on poor time management
We spend countless hours over our lives doing things that are of little benefit to us. If you could add this time up and see how many hours of this you waste each month, you would be shocked.
Time management issues can create countless conflicts in business. Lost finances, negative relationships, and missing deadlines are a serious matter.
A creative or small business owner with poor time management may end up losing jobs.
It’s not all bad news, however!
Whether we’re talking about creatives or small business owners, time management can be helped by some fantastic software.
The world is evolving so is marketing, the way we use to market our product and services have change a lot, now things are done a little different then it uses to be; products and services are now sold in an appetizing way using motion graphics to support its customer’s appeal. These was not possible some few years ago, now with the help of video you can create any imaginable reality for your customers to believe.
Humans And Visuals
It’s well known that humans are visual begins, as far back as the early cave days Some of the earliest evidence of stories comes from the cave drawings in Lascaux and Chavaux, France. The drawings, which date as far back as 30,000 years ago, depict animals, humans, and other objects. Some of them appear to represent visual stories. It is human nature to stories using visuals, The creators of those ancient cave drawings may not have had a marketing strategy in mind … but there’s a reason that visual communication has stuck around for millennia and can be found in practically every culture. We are hard-wired to process visual information both accurately and quickly.
So, Why Is Video Marketing Important?
For decades, many companies have embraced the written word as a way of giving their readers a “hook,” especially in the wake of Bill Gates’s 1996 monumental essay “Content Is King.” In today’s fast-paced, digital-centric era, however, it’s time to rely on visual content — specifically, video communication.
How The Human Brain Process Visual Content
According to E-Learning and the Science of Instruction by Dr. Ruth Colvin Clark and Dr. Richard E. Mayer, when compared with text alone, text that is combined with images improves comprehension by as much as 89%. That’s probably why video communication is shown to significantly improve our understanding when information is being shared.
What Does This Means For Your Business?
According to the study, adding videos to presentations helps improve audience attention and influence action. Video contents facilitates the absorption of data, helping illustrate information that might require further elaboration. This creates a more informative and palatable reading experience.
Posts with visuals especially videos produce a 650% higher engagement rate than text-based posts. According to the Adobe Digital Index Social Intelligence Report, content paired with visuals yielded a 650% higher engagement rate than standard text posts
Image credit VAN YORK AGENCY
The right video really can make a difference. In fact, 40.2% of marketers say that original, custom visual content such as video and infographics perform best, compared to just 12.5% saying stock photography is best, according to Venngage. When planning your visual communication, always consider custom video content that’s tailored to your message, your tone, and your brand.
No matter what industry you’re in, knowing the basics of video marketing can facilitate and elevate your message. Remember, your audiences are hard-wired to understand videos more quickly and effectively than text.
Video Marketing Can Help When You:
Have a lot of data
Want to tell a complex story
Need to capture someone’s attention
No matter what you’re saying, it’s important to consider how your audience will best understand your message. If you recently conducted a survey but your readers aren’t statisticians, how can video communication help make sense of your data? If the emotional weight of your subject matter has the potential to disengage your audience, how can video communication strike the right tone? Asking questions like these at every turn will help determine when visual content is the right answer.
59% Of Senior Executives Prefer Video Over Text When Both Are Available.
A 2010 Forbes Insights study, in association with Google, surveyed 306 executives, and found that 59% of the participants opted for video content when the information was available in both video and text form.
Image credit VAN YORK AGENCY
A Forbes Insights survey found that individuals prefer more convenient means of absorbing information. Videos, from animated explainer videos to 3D virtual modeling, are increasingly permeating social media as much as they are finding their way into the C-Suite. In fact, organizations in professional services, communications and technology were among a small group of industries that published over 300 videos in 2018. Using videos to educate or influence an audience is one of the most effective means of communication today, and can significantly enhance your storytelling strategy – in both the boardroom and the newsfeed
Some Applications Of Video Marketing
Video marketing can be applied across diverse media, industries, and topics. Some formats include (but aren’t limited to):
INFOGRAPHICS
Infographics tell a story using facts, data, and visuals. They work in both digital and print formats and are a great tool for presenting a clear data- or fact-based message.
ANNUAL & FINANCIAL REPORTS
Annual reports don’t have to be hefty tomes. By following the basics of visual communication and incorporating data viz and iconography, these reports can take on new life and capture interest and readership.
MOTION GRAPHICS
Motion graphics — most often at 90 seconds or less — deliver dynamic stories. These are a great outlet for explaining information, promoting products, or describing a situation. They rely on a multisensory approach to capture an emotional response in the viewer.
INTERACTIVE CONTENT
Interactive content creates a hands-on approach to learning. Whether it’s a full-size microsite or a compact widget, an interactive experience can deliver complex or substantial amounts of information in personalized, easily digestible formats.
BRAND IDENTITY
Maintaining the integrity of your brand is a must. Establishing a clear visual brand identity will ensure that every piece of visual content you produce upholds your company’s values and goals while reaching a defined audience.
AUGMENTED & VIRTUAL REALITY
AR and VR provide opportunities to dig deeper than what’s on the surface. Whether that’s by providing additional data or creating a new universe to showcase your brand, these cutting-edge platforms create an embodied visual experience that communicates the heart of any message.
VISUAL COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGNS
Any individual piece of collateral is a drop in the marketing bucket. With a campaign approach, you can use a variety of visual communication across channels to tell a larger story, whether you’re building brand recognition, sharing information, or launching a product.
The Creative Process: Making A Piece Of Great Video Marketing Content
Understanding the importance and implications of video content is one thing … but creating it is another. Here are three tenets to keep in mind as you work to develop visuals that excel.
COMMUNICATION
Creating pieces that communicate visually requires clear communication throughout the entire process: between content writers and designers, between your marketing team and your design team, and more. If you’re working with a visual communication agency, make sure that they ask at least some basic questions about your goals and target audience. These considerations should be communicated to the entire creative team and should drive the entire production process.
REVISION
Even when you talk about your goals, it’s pretty rare that things will turn out perfectly on the first go. Working with a creative team is a collaborative process, so be clear about the changes you’d like to see and what your reasoning is for those changes. An experienced team of video communicators will be able to make smart recommendations for revisions that address your concerns while keeping your goals in clear view.
PARTNERSHIP
In creating custom content — be it an icon or a visual language — it’s important that you put your best foot forward. Working with a video marketing agency who can guide you toward the end result that’s best for your unique situation and goals will help your visual communication stand out in all the right ways.
Visual communication is a rich part of our history and evolution. It comes to us naturally, so we find it more compelling and easier to understand than text. All of this makes it a powerful tool that marketers can’t afford to ignore.
Just remember one thing if you’re looking to incorporate more visual communication content into your next marketing campaign: focus on quality. In a world where high-quality videos are everywhere, stock imagery won’t be enough to keep your audiences’ attention. So, partner with a video marketing agency to determine the right visual strategy for your brand.
You’ve learned everything there is to know about crafting the perfect video strategy. Now is the time to picking the right video agency, You’ve got story content ideas, a set budget, and precise goals in mind, with the proper KPIs to boot. The only thing left? Hiring the right video agency to help you create the video you need to drive results.
And, don’t worry, we know this sounds biased. We’re a video agency with over 5 years of experience under our belt. We’ve got an amazing experience and it should go without saying – you should hire us.
BUT – We’re also suckers for a good video.
We want you to accomplish all your business goals and create a wonderful video you and your whole team is proud of, whether we create it or not.
That’s why we’re letting you in on all our secrets. As a video agency, we know what businesses like yours should look for when hiring a production team. We know the exact qualities that make a good video agency good, and the tell-tale signs you should avoid as you do your research.
Let’s take a look at just a few of the things you should look for as you begin your video production search.
Previous Examples of Work
Before you do anything, including placing a call for a quote or sending an email to ask a question, you should take a look at the video agency portfolio of work. Does their work catch your eye? Do you think their video style might match your needs?
Beside seeing work that is visually captivating, you’ll want to explore the different kinds of videos they create. If a company specializes in animated videos and doesn’t showcase any live action videos, their strength may not lie in creating a scripted and recorded brand video. Likewise, if you only see reels of stock footage, they may not excel at lifestyle video creation, interviews, or narrative work.
Good Communication
Good communication is essential! Think about it. When’s the last time you nostalgically thought about sending duplicate emails and answering the same question eight times with a glimmer in your eye? No one wants that!
Video production teams will vary in size – you might be dealing with one or two people directly, or a team of 10 – it all depends on the size of the company you hire. Regardless, you’ll want communication to be clear, convenient, and fast. You’ll likely have one single project manager who shares your vision with the rest of the team. If you don’t, you should know the function of every person you’ll communicate with: talk to Kenneth about creative, talk to Michael about production scheduling, talk to sira about video editing. The implication here is that kenneth, Michael and sira will all talk to one another to create and deliver your perfect video.
How do you know communication is clear? For one, you get regular progress updates. You get details about the process without having to ask, and if you do have a question, you can direct it to someone and get an answer pretty quickly. It’s difficult to know whether or not an agency has great communication before you hire them, so be sure to do lots of research – read their reviews, get personal recommendations, and talk to more than one person who works there before signing on.
Quick Turnaround
The time it takes to complete your video is obviously impacted by the scale of your project, but as you do your research, get a good feel for what a normal turnaround time should be. If you need an event video for a round-table you’re attending next week, turnaround should be relatively fast. If you need a three-minute video with complex graphics, on-location footage, interviews, and more, expect longer.
For instance, our normal start-to-finish turnaround ranges from as little as three weeks to as much as two and a half months. If you get any quotes for a much longer time frame, that could be a signal of poor time management or lack of resources. On the other hand, if they give you a surprisingly fast turnaround time, beware of low-quality work.
Positive Attitudes
A positive attitude is a lot more than just a smile. It should be clear the minute you get a phone or email response that the agency is helpful, happy, and eager to please. Team members should get along, they should have your best interest at heart, and, even when giving you an answer you may not want to hear, they do it in an understanding way, giving you workable alternatives.
And trust us – things won’t always be rosy. Obstacles (no matter who’s at fault) can create frustration and anger. A good video agency knows this and keeps a cool head even when tempers are high. Again, this won’t be evident right away, but read plenty of reviews and ask a lot of questions about troubleshooting, quality control, and more before you make your hire.
Ability to Say No
You might have a highly specific plan for the type of footage you want – that’s great! The more guidance you can give, the better. But remember: you don’t want to hire a yes-company, a company that will automatically say yes to everything you request. You want a partner agency that can work with the guidance and feedback you provide and create something amazing, which might mean offering up a new creative angle, perspective, or strategy. They’re the experts after all! They should bring their insight and experience to the table in a way that still incorporates your requests and keeps your brand vision in mind.
This is an unexpected characteristic most businesses would never think to look for when hiring an agency, but it does tell you a lot about a company’s overall strategy, expertise, and confidence.
Still, you want to keep the previous points in mind. You don’t want a company that will say yes to every idea you have even if they don’t agree with it, but you also don’t want a company that will over promise and under deliver, be rude, or not communicate their hesitations.
Conclusion
Finding the right company to work with can be tough. The best advice we can give? Call a lot of companies, keep track of pricing, scheduling, extra benefits, and more, and compare your results. You might end up picking a slightly more expensive option due to the unlimited editing they offer, rather than picking a cheaper option that doesn’t give you any edits at all.
Youtube: Best Nigerian Series You Need to Watch this series are ever green in the nigeria space, so let get started. Nigeria is known as a giant in many respects. With this in mind, it is no wonder that its large and thriving population have often turned to homegrown entertainment to fill their leisure time. However, much of the wider world’s attention has been on Nollywood and the big screen. Nigeria’s creatives are turning to smaller screens and snackable drama series in order to capture the attention of a much wider and younger audience. The rise of web series on the continent has led to a wealth of content that is available to all, and we think it’s time the rest of the world got in on the act.
Web Series are a part of the entertainment sector that many Nigerian filmmakers are embracing, the quality of the stories and video quality has improved over time in such a way that their international counterparts got nothing on them.
Most of this Nigerian web series can be streamed free on YouTube mainly, for our entertainment pleasure.
So here is our best Nigerian YouTube Series you need to watch to whet your appetite.
papa benji
Papa Benji was created by Nigerian comedian Basketmouth. The story is based in a pepper soup joint named “Papa Benji” an industrious Igbo man who took a loan to start his pepper soup joint, which attends to many other interesting characters that come into the joint. And takes us on a journey into the complicated lives of the restaurant’s customers, with a sprinkle of current affairs. The series is based on his childhood experiences from old school comedy and personal life. The show is released every Saturday. WATCH HERE
Inspector K Advertised as a ‘crime comedy’ Inspector K bravely breaks the mould of your traditional Lagos Island drama. The series begins with a murder at a Lagos house party and Inspector K’s arrival on a motorcycle sets the tone for this five-part whodunnit web series. This series is certainly worth a watch for Inspector K’s outbursts and interruptions, the one liner’s delivered by Koye Kekere-Ekun can leave you winded. The inspector withholds respect from everyone but takes respect where it is not offered, beginning one interrogation with “Do you know I hate you? I hate your life; I hate your homeless look…I hate your videos”. Accompanied by a duo of pidgin speaking sergeants, these loveable fools remain unserious and yet manage to wrap up this whodunnit comedy series. Let it be noted, the storyline indisputably needs work and the big reveal will definitely leave you scratching your head, but it will make you laugh and sometimes that’s all you need. The show is released every Wednesday. WATCH HERE
Game on
GAME ONNdani TV are experts in giving viewers heart palpitations with their plots and Game On is no exception. The show tells the story of two couples: married couple — Tega & Osaze and unmarried co-habitants Leye & Mayowa, as they both navigate through their complicated relationships while playing dangerous mind games. Mayowa wants a ring and Osaze…. well…doesn’t want to spend her money. But I won’t give too much away. Kudos to Abimbola Craig for this one. The show is released every Thursday. WATCH HERE
little black book
LITTLE BLACK BOOKThis show is the work of Wale Adetula’s The Naked Convos. Little Black Book is the story of Tade, executive assistant to the very attractive and seductive CEO, Leo, as they navigate working life together. I’m super excited that they’re bringing their stories to screen. It hits different when the actual writers of the short stories are involved in the screenplay — the authenticity remains and it becomes everything you’ve imagined. The show is released every Thursday. WATCH HERE
Skinny Girl In Transit
The MVP: SKINNY GIRL IN TRANSIT (or SGIT for the true fans) There are numerous reasons to love this show from the plus-sized female lead Tiwalade (Tiwa), to the predominantly female season regulars who are (mostly) there for each other more than anyone else. SGIT is a comedy web series which focuses on the life of Tiwa, a 20-something single female radio host looking for love. As the title suggests, Tiwa isn’t your average female protagonist, and what is even more exciting is the way the series evolves. Tiwa does not lose sight of her healthy living goals, but she also doesn’t let them hold her back in the world of work or romance, and through four seasons we catch glimpses of her and her traditionally attractive sister Shalewa’s wild rollercoaster ride in these departments. An introduction to the series would not be complete without mentioning Tiwa’s over-involved, over-dramatic and loudlyreligious mother. Special mention must be made about the soundtrack to this show (especially season 4). The producers manage to weave the perfect tracks into emotionally charged scenes which give viewers all of the feels. The show is released every Friday. WATCH HERE
WHEN ARE WE GETTING MARRIED: From executive producer Bola Atta, When Are We Getting Married is a story of two young lovers who move in together and try to make their relationship work in spite of their divergent views on life. The show, which was produced by Kayode Kassum and Olufemi Bamigbetan for Red TV, reveals how important chemistry is but how it isn’t nearly enough to make a relationship work. It also touches on peculiar problems young people face in contemporary Nigeria while navigating romance. Edith and Fenwa are on different wavelengths about love and the prospect of getting married. They must fight the world, their fears, their pasts and each other if their relationship will survive and go the distance. Written by Ife Olujuyigbe, the series stars Ric Hassani and Immaculata Oko-Kasum.
Balancing delivery end exceeding customer expectations is something a lot of creatives find difficult in doing, they make the mistake of over promising and under delivery. They forget that Managing customer expectations results in positive returns for both businesses and customers alike. Creatives are able to meet the needs of their customers and customers take away a pleasant experience. That’s how important balancing delivery and exceeding customer expectation are but why do creatives sometimes fail to this simple hack.
To begin with let’s define what a customer expectation is: Customer expectation can be defined as the perceived value or benefits that the clients look for while purchasing products or services.
What are the different types of customer expectation?
Implicit expectations – are based on business performance and formed by experiences such as comparison with the products or services of the competitors.
Explicit expectations – refers to well-identified product performance standards, quality of the product, and services rendered by any company.
Interpersonal expectations – reflect the relationship between a customer and brand across the customer lifecycle.
Static performance expectations – refer to the front-facing elements of your brand such as accessibility, customization, dependability, etc.
Key factors that contribute to poor customer expectation
A critical as managing client expectations it’s very important in understanding the factors that can influence poor customer expectation. Because Unable to meet consumers’ standards translate to low conversions and customer retention rates.
Here are some key factors that contributes to poor customer expectation.
Previous experience with other brands – The previous experience with your competitors can shape client expectations from you. They might model their preferences based on what other brands can do for them. If you fail to outshine your competitors, you can not win your customers.
Poor Communication strategy – What you communicate to the customers, through support or marketing channels shapes their expectations. And the way you communicate pertains to your customer service. So, focus on disseminating accurate information and the way you interact as it impacts your overall brand image.
Customer reviews and feedback – Feedbacks and reviews greatly influence the brand image and reputation. What your customers speak about you creates your brand image. By keeping high-quality consistent performance-focused, you should take your online reputation management seriously.
How to manage and exceed customer expectation
Understanding customer needs and exceeding their expectation are becoming table stakes for creatives to compete. Let us discuss the top ways you can manage the list of customer expectation.
1. Engage customers consistently across multiple touch-points
Customers view contextualized engagement and seamless transitions between different communication channels. If the creative engage their customers based on earlier interactions, it could act as a winning formula.
Creatives that follow the omnichannel communication strategy have witnessed a significant 89% increase in retention and a 9.5% year-over-year increase in annual revenue.
Customers expect businesses to be active across multiple channels like the web, social media, email, mobile devices, etc. Maintaining consistency among every channel improves the customer experience that impacts brand reputation positively. So, break your silos and manage your customer expectation by following the tips below.
Identify all the channels that customers choose to reach out to your business.
Unify all your customer conversations at a single place to get a better understanding of your customer journey.
Use the insights to engage your customers throughout their journey across all touchpoints.
As a business, having a strong omnichannel customer service strategy is critical to have a unified view of your customers and be able to take necessary actions before they churn.
Key takeaways
You can map your customer journey to understand their behaviour and know the areas where they need your assistance. You can offer proactive assistance across the behaviour stages via the right channels such as live chat, chatbot.
You can acquire customer feedback and improve your support process to learn and exceed your customer expectations.
Following an omni channel approach reduces the number of customer complaints as you can reach out to them across various channels.
2. Provide faster real time solutions 24×7
Real time engagement is what every customer expects when they approach a brand. Most of the customers leave frustrated if they fail to receive instant support.
The core idea behind real-time customer engagement is the ability to recognize and interact with your customers promptly and cadence that matters to them. InContact study found that customers are satisfied and positive with proactive customer service.
Live chat software empowers the agents to proactively engage with customers and offer them the right solutions. You can also use visual engagement tools like video & voice chat and co-browsing solutions, to make the conversation effective and offer faster solutions. The live customer engagement tools ensure faster resolution in the first touchpoint.
Chatbots are the best solution to automate the repetitive business tasks to engage customers with instant answers 24×7. They are the best way of managing customer expectations when the customers’ queries are simple or your support team is busy or not available. Bots can be easily scalable when there is a sudden rise in traffic.
Key takeaways
You can use live chat software to gain valuable insights about customers’ profiles and trigger the right message at the right time to deliver the best customer service experience.
With the help of customer engagement, collaborate with your customers in real time and deliver faster solutions in the first contact.
Deploy chatbots to engage customers 24×7, handle the FAQs, and increase customer satisfaction. This reduces the number of tickets and improves team productivity
You can provide hybrid support to your customers. Bots will handle general queries and complex queries will be transferred for humanized support.
3. Keep your communication transparent
Customers expect transparent communication. Businesses lose potential customers because they fail to implement transparency practices.
Being transparent is good not only for your customers but also for your business. In addition to attracting new customers, transparency allows you to better serve your existing ones, ensuring they stick with you. Here’s how transparency has helped our business:
Build a successful business – Being more open about your products, prices, terms and conditions will set you up for success. Potential customers respond well to straightforward talk about what we can and can’t do for them.
Increase your brand value – Becoming more transparent can improve your business’s efficiency. By spending time talking about your customers’ concerns and embellishing your results, you can save time for more productive work.
Build trust and loyalty – The trust that you build with your customers is invaluable. Transparency is a key way of creating trust because it helps eliminate any suspicions or anxieties your customers might have about the value of what you’re offering.
Key takeaways
You should propel authentic information about your product or services to avoid future confusion among customers.
Make sure that you don’t make fake commitments and set customer expectations that will break their trust and loyalty.
You should know your brand offers and discounts prior to offering customers to maintain brand efficiency.
4. Focus to cultivate customer loyalty
Customers always demand high levels of customer service. Such customer service expectations are what ultimately inform their level of satisfaction, leaving brands with a difficult question: how can you possibly meet your customers’ needs while staying ahead of the competition? The answer is customer loyalty.
PR Newswire says that the loyalty management market will grow from $1.4 Billion in 2015 to $4.0 Billion by 2021. Businesses are building strategies in focus to increase customer loyalty
Loyalty is the perfect tool for managing, and exceeding customer expectations with every purchase. But in order to address them with loyalty, it is important to understand the types of customer expectation and what they mean in the context of retention and reward marketing.
Key takeaways
Loyal customers have a positive impact on business recommending your brand to friends and family with good word of mouth.
When customers are satisfied, they become loyal and have higher customer lifetime value.
5. Collect customer feedback
As per the HubSpot study, “A full 42% of companies don’t survey their customers or collect feedback.” Eventually, these companies fail to understand customer expectations. Customer feedback is vital for all businesses to get an overall transparent performance picture and improve your products and services.
Once you understand what customers need, it becomes relatively easy to provide those features in your product. It also becomes relatively easy to retain customers — since they won’t have to go elsewhere when you’re doing what they expect from you.
So yes, feedback is crucial.
Customer feedback helps to measure customer satisfaction. There is a close connection between customer satisfaction and business performance. Therefore, you need to make sure your customers are happy with your products and services.
Naturally, the best way to find out if you meet their expectations is by their feedback. By using CSAT and NPS surveys and ratings you can easily measure the satisfaction level and consequently predict your company’s financial condition in the future.
Key takeaways
Customers expect creatives to respond to their feedback promptly, but if the time gap is slightly, they churn and talk negatively about your brand.
By asking customer feedback, you communicate that their opinion is important to you. You involve them in shaping your business so they feel more attached to your company. This is the best way to gain valuable brand ambassadors who will spread positive word-of-mouth for you.
6. Meet your customer expectation by going the extra mile
Basically, to go the extra mile comes down to doing more than is expected by the customers, trying a little harder, and going above the norm. And needless to say, that excellent customer service is a key attribute that many customers value more than the price or quality of the product.
For example, it’s the extra time a sales agent spends helping customers to make the right selection or the customer support rep who takes a few minutes extra to ensure you have all of your questions answered and won’t need to call back.
What can you do to show you value your customers? Here are some ways you can make your customers feel valued or important.
Try to know your customers and identify their needs. Customers love the personalization and attention you give them.
Implement the feedback collected from customers and offer improved products or services that align their expectations.
Give promotional offers and discounts with their purchase.
Going the extra mile will not only result in a much happier customer, but it can also go a long way in terms of keeping your business growing as well as staying on their radar for future opportunities and business.
Perfect example on how to exceed customer expectation answers
Kennysoft STUDIOs is known for going the extra mile to fulfil customer expectations and delight them. Once a customer orders for a video or animation production service, Kennysoft STUDIOs does not only produce the video for the customer but go further in understanding what the video will be used and then create a video marketing strategy for the client at no extra cost.
7. Use social media to understand customer expectation
Gartner studies say “Businesses that do not respond to social media messages encounter a 15% increase in customer churn.”
Social media has become one of the most preferred platforms by customers for instant assistance. According to Insights Guide Facebook reported that more than 1 billion messages are sent from customers to businesses, every year.
Practice social listening to monitor social conversations related to your brand. By actively listening to the conversations, you can understand their expectations and behaviour. You can manage customer expectations and build good relationships with them. You can promptly respond to customer service expectations on social media.
It encourages customers to spend more with the company. Your business is able to gain a competitive advantage and make your business stand out of the box.
Key takeaways
Practicing social media listening helps you to understand customer service psychology that further helps to know customer needs and wants.
Identifying customer needs empowers you to serve them better and boost customer satisfaction.
8. Conduct market research
Conducting market research is a great way of identifying potential customers. Once you know your target audience you can plan how to exceed their expectations. The more you know about your customers, it helps you define your brand positioning around their expectations.
Understanding customer’s overall can benefit your business to deliver better customer service and build long-lasting relationships.
When you identify your customer expectation you can:
Offer prompt solutions – Knowing what customer expects from you helps to deliver prompt and effective support.
Enhance overall product – Customer research helps to understand the motives behind the buying process of the customers and improve on grey areas to create an effective USP.
Making an effort for market research is worth it because it provides you insights on so many questions like – who are the potential customers, what they buy, why they buy it etc. Further, the research can help you to develop a more detailed picture of them and understand how to target them.
Key takeaways
Research can help you to learn your customer expectation across your industry. It is very important to collect the core details from your customers through regular communication and deliver service matching their expectations.
You can use CAST and NPS surveys to measure your customer satisfaction with the existing business products and services. Based on the answers you can tailor your product to your client expectations.
9. Keep your customers engaged
Many creatives fail in meeting the expectation of keeping them updated and follow up with them. This can be frustrating and end up customers leaving you and negatively advocating about you.
They do so because they feel that you do not care for them and prefer silently leaving your brand. This might negatively impact your brand.
Keeping your customers up to date and making follow-ups show your care towards them and makes them feel an integral part of your business. This develops loyalty in your customers and they eventually become your best brand advocates.
Key takeaways
Make sure you provide your customers with an estimated time to reply back to keep customers informed.
Follow up with your customers once the issue is resolved to make sure they are satisfied with the solution or not.
10. Proactive handling of customer complaints
The web enables customers to share their feedback in multiple channels such as forums, social media networks, and more. This indicates that you need to get proactive in handling customer complaints.
You can categorize the frequently reported complaints or analyse what sort of problem the customers might encounter and based on that you can prepare solutions beforehand. The solutions can be in various forms such as:
Support content
How-to videos
FAQs
Tutorials
Key takeaways
You should never ignore your customer complaints. When you receive complaints from customers, categorize them, and share them with the relevant team or department to work on to resolve it as soon as possible.
As you welcome customer appreciation, have a similar attitude to the complaints as they are the way to build a better product and brand.
Conclusion
Balancing Delivery and exceeding Customer expectation have a profound impact on every creative business and businesses generally. It implies across the whole organization in its own way. Being customer-centric is the best way of managing clients’ expectations. Once you plan and understand what your target audience expects, it becomes easy to meet and exceed them.
