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.
Now we have covid-19, which the whole world is fighting against but before the existence of covid-19… In the history of mankind, lots of diseases have come and gone with different symptoms and in many cases, they have few similarities. One of the deadliest pandemics that has struck the surface of the earth is the Spanish Flu. Lasting from January 1918 to December 1920, it infected 500 million people – about a quarter of the world’s population at the time. The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, behind the Black Death.
Today we have a similar case we are fighting called covid-19
The outbreak of the virus known as Coronavirus nicknamed COVID-19. What exactly is Coronavirus? What effect does it have worldwide? Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a new virus. The disease causes respiratory illness (like the flu) with symptoms such as a cough, fever, and in more severe cases, difficulty in breathing. Coronavirus disease spreads primarily through contact with an infected person when they cough or sneeze. It also spreads when a person touches a surface or object that has the virus, then touches their eyes, nose, or mouth. You can protect yourself by washing your hands frequently, avoid touching your face, and by avoiding close contact (1 meter or 3 feet) with unwell people. There’s currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Around the globe, scientists in various laboratories have been working continuously to find a possible vaccine to assist fight this virus that has taken the world by surprise. Never was it imagined or thought that in the first quarter of 2020 the world would be held stand still without any war as the cause, but a pandemic. It has gone global with cases in over 150 countries.
The effect of COVID-19 on a worldwide scale is huge. Beginning with human lives, as at when this article is written, there are over 1.8 million cases and 118,000 deaths, with the United States of America accounting for over 570,000 confirmed cases and 23,000 deaths. Human lives are affected seriously in Italy where a minimum of five hundred persons die daily due to COVID-19 spread. It has affected all major football leagues around the world and has pushed the season’s league calendar more than expected, and this shift has affected other sports tournaments scheduled for this year such as EURO 2020. It was meant to take place from June 12 – July 12, 2020, but is now scheduled to take place next year from June 11 – July 11, 2020. Other events such as the Tour de France, Formula 1 Grand Prix in Vietnam, and even the summer Olympics Tokyo 2020 are now postponed. It isn’t just the sports events but the effect of COVID-19 on the business sponsorships attached to each of these events. How long the epidemic will last and its economic impact is difficult to predict. As a result, the stock and bond markets have entered a period of extreme volatility, leaving investors to wonder: What does COVID-19 mean for the global markets and economy? It turns out to be that the COVID-19 pandemic has given a huge blow to businesses worldwide. Yes, it has. Let’s look at some of them.
Effects of Covid-19 On Businesses.
1. Airline Industry: After the presence of COVID-19 in various countries around the globe, governments affected by its presence issued an immediate lockdown of all airports thereby grounding flights coming in or going out of the country. International carriers got the major hit financially than local carriers such as Emirate Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Lufthansa Airlines, Turkish Airlines; just to name a few. They are all seeking a bailout fund to assist in running operations during this period. Even the International Air Transport Association (IATA) updated its analysis of the financial impact on global revenue, counting its losses for the passenger business to the tune of $63 billion. On the other side of events, top giants in the plane manufacturing industry – Airbus and Boeing, have grounded major production activities in all their factories thereby creating a decision that may lead to over 15,000 employees becoming unemployed in each company respectively. This same measure has also affected major airline companies around the globe to ask for loans from governments and banks that run into billions of dollars cumulatively, notwithstanding the layoff of jobs that would surely affect many employees as well at the end of the day. Surely anyone can be a victim of circumstances by being laid off from a job without a quick replacement at the moment. What does the future hold for many when this pandemic ends? Only time will tell.
2. Hospitality & Travel Industry: These industries are different but they are closely related because of the similar activities they share. One field that links them together is tourism which is one of the biggest and fastest-growing sectors in the world today and has been considered as a vulnerable industry i.e. in comparison to other industries as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. The effects of COVID-19 to these sectors have affected business transactions and income as well. One of the dimensions in the tourism sector is the use of Cruise ships in creating a getaway holiday on the sea. Just like airlines, cruise ship companies have seen a drop in demand since the novel coronavirus outbreak grew into a pandemic in recent weeks. The top three cruise ship companies in the world – Carnival Corporation & Plc, Royal Caribbean International, and Norwegian Cruise, alongside others have been deeply affected by the outbreak of COVID-19. They have sought for cash infusions that run into billions of dollars to remain solvent after the industry announced a suspension of operations due to the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, some cruise ships such as Diamond Princess, Ruby Princess, Princess Cruises, Oasis of the Seas, Celebrity Infinity, just to name a few got hit by Coronavirus with the presence of a carrier in their midst. Caribbean countries including Antigua, Belize, The Bahamas, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Suriname, St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent, and Trinidad have imposed travel restrictions and a few of them also imposed a curfew as a result of the presence of coronavirus in the country.
Globally, this action does not affect the industry alone, it also has a major effect on SME’s that have a business segment locally attached to the major companies in the industry. With a lockdown affecting the closure of businesses and traveling worldwide, entrepreneurs in such fields are bound to face more challenges financially if this crisis lingers because their source of income has suffered as well. Considering the evolving nature of the situation, it is too early to estimate the full impact of the COVID-19 on international tourism. For its initial assessment, the UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organization) takes the SARS scenario of 2003 as a benchmark. The UNWTO estimates that in 2020 global international tourist arrivals could decline between 20-30%, down from an estimated growth of 3% to 4% forecast in early January 2020. This could translate into a loss of US$ 30 to 50 billion in spending by international visitors.
3. Supply Chain: There are thousands of small and large production firms with an employment rate ranging from 1,000 – 50,000 that depend on China and Vietnam for pieces of machinery, raw materials and production of goods too. The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a shaky effect on these businesses thereby causing them to source from other destinations such as India. China is gradually wriggling out of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country with recent statistics at the time of this writing, showing a significant drop in the number of new cases and deaths. Major factories in China are working round the clock to produce ventilators and face masks for highly affected countries like Italy, Spain, and the USA but it hasn’t changed the fact that lots of big firms such as Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, just to name a few that depend on China for production of spare parts of their products; have looked within and outsourced the production of their phone parts to countries like India and Vietnam. What does it mean for businesses?
How Businesses Can Cope
The effect of COVID-19 is a wildfire that devours anything it touches without showing mercy. As viruses know no borders, the impacts will continue to spread. Lots of businesses in various sectors around the world would surely face financial loss. The use of the internet for work-at-home activities has skyrocketed more than ever with many firms such as news agencies utilizing it effectively by converting a room inside the home of a reporter to a replicated temporary studio. Even phone companies like TECNO mobile have recently launched and sold phones by hosting an online launch event of their recent device CAMON 15 on April 2, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Various online platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr extend the services of freelancers to companies and individuals that require assistance in carrying out tasks related to working online. If you are an entrepreneur, you can still achieve your business aim by working more online via various social media platforms by creating engaging content on your page. Why? Due to this COVID-19 pandemic, over half of the world population are currently indoors 24/7 round the clock and they are regularly online to keep their minds busy on anything being posted. In essence, businesses can grab this open window of opportunity and make the best use of it. In summary, the world is at a standstill fighting the COVID-19 virus that is causing rampage daily and causing a large number of financial casualties to economies, businesses, and death to humans that have fallen victims to the virus. It is a disheartening situation locking yourself at home with little provisions pending when the government would lift the lockdown, and the reason is that you want to be safe from the virus and alive at the end of it all. When will that be? We do not know. We all pray for this pandemic to end.
The effect of it on various businesses globally is still rising but businesses can adjust to these present circumstances by making use of online platforms to ensure the objective/goal of the firm during Q1 of 2020 isn’t defeated. Until this pandemic comes to an end, we all need to adhere to these precautionary:
• Stay at home if your area is under lockdown • Wash your hands regularly. Sanitize your hands always • Maintain social distancing • If you observe any warning symptoms, go see a doctor.
Thinking of partnering with a video marketing agency to help create a marketing video for your business? businesses are going online now so you need to keep your consumers engaged with a well crafted social media video. Then work with us let’s help keep your customers engaged.
Have you ever wondered how popular videos from your favorite social media video creators like mark angel comedy, Mr. macaroni, basket mouth and a whole lot more go viral? Or you are even wondering how do I even start to make my video go viral in this digital age where video content is king, all I can tell you is welcome on board; you are on the right flight to finding all the answers you need to make your video go viral on any digital platform you can mention be it Facebook, YouTube or even Instagram we have all the answers to make your next video go viral.
So, let’s begin our journey to finding the answer to all your questions on how do I make my video go viral.
For starters, what is a viral video? A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram as well as social media and email.
According to recent statistics by SEMrush500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute worldwide (Tubefilter, 2019). That’s 30,000 hours of video uploaded every hour. And 720,000 hours of video uploaded every day to YouTube. Not just that YouTube Growth Trend Statistics In 2021, there are approximately 1.86 billion YouTube users worldwide, up from 1.47 billion in 2017. It’s estimated that by 2022, there will be 210 million viewers in the U.S., up from 192 million in 2018. In May 2019, there were 500 minutes of YouTube videos uploaded every minute.
What about Facebook? According to editor’s choice Facebook Video Statistics (Editor’s Choice) More than 4 billion video views take place on Facebook every day. 500 million viewers watch 100 million hours of video content on Facebook daily. 65% of all Facebook video views come from mobile users.
A recent statistic shows that 5 million videos were posted within 24 hours of the launch of Instagram Video. 50% of business Instagram accounts have posted an Instagram Story. 5.2 million users watched branded Instagram videos during Q1 2017.
Now you understand how huge video contents are in this digital age, so what are the practical ways to make your next video go viral?
Here are 7 practical ways to make your next social media video go viral:
Do some research first
Write compelling and informative titles
Use the Correct Tags and Hashtags.
Make Videos on Trending Topics.
Consider your timing.
Keep it short.
Stay engaged.
Below we’ll go into detail on each of these tactics for making your next video go viral on any platform be it YouTube, Facebook or even Instagram.
Do Some Research First
Don’t just post a video on any video sharing platform be it YouTube, Facebook or Instagram, creating videos on non-relevant topics will make it extremely difficult for you to succeed.
It’s important for you to study your niche. So, what do I mean by this? What I meant is study the kind of videos you want to create, ask yourself what kind of videos I may be comfortable in creating? be it comedy videos, cooking videos, or even motivational videos. This will help you uncover the popular subjects in your niche.
Write Compelling and Informative Titles
Titles are make-or-break when it comes to your video’s performance. Ask yourself: are you presenting your content as “must-see” or “meh?”
The key to crafting killer titles is grabbing your audience’s attention without resorting to clickbait headlines. People crave content that’s entertaining, and they likewise want to know what your video is about from the word “go.”
The takeaway here is that you should definitely spend time mulling over engaging titles rather than sticking with the first idea that pops into your head.
In terms of specifics, an oft-cited study from Tubular Insights notes that YouTube video titles should stick between 41 and 70 characters. Meanwhile, tools such as CoSchedule’s headline analyser recommends 55 characters for an engaging headline.
Use the Correct Tags and Hashtags.
Using the right video tags can help you get a sharp edge over your competition. Many video content creators are not using this strategy. This is why they are having a tough time with getting a significant number of views for their videos
Make Videos on Trending Topics.
Trending topics will give your videos more exposure. Your targeted audience will always make an earnest effort to keep abreast of the latest news. They want to know more about the subjects and topics that interest them.
Consider Your Timing.
If your goal is to go viral, you’ll probably want to post your content on a weekday. Some people recommend posting early in the week, too, so that you have as many days before the weekend as possible when you have a captive audience.
The reasoning behind this distinction is that many people are digesting content at work, on lunch breaks, or when they are otherwise browsing the Internet during the workweek. While you can still definitely go viral on the weekend, there may be fewer people looking for content at any given time. Additionally, you’ll want to avoid posting on holidays (unless your content is relevant to the holiday).
Keep It Short.
In the digital age, attention spans are shorter than ever. What does that mean for your content? Nobody (okay, almost nobody) wants to watch a ten-minute video unless it provides really clear value to them. Content that is most likely to go viral tends to be shorter in nature, ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes at most.
Stay Engaged
Finally, when you hit the “post” button, your job isn’t over! For one thing, you’ll want to keep monitoring the engagement and potentially interact with your audience if you start to gain traction. If your content is successful, you’ll also need media outlets to have a way to contact you to continue to fuel your success.
On the other hand, if your content isn’t successful, treat it as a case study and adjust for future content. Note any trends in engagement, what worked and what didn’t work, and any flukes that may have affected your content. Then, use that information to optimize your approach next time you have great content.
With these tips in mind, you’ll have the best shot at getting your content to go viral. May the odds be ever in your favour!
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There is always an augment between tiktok vs Instagram which is the world No 1 video sharing platform and advertiser on a tight budget are always finding it difficult between choosing tiktok vs Instagram which to spend their advertising budget on.
It’s always a fight for everyone especially generation Z, there is always this question people always ask between tiktok vs Instagram which should I spend more of my time on, so today we are going to answer all your questions and give our suggestions on both platforms so without further ado lets dive in to get all your questions answered on the tiktok vs Instagram war.
If you don’t know Instagram’s influencer market is estimated to be worth over $13.8 billion dollars. More than half a million sponsored posts have been posted on Instagram in 2021 so far. While 89% of marketers say Instagram is the most important channel for influencer marketing, newcomer TikTok has quickly become one of the most popular platforms in the world in less than two years and a rising platform for influencers.
The Coronavirus stay-at-home order seems to have only escalated TikTok’s new user growth. TikTok became the most downloaded non-game app worldwide during March 2020 with more than 115.2 million installs. For comparison, in 2019, Instagram only averaged 111.5M downloads per quarter.
Just like Instagram, TikTok gives users of the app the ability to like, comment and share, however, it stops there. There aren’t options to repost or save content, however the app continues to have an impressive 689 million monthly active users globally as of 2020, Just recently tiktok announce an active user of 1 billion monthly active users globally.
It is known for its virality and one-of-a-kind content, making it so unique and impactful when it comes to influencer marketing.
Tiktok Vs Instagram Comparison
As a brand, there are multiple ways to get involved with a TikTok influencer. This includes creating challenges, which often go viral, meaning this is a sure-fire way to get your brand, its products, and services, noticed.
65% of TikTok’s users are between the ages of 16 and 25, which is something brands should be mindful of, ensuring that this also correlates with their own target audience and their demographics.
TikTok also offers analytics tools, where metrics such as video views and profile views can be found, as well as useful information about an account’s followers, which is particularly beneficial for brands when seeking a new partnership or collaboration.
Now, Instagram is the most popular social media app when it comes to influencer marketing, however, that doesn’t mean it is the best for you and your brand.
The needs of each business differ greatly, and so, this changes the platforms in which you need to utilise.
Instagram is so popular due to its versatility. With the ability to create and share professional-looking photographs, as well as short and long-form videos, Instagram caters for almost everyone, but that also depends on your target audience, too.
The content we see on Instagram is very much carefully curated – on main feeds, anyway. Instagram Stories are great at showing real-time content that is much more ‘off-the-cuff’, and features such as Reels and IGTV allow influencers to showcase their creativity and passion for content creating.
The largest portion of Instagram users are aged between 25 and 34 years old, so, to get the very most out of your influencer marketing campaign, this should resonate with the target audience of your brand.
Since brands have been using Instagram for paid ads and Influencer marketing for a long time, the site has earned a reputation among users as an ad space.
Tiktok Vs Instagram Conclusion
Both social media apps offer their users an entirely contrasting experience. With differing audiences and a completely different offering in content, TikTok and Instagram are great for influencer marketing campaigns for their very own reasons.
In terms of TikTok vs Instagram, it isn’t necessarily a case of which trumps the other, but which best suits your brand.
Think about your target audience and consider the content you’d like to represent your brand and its products or services, and you’ll find your answer.
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