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Video Marketing Strategy Essentials
Youâre here because you know that videos are essential for your marketing activities,  that much is obvious. But whatâs harder to figure out is exactly how to build and structure your video marketing strategy. When, how often, how long, what to focus on, whereâŚthere are many questions that need to be addressed. So letâs do just that!
Timing is everything
So youâve decided to create a video campaign. You know that video is the vehicle of our time, and now you just have to handle the execution. What you need to keep in mind is that a video campaign not one piece of content but a series of timely videos. Your brand should tell a story that your audience will follow from one video to the next. So itâs critical that you both design the story and the scheduling timeline to optimize this storytelling progression. The goal here is to ensure your viewers are actively looking forward to the next installment.
To see what time of day works best for each social media channel, check out our guide for The Best Time To Post Your Video Ads. Â
Less is more
Todayâs world offers a vast amount of information and media at every turn. This means that viewers are bombarded with media from all angles and subsequently have pretty short attention spans. So we as publishers have to be smart about how we get our message across. When it comes to your video marketing strategy, remember that less is more. Short and exciting videos will always do better than long, more complicated ones. And thankfully, most video creation platforms allow users to create 6-15 second videos that can easily be shared on social media.
Content is King
This one should not be particularly surprising: itâs the content of your videos that will win you valuable customers. You need to offer them something new, something interesting, that they feel deserves their time and attentionâand hopefully their social sharing power. So know your audience, decide what kind of content you think theyâll appreciate and what you hope theyâll get from it. Once youâve done that, spare no effort in ensuring that your content will grab their attention with new and surprising information. And better still, include interactive features to ensure their engagement.
Use your users
Not every product or service will be able to incorporate user-generated content into its video marketing strategy, but those that can, should. Your users are by definition part of your target audience, and that means you need to listen to and value them and their input. Whether itâs by building a better platform for users to give reviews or engaging them in a social discussion, there is certainly something you can do to set the user-generated content wheels in motion. Remember, this content has already gone through a litmus test for relevance and will be more likely to provoke a response than content generated solely by your company.
Be social
We donât need to tell you that if it isnât on social media, it didnât happen. And the way the trends are going, this is never more poignant than when developing your video marketing strategy. But what you do need to figure out is on which social platforms to publish. Are your audiences primarily on Facebook and Twitter, or are you also appealing to the younger Snapchat generation? Either way, make sure to keep your tone consistent across platforms in order to present a unified brand message.
Action!
A great video is a great video. But whatâs a great video without a call to action? A missed opportunity, thatâs what. The call to action is the handshake, the deal-closer; without it, you leave your audience feeling ready and willing with nowhere to go. Your video marketing strategy should take this into account. Ideally, you should know what your call to action will be before you begin planning the content and flow of the videos themselves. Know what action you need and do everything you can to get it.
Get all the details from our Call To Action 101.
Get on the right track
Youâve built your video marketing strategy, youâve put huge amounts of thought into your campaign goals, its execution, and getting the angle just right. So you release it into the wild⌠and now what? Performance tracking.
Whatâs the use of creating videos based on your hypothesis of what your users want and which storytelling tools will be effective if youâre not going to test it to see if itâs true? Each campaign should teach you new lessons that can feed into the next one, and these insights will be the most precise with detailed video performance tracking.
Immerse yourself in our Facebook Video Ads Best Practices to ensure you make the most of those videos.
 Ready to create your own video campaign? Try Promo Today!
Video Marketing Strategy Essentials was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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Business Marketing 101: 7 Things You Need To Get Started
Youâve got a million dollar idea and all your friends think itâs genius. Step one is complete. But now itâs time to turn that lightbulb into a thriving business. No matter how great a product or service, online marketing can be the make or break of your company. It is vital to set yourself up for success by mapping out where you need to be online and what kind of deliverables go where, and how often. This strategy will evolve constantly which is why you want to build your foundation from the get-go.
Before you start to tell yourself you will skip over one of these 7 steps, stop and ask yourself how badly you want this. Then give yourself a stern pat on the back and get down to business. Because if youâre not doing all 7 of the necessary marketing musts below, we can guarantee your competitors are.
Here are the 7 things you NEED to start your small business on the right foot:
The Perfect Name
No need to launch yourself into a major marketing effort or build up a brand to be remembered for generations if you donât have the right name for the job. Yes, just like the months one agonizes over and debates about the name of their first-born child so too should be the attention given to the name of your business. After all, one can only dream that what you start today will be here long after youâre gone.
When it comes to choosing a business name, there are rights and wrongs.
Follow this checklist to ensure your name fits the bill:
Musts:
Pronounceable
Short
Available Domain (weâll get to that)
Not Trademarked
Not Generic
Easy To Spell
Evokes An Emotion (ideally in line with your product/service)
Memorable Logo
Many new business owners will consider putting a logo at the bottom of the list. Not us. Your logo will be everywhere and it is the key visual language to showcase your brand. From your online content to printed materials, packaging and more, your logo is likely more memorable than any other content item you create. Thatâs why it is essential to have a professionally designed image that truly reflects your style and will be appreciated by the right crowd.
So, say you are obsessed with the colors red and orange and fancy Relativity by M.C. Escher as the best artistic creation of all time but you run year-round swim lessons. Perhaps putting your own taste aside and sticking to a clean vector image of a blue wave will do the trick and clearly communicate from second one exactly what your business is all about. To take it a step further, thicker strokes and more rounded lines will appear to be an image for children rather than adults, which is great if thatâs your target market. All of this and much more will be considered by a professional designer when creating your logo.
You can also try these online tools to get started:
Canva
Design Evo
Fiverr
Professional Website
Ever pondered the philosophical question, âIf a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?â The 2018 version would most certainly be, âIf a business has no website, is it a business.â The answer to the latter question is far easier â no. Today one simply cannot afford to have a business, big or small, without having it represented (and well ideally) online.
Your website can be as simple as a landing page giving your general information, an image or two and a way to best contact you or it can be one of the most useful marketing tools in your arsenal. And if youâre not ready to put considerable effort on things like search engine optimization, an image gallery and collecting testimonials to beef up your web content, thatâs totally ok. Just donât forgo it all together.
Remember, even if it takes you a few months to get organized and go live, we recommend you purchase your domain name ASAP before it gets snagged. Then you can explore the design process as you see fit.
Here are a few tools to choose from:
Wix
Squarespace
Unbounce
Friendly Newsletter
Consider your current and future customers your new best friends. And those relationships require consistent nurturing. While it would be divine to have a regular get together or even a phone chat, a solid newsletter can do the trick when it comes to ensuring your communication stay on track. What makes a newsletter different than a standard email is two things: it can be designed (so fun) and it requires some managing of your contact list on the back-end to ensure youâre saying the right thing, to the right people, at the right time. All of which is very manageable and frankly, pretty exciting. I mean, who doesnât want to be in touch with the very people making your business grow?!
Here are a few emails we recommend you send:
Welcome
A little about my business
Upcoming Event
Industry News
A customer of the month
Special offers
You can try these tools to manage your emails and growing client list:
MailChimp
Constant Contact
Drip
Thought Provoking Blog
Donât skip over this section just because you think you have nothing to say. Wrong. You are the expert in your own field, or most definitely your own niche and your customers want to hear from you. But believe it or not a Blog does more than allowing you to share your innermost musings in a way a quick email doesnât, it also has the potential to both bring in new customers via search and build brand loyalty which is a key factor to maintaining returning customers or clients.
Adding a blog to your website is simple. What deserves more of your time and energy is considering what content items you can really benefit from writing.
Here are 10 easy steps to come up with Blog topics:
Step 1: Search competitors Blogs and write down recurring themes
Step 2: Consider what is missing from your list in Step 1
Step 3: Google keywords related to your field and review what articles come up
Step 4: Take the keywords and themes and start writing them into interesting headlines
Step 5: Build out a schedule for yourself and ensure the content youâll be writing is about diverse subjects.
Step 6: Write
Step 7: Edit
Step 8: Find complimentary images
Step 9: Publish
Step 10: Pass that amazing article around your network
Pro Tip: Try to write a minimum of 600 words per article to allow for SEO optimization when you add that to your marketing strategy.
Social Media Presence
Letâs answer some of your questions straight away. So youâve got your own Facebook, Instagram and Twitter personal profile â Yes, you still need a business page! Yes even if you are a business of one. So you donât ever use Facebook, Instagram or Twitter ⌠or any other social media channel for that matter â while we applaud your desire to stay off the grid, now is the time to introduce social to your life, strictly as professional accounts. Do you need an account on every single channel? No. Do you need to publish content regularly? Yes. Does each channel have its own best practices? You bet.
Not to bombard you with overwhelming info, as there is a ton to be said about social media, we want to hit the nuts and bolts and encourage you to nail it. If you have not opened an account on at least one if not two social media channels, now is the time. Then make sure you have the following information easily available on your profile.
Website
Contact Information
Professional Logo
Business Type
Reviews (if possible)
A steady stream of content
To get started even create an introductory post and then email all of your amazing clients that youâve joined the channel and youâd love them to follow along for a peek behind the scenes at your business. Thatâs a fun way to kick off. Youâll want to follow up by following people and brands in your business and posting curated content from others in your field that your followers would find valuable as you build up your bank of original content.
That said, creating original content is easier than you think!
Here are a few blog posts and one awesome Facebook Live to help you get started:
5 Things To Include In Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
The Best Times To Post Online
Facebook Live: The Social Media Edition
Creative Videos
Video content is a must when it comes to small business marketing, and surely big business as well. What once required an enormous budget and plenty of resources is something you can now do solo from the comforts of your own desktop in a matter of moments. Why has this become a necessity? First, because videos are receiving more and more views on every single online platform as the world moves to mobile and internet speeds are faster than light. Second, the barrier of entry has decreased so significantly that just like a website, videos are becoming essential both for ads and customer retentions. But simply creating one video is not enough. You want to create videos consistently and creatively.
Consistency can feel intimidating but hereâs a list of ideas just to get you started:
Hello! A bit about us
News
Sale
Special Event
Holiday Greeting
Blog highlights
Product updates
Customer testimonials
We also offer a Complete Social Media Video Content Calendar for every day of the month. Use these as inspiration or snag the exact videos and customize them for yourself.
Certainly, creativity is subjective but there are a few things that can be objective when it comes to creative marketing. When creating your videos ask yourself these questions before clicking publish:
Is it high-quality footage? Premium quality content will have a huge impact on whether or not your audience will continue watching as well as how your brand is received.
Is it easy to read? Weâd recommend only 3-8 words on each frame lasting no less than 2.5 seconds.
Would someone know what kind of business I have? You know your biz but not everyone does. While jokes and creative videos are wonderful, the goal is to showcase your business so ensure you have clear content showcasing exactly what you do.
Did I share my business name and information? Make sure your company name is displayed as well Call-To-Action.Â
Do I communicate one clear message throughout? We know you have tons of great stuff to say so instead of jamming in all into 1 video and confusing your viewer, just make more videos and have 1 defined message for each. Itâs that easy.
Did I show my personality? Are you fun, funny, romantic, nostalgicâŚshow us who you are!
Would I want to watch this if I saw it online? The best way to answer this question may be to share it with a friend or two in order to get some honest feedback.Â
Assuming you got all YESâs, youâre ready to go!
Try and of these amazing tools (though we may have a favorite):
Promo
WeVideo
Powtoon
If youâre ready to take a deep dive into video creation, take a look at our guides:
How To Create Your First Video Ad
6 Things You Should Know About Video Advertising
7 Steps For Creating A Professional Branding Video
Marketing a new business in this competitive landscape is certainly no walk in the park. But youâre an entrepreneur so certainly, the challenge doesnât scare you. Whatâs critical is that you donât solely focus on your product or service and make room in your mind, or with a team, to consider how your marketing efforts play a role in the greater strategy youâre building. This includes defining your unique value proposition and making sure youâve honed in on exactly what message effectively allows you to stand apart from your competition. You may have the best idea under the sun but if you canât market it properly, itâs time to adapt. By following this list youâll ensure that youâll be starting on the right foot and giving yourself the best possible opportunity for success. Remember, the unique and creative parts of who you are and what your business does are always the things that will be your greatest advantage.
Ready to create your own videos and get people excited about your business? Try Promo Today!
Business Marketing 101: 7 Things You Need To Get Started was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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May Your Content Calendar Reign Supreme - Promo Plan
Letâs just say what everyone is thinking. Creating a monthâs worth of social media content is tough. After 10 cups of coffee and searching aimlessly for a muse itâs common to start posting things that moved from âgoodâ to âgood enoughâ. And what a bummer to essentially take the online version of a Times Square billboard and post something you donât think rocks!
But that little sad story of creative blockage is over. We have a content team of internet lovers and social media gurus who have scoured the web and racked their brains to come up with fun content items for every single day of the month of May. And itâs for YOU to use.
Yes, we love the internet and we love giving things away for free. Consider it karma.
So without further adieuâŚ
Hereâs your Complete Social Media Calendar for May
Create marketing videos in a matter of minutes including daily themes, hashtags, business recommendations, jokes, and even video examples you can customize for your unique brand.
Here are a few fun examples to get your pumped for May:
Cinco De Mayo
vimeo
Eat Whatever You Want Day
vimeo
Sunday Vibes
vimeo
Memorial Day
vimeo
 Share your exciting content with #PromoPlan so we can give your biz a special shout out.
May Your Content Calendar Reign Supreme â Promo Plan was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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Video Marketing Ideas For Mother's Day â¤ď¸
Ah, Motherâs Day. A time when families dote on the most important women in their lives and celebrate the miracle of motherhood. No really, all silly sentiments aside, mothers are real-life superheroes and the hype around this holiday is very well-deserved. But itâs not just for the pitter pat of your heart, itâs also an exceptionally strong time for businesses.
Americans buy everything from flowers and cards to jewelry without question. This year spending is expected to reach $23.6 billion â the highest in the history according to the National Retail Federation. With all this purchasing comes a great deal of marketing competition. Thatâs why you want to prep to be on the top of everyoneâs gift list, no matter what industry youâre in. To do so youâll need to create a handful of videos that will share the message of Motherâs Day and your special Holiday offer with your audience and stand out from the rest.
Here are a few ideas you can use:
Create a sale
Yes, we did just say people spend in the billions but an individual or family could always use a small discount in order to choose you over your competition. Design a special sale just for Motherâs Day and make sure to keep the language lighter than usual. For example, âYour mother deserves the best âŚâ rather than âGet this for less moneyâ. One of the best kinds of sales for a feel-good holiday such as this one is âBuy One Get Oneâ or add in a little something extra to your standard offer. For example, if you are a restaurant owner you can throw in free dessert for family meals over a certain amount and make sure your business is packed all day long.
Get this video
vimeo
 Tug at our heartstrings
Combine beautiful footage of mothers and children with a thoughtful quote or well wish and there wonât be a dry eye in the room. Whatsmore, create a video that inspires your audience to share it with their mother and really see your organic engagement take flight. While this isnât going to lead directly to immediate new purchases (though it certainly might) building your brand around positive emotions is always an ideal way to devise content. Our recommendation for this one is to consider your audience carefully and make sure itâs inclusive of all different sorts of families that may be within the community.
Get this video
vimeo
 Share your story
Does your business have a unique story to share? Of course, it does. All the better if you can include how motherhood has affected your business within that special tale. While we arenât encouraging a 1-hour sit-down, you can get creative and share a short anecdote with a longer social media caption to really bring your clients into your family living room. This kind of content bridges the gap between you and your customers and builds brand loyalty.
Get this video
vimeo
 Host an event
If youâve got a brick and mortar business, Motherâs Day week is a great time to have an event. It can be as simple as an open house or even some sort of special tasting. Make sure to purchase a decoration or two and make those mamas feel divine. If you succeed, youâll have new business rolling in all year long. Imagine, you have a clothing shop and hire a masseuse to come in for 3 hours and give 5-minute neck rubs to all the mom. That costs you a few hundred dollars maximum and with a strong video and email to customers to get people in the door, youâll treat your clients to something theyâll never forget and likely were really in need of.
Get this video
vimeo
 Looking for more fun options for Motherâs Day videos? Have your own creative ideas?
Check out our ready-made Motherâs Day Collection full of content just for you!
 Video Marketing Ideas For Motherâs Day â¤ď¸ was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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6 Things You Must Know About Video Advertising
Video advertising is on the rise, captivating consumers and grabbing their attention in ways content has never been able to before. Reaching nearly $10 billion in ad revenue just this year, companies now have the opportunity to grow with it.
Video advertising is here and it isnât planning on going away anytime soon. Digital video and mobile video advertising are precisely what every company needs in order to get its brand name and products noticed by consumers. US digital video ad spending is actually so successful that it is increased to reach a whopping $83 billion in 2017.
What is it about video advertising that fascinates potential buyers so that they canât get themselves to look away? Why is video advertising effective and how will you know youâre doing it right? Here are the top 6 things you ought to know thatâll help your business get a better understanding of the power of video advertising.
What is video advertising?
As the fastest-growing category on mobile, on desktop and overall from 2016 through 2020, video advertising is all around us, capturing our attention on every digital platform possible. With the rise of social media and video streaming channels like YouTube, video advertising has been helping companies build their brand awareness in new, creative and engaging ways. There are many types of video formats such as linear video ads, interactive video ads, overlay video ads and companion video ads, and each offers brands a unique way of reaching its target audience.
Why is video advertising effective?
While the first video ad to ever run legally on television was Bulovaâs ad on NBC from July 1st, 1941, which cost only $4, visual marketing is actually older than cave drawings. In fact, 90% of information sent to the brain is visual and the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text. Therefore, there is simply no question as to why video advertising is effective. It just works on our brain in ways textual content canât.
youtube
Video is the future of content marketing
If youâre wondering where to invest most of your money and time, you just got your answer. Video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic next year, and Google describes it as a must. In fact, video growth will actually outpace that of social and will stand at over 20% by 2020. Video is the future of content and every advertising platform is racing to adapt while every business invests in creation.
Mobile video is where itâs happening
With mobile use growing in an average of 58% year after year, consumers have become hungry for visuals and preferably delivered in the palm of their hand. Since smartphones are more affordable nowadays, potential buyers are now after emotion-evoking video advertisements that are short, make sense and are mobile.
According to Statista, âthe number of online video viewers will amount to 236 million users in 2020, up from 213.2 million in 2016.â That kind of growth is so powerful due to a combination of the video mobile internet boom and a greater personal connection between viewers and the advertising brand via video content specifically.
The difference between in-stream and in-banner video ads
The world of video ads includes two major types: in-stream video ads and in-banner video ads. The first, in-stream video ads are in the video player itself and are injected into the stream that is sent to a clientâs video player. Think of that pre-roll video playing before the DIY guide you searched for on YouTube, thatâs it. The latter, the in-banner video ad which is a banner with videos embedded in it, is used quite frequently by YouTube also but isnât that well known amongst marketers. Since every type of online video advertising is going to be done in-stream, companies need to know how to use it properly. This will supply them with the knowledge on how to offer their clients as many options as possible to get their brand or product to the right types of consumers.
Consumers are viewing videos everywhere
Video ads are being watched on many different types of online media and websites, requiring companies to make sure theyâre covering all their grounds in order to target as many potential consumers as they can.
Fun Facts:
Facebook has 100 million hours of video views per day
A Facebook video receives 135% more organic reach than an image
300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute!
There is no doubt that video advertising is just going to get bigger and in order for companies to understand what video advertising is all about they will have to put many hours into learning its benefits and creating engaging content which will be relatable to potential consumers. Continue to publish video content and track your engagement to find the sweet spot for your business.
 Ready to create your video ads? Try Promo Today!
6 Things You Must Know About Video Advertising was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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New Promo Partnership With Shutterstock Makes A Huge Impact
We are thrilled to announce a brand new content integration with Shutterstock.
What does this mean for Promo users? You officially have access to the largest premium content library and video creation platform on the planet. Pretty exciting stuff!
The new content integration with Shutterstock Inc. will add 9 million premium quality videos to the Promo video platform over the coming weeks, all of which can be accessed by our users to create breathtaking videos for your business.
Never heard of Shutterstock somehow? Theyâre essentially the mecca for stock images and video across the world wide web. Shutterstock is a leading global provider of high-quality licensed photographs, vectors, illustrations, videos and music to businesses. With this quality content and the easy to use Promo Editor, your videos are going to look better than any team of pros could create in a matter of minutes.Â
This unique partnership allowed us to upgrade the video library from 3.5 million to over 12.5 million video clips while maintaining the high-quality standards of all footage we offer. Because you deserve only the best! With Shutterstock, you now have a large professional creator community all over the world aka a football field full of videographers in your back pocket.Â
As our Captain and CEO Tom More said: âIn our mission to provide the best video creative to growing businesses worldwide, we are very picky about the video content partners we work with. We are very excited to add Shutterstock as a partner. Adding their nine million premium videos will enable us to improve our creative offering by providing a much more diversified selection, supply the ever-growing demand for high-quality video and cater many more business types and needs, as more businesses join and create videos in growing frequencies. The overwhelmingly positive reaction to Promo is what fuels us as we continue to build the best video creation platform for businessesâ.
Welcome to the family, Shutterstock!
Ready to dive into the massive Promo video library? Create your videos today!
New Promo Partnership With Shutterstock Makes A Huge Impact was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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What Is A Hashtag And How To Use It To Grow Your Social Following
Ever perused the internet and seen that pesky hash/number/pound sign before a word? Maybe someone used the word hashtag in an anecdote in real life when telling a funny story and you thought, is that a new thing? Well, these symbols are definitely trending when it comes to content creation but they arenât just some strange version of 21st-century punctuation, they have a legitimate and helpful purpose.
But you may have known that already. The trick is understanding how to make the most of the #hashtag for your marketing efforts on social media.
What is a hashtag?
When a hashtag is added before a word to a post on social media, it is then indexed by that platform and then discoverable via search. This allows for content to be categorized by the writer and then displayed easily to anyone interested in that topic. It is a self-created filtering system within what can be a chaotic and overpopulated area, social media. The hashtag is used most effectively on Twitter for jumping in on real-time conversations and on Instagram for finding new profiles posting about your particular interests.
How to use a hashtag?
Letâs say someone wants to learn all about video marketing, they can search #videomarketing and discover brands and individuals they have never heard of before and then jump in on the conversation. That means at Promo since we work in the world of video marketing, weâd want to use #videomarketing in our Tweets and Instagram marketing video examples in order to make sure our information gets to the people most interested.
You can also search for an event and use the dedicated hashtag for that activity whenever youâre posting about it on Twitter. Say youâre enjoying the summer Olympics, youâd want to post using #Olympics2018 because thatâs where the conversation is taking place â the feed indexed under that populated hashtag. In the case of events youâll need to do a quick search not to use the wrong hashtag such as #2018Olympics because, while it might make logical sense to you to use certain wording, hashtags are specific and if youâre not using the dedicated and relevant one already out there, you wonât land on the bustling chatter.
When to use a hashtag?
The short answer is all the time. Especially on Twitter where your audience is most inclined to start off the viewing experience by looking at relevant hashtags, sometimes even more so than simply looking at their feed full of friendsâ posts.
The trick is to use them correctly and not push it into your text if the content isnât relevant. If you use a hashtag when one makes no sense, it can actually hurt your engagement online. So, just like with everything else when it comes to your business, be truthful about what your content item offers to actually see results.
You may be asking yourself, how could someone possibly use a hashtag incorrectly (aside from just choosing the âwrong oneâ)? Well, one of the best uses of a hashtag is when there is a real-life event that the zeitgeist is obsessing on with a correlated hashtag. On Twitter, you can find the Top 10 trends in your geo at any given moment. So, should you see #WorldSeries on the trending page and want to use the hashtag #WorldSeries when you have no baseball-related content, just to get eyes on your post, this will not serve your interests. BUT if you use #WorldSeries and then take the opportunity to make a twist like, for example, a gym business tweeting itâs favorite healthy foods to eat while watching the game, that can work exceptionally well! Youâve just got to find your hook.
Play around on each social media platform by searching a number of keywords connected to your business until you find the ones with the highest engagement. Then sprinkle them into your content regularly. You can also check the trending page daily to see what new fun posts you can drum up based on that dayâs activity.
Our team does monthly hashtag research to anticipate a number of trends we can count on and created the Promo Plan full of content and video examples you can know will have a lot of noise online.
Create your hashtag
As your business grows you can create your own hashtag with your company name so that when others post about you, it all shows up in the same place! We highly recommend running various campaigns to encourage your users to post on their social media channels using your hashtag so that potential clients can see that user-generated content and fall in love with you, just like your current users have. This can be as simple as using your hashtag in your own posts, sending out an email asking people to do something specific and use #ABCD so your team can give a like or take it a step further and offer a small prize for the best user posts. All of this allows for a ripple effect of exposure you canât get any other way.
 Ready to create your own video ads to use on social media? Try Promo today!
What Is A Hashtag And How To Use It To Grow Your Social Following was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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Tips For Creating a Content Calendar
No matter what industry youâre in, youâve got to create great marketing content. And while it would be ideal to await a morning muse who arrives with your early cup oâ joe, those blissful days are few and far between. Thatâs why you must strategize, prep and plan your content. Not only because inspiration often doesnât arrive on schedule, but because in order to make the most out of your content for marketing efforts and to execute top quality work, more thought needs to go into your long-term goals than just drumming up a Facebook post and clicking publish.
Yeah, you can create a video in 5 minutes, yes you can caption it and off you go ⌠but imagine how much better all of your marketing efforts could be with a plan in place. Weâre here to give you some key tips on how to devise a content calendar straight from the Promo Content Team.
Define Your Audience
First things first, decide who you are talking to. We like to compile all of the different qualities of our audience and imagine one person that represents that group. Then we name him/her. Because content is truly about personal communication and relationship building, devising work as if you are sharing it with one very specific person in mind will keep you clear and focused on the process. Consider the following to start: age, gender, interests, how they spend their time, shopping habits, eating habits ⌠the list goes on.
As you profile your audience itâs essential to imagine what they like to look at and engage with online. Consider if they spend time on social media and which channels, what other companies do they follow, what products do they use, how do they like to be communicated with. This goes for emails (keep it personal) to Facebook ads (keep it engaging). If as you ask these questions you discover that in fact, you have more than one target audience, thatâs ok. Just make sure that when it comes to content you are communicating with each in their own relevant way on their own online platforms.
Find A Content Crush
The research phase is not over. In fact, it has just begun. Open up that computer and prepare yourself to have loads of tabs. Itâs time to discover a content crush. Or a list of them. Not that you know your target audience you should start to look at other established brands they likely engage with and read read read all that content. Start to get a feel for tone, style, humor. Visuals and so on. Then you can pair down what rocks and what socks (see what we did there). Subscribe to all the content of your crushes and continue to have inspiration fill your inbox.
After you found the âNorth Starâ for your content goals, youâll also need to audit your competitors. This step we recommend opening up a spreadsheet for. Consider how they showcase their features, what differentiates them from the others, and from you, who engages with them and on which platform(s). This is not a step youâre doing in order to copy your opponent â no way. You want to do a thorough audit so that when it comes down to sitting and writing, you are standing out rather than getting mixed into the bunch.
Discover Holidays
Did you know there is such a thing as Internet Holidays? Yup, holidays simply for the joy and pleasure of sharing content online and jumping into fun themes and trends. Both national, religious, and internet holidays all offer one uniquely helpful things for content creators and thatâs the assurance of a trending hashtag. Devising content that others will be speaking about on any given day is basically why social media is a dream digital marketing platform and can bring you new leads and higher engagement just because you were paying attention. Now, that said, do not ever, and we mean ever, sacrifice quality or brand identity because something is trending on Twitter. Thatâs tacky. But if an internet holiday exists that is relevant to you and your audience, dive in and make something that stands out.
To start you can follow our monthly Promo Plan filled with a content suggestion for every day of the week including relevant hashtags. We picked some holiday winners and daily trends that are in line with most businesses. You can also take a look at the annual Hubspot calendar to see more.
Choose Channels
So, you know who youâre talking to and you know how others are talking to them. Great start. Now itâs time to decide where youâre reaching out.
Here are your major options:
Website
Landing page
Email
Blog
Social Media: Facebook Page, Facebook Group, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google +, Slideshare, Quora
Banners and Ads
Over time youâll hit all of these and then some but to begin you can map out which places you want to focus and how frequently you want to publish content there.
Hereâs our recommendation:
Website: Huge effort upfront, update with new products and sales monthly
Landing page: Advanced and campaign specific
Email: Send weekly
Blog: Publish weekly or bi-monthly
Social Media Step 1: Facebook Page (daily), Instagram(daily), LinkedIn (bi-weekly)
Social Media Step 2: Facebook Group (3x/week), Twitter (3x/day)
Social Media Business Specific: Â Pinterest, Google +, Slideshare, Quora
Banners and Ads: Advanced
With so many exceptional tools online we highly recommend looking into content management tools for your emails and social media channels to start. You can find some of our favorites in our blog post, 33 Must have Marketing Tools For Every Business.
Fill It In
Can you believe all of that was before even sitting down to write your content? Here we go, time to fill it in. But this takes strategy too. You want to ensure you have diversity in your content items and youâre offering helpful tips and relevant exposure to your business. You also need to have easy to digest and enjoyable writing with a clear tone and voice. After all, you want your audience to look forward to receiving what youâve written.
Take it month by month, or for social media perhaps week by week. First, decide a theme, then the headline, then outline and last fill it all in and begin to work on the visuals to complement the writing. Or if itâs video creation, jump from your theme and goal to selecting the right footage and then adding text and music.
Pro Tip: No matter how amazing you are at creating content, everyone needs a second pair of eyes. If youâre writing, grab yourself an editor? If youâre creating videos, get a trusted friend to give a second opinion before running your campaign. Often we can be so close to our own work we miss things that are obvious to another person.
Make Time For Spontaneity
You can plan until the cows come home, and you should, but you also need to stay relevant. We encourage anyone in the content creation world to have a plan, cross your tâs and dot your iâs and then leave yourself room to develop the unexpected. For example, if your weekly content is already ready to go, you can carve out 30 minutes each morning to check out the Twitter trends, viral articles, and bustling conversation in hopes of something relevant your business can tap into. This sort of real-time content creation is invaluable and can only be done if youâre ahead of the curve on your day-to-day.
With content creation thatâs endless opportunities, and for the best of us, endless ideas of great ways to make an impact. Thatâs why building a calendar, establishing a strategic plan and getting everyone on board to execute is vital. Yes, you can always wake up in the morning and bang out 600 words, but why push yourself to do that when you can make such a greater impact when you consider the what, when, who, and why in advance of a deadline? Build yourself something to be proud of and then feel free to still color outside the lines.
Ready to create your own video ads? Try Promo today!
Tips For Creating a Content Calendar was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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New Video Marketing Collection For Spring
The time has arrived for some spring cleaning when it comes to your marketing plan. Even the best business strategy can go stale and the seasonâs change is a perfect time to dust off the old game plan and get some fresh ideas and brand new content circulating.
It can be as simple as running an Easter ad over the weekend (Fun Fact:Â Americans are predicted to spend $18.4 billion over the holiday), making some silly April Foolâs jokes or showing that exceptional weather headed our way. The romance of spring, the excitement of summer approaching, the thawing lakes and longer days can give your audience that breath of fresh air and the emotional moment youâre looking for â but only if you let it.
No matter how busy youâre bustling business is or how long your to-do list is growing, get in on the massive marketing trends of spring before itâs in the rearview mirror. Â
Weâve made it as simple as a few clicks with this brand new Spring Collection of ready-made templates with footage, music, and copy included. Yes, thatâs right! That entire pep talk and all you need to do is customize a curated commercial waiting for you inside our Editor.Â
Here are a few of our favorites spring marketing video examples to get you excited:
[Click right on the video title to jump into our Editor and use the creative today!]
Winter Is Over
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Spring Is On
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Wake Up
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Spring Flowers
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Garden House
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New Season, New Haircut
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New Nutrition
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Vacation Packing
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Speedy Spring Cleaning
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Ready to create your own marketing videos for spring? Try Promo today!
New Video Marketing Collection For Spring was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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Dennis Yu's Tips On How To Survive The Facebook Fiasco
Globally recognized Facebook guru and CTO of BlitzMetrics, Dennis Yu, wrote, âGuysâ these changes, while bad for Facebook and will drive government regulation, arenât necessarily bad for us.â Needless to say, we were intrigued.
With the dark cloud hovering over many of us in the marketing world, we were ready to peer through and see the sliver of light his team has discovered and want to bring this unique knowledge and actionable steps to you! Turns out, Facebook marketing is still an exceptional platform to get discovered and build your business. Even with each rollout producing new company challenges we are simultaneously finding new opportunities to hack the growth potential.
Buckle up! Here are 7 advanced tips to make social media marketing work in your favor straight from the expert!
New Regulations Require New Features
With Facebook removing estimated reach reporting, setting budgets and understanding audiences is harder. So start your ad sets with $1 a day and set automated rules (a killer feature in ads manager you probably have never seen) to adjust budgets based on frequency and cost per result.
Donât Get Banned
With more people getting ads accounts banned (nearly impossible to get back), having an active account becomes a competitive advantage. So read the advertising Terms of Service super carefully and submit fewer ads. Then youâre less likely to get banned (but you still might be, like we have been).
Learn the 3Ă3 Rule
Set up your campaign structure to follow the 3Ă3 grid, which is 3 pieces of content each for awareness, engagement, and conversion (3 part #AECfunnel). As you find more winners to place in your âgreatest hitsâ, you can increase the budget. Then you have almost zero risks of disapprovals since youâre increasing budgets on winners, not making tons of new ads.
Master Your Metrics
While estimated reach on custom audiences has gone away, you still get actual reach and other performance metrics. All the more important now to be smarter about analytics and optimizationâ to know how to troubleshoot stats on your campaigns via Loganâs Standards of Excellence and to be able to estimate reach by looking at audience size.
Diversify
Diversify into Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, and SnapChat. These other platforms all offer email and web custom audiences. And the beauty is that you can set them all up quickly and with little effort if you place all these remarketing pixels in a single Google Tag Manager container. If thatâs Greek to you, hire someone to do it or grab the course at blitzmetrics.com/DPG.
Get Creative
Less data and functionality means you must be stronger at creative, which has always been the bottleneck, as Ryan Deiss likes to note. Most PPC and SEO folks are over-reliant upon tricks, as opposed to being pro at video. Become an eager, observant student of producing, editing, monetizing, and measuring video. Ultimately, in a battle between the data scientist and psychologistâ the psychologist wins.
Video
Video, video, videoâlearn how to make one-minute videos! Your WHY video, a gratitude video, an explainer video, your speaker reel highlight video, your âhow toâ tips video, your customer interview video, your happy employee video, your company âI believeâ video, your lead magnet video, and so forth.
 *Originally posted on the Facebook page of Dennis Yu HERE
Dennis Yuâs Tips On How To Survive The Facebook Fiasco was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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7 Steps To Create A Professional Branding Video
Creating a professional branding video can make or break your business. Thatâs why knowing how to create a video that will professionally establish your company and excite your target audience is crucial.
Branding encompasses everything included in the way your potential audience and competitors perceive you, which essentially affects everything you do in your business. Nowadays, with over 8 billion users worldwide using social media there is no doubt that branding yourself properly has never been more important. With video predicted to take up 80% of web traffic by 2019, there is no doubt that the right way to get your name out there is by creating a professional branding video that will reach a much wider audience than your content ever could.
Video is increasingly proving to be the best possible way to brand your business. With it you can build relationships with your customers and target audience, experiment with your brandâs content and creativity, explain your value proposition and create a meaningful emotional relationship between your brand and your viewers. Video marketing and video advertising has actually become such a strong tool that research has found that by 51.9% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
Getting Started: Creating Your Branding Video
In order to guarantee you are utilizing the power of video to your advantage, consider using the following tips before uploading your branding video and sharing it with the world. Make sure your video represents your story in a relatable way that youâll be happy with and keep in mind that according to 3M, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual.
Here are 7 tips to get you started:
Know Your Audience
One of the key parameters to creating the best type of branding video is knowing who youâre addressing in your video. A danger when making a video for everyone is that it will end up compelling no one. Youâve got to know who youâre talking to and get specific when deciding how youâre communicating exactly to that audience. Knowing which social networks are used by your target audience offers the best potential for engaging them with your video content. Consider creating an online persona in order to target the right kind of audience youâre after.
 Create a Video Bio
Whether youâre a one-man company or have hundreds of people working for you, creating a video bio for your brand is the best way to make sure youâre getting the attention you deserve. Just as actors have showreels, your brand needs a video that will present your story in the best way possible. Since the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than it does text, most people will prefer watching a video bio than reading it. Your video bio should not be a version of your resume, but showcasing your unique value proposition. Share your point of view in your video bio, express your personality and engage through your intonation and body language with those you seek to influence.
Understand the Difference Between a Conversion Video and an Engagement Video
If what youâre looking to get from your branding video is a drive to sales, make sure you know the difference between the two types of videos. While a conversion video is designed to drive sales, an engagement video will help you build your brand and get people to subscribe to your social media networks.
Share Your Videos on Social Media
What was once almost considered taboo is now a must for every company that respects itself. Uploading and sharing your videos on social media networks can help you get to your brand to its preferred target audience. Just make sure you keep consistent with both the timings of your uploads and their content.
Share Stories People Will Want to Hear
Textual content may not be in the height of its game but that doesnât mean it doesnât matter at all. People want to hear about things that will intrigue their imagination, make them think and most importantly â make them want to share the story theyâve heard with other people. Creating a good video has to include all these elements. After all, you canât persuade people to buy something they donât care about. They first need to care about what theyâre buying.
Promote Thought Leadership and Insights
Video is able to present you in ways text simply canât. It serves as an excellent platform thatâll enable you to educate your viewers on different issues that are important to your business, brand and industry, and position your brand as credible, professional and as a great source of information.
Conclusion
In short, getting your word out there shouldnât be done by words anymore, but through visual media. Creating a professional branding video can help you take your brand to the next level and if done correctly, position you way above the rest. Donât forget to be creative and push the boundaries here and there. That way youâll be sure to put yourself on the map.
Ready to create your own branding video? Try Promo Today!
7 Steps To Create A Professional Branding Video was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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Your Social Media Content Calendar For April
Since they say âApril showers bring May flowersâ we decided to have a different kind of flood. One of videos that is!
Yes, itâs raining down 30 perfectly curated, ready-made videos for every social media channel. To help you enjoy this glorious spring, use our monthly April Social Media Promo Plan and ensure you are creating the most exceptional content for every day of the week.
Create a marketing video in a matter of minutes including daily themes, hashtags, business recommendations, jokes, and even video examples you can customize for your unique brand.
Did someone trick you into thinking a video a day is not a-ok? Wrong! Itâs exactly what the internet doctor ordered. Top brands online are sharing at least 2 videos every single week. And frankly, the only reason theyâre not sharing more is that itâs a darn hard task to accomplish. Until now, of course.
Use this monthâs Promo Plan and leave the headache of creating your video content calendar behind.
Hereâs your Complete Social Media Calendar for April
Share your exciting content with #PromoPlan so we can give your biz a special shout out.
 Here are a few fun examples to get your pumped for April:
Easter + April Fools Day
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Picnic Day
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Goal Getter
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Your Social Media Content Calendar For April was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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How to Create Engaging Twitter Videos
Twitter is often considered the step-brother to fan favorite, Facebook. But if thatâs how youâre viewing the platform, you have yet to see the magic. Global news stories have been broken via Twitter, such as the US Airways crash into Hudson River in 2009. The platform has also been used as a communication tool during political uprisings and natural disasters to grab media attention, get resources to places in need and even locate people. One reason Twitter has become the go-to platform for news and real-time conversations is because of its ease of use, short text requirements and searchability for hashtags as a prominent way to discover content and join conversations.
As a marketing tool, Twitter is powerful and allows for a new audience to discover you and your business in a way that is uniquely different from other channels and advertising opportunities. Make sure you understand how to create content specific for Twitter and leverage the platform best for your brand.
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  Letâs begin by ensuring you have the sizing needs covered for creating engaging Twitter videos:
Dimensions: Horizontal or square
Maximum video length is 2 minutes and 20 seconds
MP4 format recommended
Minimum resolution: 32 x 32
Maximum resolution: 1920 x 1200 (and 1200 x 1900)
Aspect ratios: 1:2.39 â 2.39:1 range (inclusive)
File size should not exceed 15 mb (sync) / 512 mb (async)
Most important note: videos do not count towards your 280 character limit
Style Secrets
Twitter was founded on quick and entertaining content and it remains the bread and butter of successful tweets to this day. When creating your video you want to make something a bit lighter than, letâs say Facebook. This is simply in order to stay friendly and in line with much of the other marketing content around you.
If the fluffy brand content is less your thing, then announcements are a great way to go. Tweets pass through your feed so quickly and people frequent the channel for real-time information, so announcements about a current sale or offline event are a great piece to share. You can also be super silly. Youâve got a ton of creative freedom. Unlike channels like Instagram, beauty is not the #1 goal of your content piece. Itâs all about communicating a message and being unique, so let your wild side show.
Mobile Matters
Are you on your mobile device right now? Were you earlier today? The second screen is quite a phenomenon because you truly are doing two things simultaneously when engaging with content on your mobile phone. The second, or perhaps first, distraction can be activity around you in real life, a time crunch during a commute or other content items pinging through with constant notifications showing at the top of your screen. Whatever the distraction may be, we can guarantee your attention span is brief on mobile and thatâs where most of your audience is viewing you on Twitter.
Knowing this limitation, youâve got to create content that gets to the point right from the get-go. What can work as a fun and interesting hook on YouTube simply will lose your viewer on Twitter. That doesnât mean you canât make a quick teaser as the first slide, but that teaser has got to then be followed by an answer to your question within the first 5 seconds maximum.
Encourage Engagement
One of the best things about Twitter is that people feel very free to engage with content and comment. The fast pace of the platform removes a bit of the pressure and feeling of permanency that other channels have when it comes to real communication. Not only that, so much content is created with the intention of eliciting a response and igniting a dialogue, that is a Twitter expectation of users when jumping online. This online culture can work great for a business who knows how to harness it.
You can begin by making sure the caption to your video item is written as if it is the start of a friendly chat. You can ask a question, offer your followers to âfill in the blank,â encourage retweeting to a certain someone that would relate to that video aka someoneâs BFF. All of this âclickbaitâ style captioning that can look cheap on LinkedIn looks playful on Twitter and is totally reasonable.
This style of friendly and conversational content doesnât need to be limited to your caption, you can put it right inside your video text as well.
Hone Hashtags
Not familiar with the real use of a hashtag? It has now become a cultural phenomenon and used in all content to often make a final punchline, but in fact hashtags have a technical value far more than just adding a theme or joke to the end of your text. Hashtags are used to bring content from friends and strangers together into one feed. For example, during an event, you want to communicate using the same hashtag as everyone else in order to be a part of the global conversation.
On Twitter, you can search via hashtag as well as find the most populated conversations at any given time via the trending page. The trending page is a game changer for a business because it means that people youâd never be able to find on your own will have their eyes on your content. Itâs like the difference between a local billboard and a national radio adâjust the 2018 social media version.
When creating all of your Twitter content, you MUST include a minimum of one relevant hashtag in your caption text. The best way to do so is by searching for various words in the search section and finding which combination has the most posts. Then use that. An example of great ones would be to use your industry, location, that specific videos them ie: Spring Sale and so on. The more specific the video, which they must be, the easier it will be to match the right hashtag.
 Ready to create your own video ad for Twitter? Try Promo today!
How to Create Engaging Twitter Videos was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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5 Things Every Successful Entrepreneur Does
Ah, the life of an entrepreneur. Launching a company is a hectic and thrilling place to be. Each new stage of growth brings about new challenges and tests new aspects of who you are and what you can do. Whether youâre a Real Estate agent, starting a cake making company or developing the next greatest video creation platform (yup, thatâd be us) it can be challenging to find out how to best prioritize time and energy. Luckily, there has been a bunch of research over the years regarding what few things every successful entrepreneur does in order to stay healthy and sane.
These tips arenât just for the CEO. They are an example every CEO should set in order for all employees to follow and be a well rounded contributing team member. Whether youâre at the top or bottom of the food chain. bring these actions into your life and see the improvement month over month. We can guarantee positive results.
Set a Plan
While setting a plan may seem as easy as pie, the common misconception is that by having a to-do list or a goal in your head youâve done the work. Wrong. Setting a true plan, one that will bring about successful results, requires additional effort and dedication. The first order of business when creating a plan is by setting your goal.
Set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) goals that excite you to push yourself and work extra hard. Goal setting alone is a powerful part of attaining achievements. The goal writing process will also consolidate the clutter in your mind and thus help your team members work most effectively towards one clear target. You can (and should) break down goals into a timeline that covers both long term and short term benchmarks.
Once your goals are set you can add who the stakeholders are for each, who is working towards that goal and how are they doing so. We highly recommend naming a manager for every project, big and small, to avoid confusion and miscommunication. Miscommunication and lack of clarity is the kryptonite to success in a growing business. Youâll be better equipped to avoid such stumbling blocks with a clear and transparent plan set forth.
 Take Risks
You know the best thing that comes from taking a big risk? A huge reward. And, thatâs the only way that huge reward will arrive. Every entrepreneur that has become successful has risked big and small over and over again. Most likely they could sit for hours to share moments of massive mistakes and falling on their face. It happens. The telling characteristic that differentiates a true risk taker from a play-it-safer is if you get back up after failure, and how quickly.
But how do you push yourself out of that plane and bungee jump with a smile? By building a parachute. That doesnât mean a backup plan or a huge savings account. A parachute can be the confidence in your skill set, research that your idea is vital to be added to the market and so on. The parachute can be as simple, or not so simple. As long as you have one then youâre on the right path.
Not only will risk taking be a benefit to your own long-term success, it also makes you stand out in the short term. Getting noticed by the influencers is also a necessary step of starting out as an entrepreneur and doing something disruptive, while professional, can garner you wanted attention. That attention from the right investor or partner can spiral into the start of really impactful business developments
 Test Everything
Millions of dollars are spent yearly in market testing and thereâs a reason for it. Because even a genius canât know everything that a community of people knows. Not every time, certainly. Itâs essential for a good entrepreneur to be humble and understand the essential role testing plays in bringing an idea to market from the moment of conception.
With that, and for many it becomes less obvious the more success you find, you must also be ok with being wrong and making a pivot. After all, thatâs the point of testing, to improve. This can get more and more frightening as more effort, time and money have been committed to a business but it is what can set you apart in the long run. For example, did you know the invention of Zumba Dance was originally exercise videos? Imagine if they never fully brought the movement to life? They would have missed out on not only a huge business but the creation of a cultural phenomenon. Or Groupon that started as The Point, a social-good fundraising site that made a massive shift in the corporation it is today.
Develop your product, target audience, brand strategy, pricing, marketing assets and so on to the fullest of your ability and work until they are as close to perfect as you can imagine. Then test, test, test, learn and adjust.
 Practice Self-Care
You donât win an award for working 100 hour weeks, skipping breakfast or exercise consisting of you walking between the office and the boardroom. The opposite in fact. If you donât take care of yourself your work suffers enormously, and so does the work of those around you based on your example. Â
Letâs start with sleep. SleepRate showcased research on the effects of sleep deprivation and sites the following as observed consequences:
Declining cognitive performance
Poor memory consolidation
Impaired attention and decision-making
Slow reaction time
Imagine the boss of a prominent business exhibiting such qualities. No thanks.
Then comes food. The Washington Post wrote an article, You may look more productive skipping lunch, or eating at your desk. But you arenât. Thereâs an American trend to rush. Everywhere. That includes out the door in the morning. This behavior for many is followed by eating a brief meal at your desk if at all. Once youâre home and itâs finally time to eat dinner youâre too exhausted to cook something healthy. Sound familiar? Eating food is not just a social activity, it is the actual fuel that keeps your body running and performing optimally. What could possibly take precedence over that?! Feed your brain with nutrients and increase your mental performance. Also, when it comes to eating at your desk as the bossâdonât. It sets a pretty negative tone at the office that will decrease workers motivation in a major way. Remember, they too have human needs.
 Say No
The more successful you are, likely the more opportunities will be coming your way. And that feels amazing. But it doesnât mean that you should say yes to everything. In fact, you should say no. This includes projects within your company and time-consuming activities outside.
When it comes to company projects, youâre likely to have a backlog for ages which is why prioritization and delegation are so crucial to success. Saying no to doing something yourself doesnât need to mean saying no to the project taking off. It means you may need to find other talent around you to bring it to light. Letting go of the reigns is a great thing and will allow you to have a team that you can trust and that feels appreciated. Basically, when you say no and allow someone else to say yes itâs truly a win-win.
Regarding your personal life, saying no is a key to happiness and success as well. Itâs a dangerous way to build or maintain relationships of any kind if youâre saying yes and inside feeling resentful or irritated because you wish you werenât doing something. Manage expectations with people in your personal life by kindly and compassionately saying no. Youâll see your relationships work better because everyone is being direct and honest. Youâll also find more balance (essential for every overworked entrepreneur) because youâll spend your precious hours doing what matters to you and those closest to you.
 5 Things Every Successful Entrepreneur Does was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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Why Video Marketing Works So Well For Small Businesses
Video marketing used to be for the big brands, giving an advantage to corporations and big budget operations over the mom and pop shops to grab attention and get noticed. But that uneven distribution of advertising potential is on its way out the window. Now with tools like Promo, every company can create commercials of the highest quality to show what their small business is all about.
If youâre still asking yourself, âwhy would I want to invest in video marketing,â the day has come to answer that inquiry. The short and long of it is because, frankly, people watch video. Companies advertise with video. You want to keep up.
Think about this: in 2005 YouTube didnât exist. In 2018, YouTube has 1.3 billion users uploading 300 hours of video every single minute. On top of that, 3.25 billion hours of video are watched every single month just on YouTube. Sprinkle in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, emails, websites (we could go on and on) and thatâs a ton of video watching. You may have even viewed a video clip already today.
So now that we can all agree that watching video is an activity becoming more frequent and accessible, letâs break down why creating those videos for your small business is a must.
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 Minimal Barrier To Entry
A few short years ago, to create a high-quality videos you would have needed to hire an entire production company (big $$), scout a location, get some talent willing to show off your goods, storyboard a genius idea ⌠the list goes on. The development alone would limit you, even with loads of resources, to creating a handful of videos each year, maximum. Good news â The barrier of entry has completely vanished with online video marketing tools.
Now, you can enter an online platform, choose your ideal bit(s) of footage, add your own text, place fully licensed music on top of it and youâre ready to go. If that sounds like too much, it gets even easier with Promo Collections, which are template videos for various industries and holidays. You can even follow our guide to ensuring youâre creating the right video size for each online publishing channel.
Not only has the process of creating your video changed from a week-long ordeal to a matter of minutes, the flood of social media channels that now get even more viewership than the television has also evened the playing field. Gone are the days of buying late night ad time on your local tv station or publishing in the yellow pages. Advertising, including top-notch commercials, are all online. This means that small businesses have NO disadvantage when it comes to finding your relevant customers.
Professionalism
Even though videos are everywhere and everyone can make them, using high-quality footage in your video marketing efforts will make you appear seriously professional. Yes, we all can snag a decent clip with our cell phones, but placing dynamic text over filmed footage will surely set you apart.
Most viewers would never even guess that a small business, certainly a business of 1, could possibly create something so exceptional without being a very serious business. And no matter what youâre selling, thatâs exactly how you want to appear. You take your company seriously, you are professional, you are high-brow and you are deserving of peopleâs time and money. This is your image after all, and the first way any new clients will discover you.
Brand Loyalty
Yes, videos are proven to build trust and brand loyalty. Certainly, for those making purchases online with a new business, videos include the elements that set someone apart from only perusing your site or Facebook page and clicking the purchase button. One of those reasons is professionalism, as mentioned above. Another is that youâre really able to share a story. You can include more meaningful information and better communicate who you are with a video than with text or a still image. A large part of that is by sharing emotional content. And by emotional, we mean it can be funny, exciting, inspirational and more. The feeling you provide with your video content will stay with a viewer long after the ad has left the screen.
Distribution Opportunities
The distribution opportunities may seem intimidating at first, but the potential ROI is 4x that of non-video ads. Thatâs high enough to warrant increasing your skill set in the world of online advertising campaign management. And itâs getting easier and easier with platforms like Facebook and Instagram. So, small business owners need not worry, you could master this marketing must in a matter of days and spend as little as $10 per day doing so.
Your first step is to open accounts on a few social media channels if you havenât already. Our recommendations are to start with: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest (if youâre eCommerce). Letâs even say to get the hang of two of those channels from that list first. Then youâll want to begin posting your video content regularly and setting up campaigns.
For more help on breaking into video marketing on Facebook, check out the following articles:
Facebook Video Ads Best Practices
How (and why) To Use The Facebook Pixel
How To Use Conversion Optimization On Facebook
Increased SEO
You can also add your exciting new video content to your website. This will keep your visitors on your page longer thus signaling to Google that you have a quality website. The more Google thinks you rock (one way to gauge that is by tracking Time On Page), the higher you will rank in Search Engine Optimization. Meaning, adding those videos to your website will get you new clients just from searching relevant terms and seeing your site show up at the top. Turns out if you put a video on your homepage and you are around 50x more likely to be indexed.
Another way to grow your SEO with video is by adding those videos to YouTube. Itâs free, for starters, and, because itâs a Google platform, it will also increase your visibility as a Google search result.
Access To Customers On Mobile
Since we all have the attention span of an ant and are married to our mobile phones, getting in the pocket of your future clients is a competitive task to accomplish. With great video content, you can. Short video ads are the perfect content item to get viewers to watch and remember amidst so many other distractions. And yes, we all wish we could snag intentional attention, but grabbing someone during a passive moment of scrolling on their handheld device is pretty great for business, too.
Community Development
Videos are a conversation starter. Period. When you showcase your creativity and have some fun with videos you can really entice people to begin a dialogue. Maybe you ask a question, or showcase a current user, or run a fun contest all with your videos. These already feel more personal than an image and allow for a more comfortable communication to begin. Give it a try by posting a video asking your community to tag a friend it reminds them of, or share your special event with someone who needs it (etc etc) and see what comes up. Then make sure to engage with them to keep it going and get the most out of your posting.
 Ready to create your own videos? Try Promo today!
Why Video Marketing Works So Well For Small Businesses was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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How Ad Zombies Got 122x Higher Return On Ad Spend Using Promo Videos
âThereâs a reason Hollywood makes motion pictures. Watching static images is like watching paint dry. Video engages from the moment people see them in their newsfeeds.â â Ken Moskowitz, Ad Zombies Founder
Ad Zombies, a professional ad copywriting service, started in March 2017. The company came to life after Ken Moskowitz, also known as Head Zombie Wrangler, answered a Facebook group comment from someone looking for help with ad copy. From there, a storm of replies started, followed by a flood of emails, and Ken offered help to all who needed it.
Based in Arizona, they now write content for customers on almost every continent and their team of writers comes from all over the United States and Canada. Ken sat down with us to share how video drastically transformed his marketing efforts and continues to help him build a lasting brand.
The goal: âMore than anything, we want to use videos for brand awareness. The brand keeps you healthy and brand is the stuff that people remember. My goal is to build a high level of awareness of our skills as copywriters so that we become the go-to business for high-quality text. We want to double our dominance over the next year and we want to do that using videos because we know they work,â say Ken.
How Ad Zombies currently markets: Ad Zombies runs paid campaigns mostly on Facebook. They run about 62 ad sets globally containing a mix of over 300 ads. Each campaign is highly targeted to a variety of audiences most likely to be interested in their services, like digital marketers, followers of major influencers (think Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone), and female entrepreneurs, for example. This form of targeting ensures that Ad Zombieâs ads are never served to someone who would have zero interest in their services.
The plan: Ad Zombies looked to grow brand awareness by using a blend of both videos and images paired with their text. As usual, they wrote creative copy that maintains a high level of transparency to help them tell a story. The visuals served as a tool to grab and hold attention.
Skyrocketing results: Ad Zombies recently ran a campaign with 40 ad sets and 244 ads that included both videos and static images. When measuring the return on ad spend (ROAS), the videos outperformed the images by leaps and bounds, showing at least a 3x higher return across the board.
Whatâs even more impressive, three of the best performing ads showed almost unbelievable ROAS. With one Promo video ad, âShe Quit Writing Forever,â Ad Zombies spent $12.52 to promote it and, in turn, saw a revenue of $1,545 from that ad. Thatâs 122x higher ROAS from a single video.
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  In another top video ad, âEggnog & Presents,â they spent $40.26 in promotion and received $809 in revenue. Again, using a video ad made with Promo, Ad Zombies saw 20x higher ROAS.
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  In their third best video ad in this campaign, âSay F&!* It,â Ad Zombies spent $23.89 and saw $199 in revenue, showing 8x higher ROAS.
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  After seeing such outstanding numbers, Ad Zombies plans to replace all of their ad creatives strictly with videos because, according to Ken, âvideo ads have a better long-term performance track record over still pictures for one reason. When the still image hits your newsfeed and you actually see it, you can consume the image in 1-2 seconds. The next time you see it, you can scroll by because your brain is done with it. Video holds your attention, entertains, then, if youâve stayed long enough, moves you to the headline and ad copy,â says Ken.
Ad Zombies looked for a way to grow brand awareness and they ended up with a very impressive bottom line thanks to the addition of Promo video ads to their marketing efforts. In fact, their recent growth spurt also helped them partner with VaynerMedia and even update their plan offerings to suit their growing clientele even better. âWhat I love about Promo is that the videos we get fit the voice of our brand and we have the ability to really make them ours. Itâs amazing,â concludes Ken.
Ready to create your own videos online? Try Promo today!
How Ad Zombies Got 122x Higher Return On Ad Spend Using Promo Videos was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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6 Things Youâre Doing Wrong With Your Video Ads
Thereâs a reason why 52% of marketing professionals say video is the best type of content with the best ROI. For one, 500 million people watch videos on Facebook every day. That âs a lot of people. And, if you didnât know, online shoppers who view demo videos are a whopping 1.81x more likely to make a purchase than those who donât.
But it takes more than just patching together a few moving images to get that highly coveted conversion rate that everyone talks about. Here are a few things you might be doing wrong when it comes to your Facebook Video Ads from the people who know how to do it right (hint hint â thatâs us, Promo!).
1. No Clear Audience
You may have started to think your audience is just whoever happens to see your videos or your followers on social media, but thatâs not quite specific enough to create a winning piece of content. Make sure you know who exactly youâre talking to and use language they can understand. For example, if youâre talking to a tech-savvy community you can use more industry jargon and if youâre speaking to international eCommerce shoppers of every age, youâll want to keep out slang and idioms.
A general rule is to create text that is not too high level, minimal slang they wonât understand or use slang your specific audience will understand and enjoy. Most importantly, your videos must speak to their âpain pointâ and unique needs. Communicate about WHY your offering will help them and consider the emotional response. Itâs best to ask yourself, what do you what them to feel after seeing your video? Then review your video to see if that emotion comes through.
2. Too Much Text
We all have a ton of information to tell our customers. It almost feels never-ending we are so excited to share news and product details and a little about who we are. And thatâs great! That said, it must be clear and consolidated to one point per video. Donât cram too much text into each video or viewers will get overwhelmed and stop watching. Also, make sure it doesnât move to quickly. You donât want to waste a perfectly good idea on text that flies by. Not only is it a red flag to have too much text due to the difficulty of viewers reading and digesting it fast enough, they simply donât want to. If your audience is spending a moment thinking about the fact that they are reading something, youâve lost âem.
A good rule of thumb is to write a maximum of 1 sentence per 3 seconds. When using Promo we will even give you a little nudge should you over-write your video captions.
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  3. Mis-chosen Music
Music that doesnât add to the feeling of your video content is a big no-no in the world of ad creation. This goes back to publishing content that elicits a strong feeling. Use the power of music to make a more professional and complete video that can excite, inspire and empower your viewers. Choosing the right piece of music can add to the emotional response as well as make sure the quality is at its highest. You want to look like the big brands after all.
With all that talk about the power of your musical selection, remember that 85% of Facebook video is watched on mute. That is to say, donât rely only on your sound choice to tell the story of your video. You want to ensure that your content item works soundless and the value only increases when a viewers clicks sound â on.
4. No CTA
Thereâs no reason to create a wonderful video if your viewer doesnât know what to DO after watching it. Would you like them to visit your website? Shop for something specific? Say so. Itâs as simple as that. On the final slide of your video ad, make sure to include a CTA that brings your viewers to the next chosen destination. Weâd recommend a tagline on the top and your website below as a go-to CTA. Then you can spice it up with a coupon code, specific link or event announcement when relevant.Â
5. No Logo
A great video takes effort. Donât waste your hard work and exceptional content by not including your logo and making sure everyone that sees your ad knows itâs YOU that created it. Not only is it necessary to brand your video asset as your own, it also makes the video look more professional and thus work better in your marketing efforts. Besides, itâs a one-click operation so why not?
Tell us you didnât add your logo to your video and not that you donât have a logo all together! This is a must. If youâve been tight on cash and the logo creation process keeps falling to the bottom of the list, not anymore. There are loads of affordable logo creation tools online, like Fiverr and Logo Makr, that are perfect for your website and video ad needs.
6. Weak social caption
After creating a great video, youâve got to post it online. Especially on social media, the caption you choose can make or break a piece of content. If youâve been writing short paragraphs, convoluted of advanced copy or generally just a boring explanation of your video â your ad is not going to take off. Who wants to read all that? Who wants to re-read a social media caption? The answer: no one.Â
Make sure your video caption is short, fun and gives a bit of insight into what your audience will be watching. The caption should add to the story of what your audience sees, not distract or repeat it. You can enjoy having a playful tone and add a little joke and an emoji to really spruce it up. We highly recommend doing a bit of hashtag research to find the relevant keywords that will allow you to grab an even larger audience based on hashtag following and trending content. This is most essential for Twitter and Instagram, but all social channels give a nod to good hashtag use.Â
Ready to create your own videos online? Try Promo today!
 *Originally posted as a guest author on the needls blog.
6 Things Youâre Doing Wrong With Your Video Ads was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing
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