Category: Business Development

8 Tips for an Effective Video Marketing Strategy
8 Tips for an Effective Video Marketing Strategy

Video marketing has become bigger and bigger in the digital marketing field today and if you are still one of the businesses that haven’t implemented this strategy in your marketing efforts, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities. In this post, we will be featuring 8 tips to make your video marketing strategy effective.

Define your video goals

To begin strategizing for your video marketing endeavor, of course, the first thing you need to define is your goals. What are you hoping to achieve with your video? Are you introducing something new or continuing a series? Are you trying to address a problem and offer solutions? Do you want to create awareness for your brand? Do you want to convince the viewer on what product to use?

Define what your video goals are and the next steps will flow after that.

Tell a story

People love stories. It’s one reason why they read long captions, browse photo albums, and watch long videos. In making content for your videos, always keep in mind to tell stories rather than just concentrating on selling a product or service.

Video marketing is an incredible tool for storytelling as it has the power to convey emotions to your customers that will create the personality of your brand.

Incorporating stories into your videos will encourage and improve engagement from your audience. Rather than just making bland videos introducing your company and showcasing your products and services, look for ways to tell a captivating story that will have your audience hooked on your videos.

Include product tutorials and demos

Keep a balance on your video marketing strategy by having product tutorials and demos as well as story-telling videos.

With video marketing, you can introduce your product, its features, and further explain its use and how it can solve your customer’s problems.

Product tutorial videos are very helpful for customers who are only a step away from clicking the checkout button. When people have questions about your products or services, they can just easily find and watch your videos before purchasing them.

Show your personality and be creative

People relate to videos more when they have that authentic feel and character so it’s important to show your brand personality. Showcase what your company is all about in a creative manner, after all, viewers appreciate engaging videos that are full of creativity and personality.

What makes your business stand out from your competitors? What makes your brand different from others? Highlight those things on your videos.

Listen to your customers and include their feedback in your videos

One great video marketing strategy is including customer-generated content. People love seeing themselves being featured and this strategy has the potential of making your brand go viral.

Encourage your customers to create videos using your products or services and then make a video about it and post them on your website and socials.

When people see themselves in a video, they will more likely share it with their followers and that is free advertising for you to get more reach!

Always include calls to action at the end

Calls to action are not only for the written content, it can also be used in videos so don’t forget to include them! What actions do you want your viewers to do after watching your video? Do you want them to subscribe to your channel, follow you on your socials, or check out your website? Let them know at the end of your videos.

Adding calls to action is simple and effective, and this can spark engagement with your audience. So don’t forget to add them to every video you create and publish.

Optimize videos for search engines

As the owner of YouTube, Google indexes YouTube videos. So when you upload to this platform, don’t forget to optimize your videos for search.

Include important and relevant keywords in your video’s description box. You can include your website link here or any shortened links with calls to action for your audience to take.

Here are other things you can do to optimize your videos for search:
- include relevant keywords on your video title, and make it interesting (not clickbait-y)
- write a comprehensive summary of your video for your description box and, of course, include your keywords
- add relevant tags
- add closed captions
- include a transcript of your video that’s rich with your keyword/s
Maintain a realistic budget for your videos and stick with it

Every video you create has its own budget and let’s face it, no matter how great a plan is, when it does not coincide with your budget, your video quality will fall short.

Have a realistic budget and work within that limitation. You can maximize your resources and still come up with great results. Certain videos will be more expensive than others, do your research if there are alternatives and balance it out.

Ultimately, your goal for your videos should be to educate your customers, whether it be about your company or your products, place yourself as a leading authority in your field, and establish a relationship with your audience.

For more video marketing-related articles, do visit our blog.

Need guidance and help with video marketing? Ve Digital offers videography services. Contact us today!
August 28, 2022
9 Things To Have A User-Friendly Website

As more and more businesses transition into the digital world, it’s worth looking into the things that will improve your online presence and that is to have a user-friendly website. Aside from leaving your digital footprints through social media, having your professional website up and running is important as well. A user-friendly website is not just a marketing tactic that will gain your business traction in the digital world, it will also be your stepping stone to success. Here are some of the things you’ll need to have to make your site more user-friendly.

9 Things To Have A User-Friendly Website

Mobile Responsiveness

As you all might have already known, the world has been taken over by mobile phones, and every day, more and more people use smartphones to access the internet. And that is reason enough why having a mobile-optimized website is necessary.

A user-friendly website is mobile-friendly as well so make sure that yours is mobile responsive. Make sure that your navigation works fine on both desktop and mobile devices. Optimize your images as well so that your website will load smoothly.

Scannable and Well-Formatted Content

Internet users nowadays skim through content while just mindlessly scrolling through their devices. They rarely read web content word for word except when they really intended to search for it. That’s why it’s important to format your content having the relevant key parts of the page easy to determine. Correctly use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and numbers lists to break down your text and make it an easy scan for your readers.

Quick Load Times

Isn’t it annoying when a certain page takes ages to load? It would lead you to quickly close the tab and move on to another one. And you don’t want that to happen to you when prospects open up your website. You want your website to be fast-loading because you don’t want your potential customers to lose interest.

And so to have a user-friendly website, you need to make sure your pages load within 4-6 seconds to ensure good usability. This will not only delight the viewers but will also affect your search engine ranking positively. There are a lot of online tools you can use to test the speed of your website and to get suggestions on what to do to improve it.

Try out Pingdom to test out your website speed.

Good and Effective Navigation

When talking about good website usability, good and effective navigation is a priority. Make sure it’s uncomplicated and clutter-free. Limit your menu items a much as you can and consider having a drop-down menu or sub navigations when you are working on a large site.

Aside from the menu, navigation also includes good internal linking, accurate headers and footers, a custom 404 page, and more. Pay attention to these ones, too.

Have Search Functionality

A search bar or icon may be overlooked most of the time, but it’s one of the most useful things on a website. When you need to find something and you can’t see it anywhere you click, you’d want to search for it. And that’s why search functionality is important in a website. It will help your visitors find exactly what they are looking for quickly.

Eye-Friendly Color Schemes

In order for a website to look enticing and pleasing to the eyes, it needs to have color. But not just any color, it needs to have the right ones that match your branding. Choose a harmonious color scheme and be consistent with it. Choose colors that will represent and define your business.

Try out Coolors to generate color schemes.

Usable Forms

On business websites, forms are crucial because these are where you generate your leads. Forms are what users use to interact with your site and reach you. To ensure that you get the most out of your website, make sure that your forms are accessible and easy to use.

Your forms need to have correct labels for all fields, have a good design, use correct validation, and have a display message on completion. Also, try to have a minimum number of fields to fill in.

Easy to Find Contact Information

A website needs the basics—a logo, a navigation bar, an about page, and your contact information. If any of these are missing, you don’t have a user-friendly website, you just have a website, a lacking one. Your contact information is important information and if it’s missing, you’ll miss out on potential business.

Make your contact information as complete as possible. Include your business phone number, email address, business location, and maybe even your business hours.

Visible Social Media Icons

Displaying your social media icons on your website adds to its shareability. People like to share what they find useful and exciting. and having your social icons there will make it easier for them to follow you on other platforms to stay updated on your new content.

Final Thoughts

These are the things you’ll need to have if you want to build a user-friendly website. The key to a good site is to have a good user experience so you’ll have to constantly make improvements to ensure that comes across to your visitors.

Take the time to audit your website and ask your customers for feedback. Don’t stop learning and be resourceful to get things done.

If you need help with improving your website, VE Digital can help you with that. You can reach out to us and talk to us here.

For more articles like this, visit our blog.

August 28, 2022
5 Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy is not Working
Why Your Content Marketing Strategy is not Working

You must have already read from somewhere that ‘content is king’ and this phrase has become somewhat of a cliche now. Content surely does have a huge role when it comes to building your brand, reaching out to your target audience, and increasing sales. However, does this ‘king’ bring the same success to everyone who is leveraging it to their businesses? Here are 5 reasons why your content marketing strategy is not working for you.

5 Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy is not Working

1. You Are Writing for the Bots and Not Humans

One of the biggest reasons why your content marketing strategy is not working is that you focus more on making content that will rank rather than writing something interesting for your audience. Google has now become smarter and it considers how people love your content to rank it automatically. If your readers and target audience don’t connect with your content, it will not add value to your business.

Writing to rank is understandable, but if you overstuff it with keywords and links and key phrases, your content won’t be reader-friendly. Check your content strategy again and if it’s only backed by keyword analysis and nothing else, it will really fail in the long run.

Here are some tips you should keep in mind to have a working content strategy:
- Write more than just the required 300 words and cover the topic fully, maybe at least 1000-1500 words. Create your content with the needs of your readers in mind, yet at the same time, think about optimizing it for search engines.
- Be careful on inserting long and short-tail keywords. Make sure that it doesn’t feel forced because it will not make sense to your readers. Insert your keywords strategically throughout your content pieces.
- Link to informative pieces and not just to the services or products you promote.
- Include images in your written content to keep your readers entertained.
2. Your content does not offer value

Creating content just for the sake of making one will only take you so far. If you want your content to work for you, you need to remember to create it from a place of intent. And that intent should be providing something of value to your readers.

Think about your audience while you write your content. What will make them click, read, and engage with your post? Write something that will stand out and pay attention to the type of content that works and that does not.

3. Your SEO needs improvement

SEO and content marketing work together in a complementary relationship. If you have poor SEO while doing content marketing, the content you’re creating might as well be not created at all because nobody is going to find it.

The point in content marketing is to gather people to see your business by writing good quality content. And for people to find your content, it has to be visible on the search engine result pages when people search for something related to your niche. Ranking in search engine pages depends highly on your SEO, so if you lack in that department, it’s time to backtrack and improve what needs to be improved.

4. You’re not promoting your content

After creating your content, it’s just common sense to promote it further to gather traction. Content Marketing is not just about creating content. It is also about sharing and promoting that content to as many people.

Here are some ways you can promote your posts:
- Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc
- Email Newsletter
- Mentioning your content when commenting on other blogs and website
- Pitch to other bloggers and ask them to share your content with their followers
- Partner with influencers who can share your content
Always remember that content marketing involves BOTH content creation and content promotion. The two goes hand in hand—always.

5. You’re in a tough niche

Now, another reason why your content marketing strategy is not working is that you are in a niche with too many strong competitors.

Yes, your content is great and you’re producing all types of content that appeal to your audience. You are even doing a great job promoting them. Yet, for some reason, it just doesn’t work.

Maybe the niche you’re in has just too many strong competitors and the market is already dominated by these industry giants that you just can’t compare.

Here are some tips you can do:
- Make content that offers solutions to your target audience’s probable problems.
- Consistency is key. Be consistent in delivering your content.
- Build a community in the niche you’re in. Start small and grow from there.
- Make skyscraper content by creating something inspired by your competitor’s content and generating something even better.
Final Thoughts

There can be other reasons why your content marketing strategy is not working for you and the ones we listed above are just the very common ones.

Audit your content marketing strategy and find out where you’re lacking. Ramp up your business strategy and improve what needs to be improved. And don’t forget to have fun! Content marketing has its challenges but it’s worth it.

I hope this post helped you. For more articles like this, visit our blog!
August 14, 2022
7 Digital Copywriting Mistakes You Should Avoid
7 Digital Copywriting Mistakes You Should Avoid

If you are looking to improve your writing online, you are in for a treat! We have curated this post to help you identify and avoid the seven most common digital copywriting mistakes that are often seen online. This will help you drive more leads, convert more customers, and make more sales on your business online.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

Making mistakes is a part of life, it is growth, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as you learn from them. The main goal of this post is to help your learning curve be a lot faster than normal.

The truth is, the internet needs good writers. In our world today, where over half of the population can write whatever they like on the internet, one of the best ways to make you and your business stand out is to have the best communication and cleanest copywriting on the block. Your audience will thank you for it with their wallets.

Mistake #1: Not Having a Goal

One of the biggest digital copywriting mistakes I have probably made in the past is writing a piece of copy without having a goal in mind. You must keep in mind that people have short attention spans and they get bored easily. You don’t have a lot of time to make a good first impression so you need to make sure that every word you put out on the internet counts.

Think about something that you’re marketing for your business right now. What’s the first thing you’d like your potential customer to take? What’s the one thing that they could do that would help move towards success for your business? Think about what that is for you and then make sure that every word you are writing works towards that goal.

There are many types of goals that you could aim for with your writing. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Provide Value

To attract customers and get them to buy from you, you should first aim to prove that your product, business, or service is valuable. Give and give to your customers over and over again without asking for anything in return. They will thank you for it with their loyalty.

Get Information

Now that you have already provided your potential customers with a lot of value, it’s the right time to ask them something in return. The best thing here is to ask for their contact information. Having this will allow you to follow up with them and continue to stay in touch with them so you can turn them into customers eventually.

Show Gratitude

Pleases and Thank Yous go a long way with customers, especially on the internet. Show your appreciation to your customers, show them how grateful you are for having them pick you among other businesses to choose from. Show them that you care about their experience, this will make them want to keep buying from you again and again.

Keep your writing straightforward and simple. And make sure that every word you choose works toward an ultimate goal. This will keep you on the right track.

Mistake #2: Writing For the Wrong Audience

Who are you writing for? Because I guarantee that it’s not for yourself. Oftentimes, I see companies online talking way too much about their experience, talking from their perspective. This might be unpleasant to hear, but your customers couldn’t care less about your company’s history or what you did to get to where you are now. They just want to know if you can provide them the service or product they need. Think about the people who need your product or service. What’s their experience? Why do they need your help? What are they looking for? People go to you because they need something and they think you might be able to help them. Don’t waste their time talking about things that don’t matter to them. Be forward, get to the point, and give them what they need.

Another way people mess this up online is by having a poorly translated website. Remember that the way you communicate with your customer matters, even if it’s not in English. Lots of businesses are trying to reach more audiences who speak different languages. If you’re going to do this, make sure that your translation is accurate. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s not. If you need to communicate with your customers in a language that you don’t personally speak, don’t just put your words in Google Translate and call it a day. I’m telling you, this is not enough. Utilize the internet and find somebody who natively speaks the language you’re trying to communicate in. Have them look at what you’ve written so you can make sure that you are actually saying what you are trying to say.

Mistake #3: TL;DR

If you don’t know this yet, TL;DR stands for Too Long; Didn’t Read. The internet moves fast. Your audience and potential customer doesn’t have a lot of time to consider what you have to say before they move on to the next thing. If you want people to engage with your content online, you need to write in a way that respects their attention span. Here are a few key things to remember:

Get to the Point

Filler language is a waste of everyone’s time and your customer will not appreciate it. Show them that you respect their time by not wasting any of it. Get to the point.

Don’t Bury the Lead

Say you’re doing an online giveaway to gather email addresses for potential customers. Lead with the value that they are going to get from engaging with your business. Start with the thing that matters to them.

Wrap it Up

Give your customer exactly the information they need to make an informed decision and that’s it. Keep your writing concise and to the point, and you will have a lot more success reaching the people you want to notice you.

Mistake #4: Answering the Wrong Questions

To find out what your customers need, you need to look at the world from their perspective. Put yourself in their shows and try to understand why is it that they’re coming to you for help. For your customers to reach an informed decision, they will need to find out something specific about your business.

For example – for a coffee shop, that could be the shop hours; for an esthetician, that could be the different services that you provide; or for a birthday clown, it could be what type of clown you are. Whatever type of business it is that you have, there is something specific your customer needs.

Oftentimes, businesses bury that information somewhere on their website, and it’s so hard for the customer to find out the things they need to know to decide on your business. Find out what that crucial piece of information is for your business, and then make sure you make it easily available to your customer.

Things to keep in mind:
1. Be clear about what your business offers. That may turn out to be exactly what your lead is looking for, or it might not be. Either way, help your customer make the right decision by being crystal clear about what it is that you offer.
2. Avoid giving your leads an onslaught of information. Your goal should be to help them, no to beat them over the head with your words. Remember, TMI equals TLDR.
3. In this day and age, there’s no need to guess at what your potential future customers need. Use the internet and social media to get to know your current customers and that will help you attract more people like them.
Mistake #5: Bad Fonts & Colors

You’ve worked really hard on your copy, you’ve carefully chosen your words, and everything is written to work towards a goal. But something is still not working for some reason. If this is the case, maybe the problem now could be your design.

Another one of the digital copywriting mistakes we are going to talk about now is bad design as it can seriously detract from your message. Bad design can draw your reader’s attention to the wrong thing. It can even make your viewer feel uncomfortable, and you don’t want that.

Design elements like font and color choices evoke emotion. The best way to make this work for you is to think about how you want your customer to feel. Use your design to create that feeling for them. Here are some tips to keep you on the right track:

Always Keep it Readable

Bad color choices will make your texts hard to see. It will become unappealing and the readers won’t have a second thought at closing that tab. When in doubt, stick to light background colors and dark colors for the text. The same concept is applied when it comes to font choices. Readability should be the top priority.

Use Multiple Styles (but do so carefully)

This depends on what you are writing, but it is recommended to use about 2-5 different fonts and colors. Using different styles draws focus and attention to your readers. Just be careful not to go overboard or it can become distracting.

If you have a website, it should comply with the American Disabilities Act

Depending on your business type, it should be in compliance with the ADA regulations, this may even be a requirement for your website.

Mistake #6: Too Pushy

Another digital copywriting mistake is being too pushy. You have to think about the push and pull between you and your potential customer, just like dating. If you come on too strong, you’ll scare them away. Use your writing to draw your lead-in. People are smart, and they can tell when a business is trying too hard to get their money.

Give your audience and potential customers all the information they need to make a decision, and then back off. Give them the space they need to decide on their own pace, but this is not to say that you couldn’t engage with your leads repeatedly. Because you absolutely should. Just don’t push them too hard to do something for you. This is particularly true with online advertising. Offer your leads a whole lot of value first and then put your call-to-action in front of them at just the right moment.

If you want to avoid sounding pushy online, you need to keep these two things in mind:
- On the internet, ALL CAPS is shouting. Use it very carefully. Think about how much you shout in normal life. You probably don’t do it often. The same social norms apply online.
- Don’t sound desperate. Why should people want to buy from or work with a business that doesn’t sound confident about what they have to offer? Use your writing to highlight the positive things about your business, your customers will notice this.
Mistake #7: Spelling and Grammar Errors

There’s no excuse but laziness for bad spelling and grammar errors in professional writing. But sometimes, mistakes are inevitable, we’re just humans after all. But some companies seem to go above and beyond the limit of punctuation and spelling mistakes they make online. And this just makes those companies look bad. The issue here is that many people don’t see spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes as a big deal. But this post is here to tell you that those people are wrong. Any writing you put out online could be your business’s first impression with someone. The first impression is everything and you need to make sure that it’s always a good one.

Having these errors in your writing just makes your business look sloppy. Think of it this way: If your potential customer sees that your business doesn’t try very hard on their website, why should they think that you’ll try very hard for them? This is important for every type of business, especially for those companies where building trust with customers is crucial. You want your audience to feel confident that you can deliver on what they need, and little things like spelling and grammar errors make it look like you won’t. Your goal should be to fill your reader with confidence that your business is worth every penny you ask for. Don’t give your reader any reason to doubt that.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. We are not all born strong writers, and that’s okay. This is what the internet is for. You can outsource and look for someone whose strength is writing. Maybe you know someone who has a full grasp of the English language and can write well. You can ask them for guidance and maybe even let them take a look at what you’ve made. As an alternative, you can look for talented freelance writers online (in Craigslist, Upwork, etc.) and hire them to work for you.

It is okay not to be an amazing writer, but it is not okay to let your business look sloppy and lazy. Outsourcing and asking for a little bit of help can go a long way towards making your business look both professional and reliable online.

Writing online may seem easy but there are some pointers you need to heed to make your business look reputable and trustworthy. I hope you learned something about how to write a digital copy that truly engages your customers and helps put your business’s best foot forward online. Keep these digital copywriting mistakes in mind and your writing online will surely improve.
August 14, 2022
Using Canva for Your Small Business

Using Canva for Your Small Business

If you are on social media, you’d know how important visual content is. In today’s digital age, visuals actually weigh as much as text (or maybe even more) and it’s something that you need to put your efforts in.

While text-based content is an integral part of marketing, the use of visual content will set you apart from others. It will bring life and more engagement to your overall marketing content. And that is where a design tool comes in, which in this case is Canva.

Why do small businesses need Canva and how significant is it really for your online efforts?

What is Canva?

Canva is an online user-friendly graphic design tool that can be used by anyone regardless of graphic design experience to create visual pieces for personal or business purposes. It has a free and paid version. The paid version is highly recommended as it unlocks so many features that will be very helpful for you to create your materials according to your brand.

Canva can be used for pretty much any marketing collateral. Anything from business cards to brochures to media kits, to PowerPoint presentations to infographics, you can design all of them and more in Canva.

Setting Up Your Canva Account

Create your Account

Upon creating an account, you’ll be able to access the free features of Canva. If you are creating an account for business purposes, we highly recommend you get the paid plan. If you’re having doubts if the paid plan is worth it, you can avail of a free trial for 30 days to experience it.

Setup your Brand Kit

With a pro plan, you’ll be able to make a brand kit. This feature is very helpful in creating professional branded designs for your business. Upload your brand colors, logos, fonts, etc. Your brand kit will be available to access whenever you create a new design making your life easier.

To learn more about Canva Pro, here’s an in-depth review of it.

Canva Tips and Tricks

Lock Feature

When editing and organizing your design, the lock feature is a great tool. By selecting an item that’s already in the perfect position, you can lock them so they won’t move when you’re editing anything else.

This lock feature works great with larger items. You can toggle this feature on and off whenever you need it.

The Canva Brand Kit

You can find the brand kit on the left side of your home dashboard. This feature is a time-saver and very helpful to keep you organized, but this is only available for Pro users.

You can save your brand logo, fonts, and colors under this feature and they will readily be available whenever you make a new design.

Canva Page Manager

This is a great tool that will let you customize the appearance of how your project looks on your screen. You can find this at the bottom right-hand side of your screen.

The Canva Page Manager lets you select a full-screen view, a bird’s eye view layout of your project, as well as different magnification of each design. You can also move your pages around, delete them one by one, and duplicate them according to your needs.

This feature is very useful when you are working with large documents. Another tool that makes life easier, tbh!

Hyperlinks

This tool is very helpful when you are making ebooks and PDFs. Hyperlinks will allow your viewers to click on the links in your PDF.

To create a hyperlink, just highlight the text you want to make a link to. Once you’ve selected the text, click the link icon on the top right-hand side, add in the URL for your link, and click apply.

Just remember that the links will only work when the document is downloaded as a PDF.

Instant Image Background Remover

Another wonderful feature of the Canva Pro is it makes the tricky process of removing the background super easy with just one click. Any photo of any product, headshot, and logo will do.

Select an image and click the ‘Background Remover’ in the Effects section. The background will disappear in an instant. This is probably one of the most useful tricks in Canva!

Aligning Text and Images Perfectly

Aligning texts, images, and elements in Canva is simple. Instead of manually positioning each object, you can easily use the position tools to align the texts and images automatically.

To align images, elements, and texts, click the element, click the “Position” from the toolbar above the editor, and choose the alignment you want to apply to your element.

Creating a Drop Shadow to Your Images

Adding drop shadows to your graphics makes them look more three-dimensional. It makes your graphic designs pop out and more alive. With Canva, you can also easily make this effect to beautify your design. Full tutorial here.

Save As A Template

This is another Canva Pro feature that saves you up a lot of time.

When you make a design and it’s something you’d want to use again for the future, one feature you can do is to save that document into a template.

You can easily do this by clicking on ‘Show More’ under the ‘Publish’ button, and click the “Templates’ option. Select the folder to where you want that template to be saved and select publish.

Your saved templates can be easily accessed on your home page. Remember, this feature is only available on Canva Pro.

Canva is a very useful tool in designing visual content especially when you own a small business. When you don’t have an in-house graphic designer, you can totally create your own graphics. Thankfully, Canva is here to help you out as it has so many different pre-made templates ready for you to use.

Visit our blog for more articles like this!

July 28, 2022
Effective Writing: How to Write an Irresistible Headline
Effective Writing: How to Write an Irresistible Headline

Most, if not all, of the content you create for your blog, is based on your writing. You are not limited to the format of a traditional written blog post, though, because even things like audio and video will often need some writing beforehand. This is why effective writing should be practiced at all times. So how do you do that?

Writing is a great way to communicate ideas, but compared with in-person verbal communication, it comes with a certain handicap. Body language accounts for a significant portion of human interaction. Things such as facial expressions, posture, gestures, and eye contact can either support or negate the words that are being said. Body language is often used unconsciously to connect with people, gauge character, understand how someone is feeling, and many more.

The meaning of what you say is based on how you say it. But when it comes to writing, many of those qualities are lost. Body language and tone of voice are not present in the published content. You are reliant on the words themselves, which makes effective writing much more important.

The Importance of Effective Writing

Effective writing gets you to build trust, share ideas, educate, and persuade people, all without the use of body language. Beyond that, remember that the nature of the world we live in today is ever-changing. At any given moment, thousands upon thousands of people and companies compete for your audience’s attention. Think about this: why should someone spend their precious time reading your content when they can do absolutely anything else?

The world of web content is more crowded than ever, and it’s only getting more competitive by the day. Some see that as a bad thing, as the surplus of content is driving down the value of the content itself. But the reality is, as the volume of content increases, so too do the rewards for those who create valuable, high-quality content. Valuable content is what you are going for. You want your content to be the diamond among the ordinary rocks, and effective writing can help you achieve that.

Writing Irresistible Headlines

An effective and irresistible headline is one of the most important parts of a good blog post, because this is where you deliver and nail the first impression. When people come across your content while scrolling on social media or the Google results page, there are only two things they’ll do. People are either going to click through your link or they are going to ignore it. A good headline is crucial because it’s the only information people are going to have at this stage.

When you are working on a piece of content, start it by having a working title. The title doesn’t have to be final, it just has to be something simple to identify what you’re working on and guide the general idea of the write-up. Once you’re finished, that’s when you come back to the headline and refine it. There will be times that you’ll end up writing a slightly different approach than you originally intended, so it’s usually a smart thing to write the final headline once you’re done with the main content. Take your final headline seriously.

Don’t just type out the first thing that comes to your mind. Give it a thought before hitting the publish button. The headline is your one chance to grab the people’s attention so make sure that you spend enough time on it.

One thing you can do is to come up with a list of potential headlines, maybe five or so titles. Then narrow them down until you have the perfect one.

With that process in mind, these are the certain elements that you need to have in a perfect title:
1. Be unique. If your headline looks the same with all of the other related content on your topic, your potential audience might not want to click it. With a lackluster and common headline, what reason does your audience have to think that you have any unique value to offer them?
2. Show a little personality and don’t be afraid to be different. A good example of this is the viral video that put Dollar Shave Club on the map. dollarshaveclub.com – our blades are f***ing great! It’s edgy and they took a risk putting the f-bomb in an official ad, but here’s the thing, it worked. The ad got people’s attention and it showed the people that the brand wasn’t just another razor brand like Bic or Gillette. I’m not telling you to be intentionally edgy and swear in your headlines. All I’m suggesting is that you allow your blog to have a personality and a unique, authentic style.
3. A good headline is specific. Be extremely clear about what you have to offer. Don’t stick to the common and general titles that don’t offer much insight at first glance. Be as precise as you can. If you are writing a post about how to grow a business with content marketing, a bad example of a headline would be “Content Marketing” or even “How to Grow your Business”. A good title for this would be “How I Increased My Company’s Sales by 50% Using Content Marketing”. This will make the readers know what to expect, and if they’re interested in what you have to offer, they will surely click through your link.
4. Your headlines should be useful, and it should convey a clear benefit to the reader. Just like the example given above, the title “How I Increased My Company’s Sales by 50% Using Content Marketing” is extremely clear about what the reader is going to learn from the article.
In summary, when writing headlines, make sure to always offer something unique, specific, and useful. Come up with a list of potential titles for your posts and narrow down the list to find the best one. If you’re stuck, you can run it by your friends to get fresh perspectives. In any case, always remember that your headline is your chance to make or break the first impression. So be sure to give it the attention it deserves.
July 28, 2022
9 Benefits of Video Marketing For Your Small Business

9 Benefits of Video Marketing For Your Small Business

Are you still having doubts about whether video marketing is for your business? If you haven’t read our article about Why Small Businesses Should Use Video Marketing, we have another treat for you. In this article today, we are going to share with you the many benefits of video marketing.

Probably the most useful tactic to incorporate in your marketing strategy is to personalize your brand and to do that, you have to tell your brand’s story. Storytelling is an effective way to get your message across to your audience and invoke an emotional response from them. Emotions are important as they influence trust and perception. And videos are the fastest and the most effective way to make this action possible. Because videos play to your visual appetite, they can effectively convey your message and information to viewers, and easily make them understand complex concepts.

Video marketing has become a huge part of the digital marketing scene today and it will continue to do so in the future. Whether you own a small or big business, here are 9 benefits of video marketing.

Get your Brand Noticed

Using videos is a great way to build and improve your brand awareness. Well-made videos will help you get your brand noticed and will catapult your business to the top. This will make you an authority in the industry and position yourself as a thought leader in your field.

Video Builds Trust and Credibility

Video is an incredible medium because of its power to present things in a different light. You get to convey emotions that will appeal to your customers and in this way, create a personality for your brand and company. Through videos, you will be able to connect with your viewers and get their trust.

Videos help educate the audience about your product or service and this will inform your potential customers more about your company and what you do. Trust is essential to make sales today and building trust is one of the benefits of video marketing.

Influence Customer’s Buying Decisions

About 90% of online customers have said that watching a video about a product or service helps them in deciding if they are completing their purchase or not. Videos are great because they influence customer’s buying decisions and about 64% of these consumers said that watching a video makes them more likely to buy.

Boost Your Organic Search Rankings

By having videos, your website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) is improved and boosted.

Google takes note of how long a visitor spends on your page and this influences how you appear in the SERPs. As videos are highly engaging, they will keep your audience longer on your site. Businesses that use video marketing effectively will more likely help boost their site’s search rankings.

Moreover, Youtube is the second-largest search engine next to its owner Google, and putting your video here can rack up your visibility and reach for a new audience.

Increase Website Traffic

People love videos and businesses that use videos on their site get more traffic on their website than those who do not.

Encourages Social Shares

When something goes viral, it’s always in a video format. And how does a post become viral? It’s when people share them with others.

Videos are shareable and very engaging, and when people enjoyed your video, they will more likely share them with their friends and family.

Engage Customers on Social Media

Whichever platform you’re on, whether it’s Instagram, Tiktok, or Facebook, you can easily share your message via videos.

Today, social media is overrun with video content and continues to have more because people respond and engage to this type of format more than just the generic text and image. Facebook alone has a staggering 100 million hours of video watched. (source)

Creating stunning video content to share across your pages will likely gain you more audience.

Increase Conversions and Improve Sales

Videos are made to convince the audience and convert them into actual customers, and this is probably one of the biggest benefits of video marketing.

A Great Addition to your Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is still very much alive today and to spice it up, you can add videos in it to increase the engagement with your subscribers. Having videos in your emails can increase your open rates and can likely decrease your unsubscribe rates. Videos are just really easier to watch rather than having to read a long text, right?

Video marketing is becoming popular by the second and has become more affordable than before. With a variety of platforms that you can choose from, there will certainly be a perfect fit for your business. And with the benefits that come with it, video marketing is a strategy most marketers have found effective and worth investing in.

Need guidance and help with video marketing? Ve Digital offers videography services. Contact us today!

July 28, 2022
Where to Get Inspiration for New Content: Here are 5 Good Suggestions to Consider

Where to Get Inspiration for New Content

Creating new content is essential for any content creator, blogger, or marketer. However, coming up with fresh and engaging ideas is not always easy. At times, the inspiration just seems to be lacking, and you might find yourself struggling to come up with new content ideas.

In this blog post, we will share some of the best sources of inspiration to help you generate new content ideas.

Industry News and Trends

One of the best places to look for inspiration is in your industry. Keep up to date with the latest news, events, and trends in your field. Check out popular blogs, social media accounts, and forums to see what people are talking about. You can use this information to create content that is timely and relevant.

Customer Questions

Your customers can also be a valuable source of inspiration. Look for frequently asked questions in your customer support emails, social media comments, and forums. Answering these questions in a blog post or video can help you provide valuable information to your audience and establish yourself as an expert in your field.

Competitor Analysis

While you shouldn’t copy your competitors’ content, you can certainly use it for inspiration. Look at the content that is performing well in your niche and see how you can put your spin on it. You can also look for gaps in your competitors’ content and create content that fills those gaps.

Keyword Research

Keyword research can help you understand what people are searching for and create content that is optimized for search engines. Use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner to identify relevant keywords that your audience is searching for. You can then use these keywords to create content that targets specific search queries.

Brainstorming Sessions

Brainstorming sessions can help you generate a ton of ideas quickly. Get together with your team, colleagues, or even friends and family to come up with new ideas. Write down all the ideas and evaluate them later. You can also use tools like Trello, Google Docs, or MindMeister to collaborate on ideas remotely.

Social Media

Social media can be a great place to find inspiration. Look for popular hashtags in your industry and see what people are saying. You can also follow thought leaders and influencers in your niche to see what content they are sharing.

Customer Feedback

Listening to customer feedback can help you create content that resonates with your audience. Use feedback tools like surveys or feedback forms to gather insights from your customers. You can then use this feedback to create content that addresses their pain points and provides solutions to their problems.

Industry Events and Conferences

Attending industry events and conferences can also be a great way to get inspiration for new content. These events provide you with an opportunity to learn about the latest trends, innovations, and best practices in your field. You can use the insights and ideas from these events to create new and engaging content for your audience.

Your Own Experiences

Sometimes the best content ideas come from your own experiences. Think about your personal and professional experiences and how they relate to your industry. You can share your own stories, lessons learned, and insights with your audience. This not only provides them with valuable information but also helps you build a stronger relationship with your audience.

Repurpose Old Content

Another great source of inspiration is your own old content. Look at your existing blog posts, videos, or podcasts, and see if you can repurpose them. You can update the content with new information, change the format, or create a series of related content. This can save you time and effort while still providing your audience with valuable information.

Guest Posts and Collaborations

Collaborating with other content creators or industry experts can also provide you with new ideas and inspiration. You can invite guest bloggers, participate in podcast interviews, or collaborate on social media campaigns. This not only expands your reach but also exposes you to new ideas and perspectives.

Books, Podcasts, and Other Media

Lastly, books, podcasts, and other media can be a great source of inspiration. Look for content that is relevant to your industry or niche and see what insights and ideas you can apply to your own content. You can also use this content as a starting point for your own research and analysis.

In conclusion, getting inspiration for new content requires a mix of creativity, curiosity, and research. By staying up to date with industry news and trends, listening to your audience, attending industry events, and collaborating with others, you can generate a ton of new content ideas. Remember to be authentic, provide value, and create content that resonates with your audience. Happy creating!

July 28, 2022
7 Benefits of Digital Marketing For Your Business

7 Benefits of Digital Marketing For Your Business

It’s not a question that with today’s digital age, we all face our screens almost all the time every day. And with this, the world of marketing evolved to get on with the times. Digital marketing has become larger than ever as more and more consumers turn to researching and buying products online. Here are seven (7) benefits of digital marketing for your business you need to know if you didn’t yet.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

It is cost-effective

This may be the biggest benefit of digital marketing as it helps you obtain more leads while getting more of your money’s worth in the long run.

When compared to traditional marketing methods, you can compete with larger businesses because you all have a level field in digital marketing. Digital marketing is a more affordable way to advertise and market your business to potential customers. PPC or Pay-Per-Click ads allow you to work within your budget. You can also partner with digital marketing agencies to help you with your brand’s online marketing strategy.

It is measurable

When you spend money on digital marketing campaigns, you can easily track and measure what happens to your campaigns. There is analytics you can analyze to improve and make your digital marketing strategies better to get more favorable results.

While traditional marketing tactics are effective, they can be difficult to track and measure.

It enables you to target ideal customers

The good thing with digital marketing is that you can target your ads and show them to the right people who are interested in your brand and want to hear what you offer.

With traditional marketing, it’s difficult to target the right people because your ads generally go to everyone in hopes of reaching the people who will be interested. With digital marketing, you can filter who you want your ads to reach by specifically targeting those who fit your buyer personas.

When you create your Facebook or Instagram ads, you can set your target audience by defining their attributes such as age, gender, hobbies, occupation, location, and more. You can be as specific as you like. By narrowing your specifications, you’ll reach your ideal audiences more effectively.

It allows you to leverage social media

Social media is a crucial part when you want to market your business online. With digital marketing, leveraging social media has now become a part of it. Social media marketing can widen your audience reach and increase your brand awareness. You can also tap into influencer marketing which can be very beneficial for your business.

It helps you connect with mobile customers

Another one of the many benefits of digital marketing is it lets you connect with mobile phone users easily. With how the world has become more mobile-friendly today, people of all ages are browsing and consuming content mainly through their phones. This is the perfect opportunity to market your business. With digital marketing, you’ll be able to reach your target audience on their computers, tablets, and mobile phones.

It improves your conversion rate

One of the benefits of digital marketing is how it can significantly increase your conversion rate. This is made possible due to your ability to target specific leads as stated earlier. As you focus on your target audience, you increase the chance of converting potential leads into actual customers, and this will help your business grow.

It provides a way to really build relationships

The good thing about digital marketing is it’s more than just advertising and marketing. It’s also about connecting, engaging, and building relationships with your audience and followers, and even with other brands. Trust is crucial and when you build relationships with customers, you increase your client retention levels.

Build a sense of community with your audience by valuing their feedback and opinions. Maintain your relationship with your customers by sending them a follow-up email after their purchase. You can also send them special offers that are customized for them regularly.

Final Thoughts

If you own a business and you still haven’t dabbled into digital marketing, this is the time you start. Get on with the times because this digital age won’t be going out soon. With all the benefits of digital marketing we just shared with you, it’s definitely a win-win to get your business into its game.

For more articles like this, visit our blog and our Facebook Page.

July 14, 2022
All About Influencer Marketing
All About Influencer Marketing

Due to the large influx of both big and small businesses coming into the online world, it’s becoming increasingly challenging for brands to get attention on the internet. This has made consumers doubt the brands that self-promotes. New digital marketing strategies have been planned and created, and one of these is influencer marketing.

Ten years ago, influencer marketing was only limited to celebrities. But times have changed, and now in this modern digital age, tons of newly grown influencers have been paving their way into the market.

Influencer marketing is now an established form of online marketing and has been a buzzword in the media for a while. If you are one of those people who haven’t heard about this term yet, you have come to the right post. We will talk all about influencer marketing, what it is, why it’s important, how it works, and how you can leverage it for your business.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer Marketing is a form of online marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from people who has a large following on a distinct niche who can likely persuade other people to buy your product – hence the term “influencer”. This type of marketing involves collaboration between the brand and the online influencer to market their products or services.

Rather than doing all the marketing yourself across your consumers, you instead hire and pay influencers to get the word of your brand out across their followers.

Influencer marketing goes hand-in-hand with social media marketing and content marketing. Influencers have their social media accounts, the platforms where they are expected to spread the word. Influencer campaigns carry content elements, whether the brand has created content for the influencers to share, or the influencers create the content themselves.

What is an Influencer?

An influencer doesn’t automatically equate to celebrities. You can be an influencer without being a celebrity. So, what makes a person an influencer?

An influencer is defined and characterized as someone who has a loyal band of followers and has the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his/her knowledge, position, authority, and relationship with his/her audience. They are regarded as experts in their niche and what they recommend is highly considered by their followers.

Influencers are real-life consumers who are knowledgeable about certain topics. This gives them the “influence” they have that enables them to urge their followers to take desired actions.

The Importance of Influencer Marketing

The influence economy has forever changed the way we purchase stuff. About 67% of marketers report that they are engaged in influencer marketing. With more mainstream exposure, this type of marketing will undoubtedly rise. Brands that don’t take part in this innovation will more likely miss out on the grand idea that consumers are now in control of the buyer’s journey.

The conventional ways of digital marketing no longer yield the desired results. Over 66% of customers are bombed with too many marketing messages online and about 20% of these will avoid the brand because of the excessive ads. This is why marketers should care about influencer marketing because this is one way to prove your brand’s authenticity.

Smart marketers leverage influencer marketing to create engagements with their consumers. Unlike conventional digital marketing, influencer marketing goes beyond just reach and clicks, they create ongoing conversations with potential customers that drive purchase and gives the results you desire.

Customers want authentic people who attract and influence their perceptions. It’s not a question of doubt, content creators have a huge influence to drive business growth and deliver authenticity that resonates with their audience.

How It Works

It’s important to recognize that brands no longer have the center stage, it’s the consumers who run the show. If you want to take part in the conversations and customer engagements, you have to think like a consumer. These people have conversations over various social media platforms, this is where influencers emerge.

The goal here is to plug into new communities and connect your product/brand to new viewers via a trusted voice in the community. Authenticity creates trust and people gravitate toward online influencers because the content they create is valuable. Collaborating with these influencers will allow the brands to integrate their message into their content which will be shared with their followers. To ensure authenticity, the brands must allow their influencers to be true and sincere when doing sponsored content. Consumers do not appreciate insincere and irrelevant content, this will negatively affect the influencer’s power as people start to unsubscribe.

Brands wanting to be pertinent to consumers should approach the media as a way to attract, engage, and convert prospects, which means they should create content that consumers care about and trust. Collaborating with influencers is the most effective way to make this happen. Influencers are experts at generating online discussions so the content they share with the brand’s message will be discussed, shared, and reposted. This is earned media and what makes this valuable is that it is trusted more by the consumers. When influencers write about their own experience with the brand and share compelling stories about it, it will influence their audience.

How to Use Influencer Marketing for your Business

Before you start looking for influencers to collaborate with and create a strategy, there are a few things you need to determine to set the stage.

Know Your Audience

Define your target audience. Who are you trying to reach? Who are your target consumers? Who do you want to hear your message?

Set Your Goals

The key to influencer marketing success is setting appropriate goals. For influencer marketing campaigns, some of the common goals are brand awareness, gaining social media followers, getting people to try your product, and increasing sales.

Define What Success is

How will you and your client measure success? Define some key performance indicators (KPIs) and by setting up the right tracking methods, you will be able to identify where a consumer is in their buying journey – awareness, consideration, preference, purchase, or loyalty.

How To Get Started

There are five key components to build an influencer campaign:
- Planning your strategy
- Selecting and Identifying your Influencers
- Content Collaboration and Campaign
- Optimization
- Analytics Monitoring
Planning Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

It takes careful planning to make a successful strategy. Research is key.

Selecting and Identifying Influencers

This depends on your budget and the scope of your campaign. Influencers come in all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds, and have varying levels of impact. You can find them in agencies and webpages online.

Content Collaboration and Campaigning

Creating great content is what makes up a great marketing campaign. Your content should compel your target audience, authentic to the influencer’s voice, and stands with your brand’s values and objectives.

Optimized Distribution

Create a content strategy that extends its usefulness. Use content from your influencer in your testimonials. Feature celebrity influencers in your print ads. You can even share your content in your newsletter. Don’t just stop with the content that influencers have created, optimize it to get more results.

Analytics Monitoring

To check if your influencer marketing strategy worked, monitor your analytics. There are different metrics and methods for measurement to define your success. Collect more data so you can optimize your marketing efforts. Based on these data, you can rank your influencers, conclude which content resonates best with your audience, and see which social media channel is best for sharing.

The Bottomline

There’s only so much we can do with today’s technology, but one thing is for sure. Influencer marketing has come a long way and has the potential to become the future of digital marketing. Taking advantage of how consumers would rather hear from real people than brands, influencer marketing is the best choice because it delivers connections and authenticity that the consumers crave.

Visit our blog for more digital marketing and business development articles.
July 14, 2022