When working on online marketing strategies, have you come across the term “Customer Value Ladder” as an online engagement and buying journey?
If you are not familiar with the term yet and are just starting out to discover digital business strategies, this article will help explain what it means and why we should look into preparing one as part of your digital enablement and online sales and marketing funnel plan.
In general, a value ladder is a visual representation of your product and service offerings and its different tiers of engagement. It co-relates to the lifetime value of a client and continued transactions with you online and offline.
By working out a customer value ladder for your business as a key marketing plan is to determine the journey a potential customer takes to become a loyal and potentially high value advocate.
The customer value ladder as a process
A value ladder is a process of mapping out what you offer visually and thinking of ways to introduce them to your customers with the ultimate goal of increasing the value exchange. In a simple sense, as the customer or client ascends the ladder, the value of the product and services increases, and your level of engagement ultimately increases too. Through a value ladder, you can create a map to nurture prospects into customers to follow, plan the level of service value they will receive as they move through your sales funnel.
In the process of the customer value ladder, you are building a prospect and customer’s trust, as they move up the ladder.
Here’s a short description of how the ladder works when plotted visually:
At the bottom of the ladder, the customer or client learned about your products or services. You may offer a free “taster” or samples at a low-cost fee to capture their interest. This could be a podcast, a free discovery meeting, a low-end product. Here, they became aware of your business and they either engage or subscribe to continue to receive something of value like an email or a free online course or service delivered online.
When the customer or client has seen the value of what you offer, you can start by offering ongoing promotions and other offers via email marketing or group calls, product sales webinars, or in-person consultations. During this time, they have an interest in buying a higher level of service or engage your services at the next stage to help them solve their problem or achieve a higher need. At this level, you start to convert customers to have gotten to know, like, and willing to dive deeper into your offering.
When a customer or client reached the top of the ladder, they have entrusted you and engage and experience your offering. They start to make repurchases, move to higher level partner program or service offering. They could also potentially be an advocate or affiliate partner who co-promote your products or services to others via their testimonial or referer you to their networks in person or online.
Putting time and effort into creating a good visual representation for your value ladder is something worth investing in.
This will ultimately help you determine your steps in building customer trust and eventually increase your product or service value. Here, you can identify what works best in terms of conversion. This will also help you build long-term relationships with your customers.
How we can help
Revive Me Web & Marketing is always ready to help you build your customer value ladder, if you are interested to have one for your business, send us a message and we can review which area of building your online marketing funnel that we can be of assistance.
Thinking about updating your website? Should you A) work on updating the content and refresh the style and theme on your existing website, or B) opt for a total make-over and redesign your website?
There are several considerations to make, as your website plays a very important role in communicating your business and services to both existing and potential customers.
If making your website attractive is a priority read about the top 3 reasons to refresh or redesign a website with Revive Me Web & Marketing.
1) Improve User Experience & Update Brand Promise
To review your website is to take the time to consider what are the most important elements that your audience is looking for.
When you start to review your “User Experience”, we start to review our web visitor’s experience. Are you presenting the impression of your business point of difference from the others? Is your website simple to use? Is it intuitive for the users to navigate around and find the information that they want?
Once your users find the resources that they may be looking for, does your website have the capacity to lead them to do specific actions you want them to take? Like check up online courses available or surveys on your website? Website redesigning is essential generally once every four to six years, especially when visitors and the audience needs changes and we want to serve their needs and actions online with ease.
This includes ensuring that the website has a pleasing design and colours to the audience it wants to attract. Well written information and visual content that connects well to your audience. And easy navigation to common services, pricing information, your process or methodology, quality assurance, the opportunity to give reviews and feedback, and frequently asked questions.
If people are arriving on your website, perusing but not taking an action, then your website structure and content strategy needs to be reviewed.
If you have an existing website with plenty of well-served and read content, but you like to get more online sales , then ensure that you have both outstanding user experience and relevant brand promise.
Note: Quite often, it is easier to set up a new demo website. either as a replica of an existing website to change its structure and theme. Or set up a totally new website with a new theme and rebrand with a whole new brand promise, web structure (also sometimes known as a wireframe), colour scheme, typography, images and site navigation plan.
2) Remove the outdated content & backend codes
With a website redesign and content management upgrade, you will be able to remove codes that have become outdated and use older server versions that slow down the website’s loading and functioning time. This impacts your SEO rankings by as much as 18% according to Google’s 2020 algorithm rankings.
Upgrading your website and the system can help to increase download speeds.
(Note: If your content management system is subscription-based, for example, Wix, Squarespace, Rocketspark, or Shopify for eCommerce sites then you don’t have to worry about obsolete code).
On the downside, you could be limited by the design of the template and need 3rd party integration or not sure how to get some tools working properly. We can integrate content and look for opportunities i.e plugin booking systems on the website as required.
Since 2017, Google has also suggested that websites use caching and minify (reduce file sizes) CSS and Javascripts. This action will enable your website to load faster.
3) Improve web structure and visibility
The third reason to redesign your website is to strengthen the domain and website security, by improving your web structure. This includes removing any obsolete links, create a mobile-friendly website, as most people are browsing through their smartphones on the go, or use multiple screen sizes and devices. Improving your website structure would also help with visibility- which also means your search engine ranking position (SERP).
Use a tracking application called Hotjar. Hotjar allows you to record actions of website visitors and be able to see how they currently peruse the site. From Hotjar, we can review actual web visitors behaviour, the clicks throughs and page actions,if the web session resulted in a positive action, or were they deterred and abandon the site as they were not engaged with your website content, or had difficulties or are distracted and abandon the site search.
How Revive Me Web and Marketing Team can help
When we work on a client’s website refresh or redesign, the first part of our process is to review how visitors are using your website. We start by capturing a recording of visitors with an application called Hotjar (web traffic analyzing application).
We then map out the top content and links that a visitor clicks on while perusing your website. Next, we identify and remove any redundant information, redirect error or missing pages, recategorise services, or remove unnecessary or separate content that could be ‘hurtful’ for your search results.
It is important to note that if your content management system is a subscription-based one like Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify for eCommerce, then you don’t have to worry about obsolete code, but you will be limited by design and delivery customisation and will have to rely on what is available to you. Upgrading your website and system helps to increase download speeds.
If you like to improve your website and turn on your web sales and booking engine, Revive Me Web and Marketing Team can help you refresh or redesign your website.
We can integrate smart applications, research content topics and maintain your website for better rank position and attract traffic (SEO), as well as implement Google Search or Display Ads to attract more high-value and repeat clients.
Get a free website audit and chat with us today.
Get our 9-point checklist to help you redesign and refresh your website when you book a 30min Discovery Consult.
Building a relationship with your customers can ensure a long and healthy relationship. By defining what your brand stands for (your brand archetype) and its’ brand personality, you can build stronger brand affinity with your tribe of customers and key partners to support the growth of your business.
Brand affinity describes consumers who believe a particular brand shares common values with them. These shared values help build a relationship that tends to retain loyal customers for longer. This helps increase their emotional reasoning behind their purchase decisions.
The key is understanding the audience you are selling to and selling them a consistent message.
Is there a particular brand that you are attached to? Have you ever felt how connected you are to that brand?
A brand can sell or provide similar things or services but there will always be that one brand that appeals to you more than the other.
Take luxury brands Chanel and Louis Vuitton for example. Chanel tells the story of beauty, of a sensual, loving, yet powerful woman. Louis Vuitton on the other hand, tells about success, control, and refinement. The two brands may sell similar products but they appeal to two different markets: those who admire the beauty and those who appreciate success. In marketing, this is what you call the brand archetype or the personality that the brand portrays.
Top brands work and continue to work hard to perfect their archetype. They may constantly re-brand but their brand personality remains the same. They work hard to develop this personality that would appeal to their target audience even in the long run.
Are you in the process of building your own brand archetype? How would you create the right character and persona that would perfectly fit your brand and company?
The concept behind the Brand Archetype
The overall concept of the brand archetype of brand personality began with Carl Jung, a psychologist who was working with Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian neurologist. According to Jung, every individual has a dominant personality or trait. By embracing a personality to embody a particular brand, a company can connect to its target audience on a more personal or emotional level. They are able to show their customers or target market that they understand what they need and want. There are 12 brand archetypes according to Carl Jung: The Innocent, Everyman, Hero, Outlaw, Explorer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Lover, Caregiver, Jester, and Sage. 1. The Innocent. They are honest, optimistic, simple, and joyful. They are into promoting joy and good vibes. One classic example is Coca Cola which promotes spreading happiness all around. 2. The Everyman. They are friendly, casual, and authentic. They don’t want to stand out from the crowd and just basically enjoy being normal and average. Ikea is a good example of this brand archetype that offers affordable and easy to use products for the average people. 3. The Hero. They are inspirational and courageous and wish nothing but to make the world a better place to live in. Nike’s ads and campaigns focused on this one. 4. The Outlaw. They love their freedom and personal choices. The outlaws are aggressive and value change. Harley Davidson is an example of the outlaw archetype. Their campaigns focus on encouraging their audience to be bold. 5. The Explorer. They love travelling, exploring, and the thrill of discovering. They find fulfilment in their freedom to thread in a different path. Car companies usually have this type of brand archetype because they promote smooth journeys and adventures. 6. The Creator. They are imaginative and would often want to create things with great value. Apple and Lego are two of the most well-loved brands with the Creator archetype. Apple is innovative and wants to provide products that appeal to personality. Lego on the other hand encourages people (especially children with great imagination) to build. 7. The Ruler. They are powerful, refined, and organized and they know what they want. They have the ability to influence other people by being dominating ones but almost always in a good way. Luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Rolex that promote wealth and success are good examples. 8. The Magician. They are all about making dreams come true. The Magician brands always work to turn ordinary things into something magical and a classic example is Disney which is able to insert all things magic on their films, ads, and campaigns. This does not necessarily mean an escape to reality but finding also ultimate joy in simple things. 9. The Lover. They are sensual, passionate, and romantic. They enjoy emotional connections. Brands that focus on beauty and aesthetics use this as their brand archetype. Chanel is a good example with extremely beautiful and attractive ads targeting women. 10. The Caregiver. They are warm, nurturing, and compassionate. Baby brands usually use this brand archetype to promote what they have. Two classic examples are Pampers and Johnson and Johnson’s whose campaigns always focus on providing security and protection. Just like what a mother would always do to her child. 11. The Jester. They love to have fun and take things lightly. They always encourage people to laugh and loosen up a little. Jester brands are usually found in entertainment and food just like M&Ms which advocates bringing the fun to where you are with their chocolates.
12. The Sage. They are very knowledgeable and dependable. You can lean on them for information. They are the thought leaders, coaches, and mentors. Google managed to be one of the world’s most important sources of knowledge. While it does not directly give answers but gives us a variety of options through searches, individuals look up to it and depend on the information it provides.
On Re/Creating your Brand Archetype
When building your brand, the first step you need to focus on is creating a solid identity. People are drawn to the brand archetype and personality they can relate with. Having an archetype can help you clarify your message and attract the right target audience to your business.At Revive Me Marketing, we believe that it starts with reflecting on your business and personal values.
For instance, do you favour simplicity or outrageous decadent styles? If you are in a service-based and/or knowledge-based business? What qualities do you and your team currently accord to your clients? This could be personalised and of the utmost quality of care with service and experience.
When working with our clients who are redesigning their websites or setting up a new one for their current or new venture, we have found that by asking your team, customers and associates on what qualities they value as part of the experience an integral process to define and/or clarify your brand archetype and personality.
You could also review this with the qualities of the twelve brand archetypes discussed before and select the one you relate to the most.
Once you determine your brand archetype, we may check with you are currently communicating these values with consistency, both your visual brand identity (logos, images and font) and brand message (taglines, slogan, narratives) to the public.
These could include presentations such as your website, social media, brochures, videos, editorials, and even press releases.
On growing with your brand affinity and attraction
Growing your brand affinity and attraction has to be intentional if we are to build a growing audience and scale our business following. We have a brand designer with several graphic associates with capabilities to help you build your overall brand strategy, brand narratives, and messages prepared for various media and communications purposes, such as website content, press release, and social media campaigns.
By working with us, you have an on-boarding team who helps you to test and validate your message and ensure that you have consistency in your communications media going forward.
We specialise in helping you clarify your brand identity and archetype, so that you can build better brand affinity, and attract the right tribe of customers and supporters to you.
Have you read about "Top 3 reasons to refresh or redesign your website"?
How to create a brand story that is authentic, builds trust, and connection to your desired audience?
People are engaged by emotions and intentions.
“He who tells sells,” is a universal marketing mantra for a reason. Because stories are everywhere in our lives, we have found that business leaders who attend to their brands – just an author write a book, or a director directs a movie – have to understand their own story, appreciate the journeys their customers are on, and connect the two worlds through shared values captured in the narrative.
Brand stories are not marketing materials. They are not ads, and they are not sales pitches. Brand stories should be told with the brand persona and the writer’s personality at the center stage. Boring stories won’t attract and retain readers, but stories brimming with personality can.
A brand story is more than a narrative.
The story goes beyond the copy on your website, the text in a brochure, or the presentation used to pitch to investors. Your story isn’t just what you tell people. It’s what they believe about you based on the signals your brand sends and the service they receive from you and your team. The story is a complete picture made up of facts, feelings, and interpretations, which means that part of your story isn’t even told by you.
Do you have a clear brand story and personality that aligns with the audience you are trying to attract?
Think about the brands that you do consume, what is the essence of the brand that you feel connected to? Is it the perceived value, the personality, or connection that you have in the interaction and experience? Often it is all of them. There are many ways to tell a story, in this article, we share the progressive brand story-telling method.
Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Here are the seven steps to creating a natural progression to your brand story.
Beginning: Back story. Where in the world have you been, where are you now, and where are you going? Problem. Explain the problem that you have set out to solve.
Middle: Hero Who is the hero of your brand story – and what do they care about? What are the obstacles they have to overcome?
Disruptor: What has changed, is changing, or needs to change in your hero’s life – and in the market – to make your offering timely, relevant, and irresistible?
Stakes: What does your hero want as it relates to the product or service and education you offer? Describe how the solution came about.
Journey: What does the customer interaction with your brand look like?
Victory: The excitement about the success this produced.
Promise: The happy outcome you promise to deliver. Tell them what your brand promises to achieve, for whom and why.
Let us know how if this article is helpful. We love to hear from you. Please leave a review via Facebook or Google My Business.
More Reading Resource:The Story Cycle: A brand story template that places your customer at the center of your business storytelling https://businessofstory.com/story-cycle/
Need to refresh your Brand Story?
We can assist and work with you to create your authentic Brand Strategy.
Want to use video to communicate your company values, new product or service explanation or show highlights of an event or sales? Here are three key tips to plan and create videos for social media, along with a review of top video editing apps for social posts in 2020.
Photo and video editing are important because as it helps us blend attractive images, with messages and brand personality to make us feel emotionally connected especially to our followers.
By taking time to plan and create an impactful message, we creatively set a tone in my video message to resonates with our audience or social tribe.
In this article, I share 3 key considerations to take when preparing a video for social media. We also review the top 3 video editing applications widely adopted for use for social media videos in 2020.
Tip#1: Set an intention of your video according to your key 🔑 communication purpose, in order to support your customers buying journey.
Is it to gain awareness of your product, services or workshop?
Is it to build interest in your solution in communicating the gains you need to achieve?
Is it to nurture consideration by highlighting positive results from existing clients?
Is it to trigger a purchase action with a limited time-specific offer or deal or just a general reminder to book in for a free trial or consult?
Tip#2: Determine the type and duration of your video ad created.
Is there going to be a voice-over or just text pull out?
Will it be photos and videos pulled from your media libriary
Aim for 1 min to 3 minutes maximum for social media type video
Tip#3: Prepare the content and save them all into a folder for upload.
Include your logo for watermark as an overlay.
To save you time and quickly produce your video, here are the TOP current video online editor applications with templates to help you set up and produce your video quickly and effectively with little tech skills.
Animoto
Animoto is a cloud-based video creation application which allows users to create professional and quality videos which they can customise by putting in their pictures and video clips in a quick and easy way.
https://youtu.be/qYH8Vr4U420
Pros: It’s many of the the other video applications reviews here, it is an online editor, so no downloading of software is required. Within its coverage are a vast catalog of video styles and music library you can use if you want to add a sound to your video. The entire interface has user-friendly tools.
Cons: Limited templates, limited editing features even in a single frame and sectional changes made in a video created. Watermarks always appear for the free version of the app. If you have a limited budget, then Animoto is the best since you are not required to invest in expensive softwares and short learning curve with the simple to use online tools with pre-loaded templates to edit over.
Magisto
Magisto is a smart and one-of-a-kind video editor that transforms the videos and photos you shoot, into well-polished short videos with emotion and excitement. Photos and video clips on your mobile or device are uploaded onto aphoto library and automated scenes are stitch effortless togther with transitions.
Its pros include its ease of usage.With a good variety of editing options and quite unique when compared to other video editing applications.
Cons of using Magistro video editing app is the limitations of customisation. If you want to control every aspect of the video creation, then this video editing app is not for you.
Canva
Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content. It is also available not only on the web but also in mobile, and it integrates millions of images, fonts, templates and illustrations. Canva for work feature is a multi-purpose design app that lets you edit photos, create graphics, create animated designs, share folders, and collaborate with your team.
Pros: It offers pre-madesocial media templates, though limited on the free plans. With its templates, it makes it easier by offering ideas and inspire one to plan social media promotions and use customize with your own creativity.
Cons: Canva free version has limited font type options, the resizing of the design is available in paid options. The current direct social media sharing options are limited to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Canva is suitable for anyone with quick design needs and intuitive to use with little or no design experience.
Here are some examples of videos we created for our clients at Revive Me Marketing.
We hope this has given you insight and inspiration.
How we can help?
If you are wanting to create a social media video and have enjoyed reading these tips, please let us know and subscribe to our GetSmarter eNewsletter.
If you like to learn more how we can help to produce, set up a while ad campaign, and manage it, do get in touch and get a quote. Our rates are affordable and start from $299.
Using Zoom for conducting online video meetings and classes.
I have been using Zoom a lot more since COVID-19 pandemic has majorly disrupted the global trade and everyone is impacted with countries imposing lock-downs and companies and teams are forced to telecommute.
Since then I have brought my dance and movement classes, online and conducting in via Zoom, video conferencing application. I have been working fervently to set-up Zoom meetings and registrations for clients as well as my own classes and linking booking to a payment or donation platform such as stripe and integrating a few applications as appropriate.
Connect with your community
Businesses that are forced to close are still taking enquiries, answering and engaging socially with their communities. Those that were not as active prior have quickly utilised this platform, producing live videos, streaming or video conferencing meetings or training with their teams. If you are working from home and connecting with your clients and team digitally, here are some video conferencing tips you can share to your conference audience. I also advocate a mindful welcome to that space to help everyone settle from their distractions once the meeting starts.
Video Instructions to onboard new users to Zoom.
Here is what I have prepared to new comers who are using Zoom for the first time. Naturally there some learning experience to get the best experience, so here are some instructions prior to help.
How to connect to our Rock Fit Virtual Class on Zoom
1. Device: Please load Zoom to set up a free user account. Download the application on to your device, mobile, tablet or laptop: Test your audio and microphone settings before the class starts.
Use either a laptop (bigger screen are more comfortable for viewing) OR a smart tv with webcam, or your mobile. Visit https://zoom.u OR search on your app store on mobile for “Zoom”.
Some tips to make your video class enjoyable. As this is a live interactive video class, would like to see you be able to guide you through the session to help guide you. You can turn off the video if you need to rest in between and just go on watch mode.
2. Audio testing, options and privacy: Please test your audio setting from the device you are going to Zoom into. I would suggest for a movement class, you would benefit most to be handsfree and to use device with a larger screen then a mobile phone. i.e A laptop or a tablet. If you have access to a large screen and TV with hdmi cable, you could also plugin into that or share the screen remotely if you have those capabilities from the device.
Zoom has an instruction page on how to test your audio settings here.
Privacy options: You could use a Bluetooth headset if you have one. Sometimes good ones have noise-cancelling features.
3. Free-standing and hands-free: Please set up your device to show your head and torso as much of your body as you can so we can see each other and flow with yoga movements freely.
4. Create a space: Create a free space of at least 2m x 2m around you. If you have kids of partners in the room, please excuse yourself for the time and if you have to attend to them and turn off your video for that moment and mute your audio during that time and unmute when they have settled and you are free to return to the session.
Zoom Video Conferencing Host Tips:
There are also common problems that person leading and hosting the meeting can do to help. One of which is when everyone has their microphone turn on. Audio feedback which results in cracking, echoing, delay and reverbrating. This can be curbed by the meeting host turning everyone on mute and taking turns to talk
Mute everyone after greeting and if you are recording the session for review, tell the participants what to expect and when they are invited to unmute themselves to engage and exchange in the conversation.
To create mindful meetings online and video conferencing.
To start our session, I ask participants to take three mindful breathes to centre us all together for our conferencing meeting.
1st breathe, to focus on where we feel the breath in our body the most. 2nd: We breathe out any tension we feel In our body. 3rd: We bring our focus to what is important right now and the meeting at hand.
I found this to be helpful as we can make a more measured and mindful meeting at hand to be more present.
We will also take turns to talk, ask questions and have a pen and paper handy to jot down notes and ideas.
Share your recorded Zoom meeting with participants
In a paid version of Zoom, the pro account, you would have the option to record the meeting onto cloud and share the recorded session directly.
Have a look at this Zoom class recording that I edited and shared. I trimmed out a bits where there were disruptions, recorded the online class on movement with another camera and uploaded in onto YouTube to share with participants.
However, if there are areas in the recording where you would like to trim, you can do it directly on Zoom before distributing in to your participants. For this particular video, I had someone who was trying to get into the Zoom session on her mobile and was quite set-up and ready which I wanted to edit out. I have also did not have right lighting in my room and wanted to brighten up the video by editing it.
I hope this blog sharing is helpful and let me know how you get on with your Zoom online meetings and classes.
Are you creating valuable content with authentic brand storytelling to attract, educate and nurture customer for increased sales? Before you start social posting, email marketing, PR and sales pitches, I believe that content marketing plan should come first.
Social advertising and marketing are becoming less and less effective by the minute; as a forward-thinking marketer and business owner, you got to find a better way. Virality with brand storytelling is almost mainstream now and if you have not caught up with word-of-mouth marketing through social media, events and develop advocates to help you create the fiery momentum in your business, then now is the time to get cracking and really strategise and build your marketing actions around it.
Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues, and offer them valuable content that nurtures their buying journey.
For me, as a dance teacher, and digital marketing trainer with a digital agency. These two business endeavours are very distinct and delivery a very separate brand story, but my values are similar. To help my community build dance and business confidence.
For each of them, I create a content marketing plan and a brand story to help my audience connect with me and also the valuable journey unfolds with creativity and excitement. As much as possible I try to produce content in collaboration with my audience. An example is a short video below from a survey through social media on what they like most and about coming to dance classes and favourite moments captured that is outside of dance classes. I use their words, created this collage and short impactful video in a minute. I then use this in our social media posts and campaigns to outreach for new prospect within the similar interest and seeking those values and experience.
So here are the 3 key benefits if you employ content marketing well:
1. Increased brand and service awareness to attract customers right for you. This means higher value transactions and relationships.
2. Cost savings: Less spend on non-targeted advertising and promotions and less time spent on inquiries as people already build a trusted relationship with you online. You do need to follow through to deliver the expected service experience well
3. Better customers who have more loyalty: Acquire desirable customers that buy into the vision and valuable relations with you and your enterprise promise.
Editorial calendars can be useful for a range of content marketing tasks.
Can be used to help guide customers through complex buying cycles.
Can be used to manage the process of scaling content marketing for use in different geographic regions.
Can be used to align all the content-related efforts of the various teams operating across an enterprise.
Sharing your content calendar with your sales, marketing, HR, public relations, or other business partners and team members can make it easier for them to understand your efforts – and to alert your team when they are involved in an upcoming event that might inspire new content ideas.
Here is an example of an editorial planning template the I use for my business and help my clients to update and create theirs too.
Get your own content marketing and editorial planning tool.
I create content marketing plans with entrepreneurs and their team who want to grow their visibility and brand story online. We workshop your content marketing editorial plan with a planning tool that includes generating topics that matter, content format, which will flow through to your social media plans on what to posts, campaign and email marketing. I recommend you to start planning your content strategy and map it out well with your buyer’s journey as your starting point, so the rest can flow from there.
If you have any question and would like to create a consistent and valuable plan for your business, do get in touch. I work best with wellness driven, innovation focussed businesses with positive environmental causes.
Find out about our NZTE co-funded training programs. New Zealand businesses that are GST registered could potentially qualify up to 50% funding for training and development for digital marketing.
Have you read about 'Steps to create amazing shareable content?"
Creating amazing content is a conscious choice. Content marketers make this choice every day, as they decide what to craft and publish on their organization’s blogs and social media platforms.
They know what great content is; something that educates entertains, or inspires their readers and followers; it is content that gets conversions, gets published on a regular basis by their followers and will be responded to and shared with their connections.
The problem is this: There is a lot of great content out there that is published every day. To stand out from the others means to go beyond the “great” and to enter the realm of “incredible,” (or awesome) that place where content is so engaging and compelling that readers cannot ignore it and must share. How do you get to this place?
Getting social right in your business can have huge impact.
The importance of social media continues to grow and change how we communicate with one another. As business owners, it is not your job to be on social media ALL the time. Unless, your critical business delivery depends on it. i.e: You are a social media coordinator 100%, content marketing, posting and customer service is what you are engaged to do.
You are messing with your business growth if interacting on social media is taking up any more than 5-10% of your work time.
Your job as a business owner, managing director, administrator, marketer of your own business is to be creating the strategy for your business and making sure it is done. Your job is to be brainstorming what needs to be fixed, what needs to be improved and what needs to be done to drive your business forward. Your job is to do the one thing that no one else can do in your business.
~Leonie Dawson creator of a Shining Biz and Life academy. Founder of a million turn-over online business that depends on social media marketing as one of hers keys sales and marketing funnel.
Example of Facebook ad campaign
Social media means the collective of online communication channels, portals and websites dedicated to facilitating community-based interactions, sharing and collaborations. Through these channels, users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content. Social media allow people to socially interact, converse, network and share with one another online; Popular social media sites and applications include Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Twitter, Pininterest, Instagram & WeChat.
Social Media Marketing is defined as the process of gaining attention, interest and desire to generate website traffic, and sales conversion through social media sites.
Latest social media statistics of consumer adoption and usage:
Social networks are now so well established, that there is a core ‘top 5’ social networks that don’t change much from year-to-year. But, the most popular social media sites vary a lot by level of usage in different countries and demographics. Understanding these differences in popularity of different social networks is really important when targeting specific audiences. When comparing the most popular social networks it’s best to review them by active account usage, not just the number of user accounts. We’ll also see that some social networks are growing more rapidly than others, while some are now in decline.
Get Social Media Marketing: The 4 step plan
Are you using social media effectively to grow your business interactions, following and transactions?
The first step starts with having intention, I have been researching and helping busineses to define them objectives and you would use this list to define what is your objectives for using social media for you business and personal brand.
Here are common objectives that brands and business have:
Create Awareness
Build a community and following
Turn following into potential customers or advocates
Get more website traffic and online store visits
Educate with content and curated posts to nurture your prospects interest.
Create events and attend events
Be part of social networking and listening
Promote sales and offers of products and services
Generate leads and sales interest to nurture with email marketing
Generate PR opportunities and monitor reputation online
Use it as a channel to receive feedback
Like some help and guidance to get you started?
If you have been dappling with Facebook, Instagram or Linkedin before and not have a written and clear plan for engagement to build and nurture an audience to become a customer, we can help.
Get Social Media Marketing Workshop
is designed to work with you to plan and take action with support from plan, to customer targeting, brand design and action a campaign.
Attend this comprehensive Social Media Training workshop conducted by Revive Me Marketing to level up your social media marketing skills and actions, specific to your business and industry.
Give your business the best chance at realising good returns on investment into social media marketing, and avoid the common pitfalls many brands and businesses make.
Activate better Social Media Marketing actions with a strategy and monthly plan
Prepare a Social Media Marketing Plan for the year, integrated with offline marketing efforts.
Save time by using tools and apps demonstrated in the course.
Outcomes of Get Social Media Marketing:
Profile update: Get a Facebook Marketing checklist to guide your actions
Create a Strategy: Define your objectives and target audience
Launch a Facebook Ads Campaign: Get support and guidance to launch a campaign
Website Traffic | Lead Generation| Brand Awareness| Post Engagement| Online Store Visits
Investment: $900+GST |$450+GST with NZTE Capability Voucher.
Rosalina Pang shares her business and personal journey in a reflective journal.
“I started my career 20 years ago in events and promotions marketing for an agency servicing IT and blue-chip consumer brands such as Hewlett Packard, Motorola and Adobe. Back in Singapore, and in my early 20s, I started a boutique marketing company with an ex-colleague. We were engaged by clients to build products branding stands and displays, set up exhibition booths and promotional events for consumer and industrial brands.
After a year into my business. I realised that I needed more international marketing exposure and went back to employment when my business partner who had a lot more financial commitments decided he needed the security of a job.
Soon after, at the age of 24, I was headhunted to join Singapore Technologies Electronics, innovation and science focused manufacturing company as a Marketing Executive. The company was marketing Satellite and Sensor products to over 60 countries, and I was managing a marketing budget of under half a million. Given the international shows and exhibitions, the company has a lean marketing budget and I had to look at cost-effective ways to increase business and products brand position online. My interest in digital marketing was sparked and learnt the importance of SEO, Google Adwords and Analytics from 2007.
I moved to New Plymouth in 2008 and had to start from scratch. I came with no prior networks, friends, relatives or a job. My first opportunity was with Contours New Plymouth, an all women’s gym. The stint was to relieve a dance exercise instructor Judy, who was going on holiday to take her 6 am morning workout and dance class.
It was only an hour and then I pretty much had no other paid work left to do for the day. For six months I worked on creating my first blog website and started an Asian Food Network to blog about my home cooking and recipes that I tried and found. It had Google AdSense put onto it so I had a little pocket money in the form of advertising dollars through impressions and clicks. However it wasn’t great as I wasn’t keen on sharing and posting more as I feel quite isolated for a while, I got a bit down and depressed as I wasn’t socially connected. So I thought to myself what other skills do I have that I am passionate about and can trade my time and connect with the community? I was dancing part-time in Singapore and had also enjoyed Oriental, Middle Eastern and world music. Relieving at the ladies gym ignited my passion to get women in my community connected with their body, mind and spirit. Hence, I went to an existing Tribal Bellydance class and then realise that I should impart what I learnt and I founded 5th Element Dance with two others. I also realised that in the dance community many looked to it dance as a competition and quite like ballet with examinations and grades. In Eastern cultures, dance is a form of expression and freedom. A way to express joy and love and not feel oppressed by the struggles of life. Hence, my deep seeded philosophy is to build a dance community of like-minded women to dance and be able to express themselves from within.
Shortly after a neighbourhood TOM magazine publishing my article introducing who I was and asking for expression of interest for belly dance class, on August 2008, I gathered in Oakura Board Riders club a group of 7 women from various backgrounds, As I begin to impart to them the art of belly dancing movement through music and rhythm, I shared my philosophy that it is important to connect within. Be present both physically, mentally and spiritually. Little did I know that this had multiple healing and empowering benefits to us women. To celebrate our freedom to dance without the need for intoxication. Fast forward 10 years, my dance sisters and I have evolved into a multi-ethnic community of women coming together weekly to foster this commonality and support each other to connect physically, mentally and spiritually through world music and dance.
How I became a Marketing Trainer
In 2009, I was given the opportunity to teach ‘Fundamentals of Marketing” as a contract tutor with local polytechnic, WITT. After continuous job hunting for further six months, I took on the role of Small Business Accounts Manager with Orb communications, the local telecommunications distributor of main Telco provider here in New Zealand.
Though I enjoyed the work and opportunity to meet with business owners to update them on technology and latest plans and re-sign their contracts, there were a lot of politics and unhappy middle management employees with their own personal issues. It wasn’t a very pleasant environment as it fostered sales morale and incentives as competing against each other, through glorying who sold the most devices or contracts.
When I did land one valuable corporate client, I had it taken away from my portfolio as I was meant to be serving small businesses only. I left and went on contracting myself in supervising and marketing contract roles.
In 2013, I caught the entrepreneurship bug again and founded Revive Me Marketing. I started networking, creating and updating websites, branding and content and grow my portfolio of clients.
Digital Marketing with accountability with my clients
My mission and natural attraction to the type of clients has evolved into one with partnership and collaboration in marketing. I found myself tired of chasing clients that are not aligned with similar shared values, to begin with. I am learning to define how I would like our business relationship to work and with much joy and positive flow. This flow is in the form of 3Cs: Creativity, clear communications and cash flow in our contracts.
Clients that don’t take responsibility and that need to be chased consistently, late for payment are hard work.
I have learnt to stop chasing after them. I still have full respect that we all have personal challenges from time to time and it does impacts how are run our business. If it is emotional, physical or spiritual, I would try to help by referring them to people and other business that could potentially help them to remove those barriers to success. I also term them as ‘abundance blockers” as I believe they translate often to financial challenges. It is also important to check what is our relationship with time and money.
My personal entrepreneurial goal from 2019 going forward.
As long as we are alive as are still on this journey. For me the journey is not about bragging and achieving next 5, 6 or 7 figure income. It is about positive impact that we can make collectively by activating our passion and purpose for good of our communities, people wellness, spiritual fitness, cultural harmony and peace for our planet.
Yes we all want freedom. And to me freedom to choose to consume just enough and more to give and make a difference and support positive Change Makers and innovations that do good.
I am on a journey to measure my impact, build a better business so I can raise my positive influence.
The important note for us is to stay positive and keep working on the spirit of our business with balance.
To conclude this blog sharing of my business journal, I like to quote from one of my clients, Annie Evans, co-founder of Rock-it Boards.”
The most important thing is how much we have loved.
Last week of April, I was at King and Queen Hotel Suites in New Plymouth, taking 360 VR photos to promote the establishment as an Accommodation Support Partner to Taranaki Arts Trail, as part of the annual 3 day Artist Open Studios event in June 2018.
Sharing 360 degree photos on Facebook on YouTube seem pretty straightforward. And I started to research on how to embed these media onto a web page.
There are plenty of options, and the web researcher in me had to scowl for the best practice, applications, hosting and social sharing available for these stunning 360 images.
Self hosting option
The first article I read was from Google and it takes about needing to add scripts and using Javascript API on code and host the files somewhere else of viewing.
It then requires the web developer to add image as an iframe with html.
The easy way:
Other way is to use 3rd party application providers that allow you to upload the file and then generate a html file for embedding.
There were a few providers out there. Theta360, the device manufacturer has sharing uploads but caps files at 5MB, so not ideal for 360 video captures.On the Theta360 forum, one user mentioned that he noticed that 360 degree video uploads onto YouTube had varying results.
‘Videos play fine in 360 on YouTube, but the embeds seem to sometimes work and sometimes not when put on pages elsewhere.’Another user advise to ’embedding 360 photo on a website using Kuula’ https://blog.kuula.co/embed-editor-on-kuula/
I have noticed that some VR videos on YouTube have logos embedded on it and videos are being edited and stitch as this is starting to get more popular and mainstream to reocrd and post 360 media onto 3rd party applications providers with player app, like Kuula, if you need to add your own logo to the embed, you will need to get a PRO (paid) subscription as a service.
My mission was to look for a provider that offer an easy upload and sharing solution, which allow setting the orientation of the image, ability to auto-pan around the image when it first loads and potentially create a collection of images that link to each other as a virtual tour.
So here are my test embeds for two of the images I captured.
1st embed I have used is from 360player. 360player.io
The 2nd embed is with roundme.com/ which provides virtual tour and multiple panaroma pictures shown as a collection. To get a pro embed, it cost $15US for the lifetime.
roundme.com
They also offer a full screen version.
It was first to sign up and claims to be forever free to use. There some first to add as you would when you upload any media on to a hosting provider for web. There was title, description, tags fields to fill in. However I was disappointed at the orientation the picture has default to and could find easy way to lock the viewing orientation the the right angle that I wantedhttps://360player.io/.
This third one embed is from Veer.tv. 360 photos are uploaded as individual files, with description and #tags field options.
Frames can be resized easily. This image of the Premium Suite at King and Queen Hotel Suite is sized at 480px by 350px.
If you own a business – small, mid-sized or even large – there are three goals you are undoubtedly want to achieve:
1. Driving more traffic
2. Educating your customers about your products or services
3. Converting the users into customers and earn their loyalty
And, how are you making it happen? Online and offline marketing? Hiring professionals in the sales department? Email marketing? Or even cold calls? And, we believe that you must be having a strong social media presence as well and doing everything that is in your power to make the most out of your online presence? Great!
Now, what?
You have to keep one thing in your mind that the online market is a very competitive space and if you were not catching up with the new marketing trends and offering the best avenues to your customers to consume fresh content, your brand would soon be an old story.
What if we told you that there is one more marketing tactic that can help you to achieve your goals mentioned above, drive more traffic and generate more qualified leads?
No, it’s not a “magic trick.”
It’s also not a “black hat” method.
It’s none other than Video Marketing, and it works amazingly well.
Well, when it comes to an article about Video Marketing, almost every individual in business probably has the following response: “Yes, we get it! Video IS important!” We know that you very well understand the power of video marketing. However, the chances are, you are not using it effectively.
Why is your company ignoring this incredible tactic?
Do you have doubts about this trend and questions like; ‘is it even worth to create videos for promoting your business?’
The answer is simple: Yes, it is; every single penny and time spent on it.
Here are three powerful reasons that will establish the power of video. It is one of the most effective digital marketing tools today that can drive more traffic and convert hesitant users into loyal customers.
Video Boosts Conversions, Sales, and More Organic Traffic
When Hubspot surveyed the amount of video content users watch in a typical day, the average response they received was 1.5 hours. However, 15% told them that they watch more than 3 hours per day. It clearly explains that if you are NOT tapping the Video Marketing domain, then you must be losing out on the traffic that could be grown organically without being too sales-y.
For instance, create a video of your offerings (product or services) and educate your users and make them aware of your strength. Let them know what to expect before they commit to your services. In short, videos not only helped in increasing user engagement but also convince the users to buy a product or service helped them in making a better buying decision.
Here’s a fascinating example from Taranaki Arts Trail to showcase the event to visitors :
We embeded this on the customer website, facebook page, event post and ran a Facebook Ad campaign to drive excitement and attract customer awareness to come to this free event.
Videos Show Great ROI
Someone rightly said, “The play button is the most compelling Call to Action on the web.”
Adding a product video on your landing page can increase conversions by manifolds and provide a good return on investment. According to the study, “addingvideo on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%.” Even though producing a professional video is not yet the most straightforward or cheapest task, but once you invest your time, it will surely start paying off big time. Besides, it’s not necessary to always create a perfect video. You can use your mobile and put out a spontaneous video to entertain your users, and that’s the beauty of this medium. Moreover, if you Google, you will find many online video editing tools that are affordable and can add a billion stars to your video.
Why do we need content marketing? Well, it all boils down to creating trust between the brand and users and videos play a critical part in it. Trust is the foundation of conversions and sales, and the whole purpose of content marketing is building long-term relationships with the users on an emotional level. A video does it all; it engages the audience in a better way and ignites emotions. When they start trusting the brand, get useful and interesting information about your company and then you don’t have to coax them into buying your product or service.
An excellent way to use videos to build trust with your customers is to capture your best customers singing your praises. Just record the interview with your customers and show their side of the story.
Another great example of creating trust and increasing user base is what all the YouTubers do; they literally bare their soul in front of their audience and try to win their hearts and trust. People look up to them before trying new cream or a car or even check out their reviews on a particular restaurant. Big companies hire them to review their products and work to drive traffic back to their website.
Video Usage is on the RISE.
99% of those who already do use video, say they’ll continue to do so in 2018.
65% of those who don’t currently use video, say they plan to start in 2018.
We all watch a lot of videos.
We all love to share videos.
Marketers are advocating video marketing, and they know how to do their jobs.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram – video is ruling everywhere.
From virtual reality to live streaming to 360-degree videos, marketers are going immersive. Consumers can step into both the real-world views and fantastical experiences that brands are creating as they have never been able to before. All the awe-inspiring and boundary-dissolving video marketing trends are changing the way businesses produce and consumers consuming content, and this is just a start.
Ready to find out how 2018 is going BIG on Video Marketing?
Top Three Video Marketing Trends in 2018
Live Video or Live Streaming
No less than 13% of web traffic from video comes directly from live videos.
Are you familiar with the latest terminology – FOMO (fear of missing out) or in other words – Curiosity? Live video is gaining popularity day by day, and the only reason behind this is users’ growing inquisitiveness. They want to know what’s new and what’s happening in people’s lives, they are fascinated about ‘behind the scenes’ video clippings, and that’s how companies, celebrities and almost all are gaining popularity through feeding on the Humans’ natural characteristic.
Live video is the most prominent trend of 2018, and it is continuously picking speed. With live videos, you give exactly what your followers want: instant connection, feedback, and indulgence. You can boost excitement and promote engagement through live Q&A sessions, hosting live how-to sessions, offer helpful tips, showcasing product launches, sneak peek of important events or even making customers a part of your daily activities like gym sessions or food.
The thrill of interacting in real-time with a celebrity, brand, or friend is what pushes the increased engagement rates, and that’s why marketers suggest to NOT missing out the opportunity to make users a part of your life by going live.
With tools like Facebook Live, Instagram Live, LinkedIn Live and a range of streaming apps like BeLive and Zoom for beginners and OBS Studio and Wirecast for more seasoned videographers, live streaming is 100 percent accessible for everyone.
The companies can enjoy numerous advantages of a live video:
Live videos are more economical. No need to edit the video.
Live streaming is fun.
It brings out the human side of a brand and users could connect emotionally.
Live video increases the quality of views.
In 2018, the trend is expected to get even more intense and more interactive.
360-degree Videos
The 360-degree video was first introduced in 2014, and however, it had a slow yet exciting start, today you will witness more and more brands using this tactic to create a sense of thrill for their customers. Whether it’s a product launch or an adventurous sport, 360° videos are making a big comeback in 2018. The use of omnidirectional cameras is used to grasp a spherical video capture of a space. You get new paths to interactive customer experience through an immersive technology. AR engages users far beyond many of mobile technologies we’ve seen in the past. There are numerous ways of implementation: interactive print, augmented commerce or, for instance, live activations.
360 was already a trend in, but it is set to explode in 2018. Considering 360° videos, Google has found that despite lower view-through rate they had 46 percent higher click-through rate compared to standard video versions, which makes them cost-effective with its lower cost-per-view. However, not everyone is ready to adopt such technologies just yet, but the trend is catching up, and companies are acknowledging the engagement rate it brings in.
For example:
Fly side-by- side with astronauts in this the first ever 3D Virtual Reality film shot in space.
Explainer Videos Won’t Stop Being a Hype
Studies show that 74% of users who watched an explainer-video about a product subsequently bought it.
Explainer videos continue to be a great way to get a brief yet memorable summary about your product or services. In just a few minutes, viewers get a fair idea of your expertise and how the brand could be their choice, or not. The effectiveness of explainer videos is enormous: they are short, showing a definite problem and a viable solution and leaving space to bring out your creativity and impress the audience with an overall video watching experience.
The cost of producing explainer videos may have prevented marketers from using them in the past. But advances in technology make it possible to create a high-quality explainer video using the camera and software on the phone in your pocket.
According to Wyzowl’s survey, “74% of the people interviewed who watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service ended up buying it.”
An explainer video is an excellent way for a brand to tell its story.
For example: Yum Yum’s explainer video for their client explainer video for their client Stack that Money is short and very interesting.
Final words? Better start crafting your exciting brand videos NOW!
There is no denying that we all love to watch videos more than reading content. A Video makes content consumption easier and fun. Today, there are numerous and attention-grabbing ways to disseminate information about the brand, products, and services. From Live streaming to 360-degree videos, there is no limit to attract the target audience.
If you think about it, the effectiveness of video is not even that surprising. Visual content plays an integral part in transmitting information to our brain. Users remember a video more than an article that could sometimes be boring or too lengthy to finish. So, if pictures can boost massive engagement then imagine what videos (moving images) could do to your business.
Let’s just say ‘video is like a PIZZA, even if it’s not perfect, nobody says NO to it.’
If you are serious about digital marketing, you must consider video into this mix too.
Watch out for our Video Marketing Capability Development Training. We are working on it and launching it as a live workshop on 31st May 2018.
Do you have customers who are loyal to your brand and love talking about your company?
Would your customers happily recommend you to others?
A Video Testimonial has the power of show and highlights the significant transformation you brought in your customer’s life with your services or products. It is one of the best ways to tell your potential customers that “You Rock!”
Well, who doesn’t like to hear good things about their services and products but when you have such customers, how exactly you amplify their experience and use as a social proof to attract more customers?
A testimonial – written or a video – brings social proof onto your digital media channels and boosts the credibility of your brand with client endorsements.
Capturing exact emotions of your loyal customers via a video testimonial could be really beneficial for your business.
According to statistics:
Testimonials and word of mouth are the driving force behind 20-50% of all purchasing decisions and yet only about ⅓ of businesses are actively seeking & collecting customer reviews on an ongoing basis. -Source: Mckinsey.com- ‘a new way to measure marketing effectiveness.’
According to an article in Econsultancy, when a site has customer reviews, 63% of visitors are more likely to make a purchase & reviews produce an average of 18% uplift in sales. -source: econsultancy.com- ‘e-commerce-consumer-reviews-why-you-need-them’
However, as fancy as it sounds, asking for video testimonials come with its own challenges. Many business owners hesitate to ask clients for a testimonial, especially a video one. Also, video requires lots of other preparations like right questions; proper filming and an eye for editing that could put your brand under a spotlight. In short, bringing up the best of what you do through your loyal customers. Let us break down the whole process for you and make asking for a video testimonial easier and a rewarding activity. Here are some helpful tips for asking your customers for a video testimonial. Discover how to prepare them and debut a video testimonial once they said YES to your request.
How To Ask and When To Ask
Asking for a testimonial could be a tricky job but not impossible. You just have to be consciously aware and grab the opportunity when it arrives. How? Let’s take two entirely different fields – one, a Marketing Company and another a Dance Company. Both have different work areas and different target audience, so one style of asking for the testimonial may not work with other. Let’s learn effective ways to ask.
For a service-based business with one-on-one transactions:
It is usually a great idea to ask the client personally (over the phone is also perfect especially when you are talking about work experience.) The moment your client compliments you about how your service has been helpful to the business, that IS the time to bring up the intended conversation.
Do not lose this opportunity and politely ask if it is okay for them to record a video testimonial with you. Wait and allow them to say, “Yes”. Later on, follow up with them through email or a phone call before this conversation dies off.
You may even send a detailed written email and include prompting questions you would like for them to answer.
Give them ample time to digest your request and suggest ways and times to obtain the video testimonial.
Remember to maintain a “nice” attitude while you are asking for a testimonial. Positively encourage them by telling them how you intend to distribute the video, and how it would benefit them as well. i.e. Growing their exposure. Avoid being too assertive. It may put them off, so some tact is good.
For Event-based businesses with groups of people:
A dance class or any other group activity-oriented business has a different atmosphere and different kind of customer psyche. It’s usually easier to get a video testimonial in such businesses, however, it still requires you to “seize the right moment” to ask for video testimonial” as a skillset.
After the class or event when everyone is riding high with myriad of emotions, this could be the right time of making an announcement that you are updating the website and would love to do a personal video testimonial with each one of them and record their incredible journey and some of the favorite experiences to share with the people who are still on the verge of deciding.
A group testimonial could also be a great way to show how much fun the class is. Such videos send out the vibrancy of your customers in a group environment. When they agree, you can tell them the medium you would use to capture it. It could be through FaceTime, Zoom recording, directly on a video camera, or mobile device and distributed on social media instantly.
We would recommend to then embed it on a webpage to maximize the longevity of the video testimonial replay and views.
What To Say
This is a vital aspect of the whole process. It’s crucial that your clients understand that the purpose of a video testimonial is to talk about their business or personal goals and how you helped them achieve them. Ask them the questions that highlight their story about how they found you (if someone recommended you to them then mention their names), how your company met their business needs or helped them overcome their specific problems, and how was the overall experience. The story should be short, simple with good narrative and in their own words.Here are some of the questions you may ask or send them across as talking points before recording to help them build a compelling story.
Tell us about your business in one minute. (Get them relaxed and comfortable. Who doesn’t like to talk about themselves?)
How did you find us? Did someone recommend us to you?
Why did you choose us? (The reasons that helped them zeroing in on you.)
How was it working with us? Tell us about your experience with our team. (Ask for the customer’s overall experience while working with you.)
How has working with us changed the way your company does business?
Did our competitors approach you and try to steal you from us? If so, what did you tell them and what made you stick with us?
Would you recommend us to someone else? Why? (This is the crucial part of the testimonial.)
Is there anything you’d like to add? (What is your favorite part of …)
The video interview questions are open to guide them on what challenges they face.The product-based companies may use slightly different questions, like main concern about buying the product, how it fits their business needs and so on. You can modify the series of questions according to your product or services, but don’t lose your focus and particularly ask about hesitations and obstacles; talking about these two points adds authenticity to the testimonial.
Testimonials are stories.
Stories usually have uninterrupted flow and attention-grabbing elements, a thrilling start, and an impressive ending and that’s what pulls people and other potential customers.
If you look around, you will find most of the video testimonials lack emotions, and they feel powerless. The reason behind such limp testimonials is that sometimes the clients don’t always know what to say and how to give testimonies, and on the other hand, companies have no clue how to get an impressive testimonial from the clients. Thus, it’s important to work on the set of questions and prepare the clients for it.
Some examples:
5th Element Belly Dance:
In this video testimonial interview, I asked Andrea how she found out about classes, what made her interested, what keeps her coming back, what her favorite belly dance move was.
Revive Me Marketing:
This video testimonial interview was captured as we were video conferencing and I was delivering Get Digital Marketing program that Andrew has enrolled and been working with me on. I took the opportunity to ask him some questions and told him the intention of video testimonial interview as I had worked with him to create two for his business. We were video conferencing on Zoom, which I edited and uploaded on to YouTube on my channel with a playlist, then embedded in on the same program page as a testimonial.
Omada Health:
Omada uses behavior science to help people change their habits, improve their health and reduce their risk of chronic disease. This video was just all from their customers raving about why they chose them amongst other providers.
Video testimonial feels real.
It shows your clients’ emotions and journey with you, they bare themselves on the video and that’s why it becomes more touching. They give you valuable feedback, and it makes the clients feel important, they know that you value their experience and story. When posted on social media platforms the influence multiplies each time someone likes or shares the video. Once you get the video testimonial, thank your client either over the phone or via email. Send them a heartfelt message and let them know how much you appreciate their time and efforts.
After recording, edit it carefully. It’s important to highlight the strongest points of your company or products.After final editing, upload the video onto YouTube, Vimeo or any other video sharing and do not forget to share it with your client.
Time is your greatest asset. We have the same 24/7 as everyone else.
By focusing on what you need to do and set it up in a way that works best and naturally for you with a rhythm is what make the difference between accomplishing business and personal goals.
Want to learn more about success principals to manage your focus, shift the way you divide your time, to achieve more?
1) Check-in questions to help you identify opportunities for personal development.
Q1. Are you setting and achieving your goals?
Yes/ No/ Like to be more consistent
Q2. Do you have a clear vision of what are your success goals & financial goals are in
3 months | 6 months | 1 year | 10 years? Yes/ No/
Q3.How are you allocating your time to every day, week, month to achieve them?
Q4. Do you have a set rhythm in how you organise your week?
Q5. How do you currently set goals?
Q6. Are there Key Performance Indicators you set for yourself or your team?
Q7. What is your critical personal and business goal?
Break your goals into weekly measurement and milestones. We recommend weekly reflections and reschedule your time plan for divine and timely execution.
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”– Malcolm X
Download our free eGuide ‘ Power of Focus’ with a time planning tool to help you work on achieving more.
The sizes of the photos we share on our social media sites matter in this digital age
To help you create the right dimension and sized graphics, we have prepared a collation of updated social media dimensions. In 2018, we are looking forward to working with our clients and offer our followers great digital marketing snippets and insights. Let’s create graphics and campaigns to build your personal and business brand following. To ensure that it looks attractive and professional, sizing graphics in brand colors and the right dimension for social media sharing in 2018 is our mantra and we would like to advocate the same to you.
The best sizes for sharing images on social media
1200px*628px
1024px*576px
1080px*1080px
552px*368px
600px*900px
800px*320px
Want to utilize more of social media marketing to grow your following and sales in 2018?
For Desktop : 820px x 312px (we recommend you create this in 1920 x 731) For Mobile : 640px x 360px
Just be mindful of to keep important features on your photo in the centre of the image as you upload on desktop version, that for mobile view would be condense and sometimes cropped away.
Profile photo size
Personal Profile Cover size
upload 170px x 170px 851px x 315px (we recommend you create this in 1920 x 711)
Link preview size
min. 600px x 314px
Photo post size
476px x varied height, a larger one gives better quality
Group Cover photo size
820px x 250px (we recommend you create this in 1920px x 585px)
Event Cover photo size
1920px x 1080px OR small graphic at 500px x 281px
Header size
1500px x 500px for Twitter header details and free template
Profile photo size
400px x 400px for New round Twitter profile picture
Tweeted Image size
1200px x 675px
Twitter Card image size
1200px x 628px
Google+ Cover photo size
1080px x 608px
Google+ Profile photo size
250px x 250px
Linkedin Photo Size
1584px x 396px
Link share size
1200px x 628px
Linkedin Picture Quotes
792px x 528px
LinkedIn profile “background”
1000px x 425px and 4000px x 1700px
Linked in profile picture
400px x 400px and 2000px x 2000px
LinkedIn photo share
1200px x 1200px
LinkedIn Company cover photo size
1536px x 768px
LinkedIn logo size
300px x 300px
Photo Size
736px x 1104px to 2060px
Profile Photo size
180px x 180px or larger
Board cover
340px x 340px
Minimum image size that can be pinned
100px x 200px
Profile Photo size
110px x 110px minimum
Photo size
1080px width
Channel Art Photo Size
1546px x 423px to 2560px x 1440px
Video Thumbnail Size
640px x 360px to 1280px x 720px
Channel Icon Size
800px x 800px
We hope these recommended image sizes are valuable to you. We continue to learn lots about what’s best for all the different social networks, and I’ll be happy to continue updating this post with all our latest findings.
Ar you struggling to grab your prospect’s attention?
Is your headline is interesting enough to your audience?
Will you like to ensure that your marketing message cuts through the clutter of information to address a real issue and make a connection to viewers?
Here are ‘5-steps to prepare an effective marketing message, that Cuts-through-the-Clutter’.
An effective marketing copy must:
1. GRABthe prospect’s attention with a well-written headline as the opening statement
Our example: Are you keeping your business top of mind and interacting socially? OR Are you using Social media to find new customers, boost traffic to website and sales?
2. ENGAGEthe reader’s attention with a sub-headline that builds on a headline that persuades the reader to read further
Our example: No time or expertise? No worries, our social media bees can help your business get connected and grow!
3. INFORMthe body copy.
Give the reader some significant information on how you deliver the promise. Give the prospect or customer enough compelling information so that he or she can make a cogent decision.
Our example: Our knowledgeable and socially savvy bunnies can help you refresh your social media attraction and get people buzzing in like bees to flowers and produce the honey of success!
Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues.
Facebook is a powerful marketing tool – it’s a great space to keep customers informed, develop brand identity, and broaden your reach. We can manage your business Facebook presence from creation of your Facebook account through to social media posts with custom graphics, cover picture updates, update of services, and additional home listings to increase awareness of the general public and prospective customers.
We are results and goals focused:
Set specific goals to increase followers and engagement to increase exposure of content created to connect and engage. We will select the right content type at specific intervals for specific purposes:
Business service information and advertisement
Knowledge sharing
Contest or offer
Creative/motivational posts
FAQs and answers.
4. OFFER: Offer a crystal clear, low-risk, easy-to-take next step to take action.
Our Example: Offer for the month!
Get a refresh social media page! Go from mediocre to attractive design!
Update your Facebook profile for only $99+GST to the first 10 customers, we will help you to customise and design for an attractive cover and profile image. We will also prepare a SMART social media plan and proposal to help you get more awareness, engagement and leads. Our monthly social media marketing and management service rates starts from $300+GST. Engage us to help you with:
Content planning, creation, and distribution
Customer Service in coordination with your key personnel
Collaboration with the marketing team to build online presence
Connection-building with other groups
Comment and share post to community groups relevant to business profile and reputation management
Build referring links back to your website for sales and offers.
5. Call to action – Close with a compelling offer.
Our Example: Grab our offer!
Valid until the end of this month or first 10 customers to respond. To book your spot, send me an email to rosalina@remc.co.nz with your current message, describe your target audience and desired actions you would like them to take.
Marketing to your success,
Rosalina Pang. Digital Marketing Strategist.
*********
Does this sound like a good format to promote your services?
Would you like a sounding board and a marketing specialist to look into your next crafted marketing message? Contact me and ask what our offer is to this month and how we intent to distribute this to your prospective customers! Invest in a better marketing message and get more converting customers.
WARNING! Some Business May NOT Survive The Digital Age
The Internet has changed the workforce quite a bit and your business/ industry is likely to be affected (even if you have a traditional, brick-and-mortar business). Think about it — do you know anyone who has never made a purchase online?
How often do you hear people talk about their online research before they purchase something (even if they end up making the purchase in person)? Even if you don’t plan on conducting sales online, you’ll want to have a website where people can go for information about your business.
Most small and medium-sized businesses with web and social media presence do not consider a digital marketing strategy. Some business may not survive the digital economy with how rapid consumer adoption is to instant quotes and order fulfilments online.
Internationally, 2/3 business may not survive in the next 10 years.
In New Zealand, Statistics NZ Business operations survey in 2016 shows that 69% of businesses have a website, 72% have internet sales. Without of doubt, with faster internet fiber, on-demand services, internet sales, and order fulfillment are going to raise. Businesses and industries will see more disruptions in the market with sharing economies, time to market is shortening and consumer expectations are rising.
A Good Digital Marketing Strategy is Necessary to Ensure Survival of Your Business
Most business owners have invested in a website, company and product branding, and gained followers on social media;
The challenge is to have a systematic process to convert visitors from various channels into sales.
Often business owners have not set a budget for digital marketing development or connect effectively to an online audience. Probably because they have a sales team and established channels. Or it could be a case of generational indifference, that their customer base is old-school, personal referrals or advertising has worked for the last decade, so it is a case of ‘why change what is not broken’ mentality.
Are you keeping up with your communications and marketing processes in this digital economy?
With consumers demand raising and personalization is a growing expectation, what are your digital marketing development efforts? Do you have them sussed or are you drowning in the sea of information overwhelm?
Marketing is the process of creating your brand, communicating your story and exchange of value to meet market demand and desire.
Digital Marketing has changed the traditional marketing landscape and created an omnichannel experience. The way people search for products and services have changed. We all search for something or someone via our mobile device and make assumptions based on what we can find digitally before we decide to trade. Customer’s reviews, orders, and desires are fulfilled on the web, an app or social media channel.
Watch this video by World Economic Forum on insights into the impact of digital technologies on business and wider society over the next decade.
For your business success, and with limited time and budget, we have observed that most SMB business owners don’t yet have a clear digital marketing plan or direction. Consumers and business behaviors have advanced with technology and flow of information, also known as the ‘Internet of things’ IoT. Industries are being disrupted by instantaneous, on-demand services, autonomous information and the sharing economy is the part of the new wave. The vehicle is through digital mediums.
Are You Lagging Behind?
We know you have limited time, but to ignore and sideline digital marketing would not be a wise decision.
This might affect your customers’ loyalty since they would also sideline your business and start following someone else more proactively. Let’s see the top four statistics and digital trends before going further:
57 percent of B2B marketers stated that SEO generates more leads than any other marketing initiative — HubSpot
Marketing technology spend is now higher than advertising spend for companies — Gartner
Nearly one-third or 2.34 billion people worldwide regularly use social networks — eMarketer
On average, B2B marketers allocate 28 percent of their total marketing budget to content marketing — Content Marketing Institute
The statistics mentioned above clearly convey the importance of digital marketing, and after reading them, you can NOT give a blind eye to the fact that a successfully done digital marketing could quadruple your bottom-line.
The Solution: Let’s Get Your Digital Marketing Sorted!
For just 3 hours a week, we guide you how to at least 2X your business online and get more leads and convert them. If you are a small business owner and your marketing efforts are either scarce or aren’t getting you desirable results. Then you need help.
View our Get Digital Marketing Program.
You Need Digital Marketing Training If;
You are a small business or entrepreneur with an ambition to survive and grow.
You want to retain your customers and get more online visibility and qualified leads.
You want to enjoy free time and prosper.
You want to increase the value of your business and grow your database of customers.
You want to improve your brand’s online presence in order to reach domestic and global markets.
You have limited time and money and want more out of it.
Are you ready to transform your business into a digital marketing savvy one?
Do you want to get more sales in less time and do the things that really matter? Would you like support and guidance to create a lead generation system todouble your business? If you are committed, then enroll yourself in Revive Me Marketing’s Get Digital Marketing- 12-week Accelerator Program.
✔The program is for entrepreneurs and SMBs ready to accelerate sales with digital marketing and increase profits online.
✔ Outline your growth objectives, to set your goals
✔ Identify new opportunities you may not be aware of.
✔ Take action on them, in the smartest way to saves you time.
Get ready for your digital marketing transformation!
Sign up for our next program and be on your way to ensure business survival and expansion.
In the past year, I have increasingly used Facebook as a key communication app to message friends and customers, with almost instantaneous response. Sharing ideas, personalising messages, notifying future events and promoting offers through this medium, has been soliciting a much higher response to email marketing especially with a small and personal contact list.
For more professional matters, industry news and updates, a finely crafted eNewsletter still has a place. It serves as another medium for more comprehensive messages.
Before we delve into the 5 ways in which social media can help any small business grow, I have some 3 introspective questions for you as a small business owner:
In your own opinion, what will be the greatest benefit you can get from using social media in your business?
Are you willing to start using social media (if you haven’t yet) or are you still not convinced enough that it’s truly beneficial?
If you have started, do you know how to enhance the use of Social media marketing to build your brand, friends and followers?
While you get a brain exercise by finding the answers, let’s learn the five ways the social media can help your business grow.
1) Monitors Your Brand’s Reputation
An infinite number of online conversations take place on a daily basis across social networking sites. Many of these discussions are about the public’s perception of various brands on the market, both good and bad. By utilising online reputation management tools, you can monitor for mentions of your brand on the Internet to promptly engage in those active conversations. This can go a long way in helping to convert a prospect that has been researching your brand to a viable customer. In the event that negative feedback is being voiced, these monitoring tools allow you to take action quickly before your brand can be damaged.
2) Positions You as an Industry Expert
By using your various social media channels to share compelling, industry-specific content that your customer base will find valuable, you can be viewed as an expert in your industry. Earning this status will help you to become the “go to” person in your domain and creating additional opportunities to expand your brand’s presence on the Internet through guest blogging or webcasts.
3) Increases Sales
Social media marketing needs to help increase sales and revenue. That’s why it’s called social media marketing and not simply social media public relations. To be fair, improving brand awareness and legitimizing a brand should, by themselves, help increase sales. But there are ways to use social media to directly steer consumers toward the sales funnel. For fans of the business, business owners can write posts that link to products, sales, etc.
Marketers can also use promoted content and advertisements to sell products to target audiences who haven’t become fans of a brand yet. The ability to target particular audiences is one of the greatest benefits of social media marketing. Social networks know a lot about consumer interests and demographics, so even though there are hundreds of millions of fans, marketers can accurately target the right people with the right message.
There are also a lot of ways that retailers can sell products directly from social networks. On Facebook, business owners can set up a Facebook store with apps like Ecwid or Beetailer. Shopify account can sync and publish a Smart Market Mobile App to for users to receive deals and buy directly on mobile.
4) Improves Customer Service
Another benefit of social media that’s easy to overlook is customer service. Even if a business has a dedicated customer service department, telephone number, or email, it’s important to handle issues via the method of communication the consumer prefers. The fact that people use social media to ask customer service questions is reason enough for businesses to ensure their ability to help customers through social media.
5) Attains Positive Reviews
Delighted customers who are interactive on social media would have an avenue to share their experiences, post, share and act as advocates for your business. Of course there might be the odd negative review posted, but this provides the business an opportunity to interact and response positively to ‘make right’ of a negative experience. Best brands and businesses are build with integrity and honesty anyways, a bad review on social media can often be made right with other delighted customers themselves responding to the criticism.
Final Words: Use Social Media to Build Attraction!
Today, NO Social Media presence means NO presence at all. Therefore, it’s important to get your social media plan right on point NOW!
if you don’t have time or resources to get set-up on a social media plan and action, you may want to look at outsourcing to someone or a dedicated company that quickly understands the nature of your business and give you a defined plan with purposeful actions.
How would we know if the audience visiting our website is engaged with our content or just passive readers?
How can we leverage on the interactive community on social media to visit our website?
How do we keep these interactive community engaged and continue to interact and exchange with us?
In this article, we share ideas on how to nurture passive readers, to engaged ones, interactive community to become advocates and potential customers.
Firstly, let us distinguish between having an audience, and an online community. The key difference between these two entities is “Interaction”
Audience and web visitors are passive readers that do not actively participate in conversations.
They may visit your social media page or website every now and then and yet had not a reason to engage with you.
A community is an interactive group of like-minded individuals that may choose to be a passive audience, and more likely be enticed to actively participate in community discussions if pushed with the right tactics. Lots of community groups have grown organically and are people who share a common interest in specific topics dear to their hearts. They could share the same occupation, goals, political, commercial and non-commercial interests. Just look online for growing number of groups on LinkedIn and Facebook and I’m sure you will find a few that you are personally interested and subscribed to if you haven’t already.
Is your audience engaged with your content or just passive readers?
When reviewing your website analytic, we can view the pathways of where traffic have viewed your sites and the hot spots of clicks and views on a page.
Here’s a good example by Dan Barker. You can read the full report here
1) Create quality content.
Let’s create content that is relevant, inspirational, motivational, educational or entertaining. Create content that is not about what you are and what you do, but something coherent to the community. Create unique content that is exclusive to your community.
Content may be in the form of a video, infographic, images and short but robust text filled precise information. Sweet, short and savvy is the in thing. Long articles can be boring and may tend to drive away potential engagement in a blink of an eye.
2) Design a shareable content.
You know your content is good when someone shares it. Facilitate easy sharing by designing your content in the simplest form and shareable via social buttons. Give your content a catchy heading with relative imagery. There is no rule written in stone here. You just need to be creative and explore. Add the right plugins to enable “click-sharing”.
3) Be consistent.
Next big thing to keep in mind is consistency in content presentation. This means giving a heads-up on upcoming events, topics or promotions and posting content on a regular basis. Stick to your schedule even if you go away for a long vacation.
4) Be active on Social Media.
Whether you are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ or any other social media site, you have to actively participate too if you aim to build your own community. Share others’ content, comment, answer questions and connect with people in your niche and listen.
Keep a two-way traffic going to build a strong community.
Engage and show you care. Remember that you are dealing with live people.
Be prompt in replying to comments. A simple click of emoticon would suffice.
There may come a point in time when everything will be difficult to manage. After all, you can’t be expected to sit on your computer for 24 hours. When this happens, you can always outsource the job of monitoring your social sites to professional social media marketing team from Revive Me Marketing.
Promote and create valuable content for your community by making new connections and promoting other community members and do let them know. Find sites that allow guest posts and contribute a reference or practical tips article. Be specific and do an authoritative piece. The message should be “be a reliable resource, not a brand pusher.” Media loves experts who love to share their trials, failure and successes.
“I started my career 20 years ago in events and promotions marketing for an agency servicing IT and blue-chip consumer brands such as Hewlett Packard, Motorola and Adobe. Back in Singapore, and in my early 20s, I started a boutique marketing company with an ex-colleague. We were engaged by clients to build products branding stands and displays, set up exhibition booths and promotional events for consumer and industrial brands.
In 2009, I was given the opportunity to teach ‘Fundamentals of Marketing” as a contract tutor with local polytechnic, WITT. After continuous job hunting for further six months, I took on the role of Small Business Accounts Manager with Orb communications, the local telecommunications distributor of main Telco provider here in New Zealand.
A testimonial – written or a video – brings social proof onto your digital media channels and boosts the credibility of your brand with client endorsements.
2) Design a shareable content.
