How Startups Can Benefit From Video Marketing & How To Do It

by with No Comment Content

Videos easier to grasp and create a long-lasting impression on the viewer. Memories of television ads back from the 90s are still fresh in our minds. No wonder, many startups are opting for video marketing strategies for their brands. If you haven’t opted for any form of video marketing, go through this article, and you’ll get a fair idea why it would be a good option.

Video marketing simply means using videos to market your product. These may not necessarily be video ads, but also take other forms, like product videos, tutorials, product unboxing videos, customer review videos etc. There are many advantages which a video marketing campaign has over other forms of content marketing :

Draws more attention: A 3-4 minute video, containing the same information as a 300-400 word blog post, will definitely create a better impact on the audience. Watching a video is a passive activity, requiring much less effort and concentration than say reading. Internet users today have a very short attention span and will go for a video more readily than opening up a long post.

More Effective: A video allows you to be more creative, and target your audience in a better way. Chances are that you have seen the Samsung India 4 minute Ad film, which revolves around visually challenged persons. This emotional, unconventional and has over 150 million views on Youtube. Video advertisements can be made emotional, educational or entertaining, and directly appeal to the viewer.

Improving SEO rankings: As per statistics, adding a video to your website can increase the chance of a front-page Google result by 53 times. It helps you rank significantly higher than what textual or image content can.

Now, what are the marketing platforms and how to start with video marketing?

Step 1: Creating the Video

You do not need to spend a bomb on creating your video content. Today, you can get many freelancers from Fiverr or similar sites,  who will curate your video content. You can also look for content creators on YouTube and VIne, who will take care of the entire process of scripting, casting and storytelling. If feasible, you can make your videos from your own place and use your own tools.

Step 2: Platforms

There are numerous video sharing and distribution sites, where you can publish your content. These also offer paid promotions to boost your content. You can also directly go for a video ad on these platforms. YouTube is undoubtedly leading the lot. It has over a billion users, which is almost one-third of total internet users.
Other than that, you can opt for micro-video sharing websites like Vine, Snapchat, Instagram and Dubsmash as well. If your target population is the youth, you can definitely go to these sites. However, they might have different formats and it might be challenging to limit your video within these time limits. Other than that, you can always opt for Facebook, for sharing your video content or posting it as an ad.

Step 3: Marketing

Uploading your video, and hoping for it to become viral will never work. Being a Startup, you may not be able to partner with big brand partnerships, but you could always approach bloggers, friends and other young entrepreneurs like you, who would be willing to promote your content.

These are the basics of Video marketing. Of course, there needs to be a lot of thought to be put into what actually goes into your video. Your content needs to be creative, entertaining and the right length. It need not always be promotional content but can be something related to your brand.

Having said that, launching a video marketing strategy for the first time is not an easy task, but provided you have packed in a bunch of entertainment or information, you will surely attract viewers, and direct traffic to your site.

Is your email marketing strategy effective enough?

by with No Comment Email Marketing

Though various social networking platforms have emerged today through which you can expand your business, the classic email marketing continues to be one of the best means to reach out to your audience. It helps you remain connected with your prospective clients on a regular basis. Unless you are spamming the recipient’s inbox, email marketing can actually provide one of the best ROI and help fuel your brand’s marketing campaign.

But how do you measure the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign? Here are some of the aspects which you can analyze the data received after sending out your emails:-

Delivery rate

This is the first step to building your email marketing strategy. Delivery rate is essentially the number of emails which have been successfully delivered to your recipient list in percentage terms of the total emails sent out. It should ideally be around 95%. Even the emails which go to the spam folder are considered to be delivered.

Open Rates

Post your mail has been delivered it is important that the recipient actually opens and reads it. To maximize your open rates you should focus on having an attractive subject line. This is very important as this is what majorly determines your strategy ahead. The above metric is a strong indicator of how successful your campaign is. As per a recent study, open rates (worldwide) are usually in the 25% bracket. Even if your statistics fall below this line, it does not indicate that your campaign is failing. It is challenging task to get your subscribers, even those who are genuinely interested in your brand, to open your mail.

Click-through rates

Click through rate is another important metric which marketers heavily rely on. When a mail has been opened, it may contain various links, to say the website, blog posts or products for sale. Click through rates determine how many people among those who have opened the mail actually click on these links. Most marketers strive to achieve a high click-through rate but are important to remember that not everyone who opens your mail will voluntarily redirect to those links. It will probably be a very low fraction of people who would actually take action, based on your mail.

Unsubscribe rate

First of all, it is important that you have a convenient option for recipients to unsubscribe to your emails. People should not be forced into reading your emails if they are not interested. Moreover, they can later flag it as spam, which could be worse for your business. Now, this unsubscribe button can have many stories to tell. A user would unsubscribe if the expectations he had initially are not being met. Unsubscription rates are around 0.22 percent globally. Though it is common for the audience to unsubscribe, they should not be a very large number. This may indicate that your email content is not up to the mark and you need to redesign some aspects of your strategy.

 

These are some parameters which you, as an email marketer should inspect. If all this seems too overwhelming to you, you could go to a third party email marketing specialist. Email marketing is not a lost art, as many believe it to be. If done properly, it can yield results which will help your company acquire more leads.

A Beginner’s Guide To Launch A New Business

by with No Comment Business

Thinking about launching your own business, but need help? Here’s all you need to know about small business set-ups.

  • What is a Business Plan?

A business proposal is a manuscript that summarises the essentials for your set-up, manufactured goods, and assistances; the kind of audience you are targeting; the objectives for your business; and in the way you will accomplish those action-points. A business strategy is one of the numerous significant maps you should have when you are establishing a business, the additional being an advertising plan and a fiscal plan.

Your business proposal should comprise of all these aspects collectively, encompassing components of your marketing plan and your monetary plan into a complete file. Consider your business arrangement as a blueprint or proposal that will steer your business from the set-up stage through launch and ultimately business development and advancement.

  • Why is a Business Plan a Must?

    There are many grounds as to why a business plan is necessary, but the reasons vary by the sort of business you are launching and how you plan to apply the design. It is crucial to have a proper draft else launching your business and ensuring that it thrives and booms becomes a difficult task. There are several factors as to why you require a business plan:

A business strategy is mandatory if you are applying for a bank loan, pitching your plan to potential investors, or bringing in a partner.
Your business scheme won’t become certified without understanding the target market, examining the competitors, and exploring a viability analysis — all components of a business blueprint.

A first-rate plan not only summarises what you are and what you want to achieve but also assists you to recognise the precise actions you need to take. 

A business proposal gives vital background knowledge regarding your set-up, strategy, and customs to recruits, administrators, and personnel, as your business advances.

The monetary part of your business plan can be the foundation of your business budget and a helpful tool for supervising cash flow on a daily basis.

  • A business strategy should include the following aspects:

Executive Outline: An outline of the major significant information in your plan.

Company Description:  Your location, how big the corporation is, your vision and aim, your services and what you aspire to achieve.

Goods or Services: What products you want to sell with prominence on the value you aim to offer your customers or clients.

Market Analysis: An in-depth synopsis of the market you propose to sell your merchandise or service, and a summary of your target audience and competitors.

Marketing Strategy: A summary of where your business fits into the industry and how you will charge, advertise, and sell your product or service.

Management Outline: How your business will be structured, who all are involved, and how the business is going to be managed.

Fiscal Analysis: Factors for funding your business at the moment, what will be required for future development, as well as an approximation of your current operating expenses.

A one-page business proposal is an efficient and to the point strategy which can be used as-is or as a first step towards a traditional business plan. Though this is a simpler adaptation of the traditional business plan, you still must collect information that is necessary for your business in order to build a blueprint that is applicable to you. Be ready to answer the following while  creating a basic business blueprint:

  • Vision: What do you want to create? Where will your business be in a year, four years, and six years?
  • Mission: What will be your mission? Why do you want to establish this business, and what is the agenda?
  • Goals: Are your business objectives considered smart? In what way will you measure success while achieving them?
  • Strategies: How will you build your business? What will you sell? How are you different than your competitors?
  • Start-up funds: What is the amount of establishment capital you will need to start your company?
  • Projected costs: What much do you predict your business’s ongoing monthly expenses will be immediately after set-up, in four months, in eight months, and in a year?
  • Desired Income: What do you estimate your business’s ongoing monthly earnings will be after establishment, in four months, in ten months, and after a year?
  • Action Plan: What are the intended action points and targets you need to finish now? What are your future milestones? What needs to be achieved by those milestones in order to meet your targets?

When you have answered each of these subjects, you will have an operational business plan that can be used right away to launch your business.