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How to make a slick short video?

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How to make a slick short video?

 While it is well known that marketing videos is the most important way for businesses to communicate with their target audience, many brand and marketing managers are apprehensive that this may prove to be a very complicated and expensive exercise. This is not really true, and the following tips show you why that is-

 1.       Showcase the Brand Personality

Your brand will stand out only if you are able to showcase its unique personality. For you to do that you have to attempt to make the video memorable in a manner that resonates with your target audience. You could have someone very personable and presentable convey these emotions via a video. Using humour to get one’s point across may be a good idea.

Practising several times over till one get’s it right is the way to achieve the right kind of vibe and the ability to impactfully convey the message to the target audience in question.

 2.       You Need to Show What Your Product and Service Are All About

The very purpose of a marketing video is to let one’s target audience be intimately connected with one’s product or service. There is a whole lot of technology out there like screen capture videos that helps you do that. Be very deliberate and focused in explaining the features of your products and services. If the product is a physical one demonstrated how it can be used. Use captions, pop ups and images wherever necessary to embellish the main points.

3.       Give the Video a Professional Look

It doesn’t cost the earth to give a video a professional look. A decent enough camera (even an iPhone and a Google Pixel camera) would do. Investing in a good microphone is always an asset as well. The story of the video should be planned in advance, and one should choose the background with care. Shooting outdoors in natural light gives great results. An indoor shoot necessitates an investment in some work lights.

4.       Use a Tripod

The very essence of good film making is a camera that does not shake. A tripod can help achieve that in the case of still shots and a camera stabilizer in the case of moving shots. Not only will doing that make your shots look a lot slicker, but it will also make the editing a lot easier.

5.       Provide Value to Your Target Audience

While videos are great at attracting an audience, what will really make for meaningful engagement with them would be your ability to provide them with real value. This could include your solving a knotty problem of theirs, offering them a free trial or a free product sample. If your target audience obtains value from watching your video content, you could ultimately have them eating out of your hands.

6.       Tell a Tale

Humans are hard wired to respond to a tale told well. That is the intention with which you should be setting out to create video content.  To accomplish this, you could make one compelling video or a series of them.  A story well told makes it easier for you to leverage a call to action on the part of the target audience because of their enhanced involvement.

Conclusion

 Thus, we see that while making video to market one’s products and services is the flavour of the times, any hesitancy one may have on account of the technical difficulty and the heavy expense involved in the process is really unfounded. All that one needs is a bit of smart and out of the box thinking and plenty of imagination and one can get down to making the kind of video marketing content that adds real zing to one’s customer outreach efforts.

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Graphic Designing Trends 2021

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How to leverage video marketing

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How to leverage video marketing

It is quite well established that content marketing is the best way forward with regard to building a brand and growing a business. Content is not just written content as we are well aware by now and includes all manner of audio and video content. These days it is video marketing that is the flavor of the times, when it comes to content marketing.

It has become quite important for a business to craft a well honed video marketing strategy that aids growth and gives an impetus to one’s all-round marketing endeavor. This includes everything from social media and blogs to websites and other promotion platforms. The reasons for leveraging video marketing are extremely sound ones.

For starters an overwhelming part of the consumer internet traffic is on account of video content. Did you know that a mind boggling 500 million people watch videos on Facebook every single day.  Video content on social media is a dozen times more successful in getting shared than texts and messages combined.  There is any amount of evidence out there that suggests that people love watching videos. It therefore makes eminent sense and is no brainer really that businesses and brands have to put videos out there.

Videos result in far greater engagement with the target audience than any other form of content and result in heavy traffic to a business’s website and consequently more leads and higher sales.  Let us now get down to brass-tacks and find out how to leverage video marketing for growth in business-

1.   Identify your video marketing goals

There’s got to be a reason or many reasons why a business might want to carry out video content marketing. From building and improving brand awareness to creating trust in one’s products and services, you have got to have the right reason for it. Alternatively, it may be with the intention to enhance social media engagement or even to demonstrate the value provided by your products and services. You could also aim to substantially enhance your website traffic and thereby obtain more leads and ultimately more customers.

2.   Identify the media to publish the videos

Where you publish your video depends upon what you expect to achieve from them. Your videos on social media help create traffic as well as engagement on behalf of your brand. With regard to a blog or a website these help drive a greater volume of traffic, thereby generating more traffic as well as lead generation.  Videos published on your landing page too can enhance the rate of lead conversion.

Sending videos across to your target market via emails generates higher open rates as well as more click throughs.  Releasing your content on YouTube gives it a far and wide audience.

3.   Create a video marketing calendar to showcase your content ideas

You should possess the ability to come out with a series of creatively engaging videos that talk to your target audience in an eloquent manner.  The videos could be about brands or products. The former could be videos that give viewers an inside peek into the workings of your business.  The product videos on the other could be practical demonstrations of the product in question-something that displays value to potential customers.

4.   Create live streaming videos

These are quite popular these days, especially if you have a pre-decided schedule that builds up a sense of anticipation about the videos in question.

5.   How to-videos

How to-videos are a great way of providing value to customers by providing them with practical information about the product or service in question.

6.   Encourage consumers to create content

Getting the consumers to create video content is the best way to bond with one’s target audience and earn their trust.

Conclusion

Content marketing is as interesting as it is engaging and is really a fun way of reaching out to one’s target audience in a massively successful manner.  Devising a well honed content marketing strategy by following the tips given in this article should help one leverage this new age communication strategy in an optimal manner.

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How to choose a good graphic designer

Hiring a graphic designer is no easy task, especially for those who are not well versed with the ins and outs of the graphic design industry. You don’t just go looking for the most talented graphic designer out there and hire him or her on the spot. There are other factors like your compatibility with the designer, their level of commitment to your project and their ability to resolve knotty design problems with ease that you might have to take into account.

There are in fact a number of things that you should take into account, when zeroing in on a graphic designer that is just right for you. Let’s look at what these might be-

1.       Have a clear and precise idea about what you expect from the graphic designer

How well your designer delivers will depend to a very large extent on the kind of creative brief that you provide. Your objectives from the project should be explicitly clear from the beginning and it would do well to have a clear idea about the kind of qualifications you expect your graphic designer to possess.  That apart you should set realistic deadlines for the completion of the project and be upfront about the expected bottlenecks.

 2.       Have a clear idea about the kind of skill set you expect the designer to possess

You should have some idea about what your campaign is going to be all about and what sort of skills your designer should bring to the table. You might, for instance, have some inputs about the kind of images and tools to be used. A clear perception about such factors might make the selection process easier.

3.       Find Out How Dexterous the Candidates Are

You should be able to find out how dexterous and innovative the designer in question to gauge their ability to handle challenges and difficulties. It is good to find out how they fare in this regard to ensure that you have no trouble with them later. Asking probing and searching questions may be the way to do that.

4.       Don’t rely on past work to determine competence

While it is all very well to go through the designer’s portfolio, it would be a better idea to get an idea about the thought process behind their creativity. Engaging them in a creative discussion about their design philosophy would be a much better idea.

5.       Relevant Industry Experience is important

If the designer in question has the requisite industry experience, it might make it easier for you to explain your concept to them and apprise them of what you expect of them quite comprehensively.

6. A Trial Project May Be a Good Idea

Starting with a small trial project to gauge the skills of the designer may be a good way of finding the person that you are looking for.  The idea behind the exercise is to give a chance to the designer to display his or her designing project.

  Conclusion

 A good graphic designer is not all that difficult to find if you know the exact scope of your work and are able to explain that to the person you choose. As regards, finding the right person, following the above steps should be of help.

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- According to Australia based graphic designer John Teoh, “Marketing in the second decade of the 21st century is an all-new ball game. Branding is all about coming up with a marketing strategy that speaks to the customers. This puts pressure on designers to come up with designs that resonate on a social level, emphasizing the needs of the customers by choosing the right kind of aesthetics.”

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-According to Australia based graphic designer John Teoh, “Marketing in the second decade of the 21st century is an all-new ball game. Branding is all about coming up with a marketing strategy that speaks to the customers. This puts pressure on designers to come up with designs that resonate on a social level, emphasizing the needs of the customers by choosing the right kind of aesthetics.”

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Graphic Designing Trends 2021

Marketing in the second decade of the 21st century is an all-new ball game. Branding is all about coming up with a marketing strategy that speaks to the customers. This puts pressure on designers to come up with designs that resonate on a social level, emphasizing the needs of the customers by choosing the right kind of aesthetics.  

Among the trends that dominate are the ability to visualize data easily. Data being the driving force behind digitization, brands are increasingly looking at growing their customer base by leveraging the power of data. Creative design agencies are, therefore, leaving no stone unturned to simplify the process of data consumption on the part of the customers by deploying easy data visualization.  

They use myriad types of data in a manner that is both visually arresting and to the point. This has led to a burgeoning demand for graphic designers who combine the ability to tell a story with the capability of carrying out deep technical analysis.  

The other noticeable trend on the part of data designers is to use a subtle color palette. Choosing the right kind of color scheme is vitally important for a brand. These days there’s a pronounced preference for subtle colors in order to connect better with one’s prospects or customers. It is for the creative designers to be able to effectively use these color tones to impart a natural as well as organic image to the brand in question.

Using geometric shapes is the other great graphic designing trend. Such shapes manage to impart a touch of modernity to the design and help catch the eye of the target audience quite effectively. Geometric designs can leverage a diverse range of color schemes to create an arresting impact on the prospects. More and more one is seeing designers using clean lines and shapes to create a variety of futuristic designs.

Lastly icons and flat designs are quite in the vogue in today’s times.  You will find a very large number of creative designers using flat icons as well as illustrations all the time. These flat designs, sometimes known referred to as 2D dimensional designs are able to communicate the message in a non- fussy and minimalistic way that appeals to one’s target audience.

Conclusion

The graphic designing industry is expanding in a massive way. Constant improvements in technology are leading to brands being very experimental in their approach to design so as to align their brands with customers’ wants. Using minimalistic designs that pack quite a punch is the way forward for the graphic designing industry.

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Why is graphic designing so utterly important?

There is nothing like graphic designing to optimize one’s marketing endeavors across marketing media. Furthermore, it is of great help It helps in brand building. No business in this day and age can survive in the absence of an ability to communicate with one’s target audience in an outstanding manner.  

The best way that one can do that is by visually communicating the key attributes of one’s product or service. That is because most of the information processes by the human brain is visual. This makes it imperative for businesses to leverage the power of graphic design to get the message across.  

A majority of people are visual learners who would prefer to engage with a visual message than with one containing heavy text. The speed of absorption is way higher in the case of visual messages than in the case of messages in the shape of text. Visuals are in fact processes tens of thousands of times faster in the human brain than text is  

Any business can help substantially improve its messaging with the help of a strategic design strategy optimized to deliver the most impactful messaging across myriad channels of communication. There are several ways in which this can be done. Let us look at what these might be-

A Bespoke Logo

There is nothing like a unique logo embodying a company’s values to establish its brand in the target audience’s minds. The color palette used in designing the logo can for instance be a major contributing factor in creating a certain type of brand image for a business.

        2. Website Design

A website is one of the most significant components of a business’ marketing tools and it is important that these are designed in the most optimal way for them to be truly effective in their use. The design should be such that it is not only able to draw the attention of the target audience, but also engage them and ultimately convert them into customers.

          3. Effective Advertising

The advertising has to be in tandem with the business’s brand image as well as goals. That kind of consistency is only possible if there is graphic designer’s guiding template driving the message forward. An ad with a strong graphic element is the only way that one can initiate a quick call to action on the part of the prospects.

        4. Marketing  & Sales Material

Sales collateral too has to conform to the imagery of the brand in question. Using typography the right way, the right kind of images and ensuring the ideal kind of content formatting are something that a graphic designer will have to take into consideration when developing sales collateral.  

           5.  Social Media

It is only graphic designing that can help one effectively and impactfully put in place a consistent brand imagery across the many diverse kind of social media channels that exist these days. One can use bespoke graphics in one’s posts to forge a connection between digital branding and one’s actual marketing and sales collateral.  

One can likewise use graphic designing skills to ensure one’s core brand messaging is visible and consistent even when one is making a presentation or even in the kind of packaging one uses for one’s products.  All in all, you cannot overstate the importance of graphic designing in today’s times.  

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According to digital marketer John Teoh, “Digital marketing is silently undergoing a profound change that promises to revolutionize its capabilities. This is premised on the fact that artificial intelligence technology allows one to gather data, analyze it, put it to effective use and actually learn from it giving a digital marketer an incremental tool of success. The fact that ever newer advances are made in artificial intelligence allows one to hone one’s digital marketing strategy in a manner that wasn’t possible earlier and get it to deliver results in unprecedented ways.”

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AI in Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is silently undergoing a profound change that promises to revolutionize its capabilities. This is premised on the fact that artificial intelligence technology that allows one to gather data, analyze it, put it to effective use and actually learn from it giving a digital marketer an incremental tool of success. The fact that ever newer advances are made in artificial intelligence allows one to hone one’s digital marketing strategy in a manner that wasn’t possible earlier and get it to deliver results in unprecedented ways.

The AI-Digital Marketing Connect

Amazon has led the way in leveraging AI for results. It deploys it with great success to showcase just the kind of products that a consumer is thinking of purchasing at a given moment. This insight is obtained by AI technology analyzing the customer’s previous online searches and search patterns.  By recognizing and effectively analysing data AI helps a business’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to optimize the process of the collection of information about the customer and extracting the right kind of relevant information from it.

AI helps obtain the maximum possible user information across platforms to obtain incisive insights about the target market and thereby accurately identify users’ needs so that businesses can determine the most relevant marketing strategy. In this behavioural information is the driver of the AI analysis.  All of the collected data that one has can be leveraged by marketers with the help of artificial intelligence to analyze a prospect’s needs and thereby find a way to increase one’s sales.

Furthermore, AI can be combined with other emerging technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). This leads to an all new consumption experience. It allows marketers to provide their prospects with novel ways of interacting with the brand in question and thereby forge a strong bond with them leading to an enhanced sense of loyalty on the part of the latter.

Then there is the whole new concept of AI bots. This is based on AI semantic recognition and incorporates elements of language processing and voice conversion technology. This results in a much enhanced customer experience with the help of chatbots.

AI also helps in enhancing and augmenting email marketing by personalizing campaigns by leveraging precise knowledge about customer behaviours. It enables marketers to send across emails to customer in boxes incorporating subject lines and core messaging based on customer behaviour.  AI helps marketers reach out to prospects and consumers at just the right time with just the right kind of messaging. It also enables better analysis pertaining to the types of messages, subject lines to be deployed and the optimal designs and images to be deployed.

Digital advertising too can leverage artificial intelligence to obtain the best possible results across social media platforms. This is done by analyzing user information to create the most relevant digital ads and thereby optimize their impact.

Furthermore AI helps improve the performance of content marketing by helping a marketer better understand as to what kind of content suits their target audience the best enabling them to get the most out of their targeted messaging.

Conclusion

AI has found a hugely important role for itself in digital marketing helping everything from pay per click advertising and customized websites to content creation and consumer behaviour analysis perform way more efficiently than before. It is not surprising therefore than a majority of marketers are planning to deploy AI as an integral part of their digital marketing strategies.

This is where the expertise of Singapore content and digital marketing specialist John Teoh can be of a lot of help to businesses operating in the Asia-Pacific region. His expertise across industries can be leveraged by businesses big and small to enhance their bottomline.

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The direction in which content marketing is headed

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The direction in which content marketing is headed

Content marketing has changed and how and the old way of doing things is fast becoming redundant. Building authority, for example, is less about back-links and more about delving deep into topics and providing the right kind of valuable information. This flows directly from the new dispensation that Google is increasingly comfortable with the EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Expertise) concept.

It therefore follows that value driven content is becoming increasingly important. People are no longer willing to opt in with their bad emails for any badly written e books. Businesses should think about providing value other than that obtained from their products to their consumers. How else can they do that, but by way of content that meets their specific needs. Your content should provide practical advice about solving the basic problems that your clients face rather than extolling the virtues of your product or service.

The best way to accomplish that is by carrying out genuine original research, which provides deep insight into matters and thereby enables brands and content marketers to create just the kind of content that works well for the clients.  Content that is both interactive and engaging has way greater chances of resonating with one’s target audience. So that again becomes a priority area for content marketers.

With modern technological tools at one’s disposal it is not really difficult to do that. Using memes and giffs for example is a good way of engaging with according to Singapore content marketer John Teoh. Things like quizzes and short form videos too do their bit in making your content become lively and interesting enough for the clients to want to engage with it.

You can also leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to handle things like content analysis, optimization and A/B testing. The idea is to get out content that goes out there and performs for your brand. In the highly competitive times that we live in content has to hit the deck running and perform in a highly efficient and ROI centric manner.

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The growth of audio marketing has also been driven by the growing popularity of digital assistants, something not lost on marketers. Keep watching this space.

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The Importance of Audio in Content Marketing

Along with video marketing, audio marketing has grown in importance like never before. Audio-specific content marketing is growing and how. It has increasingly become an important part of any business or marketing manager’s marketing plan.

What’s special about audio content?

According to Singapore content marketer John Teoh, audio content has a distinct advantage over video and text content in that it is extremely easy to engage with. The target audience can do so in a more passive manner as they are not physically required to watch or read it, but can listen to it even when engaged in a number of activities. You may listen to it while driving while working out at the gym, or even when cooking.

Critically the advent and rise in the use of smart speakers and voice-activated searches had made engagement with audio content all-pervasive and part of our everyday lives. That apart, a large number of major brands have invested bog in audio marketing dollars. This spend on audio content has already reached tens of billions of dollars.

Types of Audio Content a Marketer Can Leverage

Podcasts

Podcasts are easily the most well known of all the types of audio content and is growing in popularity by the day. The number of listeners of podcasts now number in the many millions, making them a very potent marketing tool.

Audiobooks

Audiobooks have become immensely popular and are even beginning to give stiff competition to traditionally published books. Audio downloads have been growing exponentially and this fact is not lost on marketers. They are busy converting ebooks that they had already created as part of their online marketing strategy into the more user-friendly audiobooks.

Voice Search

Voice search optimization involves customizing ads or content to be easily searchable via voice, by way of a virtual assistant or smart speaker. With more and more online searches being conducted this way, marketers have realized the critical importance of mastering voice search optimization.

Audio Advertisements

These are the next big thing to watch out for. For now, these might only be getting aired on streaming, but the day is not far when smart speakers and virtual assistants like Alexa might start offering an advertising platform as well.

Conclusion

With a veritable audio revolution hitting us from all sides, one can expect savvy marketers to have a very large audio component in their marketing plans. This has been driven as much by technology as it has by the reach and all-pervasiveness of the medium itself. Going forward, expect audio marketing to boom big time.

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Content Marketing Trends of 2021

Content marketing is an ever evolving process and it makes sense to find out what is trending in 2021 and beyond. There are a number of things to watch out for according to leading Singapore content marketer John Teoh. Let us look at what these might be.

1.     Creating Content Communities

Creating content creation and sharing communities empowers content marketers to reach out far and wide without having to deploy too many resources. Expanding one’s reach this way is a great way of creating brand awareness.  The idea is to make all of your content-for social media, blog or webinar to connect with your target audience and make them feel like a community.

2.     Leveraging Videos and Webinars

The advent of the pandemic has made video and webinars ubiquitous.  Even though the restrictions on movement have been fading away the use of video marketing is going to continue to be used in a major way by brands to get their message across to the target audience in an efficient manner.

             3.     Better Interactive Content

The way your target audience interacts with the content is as important as the actual content itself. Engaging and interactive content that delights the target audience is the way to make them stay on your website and possibly get converted as customers.

4.     The Advent of AI Powered Content

2021 will see content makers use AI powered tools to actually create some form of content! This is the future colliding with the present and the more content marketers prepare for it-the better it is.

5.     SEO

Some things never seem to go out of fashion and in content it has to be SEO. Getting hold of long tail keywords and creating niche relevant content that helps your brand start apart from the others is going to continue to be important.

6.     Repurposing Content

Given that both time and resources are at a premium, it makes great sense for content marketers to repurpose existing content across channels, instead of starting afresh. This is something that we can expect to see much more of in 2021 and beyond.

Conclusion

 The importance of content marketing can hardly be overestimated. With consumer awareness being as high as it is these days, it is only be leveraging content that we can hope to connect with our consumers subliminally and get them to engage with our brand. It is, however, important that we keep ourselves abreast of the latest trends in the world of content marketing and deploy them effectively to promote our brands.