13 Sure Fire Tactics to Get Premium PR For Your Startup

Public relations (PR) involves translating your products or services into accessible and newsworthy stories. However, just because you may be small or lacking in name recognition, this should not stop you from reaching the likes of The New York Times, TechCrunch, or CNBC.

Here are 13 proven tactics to secure golden PR coverage for your startup, whatever your stage, sector, or size.

1. Use your data

If you are in eCommerce you are likely sitting on fascinating retail data. Uber releases insights on travel trends, app analytics startup, App Annie provides an annual report on mobile trends from its proprietary data. For startups, the power of data often shows the power of the precise platform you are selling to customers and how actionable insights can be leveraged for potential clients.

2. Conduct surveys

Creating well-executed surveys can get acres of news coverage. Depending on your buyer, you may for instance survey CEOs, CIOs, or consumers. Platforms such as SurveyMonkey or Typeform are free to create surveys.

The essential thing is to work backward with a series of headlines already in mind as you create the questions. In one case, an early-stage startup, Spotted, a data and research startup in the celebrity endorsement space, surveyed 300 U.S. consumers of all ages. This asked them to rate the likability, relatability, attractiveness, trustworthiness, authenticity, and facial, name, and voice recognition of 400 actors who had brand endorsements. The result, finding that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, representing Under Armour, is the most successful brand ambassador, was covered on news sites including CNBC and Variety.

3. Plan PR stunts 

Nearly 20 years ago, Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce (then a challenger company) sent “protestors” (in reality, paid actors) to picket the conference of their far mightier rival, Siebel, in San Francisco.

“Protestors” carried banners calling for “an end to software” and with it grew the cloud. Marc Benioff says the stunt “boosted salesforce morale, got great press coverage, and within two weeks more than 1000 organizations signed up for our service.”

He credits this type of action in making Salesforce the $13.28 billion revenue a year juggernaut it is today. Such stunts, done right, can position you as a disruptive brand and gain the media’s attention.

4. Respond to game-changing issues

If you have something genuinely meaningful to say you can react to the news agenda. You might provide a response to a tax change blowing up in your sector, difficulties in recruiting enough biochemists, or sweeping regulatory changes.

For instance, Jonny Ryan, chief policy officer at the privacy-focused browser, Brave, has owned the seemingly obscure but core issue of data privacy and GDPR (calling out massively larger tech companies), appearing weekly on sites including the FT, TechCrunch, Reuters, and Bloomberg.

In my case, my startup created thought leadership to protest against keyword blocklists discriminating against the LGBTQ community. It was covered in media publications such as The Guardian, Campaign Ad Age, Advocate, PinkNews, and Fast Company.

5. Find out what journalists are writing

Some journalists will publicly reach out online for insights for a story they are working on, which means you just have to be the right person, with a novel insight, following the right channels.

Check out  #journorequest (Twitter) Response Source or HARO (Help A Reporter Out) for these calls. In addition, generally following journalists on Twitter means you will get a sense of what they are interested in, as well as being a first responder when requests are made.

6. Release Product News

If you show the value of a new product release or update (how it will directly impact people) this can be potentially very interesting to media.

Canva, the design company with nearly $250 million in funding, announced a variety of new features, including a video editing tool. The company gave the news to TechCrunch. Getting in TechCrunch certainly paid off: social media shares of the article have reached 53,000 engagements according to BuzzSumo.

7. Create compelling case studies

Case studies provide insights into problems faced by many people in your sector, providing your product as the superhero solution. By explaining with numbers and examples of how your solution helped solve the problems of real people your story comes to life for journalists.

8. Create killer thought leadership

Create a blockbuster white paper or thought leadership piece. I achieved coverage for my most-recent startup in outlets including The New York Times, Forbes, CNBC, and Wired through this route.

However, any study should merely illuminate wider and important issues, rather than talk up your solution. Think for instance of Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends, published every year since 1995, and eagerly anticipated and covered by news media because of its value, and despite its low production (simply a slide deck).

9. Leverage funding and corporate news

Getting your fundraising announcement in TechCrunch or VentureBeat is a rite of passage for many startups. However other corporate announcements should also be considered – major hires or significant global expansion. This provides a steady narrative of growth.

10. Ride-on seasonal PR waves

Every year there is a ready calendar of PR fixtures including Valentine’s Day, April Fool’s Day, Easter, the summer holidays, Halloween, and Christmas.

In a successful outlet for their brand identity, learning app, Duolingo produced a premium feature, “Duolingo Push” for April Fool’s Day which was covered in Mashable. This announced that their brand owl will pester you (like it does on the app) playing on their core mantra of needing regular practice and encouragement to learn a new language.

11. Create your own thing! 

The biggest hitters can rewrite the calendar – Amazon created Prime Day as an annual media fixture, while in China, Alibaba made Single’s Day a cash and media extravaganza.

On a smaller scale, the charity Movember is known for asking men to grow mustaches in November, while a travel company in the UK recast the third Monday of January as Blue Monday – mathematically “proven” to be the most depressing day of the year and an ideal day for us to book a vacation.

12. Enter industry awards

Many sector news sites and publications run flagship awards, recognizing tech and innovation. Though there is usually an entrance fee, for those who are nominated or win, this is valuable PR and an opportunity to be featured in a key sector publication read by your dream customers. 

13. Write for a publication 

Finally, there is a bloom for startups writing good guest content. The biggest news sites are not off-limits if you can produce novel insights and data. For instance NewsGuard, which has less than 40 employees, wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times on what it had learned about fake news since it sought to tackle the issue with its solution.

However, bylines on news sites such as Construction News to Search Engine Journal can provide a powerful outlet to reach the people that matter.

Wrapping up

Central to succeeding in any of these PR tactics is ensuring that you can create and distill fresh ideas, data, and insights. Getting this right can translate into powerful results and provide a public barometer of success for your startup.

Guest author: Jonathan Marciano is a Director of Communications, who has managed marketing at several hypergrowth startups, and at corporate giants such as EY. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

The post 13 Sure Fire Tactics to Get Premium PR For Your Startup appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

source https://www.jeffbullas.com/startup-pr/

5 Tactics to Maximize Data-Driven Digital Marketing Campaigns

These days, marketers are so familiar with utilizing digital marketing campaigns they can practically employ them with their eyes closed. That’s not to say that digital marketing campaigns have become passé. It’s simply an acknowledgment of how ubiquitous they’ve become.

Organizations rely heavily on the valuable data gleaned from such campaigns; creating customer profiles, developing personas, assigning marketing attribution, and understanding which steps are more necessary than others during the buying journey.

As critically important as these things are, we must remember there is no “one right way” to develop and implement a digital marketing campaign. As a result, I’ve identified 5 tactics that marketers can utilize to maximize their data-driven digital marketing campaigns.

1. Use data that already exists

The key objective of a digital marketing campaign is to gather data. Thanks to technology, data about your target audience’s preferences and habits can be derived based on how they interact with an online or offline campaign. While no one would dispute the value of data gathered this way, what marketers should not overlook is data that already exists prior to the campaign.

To really refine a target audience down to who’s likely to take the buying journey all the way to its successful conclusion, marketers can obtain first-hand or third-party data chock full of demographic information. For example, if a company sells high-end men’s dress shoes starting at $800 a pair, a campaign certainly wouldn’t include young women in their early twenties.

Marketers should target men representing a certain age and within a certain socioeconomic group, perhaps making $150,000 or more per year, living in affluent neighborhoods, and having at least an undergraduate degree.

In addition, identifying older women who have been married for more than 15 years and live in an affluent neighborhood might be just as valuable. This information can be gathered by either leveraging existing lists (and there are ways to engage non-opted in audience members in an outreach campaign), conducting market research to understand their characteristics, and setting PPC criteria based on that market research. 

Because this data already exists or may be easily mined, it can be leveraged to help focus digital marketing campaigns to ensure greater return on ad spend (ROAS) and improved allocation of resources.

2. Leverage chatbots to gather more data

More people are becoming familiar with chatbots that attempt to engage website visitors. What visitors may not know is that these chatbots are AI tools that work to gather additional information. While answering visitor questions, especially if it’s after hours, a chatbot can be a marketer’s best friend.

Website visitors looking for specific product or service information are often willing to share additional details with chatbots. This can lead to improved profiling and, in turn, refinement of audience messaging. This additional information can then be incorporated into other digital and non-digital marketing campaigns to better tailor solutions for an improved buying journey and greater ROI (ROAS).

3. Get very personal with highly targeted Facebook ads

Facebook regularly changes the criteria marketers can use when targeting audiences on its platform. While this can be somewhat frustrating, the platform still offers one of the best opportunities to narrowly target a specific audience. To that end, it’s worth experimenting with personally tailored ads for specific audience groups, even if it’s as few as 25 or 50 individuals at a time.

An example: a marketer might target individuals who actually clicked on a particular link but did not complete the buying journey. A message can be tailored specifically for them due to their interest but unfulfilled conclusion. It’s true that some may view this as an invasion of privacy, but those fears are overshadowed if the click-through rate jumps above 60% with a conversion rate above 30%.

This approach is less about invading someone’s perceived privacy and more about capturing highly convertible prospects where they currently are. Plus, the marketer is giving the consumer what they want.

4. Don’t forget digital and traditional market research

Although today’s digital marketing campaigns allow marketers to capture a lot of valuable data through web analytics tools, it’s often difficult to ascertain the intent of prospects within a particular buying journey until the very end. Because information of this nature is historical (a person clicked on an ad, downloaded an eBook, attended a webinar, then made a purchase), you can only look backward and determine why someone may have made a purchase.

In addition to that necessary component, it’s also worth investing in real market research that gathers data beforehand, creating a profile that can lead to understanding someone’s intent based on certain characteristics. Technology exists today that allows digital marketers to determine the intent of prospects based on their browsing behavior. Companies such as netFactor and its VisitorTrack technology marries anonymous website visitor identification and B2B intent data to provide a powerful profile of prospect intent. While there is no crystal ball involved, it’s darn near close to being able to tell when and why someone will make a buying decision.

Once your marketing campaigns are up and running, it’s equally if not more important to examine those campaigns for effectiveness. How are customers traveling through the sales funnel; what channels are they interacting with and acting on; and what mix of those channels is being most effective in getting customers through and out the bottom of the funnel as conversions?

That’s attribution, and it’s another key tool in any enterprise marketer’s tool belt. Companies such as LeadsRx provide impartial multi-touch attribution insights to marketers and marketing agencies so ad spend is properly optimized and consumers accurately targeted.

5. Leverage influencers

Many companies may initially scoff at an opportunity to engage a Kardashian to help them brand and position their product. Nevertheless, influencer marketing is just as valuable today as it was 10 years ago – perhaps even more so. Influencer marketing is no longer solely dominated by those individuals with a large social media following but no other discernible talent.

More companies are leveraging celebrities and other well-known people who also have social media followers numbering in the millions. An expertly placed influencer as part of a digital marketing campaign can realize a significant increase in opens, clicks, leads and sales, primarily because the audience trusts that influencer.

An ideal example is the use of adventurer Devin Graham and his partnership with Subaru. The car company leveraged Graham’s 5.8 million YouTube subscribers to develop a video of him and his friends taking a 500-foot jump off a cliff before climbing into a Subaru and driving away. So far, the video has garnered 1.2 million views and more than 20,000 likes. This continues Subaru’s push to marry its brand and vehicles with millennials and authenticity.

Wrapping up

None of the methods discussed above are the result of rocket science, secret insight, or genius level thinking. Rather, these are practices that any organization can incorporate in order to maximize data-driven digital marketing campaigns. If used properly, some of these overlooked methods just might be what your digital marketing campaign needs.

Guest author: Lucas Sommer is the Director of Marketing for marketing attribution software company LeadsRX and has over 10 years of experience helping companies gain useful insights from their data to increase ROAS.

The post 5 Tactics to Maximize Data-Driven Digital Marketing Campaigns appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

source https://www.jeffbullas.com/data-driven-digital-marketing-campaigns/

7 Best TikTok Follower Generators of 2020

TikTok has fully integrated itself into the daily lives of over 800 million users across the globe and is growing fast, especially with everyone staying indoors. 2020 could not be a better time for smartphone apps to explode and TikTok definitely made its mark on the year.

With TikTok influencers not only gaining popularity but also getting brand deals, promotions, and paid sponsorships, it makes it even more important to have your brand be part of this trending platform. Creating a TikTok profile and posting content is worth the time and effort. You have twice the amount of eyeballs and engagement, and if you make your content relatable to your audience, then you have yourself, loyal customers.

Take for example Chipotle’s TikTok account, with over 1.2 million followers, and with an average of 200k views per video. They post trending and interesting videos of their business to the account. Their TikTok content has been shared and published on news media garnering them more users to their brand and increasing sales.

TikTok is not only a crucial platform for you to maintain a strong brand presence but it’s also on the cutting edge of content consumption. To get you going in the right direction, setting yourself up with a trusted TikTok follower generator means you can focus your time on content creation rather than followers.

But what TikTok follower generator is the best for your profile?

When it comes to investing money in a follower generator, only trusted sites make it to this list. These sites either fully manage your account or automate TikTok actions safely, generating you long term followers and building trust in your account.

#1. TokGrowth

TokGrowth is at the top of the list to get you, real TikTok followers, for your account. They are a 100% trusted site and put the focus on account safety. They are well-established and have a great customer service response.

TokGrowth doesn’t just give you random followers, they have pinpoint targeting within the hashtags and profiles you provide them and will focus on real followers that will best engage with your profile. This aligns with TikTok’s algorithm as the more followers that engage with your videos the more users they will be shown to, particularly on the For You page.

TokGrowth’s steps are pretty straightforward, selecting from either a Starter or Pro plan package. This is just to select the activity strength of the automation bot to its maximum activity. Once you’ve selected the package they’ll ask for your TikTok details, target hashtags, and profiles, and from then they will apply a safe, and organic strategy like follow/unfollow, engagement, and hashtags. TokGrowth never puts your account at risk by sending too many actions that can trigger TikTok’s algorithm.

They automate the boring stuff, so it’s important you go on about your content like normal and post as frequently as you can. After all, when you’re posting new videos it gives your new followers something new to watch!

Do’s and don’ts of using a TikTok follower generator

TikTok follower generators that do no more than simply follow/unfollow other accounts aren’t necessarily bad, but they will be ineffective if they aren’t coupled with really great organic use of the TikTok platform. Here are our Do’s and Don’ts to make the most out of your TikTok Follower Generator:

Do’s

• DO Continue to use TikTok as normal. You can still follow, unfollow, comment, like, share, and post as normal, and, it’s important that you do so! A big part of using a follower generation tool is that the activity looks organic.
• DO Stay on Trend. Watch the Discover page like a hawk and jump on new trends as they emerge. The algorithm favours new and trending content.
• DO Reply to comments. This shows that engagement is happening. Whether you have 10 or 10,000 comments, reply to the top ones so that people TikTok can see that you engage with your followers. This helps to increase the follow back percentage from your TikTok follower generator.
• DO Use relevant Hashtags. To be discovered by a hashtag you need to include it in your post.
• DO Post Regularly. We recommend posting between 5-7 times per day if you can manage it. This will keep your content fresh and increase the chance of your video being picked up.
• DO Encourage action from users, while watching videos. The TikTok algorithm picks up on key actions to decide whether they should add your video to other peoples For You Pages. Some of these include, what percentage of initial viewers clicked the share button, what percentage of initial viewers liked the video, and what is the average view length of your video.

Don’ts

• DON’T Buy FAKE followers. Stay away from any service that guarantees you a certain number of views, followers or likes for a certain amount of money. This is the easiest way to get banned!
• DON’T be lazy. The best TikTok follower generators are basically amplifiers. They get more people to view your profile and view your content. If you don’t post, there is nothing to amplify. If your content isn’t any good, then you are just amplifying bad content. Take the time to build a good flow of regular and engaging content.
• DON’T pick a Follower Generator that doesn’t have good support. These tools should be experts at growing accounts, ask them for hints, tips and tricks to grow your TikTok.

On with the list…

#2. Hashtagsforlikes

You could argue that TikTok puts more emphasis on hashtags than Instagram nowadays particularly trending hashtags as well as music to get them to the For You page.

Hashtagsforlikes is exactly as the name suggests, their main service is hashtags and operates by helping you find the popular hashtags that will garner the most views. Sign up to their service and you get a comprehensive list of hashtags and alternatives that will best get your video content out there.

If you’re not entirely confident in the hashtags you want to go for, then you can join the Hashtagsforlikes Community page for advice from other users also using the service.

#3. TokUpgrade

TokUpgrade has been around the market a lot longer than most of these TikTok follower services. The reason they have been around for so long is that they are one of the best growth tools. They have a proven track record of growing your TikTok account with demographic targeting and strategy.

Unlike other TikTok follower generator services in the market, TokUpgrade tailors their strategy around your account, that means they specifically target the users and hashtags that would best engage with your account.

TokUpgrade is clear about their service and the expected growth of your account. Getting real, targeted TikTok followers takes time to build so if you’re expecting quick and easy followers, then TokUpgrade may not be for you.

#4. TokSocial

TokSocial completely takes the wheel of your TikTok account by assigning you a designated driver in the form of an account manager. TokSocial may not look the part from their homepage but they do serve one of the best growth services on the market.

Once you sign in with their service you are paired with an account manager that will build you a unique strategy to help get you the right followers for your account. They do this by targeting your profile to the right niches and community, as TikTok is not only about trending videos, they have incidentally built a community.

TokSocial places you with the right audience that will best engage with your videos whether they view, like, share or follow. The account manager is there to assist you in continuously growing your account while you do the work of creating content that works best for you.

#5. AutoTokker

AutoTokker sticks to the terms of service and privacy policy of TikTok. What you see is what you get with these guys and they are pretty transparent with their method of following/unfollowing. AutoTokker doesn’t have the bells and whistles of the other top TikTok follower generators on the list but they are reliable and safe in the sense that they grow accounts well.

It is true that they work best with TikTok accounts that already have an established account with a big following so it can limit a few possibilities when working with this follower generator service.

#6. BubbleGum

BubbleGum is a pretty straight forward follower generator. If you want a totally hands-off approach and just focus on posting content, then this platform could be a good option for you. BubbleGum keeps your account safe by minimizing bot action so it doesn’t alert TikTok’s security.

They offer targeted followers that will stay on long term, compared to other services that slowly disappear off your followers’ list after you’ve ended the service. The BubbleGum pricing plan is simply laid out with how many followers, likes, or views you’re expected to receive. What’s also good about them is that they protect your account by not requesting your password at any point.

#7. Bouxtie

There are services that are a one-stop-shop for follower generators and that is Bouxtie. They provide fast followers for you to grow your account quickly. Bouxtie believes the more followers you have, the more users will find you. While that does make sense, anything fast and cheap comes at a price, and it’s usually something worse.

Bouxtie offers customers X amount of followers, X amount of likes and X amount of views. Fill the X with any rounded number and Bouxtie can provide it. It’s easy to fall into a fast service like this as you know what to expect and the more money you put in, the more you get out of it. The issue with this is that with buying followers it has the potential to trigger TikTok’s policies and get your account shadowbanned.

Boost your TikTok Followers with the best follower generator

Getting more TikTok followers as either an influencer or a small business owner doesn’t have to be an impossible task. If figuring out the best content for your multiple social media accounts already takes up a lot of your time, then it makes sense to get a service that manages the growth side of it for you.

These top TikTok follower generators are experts in the market and have a very strong knowledge of the social media platform so that your investment is well taken care of.

It’s important that your profile goes to the right audience that will engage with your content. It’s even more important these are real followers and not some fakes that will jump out the second you cancel their service.

TokGrowth and TopUpgrade are the best options when it comes to TikTok follower generators of this year. 2020 has not been the kindest to many people across the world, but they do make it easier for growing influencers and businesses making their claim on the booming TikTok app.

TokGrowth particularly understands this need and takes time to diligently get your account provisioned and target the right users, hashtags, location, and community to get your account followers growing.

Patience is key with a high-quality service that yields high-quality results. Give it a few weeks to a month and you will get meaningful followers that not only engage with your content but stay with you in your growth. At the same time, partnering with a service such as TokGrowth doesn’t mean you stay idle!

Take note of the Dos and Don’ts of using TikTok follower generators by keeping up activity and staying on trend to really make the most of the service you’re purchasing.

Guest author: Jamie Dunphy has as decorated career in matching technology with business to maximise its use for their growth. An early adopter, Jamie jumps on tech and trends to discover their use for influencers and businesses. His discovery process assists organisations in strategising how a platform can be used to achieve their purpose.

The post 7 Best TikTok Follower Generators of 2020 appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

source https://www.jeffbullas.com/tiktok-follower-generators/

How to Boost Conversions With Video Marketing During the Pandemic

Most companies have taken a beating from the pandemic. The social restrictions that keep us safe and curb the spread of the virus has hurt the global economy.

While 11.1% of marketers believe marketing isn’t important during this period, most marketing departments are getting pumped with funding as companies strive to remain relevant and keep the interest of their customers during the pandemic.

Image Source: MarketingWeek

As a result, marketers have to make strategic shifts in their methods to adapt to the new paradigm.

Content marketing is still a viable strategy to put valuable resources in front of your customers.

How about social media marketing? It still works.

And when it comes to video marketing, what do you stand to gain? Is there a specific reason you should pay more attention to it?

As a matter of fact, there are a lot.

Why video marketing is essential for your marketing strategy during the pandemic

One underlying similarity during the pandemic in every affected country all over the world is that people are staying at home.

They have all the time in the world to consume content. That’s why 80% of them are consuming more content now than before the pandemic. This is an excellent opportunity for brands to get more valuable content to their customers.

But why should it be video?

1. People prefer video over text and images

According to Livestream, 80% of your audience would pick videos over blog content. And 82% would choose to watch a live video instead of engaging with a social media post.

It’s best to augment your content marketing strategy with videos.

One brilliant way is to create a video version of your blog article, and place it on top of your blog post. Apart from appealing to 4 out of 5 people who prefer videos, it would reduce your bounce rate.

Image Source: Hubspot

2. Videos inspire engagement

Videos stimulate the visual and auditory parts of our brains. That’s twice the mental stimulation than other forms of content. It creates a connection faster than text and images.

You can remember your favorite scene in a movie with vivid colors and realistic audio easier than the last thing you read.

eMarketers estimates that people will spend 100 minutes daily watching videos by the end of 2020. People’s natural gravitation towards video content shows that it’s much more interesting to consume and engage with than other forms of content.

3. Video have a higher click-through-rate (CTR)

Did you know that simply adding a video to your email instantly bumps up its CTR by a whopping 300%?

LinkedIn said that video ads outperform non-video ads in engagement. Taking advantage of this is a surefire way to drive conversion faster than any other means.

4. Live videos drive stronger emotional connections

No matter what you are marketing, live videos have a way of inspiring trust and connection with your viewers.

The vulnerability of livestreaming puts you on the side of your potential customers. Seminars, Q and A sessions, demos, etc., shows your audience you’re ready to show them everything unedited and uncut.

It’s a type of vulnerability that makes your brand trustworthy.

Think of Elon Musk unveiling the Tesla Truck, and ‘messing up’ with a bulletproof window that wasn’t supposed to break. Yet, pre-orders just 3 months after the unveiling are up to half a million.

Image Source: TechCrunch

How to use video marketing to boost conversion rates now

There are amazing ideas out there for how to use videos in your marketing to improve results. Whatever your KPI’s are, videos have a way of bumping up the results.

But which ones work best during the pandemic?

Obviously, a video ad for buying new leather car seat covers wouldn’t work so well. The demand is down. So, brands should focus more on deepening connections with customers and sharing goodwill instead of selling.

Brands who do this will reap the benefits when the economy gradually recovers.

You may be thinking “but Google is slashing their marketing budget by half because of the pandemic, who am I to increase mine?”

Of course, Google is slashing its marketing budget. They’re concerned about losing money. Google makes 70% of its money from advertising. And for reasons they can’t control, ad revenue is expected to go down as many brands reduce their ad expenses. Odds are, this isn’t exactly your business model.

You don’t have to increase your marketing budget to accommodate your video marketing strategy.

All you have to do is make slight adaptations to the existing marketing strategy to get the most out of your current expenses, even if you’re slashing it.

Here are some adjustments you can make using video marketing that are guaranteed to boost your conversions during the pandemic:

1. Add videos to your current CRM communication

Earlier in this article, we mentioned that including videos in an email can improve click-through-rate up to 3 times. Videos are an efficient communication medium. Stimulating two senses at once gives it that advantage.

As a marketer, you can use this to enhance your brand’s relationship with customers in your communication medium.

Aside from emails, you can use videos in your social media content. You can also create specific videos that answer common questions (like a video FAQ) and use them in your live chats.

Image Source: Campaign Monitor

2. Use videos on your landing pages

Videos on your landing pages increase conversion rates by 80% or more.

An example is a short explainer video outlining the benefits that wait at the other end of your call-to-action button.

The options are endless when you keep in mind the goal of the page. A compelling video sales letter can lead to a video that converts without the help of the rest of the page.

Image Source: Unbounce

3. Record testimonials in video format

Pictures on your testimonials make them better, more trustworthy, and believable.

What can make this even better is adding an emotional connection to credibility using video testimonials.

Have your past customers share their experience before using your product and after. People will connect better with this.

Image Source: Thera-Smart

4. Host live video events

Live video events, when done properly, enjoy some of the highest engagements of every form of marketing.

It feels more participatory when you address your viewers directly than when it feels more like a news broadcast. Take a lesson from watching influential twitch streamers. Their comments sections are usually buzzing.

5. Run video ads instead

LinkedIn, in an article by TechCrunch, said “video ads earn 30 percent more comments per impression than non-video ads.” Also, members of the professional social network spend 3 times longer engaging with video ads than static sponsored content.

You are more likely to convert an engaged viewer than one who passively scans through your text or image advert.

How to make high converting videos during the pandemic

When you start making more videos and incorporating them into your marketing strategy for your brand during the pandemic, there are some things to consider.

This consideration is necessary because the video marketing of this period is different from when everything was great.

1. Decide on what you want to achieve with the video

Starting with a clear goal in mind (and preferably, on paper too), is the best way to start a successful video creation project.

Maybe you want to let your customers know:

• The measures you’re taking to keep staff and customers safe
• The changes you’re making to the way you’re doing business, or
• That you support them and care about them

Once you have this clearly stated, everything will fall into place and you can reduce errors and unnecessary diversions.

2. Make a video with an agenda

With your clear goal in mind, build a plan to take viewers from 00:00 to an ultimate goal.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be to buy a product or a service.

You could create curiosity about a product you have in the pipeline, suggest they check your latest blog post or inspire them to reach out to their loved one.

Regardless of what it is, your video should have a purpose, and therefore, direction. Without a purpose, it will feel like a waste of time.

3. Make your videos mobile-friendly

55% of people are getting updates and news from mobile devices.

Most of your viewers will find your video when they’re on their smartphones or tablets.

Make your videos easy to download and host it on a powerful platform such as YouTube. YouTube is so well-advanced that they can deliver your video in poor network situations.

4. Sell your brand, not your products

Don’t take a knee-jerk approach to video marketing during the pandemic era and think you must sell something. Focus on customer retention and brand promotion.

The videos that go viral these days are simple emotional videos, usually relevant to the tough time we are all going through.

5. Keep in touch with customers

There’s a deeper meaning to keeping in touch now. Talk to your customers without being afraid of being vulnerable.

Let customers know that your company is also going through some challenges in delivering your services or products. They will understand.

They will also feel stronger ties to you because going through hard times together builds stronger bonds.

Conclusion

As families are building stronger bonds during this period, you can build stronger bonds with your customers and boost brand awareness by leveraging the strong emotional connection that video marketing affords you.

Even if you’ve slashed your marketing budget due to the pandemic, you can adapt your marketing strategy to suit the new dynamic in a way that conversion rates stay up and never come down.

What you need is this strategic approach to video marketing.

Guest author: Uwemedimo Usa is a copywriter and certified content marketer with 5+ years experience at Ace Tech Writer. He helps tech brands sell more with conversion copywriting and customer-centric content marketing. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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