5 Handy Tips to Devise a Foolproof Video Marketing Strategy

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corporate video production in Singapore

Do you want to create a foolproof video marketing strategy that can help your audience understand your brand or service better? Are you planning to add a video to your landing page? Or perhaps use it to promote a new service that your company is offering? Here are some steps to help you get started:

Focus on having an awesome script

Your script can make or break your explainer video. As a foundation of your video marketing effort, the script is where everything else is built. It should be unique and well written for it to be appealing to your audience. 

To achieve this, you need to assign the scriptwriting task to someone who can take a fresh look at your company, therefore he or she should be an outsider as opposed to a company employee. 

This is crucial so the scriptwriter can explain things in a way that can be easily understood, regardless if the viewer already has an idea about your place in the industry or totally clueless about it.

Work with professionals 

If you hire a professional video production team, they will have you fill out a creative brief about your company first. In this brief, do your best to talk about your business at a high level and define what really should be included in this explainer video. Once done, the writer then will refer to the brief when writing your video’s script. 

Keep it short

If you keep the video short, the easier it will be for people to remember your business. While you want to inform your audience of how awesome your company is, your business accomplishments, and services you offer, having a long video has a higher risk of you losing your audience’s interest. 

Keep all the lengthy details about your brand to your blog or about us page. Use the explainer video to get people interested and lead them on to the next step. As a general rule of thumb, the video should only have 150 words per minute for it to be easily absorbed by your viewers.  

Highlight the benefits

Remember that your audience is watching the videos to be educated or to get solutions to their problems. That being said, then video should not promote your business or educate them about your company. Therefore, it is recommended that you focus on showing them the benefits they can get from using your product or service. 

In addition, rather than discussing the many great features your gadget offers, mention how your device can help them live better. Make it more relatable and avoid drowning your audience with information they’re not really after or interested in.

Make it unique and memorable

Everyone loves to be entertained, whether he is the CEO of a prestigious company, working moms, or students. So it will be best if your video has a way of keeping the viewers entertained while introducing your product or service at the same time. 

Keeping the mood like and positive is also ideal so it’s easier for the audience to remember your business when the time to buy the product or service you are offering comes. If the video is effective, they might even share it with their friends, giving you more potential clients and more reach as a result.

Let Reelmedia Pte. Ltd. help you create a video your target audience will surely love. Visit our video production’s website today for more information about our services. 

8 Reasons How Your Business Can Benefit from Whiteboard Animation Videos

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Video production company in Singapore

Why You Should Have A Whiteboard Video 

Sure, there is no arguing with the truth that whiteboard animations look excellent and are a delight to watch. But, this unusual medium has so much more to give than strict performance value. In fact, there are plenty of situations in which the application of whiteboard animation style videos gives increased business advantages to organizations of every size.

Why Do You Need a Whiteboard Video Animation on Your Page?

When different guests visit on your page, what do they notice first? Do they find an intimidating-looking chunk of lines defining your company's service and product offerings, or do they see an engaging, welcoming, whiteboard animation worth sharing in a fun way?

If you are concerned that your text-intensive web page may be resulting in on-site visitor frustration or confusion, replacing text blocks with 60-90 second, "you-focused" whiteboard videos showing your company’s products & services, or defining your business philosophy, could provide a visitor experience for your webpage.

Whiteboard Animated Videos Work Great If:

  • Your product/service is very complex.

Whiteboard animated videos are deemed one of the best types of marketing videos to carry complex concepts or ideas: just like in school, when we are in front of the whiteboard, we know that it must be something important and we demand to pay attention to what is being told/shown.

  • When you need to educate the viewers

Animated videos with a powerful combination of visual details, animated characters, and a compelling voice-over help in training and educating the viewers on a topic.

  • When you desire to add a dash of humor

Whiteboard videos also work terrific if you prefer to add a little bit of humor or fun, in order to make your video more interesting and amusing. Adding in sound effects, caricatures & music also add to the mood of the video.

  • You want to give your videos a personal touch

Whiteboard explainer videos are proving to be more engaging than most video formats, and provides your video with a more human and "informal" approach. By including custom animated characters, you can generate a strong connection with your audience; and the outcomes can be even more stunning.

Benefits of Whiteboard Animation Videos

Whiteboard animation has developed as a clear winner for companies looking forward to creating a niche in their industry while employing fewer resources and preserving their marketing cost.

Frankly put, whiteboard animation is a new-age marketing tool that enables a business to convey its marketing strategy to its customers in the form of a video.

Such videos contain a crisp message detailing the business's products and/or services and compelling the users to buy/invest in its offerings.

In this column, we've detailed a variety of hidden benefits and advantages whiteboard animation provides to give their marketing strategy a boost:

  1. Boost Sales

Even if you are not so conversant in the term 'explainer video,' there's a decent chance you've seen one. These videos use animation to clarify things, like products or services.

There are numerous ways to create an animated explainer video, and whiteboard animation is one of the more popular methods. But irrespective of what technique you decide on, these videos are known to spice up sales.

Their visual appeal and simplicity can capture the eye of your audience, evoke emotion, and encourage people to take action. A survey from Wyzowl found that 81 percent of companies said their explainer video helped them increase sales.

And in step with Business Insider, Dropbox's explainer video increased conversions by 10 percent, which translated to 10 million new clients and $48,000,000 in revenue.  Not bad, considering how basic the animation is.  It proves that you don't need fancy 6-figure budgets with Hollywood special effects for videos to generate revenues for your business.

  1. Help People Understand What You Do

It's no secret that video is more popular than text content. Animoto's survey showed that four times as many people would like to watch a product video as those who would rather hear about it. And right off the bat, people are more likely to watch an overview video than reading an instruction manual, for example.

But these kinds of videos could also help people understand better what your company has to offer.

The Wyzowl survey referred to above also found that 91% of customers watched an explanation video when they heard about goods or services, and 97% of companies said that their explanation video enabled people to understand their product or service much better.

Coca-Cola published the video below to clarify its current content marketing plan, and it's probably easier to follow than to listen to some talking head about the complexities of Coke's marketing.

  1. Make Your Brand Easy to Remember

It sticks in your customer's head.  Making your customer know your brand, product or service is a vital marketing objective. People seldom buy when they are first introduced to an offer. And the more they remember your brand from the first contact, the more likely they are to get more details.

And no other medium is more unforgettable than that of video. Think about yourself, how many times do you remember your favourite scene from a movie or tv show? Video outperforms text, graphics, or any other media by a long shot. According to the Online Publishers Association, 80% of viewers have been able to remember a video ad they have seen over the last 30 days.

If you want to make the most unforgettable piece of content you can, whiteboard and cartoon animation video is a perfect choice. By incorporating easy-to-understand graphics, compelling storylines, and (sometimes) catchy songs, your customers are more interested than standard videos.

  1. Get More Engagement

There's a little something about whiteboard videos that is just captivating. When you watch the hand moving on the screen with these drawings, you're not quite sure what's going to come next.

Anticipation helps keep audiences interested, as they seek to predict what the hand is going to draw. That anticipation can be enticing enough to keep the clients watching your videos right to the end, instead of getting bored and clicking on something else.

Besides just keeping people interested, the amount of social media interaction that you are going to get with videos is substantially higher than other forms of content.

As per the Content Marketing Institute research, people are ten times more likely to connect, share, or comment on video content than blogs and other social media.

The UK Parliament used the video below to explain how general elections work, and there’s no doubt that it’s way more engaging than listening to someone babble on and lecture you about elections.

  1. Mobile-friendly

It helps you entice mobile users (especially on iPad). We bet you did not expect that, did you? That generation of iPhone, always busy and glued to their screens, never paying attention to anything ... except for video, it turns out!

According to research by Measurable Metrics, smartphone users have consistently surpassed desktop users when it comes to video interaction. Users on laptop and desktop computers could barely make it through 1 minute of video without baiting and going surfing the web.

But iPhone users watch an average of 2.4 minutes of content. Android users are even more active, dedicating 3 minutes of their time to watch a video. And iPad users come to the top with an outstanding 5 minutes – remarkable for a noisy digital age, that's right!

  1. It Appeals to Busy People

There is quite a debate going on about what's best for busy people: text, or video. And while text has been around for centuries, and has undeniably many benefits, do you know why video is more capable of winning?

Based on research conducted with busy executives, the majority said they'd rather watch than reading! Forbes' "Videos in the C-Suite" study shows that 80% of executives watch weekly business-related animated videos, and 59% prefer video to text.

If you're selling to busy executives, but you cannot use a lot of video content, there is a simple way to begin. Get your best-performing piece of text-based content and re-purpose it in a video that you can use in front of your target audience.

In doing so, you can not only draw more interest from the busy executives you're trying to sell to, but also significantly reduce the time it takes to introduce them to your bid. What used to be a 30-minute sales discussion or a 10-page marketing white paper might become a 2-or 3-minute whiteboard and cartoon animation video ... and become much more efficient.

A great trade-off, don't you think?

  1. They are Fun

Animations are just fun to watch, no matter how old you are (I'm in my 30s, and I still love watching The Simpsons) and that entertainment value can be extended to almost any idea, no matter how dull it is.

In any event, investing in whiteboard video development is a perfect way to showcase a service or product to potential clients.

Strategies like explainer videos and whiteboard videos help you present complicated details in ways that people can understand while keeping them informed and promoting the company at the same time.

  1. It Gives You Access to Foreign Clients

Sooner or later, if you run a major, profitable company, you'll be considering international expansion. For digital marketing using videos, it's easier than ever to hit a global audience. Obviously much easier than text-based or audio content!

For instance, on YouTube alone – the world's second-largest search engine – as many as 80% of video views come from outside of the USA and 70% of searches are in non-English language!

If you really want to break out of your national market, you want to keep this in mind for the future. Add in foreign language sub-titles or captions, or even foreign language voice overs in your animated video and you’ve just expanded your marketing reach.

For the same reasons that make it more unforgettable, whiteboard and cartoon animation video is naturally better suitable for global viewing. Thanks to the combination of narration and visuals, it is quite clear to audiences who are not native English speakers.

Using Whiteboard Animation Videos to Send a Message

The creative, fascinating style of whiteboard animation videos can be used for more than just business sales and messaging. In addition, whiteboarding can be a very powerful method for fostering creativity and advocacy.

If you want to educate audiences on a matter that is close and dear to your heart or to empower and encourage users to improve their environments, whiteboard writing can be especially useful when it comes to illustrating knowledge that exists only in your imagination.

Can’t wait to reap the benefits of an animated explainer video or whiteboard video? Contact us at Reelmedia and check out our animation and whiteboard video production services to learn more.

Why are corporate videos considered to be the best promotional tool for businesses?

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Video Marketing

 

Are you thinking of creating videos to promote your business? Planning to create videos to promote your brand? If your answers are yes, then you have come to the right place. This article will help you understand how corporate videos can be your best promotional tool.

Video is known for its ability to boost search engine rankings. Considering the fact that Google now owns YouTube, this tool is an effective way to boost customer engagement. The only question is how do you go about making an effective video?

YouTube has over a billion users. That’s about one-third of all people on the Internet. Thus, you can just imagine the amount of traffic you will get on your website if you use the right strategies in making a video.

Most content marketers know that video content is becoming more and more popular. Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 80% of all internet traffic by 2019. This is a pretty staggering statistic, but if you’re still asking yourself, “Is video marketing really an effective way to promote my business?” The answer is yes. Here are seven powerful benefits of using video content.

Here are other reasons why video is a good addition to your marketing arsenal:

Attract more customers:

Did you know that about 65% of video viewers watch over 3/4 of a video, which is significantly more than text-based content? Video content has been proven to attract more attention as compared to other forms of content. Right now, the state of content marketing is very competitive. Your audience is presented with an excessive amount of content on a daily basis. To compete, you want your video to be captivating for it to be more likely to be consumed. If you’re running out of ideas to produce, use a data-laden report and turn it into a video infographic. You can also create attention-grabbing video invites to promote events or convert case studies into video testimonials.

Demonstrations of products or service:

These days, many consumers prefer watching a video about a certain product as compared to reading about it. To promote a new brand, product, or service, try to create a video and then demonstrate how it works or how it can benefit your consumers. If you wish to make it a unique way to explain what you offer, an animated video can be a good option.

Better click-through rates:

If you have an existing email campaign, you’ve probably provided your audience with all of the important information they need. However, your open and click-through rates are still not impressive. Consider using video content to strengthen your email marketing strategies. In fact, just by using the word “video” in an email subject line will instantly boost open rates by up to 19% and click-through rates by 65%.

Mistakes to Avoid When Producing a Corporate Video Production

Because producing a corporate video can be time-consuming and expensive, you want to make sure things turn out as planned along the way. Although you cannot expect your first video to be flawless and viral, it helps to know the common mistakes you can avoid. If you are planning a corporate video production, here are some of the mistakes you want to avoid.

Not Knowing Your Target Audience

Your brand may have the best concept in the world, but if you don’t know who to address it to, it could get lost in the noise of the internet. Whether you are a newbie or expert in the video production, remember that your video will not appeal to all types of audience. If you are creating a campaign that is targeted to a certain type of audience, then your content, style, and messaging must be changed to attract each particular group. This can be a major mistake as different audiences are active on different types of platforms. This means that the platform on which you choose to share your video can greatly affect the style of the video too. For you to maximize the profit of your video content, you have to ensure that you have defined clearly who your target audience is, and make a video content that is ideal for different platforms.

Unclear Message

This common mistake should be avoided in any type of campaign. If your video has all the creative and top-notch visuals it needs, yet has a vague message on what you want your audience to do, it will only leave your viewers confused. While movies use cliff-hangers as an effective and unique way to send out a message it is a whole different story when using it in corporate or marketing videos. If you are going to use cliff-hangers, you want to make sure that your objective is already clear. This way, your audience still knows exactly what to do after watching your video

Skipping Equipment Checks

While having a vision of how you want your end result to look like is great, you don’t want to miss out on other steps of the process such as equipment checks. If you have in-house equipment, always make time to do a routine check and maintenance. On the other hand, if you are renting, be sure not to skip thorough tests and checks before you even leave the rental center. This way, you are sure that you can use the equipment and you will not be held liable if they are faulty. The last thing you want to happen is spending your precious production time fixing faulty equipment or looking for a replacement. Remember that rescheduling shoots can be costly and can even leave a bad impression on your team.

Not Having Post Production Plans

Video production work goes far more than just completing the editing part. You want to think about where you decide to share the video as it will be an important factor in the video’s success. The video distribution can make or break your marketing strategy. Therefore, it should be done even before you start rolling the camera. Depending on the platforms you choose, you may need a change in style and format. After deciding on where to best share your video, it is important to keep an eye on the performance of your video.

There are two important metrics you should track which includes view-count and share-rate. With this data, your brand's creators and marketers can analyze your content and gauge its effectiveness. Moreover, it brings insights on areas of improvements that they can do for your next campaign.

Not knowing the next steps

Aside from knowing how to distribute videos online and track their performance, brands should have the foresight of their campaigns. Video marketing should not be your only focus as it should be a part of a bigger marketing strategy. In today's technology, you have an endless option on how to do this. A follow-up campaign does not necessarily need to be another video. It could also be an infographic about the benefits of using your product or a billboard of your new endorser. Done right, video can be an effective way to boost the effectiveness of your digital marketing. However, if you do not ride on its success by creating a subsequent campaign, its success will fizzle out in no time.

With these tips and information in mind, keep in mind that it is very important to ensure your content has relevance to your target audience.

If your staff members are already swamped with tasks or do not have the skills to finish the task, there are always corporate video production companies who are willing to help you. One of the best companies in Singapore you can trust is Reelmedia Ptd Lte. We have years of experience in producing quality videos and helping businesses reach their digital marketing goals.

 

Why Video Marketing Is Essential to Your Business

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Video-Marketing-Services-01

1. WHY VIDEO MARKETING – VIDEO BLOGS & SEO?

A video blog is a great example of video marketing and can help you improve your websites SEO rankings and at the same time help to personalise your company making a real connection with a prospective client. By regularly updating your video blog you can indicate to Google that your site is worth keeping near the top of it’s rankings; as the search algorithms use the frequency with which a site is updated to help qualify it’s SERPs. Make sure the videos you upload are shot in HD, have a carefully written script and are embedded in your site using Youtube. This allows Google to use the transcript of your video to help move you up to the first page results for your chosen keywords. This then all has to be balanced out so you get the best ROI possible. Strategy is the key here. Your video will have to elicit some emotional response from the viewer and at the same time contain your keywords and a good reason for your viewer to actually click on your video. Video Marketing that is irrelevant to your clients will not provide the ROI you are looking for.

2. EVERYBODY’S DOING IT:

By mapping out a number of videos in advance you can target a list of keywords that suit your SEO needs. Once you have done this you can plan the content of your videos by thinking about the questions your prospective clients might ask. The new Hummingbird update to the Google search algorithms is designed to take into account the greater number of searches being made by voice search. These queries are usually longer than typed search queries and as a result the Hummingbird update looks for context. If you have a well thought out SEO strategy for you video blog you can take advantage of this new type of search by answering the questions your prospects might ask. For example, if you run a hotel in Dublin you might have someone in the States speaking to the their phone and asking for ‘a hotel in Dublin with Irish dancing’. A video script starting along the lines of ‘X hotel in Dublin is one of the best places to see some traditional Irish dancing while you eat’ would allow Google to associate your site, with it’s embedded video, with live Irish dancing. There are hundreds of Google searches for ‘Irish Dancing’ in the States everyday.

3. WHAT TO DO?

It is important to make the most of the benefits available from video SEO on your video blog.

Key concepts/techniques to remember include:

Social sharing: if you video is fun, interesting and worth a watch it will get shared. Mobile video has exploded and people use their commute time to amuse themselves with funny videos. If your corporate video is funny (in the right way) it will get more views and shares on Facebook and other social media sites.

Link building: by using these shares you can get some great organic link building benefits.

Youtube comments: Did you know 90% of all internet traffic is video? People love online video. In preparing to write this article I noticed that a lot of Irish hotels that have videos of their business on Youtube have past guests from all over the world commenting about how great a time they had in the hotel. This is the best sort of endorsement a company could hope for, as it is unsolicited.

Geotagging: Did you know that if your corporate video has a graphic with your companies name and address at the end, and it is uploaded to Youtube, then Google’s search algorithms will read this text and use it to help Geotag your video? If the video is embedded on your homepage this will help Geotag your website. You can further help here by going to the advanced settings of the video manager on your Youtube account and adding in your business address. This will help Google to push people searching for your product, in your catchment area, towards your site.

By using these strategies you can easily ensure that Google and the other search engines give your site the credibility it deserves.

 

Hopefully this can help you get a better understanding on the benefits of using video marketing to upscale your business.

If you are interested in having a collaboration with a professional video marketing company, please do not hesitate to contact us!

 

 

Facebook and YouTube: Focusing on online video marketing

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yt and fb The rapid rise of online video over the last decade means that businesses not taking advantage of it for marketing purposes are missing out on a lot of traffic. According to a Cisco Global IP Traffic forecast, “IP video traffic will be 79 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2018, up from 66 percent in 2013.”

YouTube is still seen as the main player for online video services although Facebook has quickly established itself as a major player in the brand marketing segment. As of November 2014, after last year’s boom of premium ad options for native videos, Facebook has surged ahead of YouTube video posts. Following the proliferation of social networks sharing has become as prominent as searching. YouTube introduced easy video upload yet a lot of content users do not know about will surface through social networking.

The rise of the ubiquitous viral video, attributed to YouTube, is also the result of sharing via Facebook and Twitter. Marketing strategy for online video content should consider the nature of the video and ultimately its potential lifespan. Video on YouTube is longer staying, with more in-depth content users will actively search for. Facebook’s focus is on short and superficial, relying on exposure through social buzz; once out of the news feed exposure dramatically decreases. Choosing your online video marketing strategy platform should reflect the video content generated by your brand for the right brand focus.

Facebook’s main advantage is in the nature of the platform: extensive and constantly rising social user base. Preferential treatment is given to its native videos when determining what users see in their feed, together with the recently introduced autoplay video content in news feeds within its App Install ads.

YouTube on the other hand is investing into community of creators of staying quality. Something to keep in mind about YouTube is that, unlike Facebook where content is tied to the platform, link sharing is possible wherever your online coverage is supported.

One study examining the inherent differences of Facebook video and YouTube links discovered that although there are 8 times as many YouTube links shared compared to Facebook, engagement rate for Facebook is 40% higher with twice as many comments than YouTube. Deciding which platform fits your needs doesn’t necessarily have to be about exclusivity as both can be used despite their seemingly divergent focus.

Michelle Phan, covered in our recent post, is a user whose content fits the YouTube model. She also advertises new videos on Facebook to direct her audience to YouTube using call to action at the end of a short Facebook video. With this approach she has gained positional advantage of both platforms to promote content and drive YouTube views with different content to fit Facebook posts for more efficiency.

BuzzFeed is an example of another approach with brand content that falls right between both platforms. BuzzFeed’s strategy is to maximize views and exposure by using both platforms to get content up and to as many people as possible. This approach also takes into account that each platform has different ways of content discovery. Also in BuzzFeed’s case preference among its users for one platform is not necessarily constant; a big hit on Facebook can be a flop on YouTube and vice versa.

In the fast changing online marketing environment it is important to implement the right strategy for your needs to get ahead of the competition. If you are interested in collaborating with a professional video marketing company we want to hear from you so that we can assist you in developing the right product for your needs. If you are interested in having a collaboration with a professional video marketing company, please do not hesitate to contact us!

If you want to improve your Facebook Advertising Core Competencies, this 2-day intensive course will enable participants to develop a Facebook marketing strategy, launch compelling Facebook Advertising campaigns to drive leads/increase brand awareness, and review and optimise performance.

Embracing Video- The New Strategy of Facebook

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One of the new changes from this year in Facebook is represented by the amount of video present on the news feed, amount that has tripled since last year, to the joy of many users and advertisers who discovered this option.

There is only one person who can foresee who big will the video be on the social network, and that is Fidju Simo, the Director of Product in charge of video. Simo and her team are planning to tweak the website’s design in order to facilitate the way marketers can buy video ads and allow them to monitor their campaigns.   Her efforts are central to Facebook tapping the U.S. online-video advertising market, which is estimated according to EMarketer Inc. to  reach $7.8 billion this year, up 30 percent from $6 billion in 2014.

Facebook

“We’re just really at the beginning of understanding what video on Facebook is about,” Simo said. “We want to make sure that we’re really communicating on how people are engaging with video so marketers can really understand.”

Facebook has released a progress report  about video on the social network, including how users and brands have boosted the amount of video in the news feed by 3.6 times in the past year. In addition, the number of video posts per person has jumped 75 percent, with more than half of daily U.S. visitors watching at least one video a day, the company said. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a November public question-and-answer session that in five years, most of Facebook will be video.

Facebook now has to create new metrics for marketers to evaluate their video-ad campaigns, including how many people clicked on a link at the end of a video.

Facebook doesn’t break out revenue from video ads, for which it has been charging $1 million or more a day for 15-second spots, people familiar with the situation have said.

Facebook “is coming on strong and has the potential to put pressure on YouTube,” according to an EMarketer report  that said social media will change the rules for video advertising.

Facebook has been taking more steps to improve video ads. In September, the company unveiled an ad server tool called Atlas to let marketers get data on how often individuals saw ads and on what device -- something that’s essential for video now that 65 percent of Facebook’s video is viewed via mobile devices. In July, Facebook also agreed to acquire startup LiveRail, which will help it serve video advertisements outside of the social network.

“LiveRail will make it so that publishers can be more efficient, and Atlas can help them understand how it helped their business,” said Brian Boland, a vice president focused on ads at Facebook.

As Facebook Director states, this is really the year wherea lot of investment and advertisers are now embracing the fact that we are big in video and new investments will be made in this direction.  If you are interested in having a collaboration with a professional video marketing company, please do not hesitate to contact us!

 

 

 

Michelle Phan – The road from a YouTube Star to $84 Million Startup Founder

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Michelle Phan is  the best example that you should not underestimate the YouTube power.

Makeup-tutorial starlet  shifted from having billion of views on Youtube and seven million followers to having her own L'Oreal line and lifestyle media network and a booming e-commerce beauty start-up called Ipsy. The next step for her was to release a  new book "Make up: Your Life Guide to Beauty, Style and Success - Online and Off"  which teaches people how to decorate their faces with more accuracy than any other sources.

The ferocious 27-year-old mogul had a modest start with her family  and now has a company with an $84 million annual sales run-rate. She has 700,000 subscribers who receive her Glam bags, which are little sacks of make up samples for $10 per month samples.Phan  gave an interview and  talked  about transforming YouTube stardom   into a real-world empire, which is a now a well- trodden path.

michelle phan book cover

Talking about her beginning, Phan began doing makeup tutorials. And people loved those makeup tutorials. Eyeliner technique turned into far more sophisticated lessons, like how to look like Lady Gaga in “Bad Romance.” “I showed people how they can transform their face,” she said. “[Lady Gaga] really helped put me on the map.”

Phan stated that in 2007, she was a waitress  and couldn’t even get a job at a beauty counter because she didn’t have sales experience. “YouTube was the biggest thing in the college community, and it just made so much sense for me to have a platform,” she said. “Instead of feeling down about it, I opened another door, and that door happened to be a laptop.”

Meanwhile, large makeup brands like Lancome were struggling to get hits with good viral makeup videos. In 2008, a Lancome executive Googled around and found a Phan tutorial in which she was cramped up on a plane, showing her fans how to do makeup on the plane. Lancome signed her as a spokesperson.

Phan says her shaky bedroom videos appealed to people more than big productions because they felt more authentic: “People need to understand that what makes YouTube so different is that you go on there because you want to connect with someone.”

When asked about the economics of YouTube, Phan said, “It’s like any medium — you have the subscription, but that’s not going to make all the money. You have to bring on sponsors, and you have to sell a product.”

And not every viral star has to have seven million followers — there’s a healthy YouTube middle class: “So many of my friends have 200,000 subscribers, and they make around five to six K a month,” she said. “Which is completely cool.”

“We’re living in an age where we should be collaborating. Because it’s the Internet now. It’s hard to say who owns what,” she said, looking out into the audience. “I believe in Team Internet, and I’m here to protect my fellow YouTubers. … I’m here to fight and stand my ground.”

The business world is more and more prepared for businesses using video marketing strategies to grow as we can see from this interview with Michelle. If you are interested in having a collaboration with a professional video marketing company, please do not hesitate to contact us!

How Videos changed the game for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

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The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge—or as many social media users know it, the #ALSIceBucketChallenge—is everywhere. It might be annoying for some, but it’s working.

Thanks to the hundreds of celebrity videos, and the million-plus less well-known ones, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has helped raise more than $23 million in donations, as the ALS Association stated.

ice-bucket-challenge-forbes-620x544

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, sparked by patient Pete Frates, caught on with Boston-area athletes and spread rapidly across the past few weeks. It relies on a simple dare: You have 24 hours to videotape yourself being drenched by a bucket of ice water, or donate $100 to ALS research. (In many cases, participants do both.) Then keep the cycle going by daring others to do the same thing.

The #ALSIceBucketChallenge topped that tweet total in about an hour on Monday afternoon. The ALS Association and its chapters collectively raised about $64 million last year. But in the past three weeks, the organization has seen more than a 1100% increase in year-over-year donations — all attributable to the challenge.

According to media reports, people have shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook showing the challenge between June 1 and Aug. 13. Twitter estimates that the Challenge has been discussed in more than 2.2 million tweets. Gaining visibility for any cause is increasingly difficult in today's media-saturated age, which makes the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge all the more remarkable.

It also speaks to the growing clout of social media as way to solicit donations, particularly from younger people. Only 6% of Upworthy posts have reached 100,000 views, and only 0.42% have surpassed 1 million, according to the viral content experts at Upworthy. Virality is hard. But content marketers can look to examples like the ALS challenge to create and promote content that their audience will appreciate.

So, the final lesson for marketers is this: The trick isn't to copy or mimic a great campaign; it's to learn from it and incorporate the lessons into future ideas. The #icebucketchallenge is fun, it's for a good cause, it has perfect timing, it doesn't feel corporate, and it's new.

If you are ready to create your own campaign to increase your visibility, use the new video marketing trend in the market now and work with the professionals to increase your visibility and grow your business. For great deals on video production, contact us now!

Successful video ads have these five elements

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A research done by Tremor Video and Millward Brow, where they examined more than 300 video campaigns and tested the content with 150 consumers, was made to track the receptiveness and feelings that these two have toward each one. Brands and marketers should take the advice to heart and create more innovative campaigns because, right now, most of them are doing it all wrong.

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Entice and intrigue

Finding balance here is the key. You should give enough information, not too much or too little, so that the viewers are encouraged to click through or act to find out more.

Remember to give consumers a reason to engage by starting the story, but not telling the whole thing. This applies both to getting people to pay attention to the ad (completion rate) and encouraging them to interact (engagement rate). Results showed that high-performing mobile creative outperforms TV benchmarks.

Bring them in

With an aligned design, technology and the right medium to create engaging advertising, you will be able to let your customers them stay in the video overlay and make their own decisions to continue to interact.

Symphony not noise

Every ad should sing and flow with a consistent theme and messaging throughout the layers of content. We know it’s tempting to use every tool in your belt, but too many messages, graphics and functions create confusion and dilute the effectiveness of the experience. With the many options available today, it’s easy to go overboard. Remember: simple sells.

Make them  feel

Consumers have an emotional connection to their mobile devices, so taking advantage of that and creating experiences that trigger an emotional response is the best strategy. The ads in the study generated more interest and excitement than we tend to see with TV or online video norms. Emotion is the heart of why advertising works, so remember this next time you are thinking about your videos.

When you pair emotional triggers in content with a distribution method that viewers are emotionally connected to, more often than not you’ll have a winner.

Catch the moment

Mobile devices serve as a first screen so often, so it’s important to use this moment to get people in the relevant moment. Find a way to keep consistent creative messaging across different platforms while leveraging the unique role of each device.

With availability of big data and targeting, brands are able to deliver their video advertisements in ways traditional media has never been able to do. The right message at the right time can be pitched to a single demographic group, or a series of demographics, with matching content.

Compare this with the old way of advertising that sees the same national brand ads plugged into TV shows and repeated, and the potential is obvious.

Adopting all five of these elements to your video advertising strategy will help generate interest, improve overall brand recall and increase sales conversations. So, join the digital age today and become as successful as you can by working with a very professional video production team.  For great deals on video production, contact us now!

A thousand words a picture or a million eyeballs video?

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Video have been present  for a long time now, as many production styles have evolved over the years, distribution channels have emerged, interactivity has blossomed and technology has changed the face of video forever. Even the influence of the video and voice message as it reaches the consumer in new and different ways has changed drastically.

The old cliché sOnlineVideoDeliveryays, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Maybe that picture is no longer a picture, but a video? I believe there are probably millions of people who watch video who would probably agree.

Here are some facts according to Going Social: The State of Video in 2013 that support the paradigm shift from, "a picture is worth a thousand words" to, "a moving picture is worth a million people."

• Forty billion videos are streamed in the U.S. each month.

• Seventy-five million people watch videos online each month.

• $6.3 billion will be spent on video ads in 2015.

Video and SEO -- How Do They Work Together?

We are all aware of the changes that the world wide web have offered to businesses and marketers, but now that SEO has teamed up with the video content to make it even more searchable than ever. If in the past, you needed to use DVD, retail displays and broadcast television, now you have global reaching power because you are equipped with SEO by your side in tandem with video.

It has been cited many times that Google favors video, and after all, they do own YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world -- second to Google, of course.  Google also knows that videos are everywhere, not just on YouTube and on your company website. They are also on social media channels and being watched on your smartphone sitting right in your pocket or hand bag.

When videos are being produced, marketers have to pay more attention not just to their content in the video and who they are producing for, but also for the search engine requirements. Based on consumer trends , broadcast TV has now been overtaken by digital media by almost 45 minutes more per week. That should tell you that digital video and SEO are critical for your marketing efforts.

Start Integrating Video Into Your Marketing -- Now!

The production of video comes with some implications just like media buying does. Video can behave very much the same way because you can produce your own video or pay an agency to do it for you, but either way they can be highly effective. If you decide to produce your own in-house, it is much like content marketing or owned media. You can have more control over the outcome of your message and it will be less expensive, but the downside may be that your production quality will probably suffer. In some cases, this lack of quality content can hurt your brand's reputation and brand image, so chose wisely.

Marketers Love Video and Everything It Brings to the Brand

When video and the web are combined, nothing seems to communicate stories more effectively. Marketers know this and they are increasing their marketing budgets to accommodate video.

According to ReelSEO's 2013 Q4 Video Marketing Survey & Business Video Trend Report, their findings are giving us an indication that video is on the rise and marketers should take notice.

• 93% of marketing professionals are implementing video in their strategies.

• 84% are using video for website marketing.

• 82% have expressed the positive effect video has on their organization.

Reach and Recall

Marketers always think about reach and recall. The good news about these two key performance indicators is that video is known to enhance a marketing campaign's reach, and at a lower cost. In the  Nielsen and the IAB report we can see that the  video is also known to make a marketing campaign more effective through generating an increase in brand recall (+33 percent) and message recall (+45 percent).

If a picture isn't worth a thousand words any longer, it may just be worth a million eyeballs or even increased sales.

So, join the digital age today and become as successful as you can by working with a professional video production team.  For great deals on video production, contact us now!