Home Grown vs. Professional Video – Each Has a Role to Play in Small Business Marketing

Guest Poster: Peter Stassa of Davideo Company, corporate video production specialists.
You probably don’t have an unlimited budget. We get that, neither do we. We understand that while you value the use of video content to build brand awareness and credibility, you still need to stay within your means. So, ask yourself this:

Where is your content going to be seen?

If you’re posting short videos to consumer-driven social media (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) to promote live events or short-term special offers, go right ahead and shoot those yourself. The audience on those platforms is used to seeing a more impromptu, “selfie” style and is less critical of production quality.
But what about the important video content that lives on your website or is being embedded in email campaigns and newsletters? The “about us” videos that explain what your organization does and why you do it? The testimonial stories that are intended to build trust?
You may think: “My phone has a really good camera, I can save money by producing marketing videos in-house instead of hiring an outside company to do it!”
Yes, you can – you can also save money by doing your own dental work with a mirror and a pair of pliers, but it will cost you more in the long run.
For one thing, it takes more than just a good camera. Do you have the other necessary tools and skills to properly record and edit the raw footage so that the end product is worth watching? Do you have the time?

You have to be careful when cutting corners on the production process because home-grown video can backfire on you.

For example, a Brightcove survey of more than 1,200 consumers revealed that the quality of a video has the potential to change the perception viewers have of your brand:
“When consumers are confronted with poor-quality video, they are 62 percent more likely to have a negative perception of the brand that published the video.”
“23 percent of consumers who have been presented with a poor-quality video experience would hesitate to purchase from the brand.”
Sure, the world of B2B and B2C communication has become relatively casual in recent years, and some marketing pundits have been saying that consumers prefer video that is more “spontaneous”, less “flashy”, and thus more “authentic”. But if your camera work is shaky and your image is dark and your audio is hard to hear, your viewer will not stick with it long enough to absorb any of your “authentic” content.

Poor production values are a turn-off. They distract from your message.

Today’s buyers are doing most of their initial research online before they ever get to the point of reaching out for a proposal, which means your odds of getting onto their shortlist depend largely on the quality of the content you post online.
As the saying goes, “you get only one chance to make a first impression” and if the video content on your website, on business-oriented platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, and in your newsletters and email campaigns looks amateurish, it will pale in comparison with the content offered by your competitors… and you won’t be getting those calls.
Effective and engaging video does not have to look like the opening to the Super Bowl, but sticking to the basic best practices of clean production will allow the viewer to focus on your content. For this reason, you should stay away from a “homegrown” video for critical applications and consider working with a professional when your target audience is made up of your core prospects and potential partners and supporters.
 

Alexa and Yext and Oh, the Possibilities

Wouldn’t it be cool if Amazon’s amazingly popular digital assistant for the home, Alexa, could recommend your business?
If you’re signed up for Sales Renewal’s Local Marketing program, Alexa will be doing this for your business very soon.

Anyone will be able to ask Alexa,  “Find X near me”  (where X is what your business does) and it will respond with your company contact info.  And the icing on the cake is that there’s no extra cost for this.

Yext is a Local Marketing platform that drives sales by:   

• increasing your site’s rank in local search and
• providing access to listing pages on 100+ popular, locally-oriented websites like Yelp, Mapquest, Bing, Yahoo Local, Trip Advisor and many more, including, now, Alexa

On July 25, Yext began sending the data in your Yext listing to Amazon. While Amazon doesn’t share just how its Alexa AI works or when the Yext data will be fully integrated, it’s safe to say the digital assistant is built to be helpful – millions of consumers look to Alexa for help finding products and services every day. Which will soon include your business too!
And if you are not signed up for Sales Renewal’s Local Marketing program, get in touch.  
 

Want to better manage your listings and reach more prospective buyers? We can help.

WordPress Dominates the CMS Space

Sales Renewal Develops Multi-Dimensional, Visual Search System for Non-Profit Client

The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School (CHLPI) advocates for legal, regulatory, and policy reforms to improve the health of underserved populations.

Two years ago, Sales Renewal worked with CHLPI to build a new WordPress website that was modern-looking, responsive and easy for the CHLPI team to maintain. A key component of the new website was the creation of a Health Library, which houses all of its published research, articles from academic journals, and legal documents like amici briefs and administrative complaints.

As the number of publications in this Library grew over the last two years, CHLPI realized it was getting more and more difficult for readers to find the content most relevant to them. and they identified the need to be able to search by:

1. Keywords
2. Geography
3. Type of document
4. Topic
5. Publication year
6. Combinations of the above

In addition, for the geographic search, they also wanted it to not only be textual (the name of a state) but also visual (clicking the state on a map).

When they approached Sales Renewal for advice, we understood that as a non-profit, they were budget-sensitive, so we looked at available WordPress plugins that would meet these criteria. Unfortunately, while their search requirements could be addressed by separate plugins, there weren’t any that would handle all at once.

Affordable, Custom Search System

Consequently, Sales Renewal created a custom search system for CHLPI’s Health Library Publications that integrated multiple off-the-shelf plugins to meet their requirements at an affordable price:

• A multi-faceted, term-based filtering system, allowing users to narrow their search by Geographic Focus, Document Type, Publication Topic, or Publication year
• A keyword-based search system
• A visual, map-based filter in which will automatically update to indicate which geographic regions have applicable publications

Other notable features include:

• The system requires no additional work on the web editor’s part when adding a publication to the library – all they do is include a specific tag to categorize it correctly
• The entire system runs on asynchronous JavaScript*, so the page doesn’t have to reload when filters or search terms are changed
• Filters are represented as query strings in the website’s URL (for example, http://www.chlpi.org/health_library/?fwp_geographic_focus=south-carolina), which means that specific searches can be bookmarked by users for future reference, or linked to from outside sources, such as other websites, blog posts, or e-mails.
• The system is responsive, and works on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones.

Feedback on the new Library has been overwhelmingly positive and has been called a “fantastic addition.” We encourage you to visit the CHLPI Health Library and test out the features for yourself. And please contact us for your next custom development project – we’re happy to provide a no-charge consultation.

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* Synchronous code is executed in sequence – each statement in the code waits for the previous statement to finish before executing. Asynchronous code doesn’t wait – your program can continue to run. This helps keep your site or app responsive, and reduces waiting time, making for a better user experience.

Love in Your Ring Wizard, the First-of-Its-Kind Online Ring Designer, Has Launched

Sales Renewal is pleased to announce the launch of Minter + Richter Designs’ new ecommerce site, http://www.MinterAndRichterDesigns.com, and the custom-built Love in Your Ring Wizard that seamlessly lives within it.

The site and unique App are great examples of Sales Renewal’s JointSourcing Solution at work: key business challenges were identified in the client’s JointSourcing Blueprint (e.g., streamlining customizations for millennial customers, increasing average sales price (ASP), lowering cost of sales). The sales-enabling technology was designed and developed as part of JointSourcing’s Build Services and is now being publicized and marketed as a key differentiator during the JointSourcing Sell Services step.

Our Client and Its Customers

Minter + Richter designs and handcrafts custom titanium wedding rings with a variety of inlay materials, from the well-known to the exotic. The typical Minter + Richter customer makes a single purchase, buying rings for that special, one-time occasion: their wedding.

The Sales Process

Each wedding or engagement band is hand-crafted and individually made based on the purchaser’s preferences. This means that clients have to provide information about ring sizes and choose the type of edges, finishes and interior colors for each ring, as well as care options (polishing and cleaning), and shipping and manufacturing times (standard, rush, shotgun rush) before the ring is made. This customization process was originally very involved and required hours of offline phone consultations and email exchanges, as well as missed opportunities for point-of-sale add-on purchases and upgrades.

The Sales and Marketing Challenges

Minter + Richter originally approached Sales Renewal because they wanted their site to rank better when their millennial buyers searched for wedding bands in Google. As we worked through our SEO planning process (Sales Renewal’s Blueprint phase), however, we both realized that while improving SEO was a worthwhile thing to do, there were more even important things to tackle first. For example: enhancing the selling capabilities of the website; creating an integrated marketing strategy (read more about the benefits of comprehensive, integrated marketing here) and overcoming some key business challenges (streamlining the customization process for their customers while simultaneously increasing the ASP and lowering the cost of sales). We knew that once these challenges were met, the other marketing tactics, like SEO, would be easier to put into place.

The eCommerce Solution

Our efforts focused on the redesign and optimization of the company’s Shopify-based website to increase per-transaction revenue and to streamline the sales process. A key piece of this was designing and building the Love in Your Ring Wizard. The Wizard is able to handle all the most popular customizations online in four streamlined, user-friendly steps. Ring sizing, finish options and even rush manufacturing are all clearly laid out, making it easy for customers who want to customize their ring to do so without jeopardizing the sales of customers who aren’t interested.

Early Results Point to Financial Success

Minter + Richter’s new website launched in mid-July, and from the first Wizard sale, the company has seen increased per-sale revenue as well as incredible time savings. The business – and Wizard – was recently publicized by Boston’s WCVB Channel 5 in their Made in Mass series. As reporter Doug Meehan says, Minter + Richter is “taking design in a brand new direction. [Minter + Richter] are the first in the country where you can completely design your wedding ring online.”

SR EasyAuthoring Integrated Blog Tool

Sales Renewal is pleased to announce the launch of SR EasyAuthoring™, an innovative, integrated blog authoring tool. SR EasyAuthoring was designed for small businesses to help them easily offer original and “curated” content in the single blog platform they already have on their websites.

Original + Curated Content

Fresh web content in the form of a business blog can be critical for both search engine optimization and to stay engaged with prospects and clients. But creating original content that resonates with its intended audience on a regular basis can be a full time job, and one that not every business can afford. With EasyAuthoring™ installed on their website, a business can easily supplement their blog’s original content with much less expensive curated content while still supporting their SEO efforts.

“Fresh web content in the form of a business blog can be critical for both search engine optimization and to stay engaged with prospects and clients, ” says Keith Loris, Sales Renewal President and CEO. “But creating original content that resonates with its intended audience on a regular basis can be a full time job, and one that not every small business can afford. With SR EasyAuthoring™ installed in their blogging platform, the business can easily supplement their original content posts with much less expensive and time-consuming curated content. And unlike comparable solutions that can cost anywhere from $1, 000-$6, 000 per month, EasyAuthoring is available from Sales Renewal for only $99 per month (and a $99 installation fee).”

Content curation is the process of finding existing, interesting content online and putting your own spin on it. The world is overflowing with information, so sorting through this content and finding the best bits to enhance with your own take or perspective can be as useful & attractive to visitors as writing original content. Content curation has many of the same benefits as original content blogging:

• informing your audience;
• showcasing your expertise;
• keeping your website content fresh
• contributing to your SEO efforts (but only if done right)

And one major advantage: It is a lot easier to comment on other people’s ideas than it is to come up with your own and then craft it into well written blog post.

Contact Sales Renewal to find out how EasyAuthoring can help you with your content marketing needs.

What Do I Need to Know About #mobilegeddon

We’ve fielded quite a few questions this week about what is now known as #mobilegeddon – Google’s new search update which factors mobile-friendliness in its search rankings. The most frantic of these questions was from a client who told us: “We’ve heard Google is going to shut down our website.”

We can tell you that this is not going to happen.

What is going to happen, is that you could start seeing your web traffic – and therefore leads – decline. The extent of that decline depends on how much of your traffic is generated by mobile organic search. Clients with 2% of site visits arriving via mobile search will probably not notice a huge change in traffic. Those with more mobile organic search traffic – like restaurants, real estate brokers, and other local shops – are more likely to be impacted. (Not sure if your site is mobile friendly? Find out how to test it here.)

Of course, even if you’re seeing mobile traffic in the 2% range, having a responsive site is not something to put off, as that could be the very reason your mobile traffic is light. While your audience may be desktop-based now, more and more people are going “mobile only, ” which means they may never use a desktop. Or, your traffic could be light because a poor mobile user experience means the users won’t stick around on your site, and most certainly won’t come back.

No Time for Panic

If you’re in an industry – like engineering – which tends to lag behind digital trends, you have some time to make sure your site is responsive. On the other hand, even in those lagging industries, the sooner you act, the sooner you may be able to draw visitors away from your competition. If you’re in an industry where most of your competitors are mobile-friendly, then it’s definitely time to join the ranks. Let us know how we can help.