Marketing

Cyrus Baseghi Gives Five Reasons Why Investing More in Video Marketing Will Increase Your Sales in 2020

Martin J. Stallone

The video marketing sector has been growing in importance for many years and should become one of the most impressive parts of any marketing approach in 2020. Cyrus Baseghi is a technology and sales expert who believes any company that is not moving towards video marketing will be left behind in terms of new sales in 2020. Here are the five best reasons why Cyrus Baseghi believes video marketing is key to the future.

1. People love watching videos

This is perhaps the simplest reason why video marketing has become such a hit with retailers and consumers in the 21st-century. Around one-third of all online activity is based around consuming videos via YoutTube and other platforms. The love of video that most people have translates as over 30 videos per month with the majority of people now looking to video as the main way they identify new products. Most people have now grown blind to banner and pop-up advertisements, meaning the next big thing will undoubtedly be video.

2. Convert clicks to sales

One thing all marketing experts have learned is that getting potential customers to a page is just the first step in building a successful way of converting page visits to sales. By getting a potential customer to the page of a retailer the job of the marketer is only half done because the company has the job of converting that visit to a purchase of their product or service. Video can add to the conversion rates of the majority of companies who report purchases are made at a rate of 74 percent among companies that use video and are watched in full.

3. Costs are constantly falling

Like most forms of technology, the cost of video production is falling each year to make attainable for almost every business owner. Thumbtack reports the average cost of video production services is around the $1,000 mark depending on the total run time and the region of the country the video is being produced in.

4. DIY is a possibility

Reports that movie director, Steven Soderbergh shot his latest movie on an iPhone are giving hope to moviemakers everywhere, Peta Pixel explains. The fact that one of the great directors of the 21st-century believes the standard of video shot is good enough to reach the silver screen means everybody can be a video producer. Options that include video shot by members of a marketing team can reduce the cost of online video content even further.

5. Remain high on the Google search listings

One of the most impressive aspects of the move towards a high position on Google searches is the improvement that can be seen when using video. Some estimates put the chance to appear at the top of a Google search as 53 times more likely when a video is embedded on a webpage.

Cyrus Baseghi sees these as just some of the many reasons why the video looks set to become the major trend for 2020 among marketing professionals. Developing new areas of interest for retailers and their customers in 2020 will see video-driven further to the top of the charts for those looking to develop their business online

Why Even Successful Legal Teams Should Invest In Marketing

Martin J. Stallone

Law Books
Even a successful legal practice can benefit from a renewed focus on marketing.

The cornerstone of any business growth is continuous marketing. When a company is considered successful, it doesn’t mean that they have to stop their promotions. In fact, they should always be on their toes as to prevent competition from creeping behind their backs. The same is true when it comes to legal teams. A lot of legal teams would often rely on the ‘name’ they have built for themselves, but they must also consider that at the same time, there are also companies striving to outdo them. According to Kinney Fernandez & Boire, a highly respected legal firm in Florida, there are several ways to start marketing as a legal team:

  • Audiovisual marketing – this is done by creating radio or TV ads, which present your specialization and how you can help your potential clients. We see this a lot on TV when legal teams offer help with getting claims from companies.
  • Print advertising – this is done through newspapers, magazines, posters and other forms of written content. You can pay for a space in a local newspaper or magazine and feature what your company can do for clients.
  • Digital marketing – the newest form of marketing, which is done through the internet. You can create your own website, and encourage people to inquire about your services through blog articles, social media, videos, digital ads and podcasts.

What are the reasons why even successful legal teams should consider marketing? Kinney Fernandez & Boire gives us insight on the benefits of marketing for all types of legal companies.

Five Reasons Why You Should Consider Marketing For Your Legal Team

  1. Marketing helps you reach the right clients

Legal companies are typically focused locally. This is why marketing is very important for legal teams. It helps you find local clients, and it also helps you narrow down your prospects based on your specialization. For example, when you begin a marketing campaign online by placing keywords such as slip and fall attorney Tampa, you will be able to find clients who specifically search for that keyword. Clients who are using these types of search terms are readily willing to inquire about your services. In the same way, if you advertise in local newspapers, you will also be more than likely find clients in your area.

  1. Marketing allows you to expand your business

Marketing is another way to expand your business. Once you take marketing tactics seriously, there is a higher chance of finding more clients for your business as well. As a firm gains notoriety locally, it becomes easier to bring in top talent and expand your case load. If expansion is your goal, you have to be dilligent about your marketing strategy.

  1. Marketing does the job of pitching your services

Additionally, marketing can help you pitch your services without having to speak with each client personally. Once you post an ad or build your website, people can find information about the services you offer. For example, if one of your clients decide to search for the term car accident attorney Tampa, they will be able to find information about your services regarding this term when they visit your website. When they call you, they won’t have to inquire more about it. All they have to do is request a consultation.

  1. Marketing strategies are more automated than ever before

Since many digital marketing strategies are automated such as targeted advertising, e-mail subscriptions, and chatbots, you can easily find clients without having to do the work yourself. This alleviates the workload by simply investing in digital marketing tools. With your marketing activities automated it leaves more time to focus on casework and developing the business itself.

 

  1. Marketing gets you ahead of the competition

As mentioned earlier, marketing is one of the best ways to always be ahead of your competitors. Although you may be leading today, do not expect that the same will be true tomorrow. By promoting your legal team, you can continuously maintain your reputation and keep the momentum of your business’ growth.

Above are the reasons why even successful legal companies should still continue to invest in marketing. As a general rule, marketing should always be a part of any kind of business. With something as highly-professional and specific as legal services, it is all the more necessary to have great marketing campaigns to find clients for your business.

 

Why Every Company Needs A Digital Marketing Plan

Martin J. Stallone

There are several reasons why Whitney Blodgett thinks that every company needs a digital marketing plan.

Direction

The first reason is that a written strategy is going to be able to give you some type of focus and direction. This means that the company is going to be able to know exactly what they need to do online and what tactics are going to work the best for their company. When the company is trying to get more visits on their website, they are going to be looking for new customers. If the company does not know what specific goals that they should have, then they are not going to be able to figure out what they will need to do to make sure that the company is as successful as possible. A written down strategy will help the company to come up with a powerful online presence so that they can define their targeted audience better.

Same ideas

The second reason is a digital marketing plan is going to allow everyone to be on the same page. When the company writes down all of the things that they are trying to accomplish all of their goals. When everything is written down, then the employees are going to know exactly how their goals are going to fit into the marketing priorities of the company. Plus the company will be able to measure whether or not they are actually going to be able to reach all of their goals. A written down marketing plan makes sure that everyone knows the goals of the company.

Better resources

The third reason is that the company is going to be able to get better resources. These resources are one of the best ways that the company is going to be able to accomplish all of their goals. When everything is written down, then the people who are going to be providing the company its resources are going to see exactly what the company needs to be successful. Therefore, the company can apply for the funding that they are going to need. This means that they might be able to hire more staff if it is needed. This allows the company to be a lot more efficient so that they have the opportunity to be as successful as possible. The resource providers will see that the company has a long term plan that they are going to try to reach with their resources.

No duplication

The fourth reason is that it is going to limit the amount of duplication that can happen inside of a company. Once the company has all of the resources that they need to be successful, the resources do not need to be wasted on things because the company did not have a written marketing plan that is going to outline what the company wants to do with those resources. Most of the time, this is going to happen in the larger companies because the company is going to purchase a lot of different tools and agencies that has the ability to perform the same tasks. Therefore, a written marketing plan will help to keep the company’s tasks and goals organized.

Optimization

The fifth reason is that a written marketing plan is going to help the company to be optimized so that they will be able to stay ahead of the competition. When the company has a god strategy, then the company will be able to benchmark all of their activities and they can set out the goals of the company. This means that the company will be able to see what is working for them and what is not. Therefore, they will be able to make changes in the areas where they need it the most.

These are the top five reasons that Whitney Blodgett thinks that a digital marketing plan is something that every company needs to be successful.

How Customer Feedback Facilitates Growth for SaaS Startups

Martin J. Stallone

The technology industry is – without a doubt – fiercely competitive. This is especially true for startups that offer Software as a Service (SaaS) as their survival obligates them to meet demands of constant innovation, adaptability and customer satisfaction. Consequently, these businesses must know how to successfully exploit new opportunities for growth as well as deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Kees Wolters, Mopinion Co-Founder and Managing Partner: “At Mopinion we help digital teams (at startups, medium- and enterprise businesses alike) make sense of customer feedback from their websites and mobile apps and turn it into real-time insights. These insights can reveal how your business is performing, for example, in terms of digital content, online sales funnels, user experience and customer loyalty.

As a fellow SaaS company, Mopinion very familiar with all the ins and outs of making a product successful and maintaining a certain level of innovation, while simultaneously meeting the needs of current and future customers. We are seeing a sizable increase in popularity of customer feedback solutions among both SaaS startups and scale-ups and expect to see this growth continue further in the future.”

A unique online customer journey

If we look at the online customer journey, SaaS startups have a slightly different ‘itinerary’ from other industries. This is mainly attributed to the fact that SaaS is more complex in terms of use. In order to capture the right insights, startups must focus on several Moments of Truth (MoT) along the journey. MoTs are impressionable moments when the customer interacts with a brand. The impression the customer gets can have a lot of influence on how/if the customer moves forward in the journey.

Helps optimise website content

Website content largely defines the success of a startup. It must be clear and effective in reeling in your customers.

Take your value proposition, for example. Your value proposition is the primary reason your prospect should choose your software. And for obvious reasons this proposition should be communicated clearly on your website for those who are scanning for different solutions and are unfamiliar with your brand. Using feedback, you can gain first-hand insights into what your visitors think of your content and how it can be improved to achieve more clarity.

Website content also encompasses components such as product descriptions, videos, and images. How many times have you still had some unanswered questions after researching a product or service on a website? This lack of information leaves customers in a kind of limbo. And when they cannot get the answers they’re looking for, it’s likely they’ll start searching elsewhere. This is a great opportunity to collect feedback from ‘confused’ customers and see where they are struggling. Subsequently this feedback can serve as guide for restructuring this content.

A time-saving and cost-effective alternative to having a customer service team on staff is the application of online support services. Online support has become very popular among SaaS businesses considering the fact that if more visitors or customers are helped and given service online using these support tools and valuable product content, the more money you can save on building up service and support teams. Online support services often include pages such as forums, online communities, FAQs, instructions and E-manuals. The clarity and helpfulness of these pages can be gauged using a simple feedback question: Was this helpful?

Improves the onboarding process

While website content and the initial phases of the online customer journey (including awareness, consideration and preference) are very important, what really sets the SaaS industry part is what happens after the trial sign up or purchase. This is considered the onboarding phase.

This is an important and delicate MoT because this is essentially when your customer makes their first acquaintance with your service. Should the customer be confused, overwhelmed with instructions or unable to find what they’re looking for in this stage, it’s up to the business to make sure any issues are resolved in a prompt and fluid manner – otherwise it can be detrimental to growth.

Activity-based feedback is a smart strategy for collecting feedback in this phase. For example, many SaaS companies utilise a step-by-step onboarding process to get the user set up. Should something go wrong during any of these steps, your company can initiate feedback triggers based on visitor behaviour (e.g. exit intent, time on the page or mouse movement). This allows you to capture insights regarding customers who are struggling to move forward in the process.

Plays a role in product development

As previously mentioned, constant innovation is compulsory for SaaS startups that have intentions of ‘sticking around’. To maintain a competitive level of innovation, an iterative approach is often required. In terms of product development (and according to the Lean Start-Up methodology), this approach translates to making constant product improvements by applying short feedback cycles before and during product development.

With these cycles, SaaS companies can test out new models of products using feedback from customers, buyers and partners. The feedback is then used to make additional improvements and enhance the product.

Measure and boost customer loyalty

Bringing in new customers can be a difficult task for startups, which is why a great deal of focus should be placed on retaining actual customers. Customer churn, for example, is a widespread issue among many SaaS companies. There are several factors that are pulling customers away including the high level of competition, which often involves aggressive pricing strategies from many low wage countries as well as the high chance that new features will be copied by competitors.

To manage this, it’s important to know where you stand with your customers. How content are they with your product or service? Would they go so far as to recommend you to a friend? These are the insights businesses need to foster strong relationships with their customers.

Using loyalty metrics in feedback forms, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), companies can learn a lot about their customers and gauge how they regard your brand and its services. But it’s important to keep in mind that this metric is not as important as the actions you take to improve the overall customer experience – that is the true differentiator. Responding to or resolving what arises within feedback results can also be used to make the journey more personal as it makes the customer feel ‘heard’. Follow ups are especially feasible for startups with lower levels of traffic and customers.

Harnessing the right data to create valuable change

There are countless startups that have already chosen to collect feedback – a feat which can be applauded. However, the real challenge is making sense of the data and creating valuable change.

Considering much of the feedback businesses collect often comes in large numbers, dashboard analyses are particularly helpful. Dashboards can help the user visualise feedback all at once, making it easier to identify trends. And for a closer look at what is driving these trends (in other words identifying the root cause), users can hone in on particular items and see where things are going right or wrong.

Once the data has been analysed, coming up with a plan of action must not be forgotten. Where do you go from here and who should be involved in making sure things go as planned? These last steps (analysing and actioning feedback) are the crux of the whole process.

What impact will customer feedback have on SaaS startups?

Many startups currently put the height of their focus on the success of the product itself – in other words, adding more features and updating existing features. But how does this help them maintain customer loyalty? And better yet, how will they know if their developments are actually meeting the needs of their customers?

This is why customer experience (and therefore adopting a customer feedback programme) is seen as a key differentiator for SaaS startups. Having a deeper understanding of customer expectations will give you a huge competitive advantage. Feedback will also put you in a better position to maintain customer loyalty ass it provides you with the knowledge needed to keep your customers satisfied and coming back.

A Synopsis of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a critical component for SaaS startups that can be applied in various ways across the online customer journey. It enables these businesses to optimise the journey for customers who experience issues during the most critical MoTs for SaaS companies: purchasing, onboarding and post-purchase.

What comes next is equally as important – analysing and actioning these insights. Analysing feedback starts with performing root cause analyses on a regular basis to discover the origin of issues. And in order to alleviate these issues efficiently, it’s important to have the right team members involved to ensure a smooth transition from insights to action. The last step in the process is to ‘close the loop’ or follow up on the feedback. This is a surefire way to positively influence customer retention and satisfaction.

Measure the customer experience continuously. In an evolving industry that demands constant development and emerging innovations, a lot of things are changing. This is why it’s critical to consistently measure customer experience and evaluate both your performance and the satisfaction of your customers. This is the best way to achieve continuous growth.

About Kees Wolters, Mopinion

Kees Wolters, is co-founder at Mopinion, has a background in digital marketing, web development and design. He has worked for both large enterprises, such as Philips, as well as smaller web agencies. With this experience under his belt, he ultimately started up his own web and mobile app development agency with two former colleagues. A wise decision, as it led him and his team to discovering the importance of user and customer feedback and subsequently the development of their own platform – Mopinion. After taking off in its first year and signing on some major clients, Mopinion is now one of the fastest growing companies in the digital customer experience space.


What Are The Benefits Of Hiring A Consultant For Your Business?

Martin J. Stallone

Business consulting is a field that has continued to gain application, especially with the growth of technology. New methods of developing a business have popped up and it has become easier to manage challenges with the ideas that are shared by experts. You might be grappling with the idea of hiring a business consultant but cannot find a reason to do it because you think your business is doing well and for some reason you don’t foresee any challenges. If that is the case, then you might want to reconsider your position because there are endless reasons why you need an expert to help you.

Cut costs while enhancing efficiency

One of the things you need to do while nurturing a business is to cut costs and achieve higher efficiency while doing so. This is not easy to fathom especially if you don’t have a deep background in business. The only way you could understand how to optimize your business to reduce costs while raising efficiency is if you can work with an experienced consultant in that area. Consulting, basically, will save you money in the long run that you could have spent to pay for services you don’t need in the first place.

Make the most of your resources

Having limited resources is not an impediment if you know how to optimize your business to use these resources to the maximum benefit of the business. A consultant is someone who can spot opportunities you are not aware of that can help your business to achieve growth using the little resources available. Make the most of what is available by choosing effective ways of doing things that will allow you to push your business to its extremes. 

Get the most effective strategy for your buck

You also don’t want to spend a lot on strategies that have no proven results or the potential to take your business to the next level. Since there are many options to go for, especially when it comes to marketing, you could get confused about which strategy to pick for your business. This is where the support of a business consultant comes in handy as this is an expert who can easily separate working strategies from ones that will only eat up on your budget. Don’t pour money into a process that has not been authenticated by an expert yet.

Do you have an effective marketing plan?

Without marketing, you cannot reach the target audience that can help your business to achieve its goals. However, choosing an effective marketing strategy is a problem in itself that you have to hand over to an expert who is able to advice on what your business needs to succeed. Choosing the right marketing plan allows you to use your resources in the best way and you can push your business to grow within a short period of time.