A 2020 study done by Wyzowl also found that people share videos twice as much as any other form of content. The study also found that the majority (84%) of people would buy a product based on a brand’s video.

To capitalize on this trend and elevate your e-commerce strategy, collaborating with an experienced ecommerce agency can be instrumental. Their expertise in creating and optimizing video content tailored to your target audience can significantly enhance your brand’s visibility, engagement, and ultimately, contribute to the substantial success of your e-commerce venture.

Moreover, these agencies often bring a holistic approach to digital marketing, offering a range of services beyond video content creation. From implementing effective social media campaigns and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to refining your website’s user experience, their multifaceted expertise can address various facets of your online presence. This comprehensive support ensures that your brand not only stands out visually but also performs well across different online channels, driving sustained growth and customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, the holistic approach of these agencies extends beyond mere technological integration. They recognize the significance of crafting compelling narratives and engaging content that resonate with your target audience. Whether it’s through captivating social media posts, strategically optimized website content, or impactful SEO strategies, these experts understand the nuances of effective communication in the digital realm. In this context, the Upsize dashboard acts as a catalyst, providing a centralized hub for streamlined campaign management and performance analysis. This comprehensive approach not only ensures a visually appealing online presence but also establishes a strong foundation for sustained growth and enhanced customer satisfaction in the competitive digital landscape.

What Are Short-form Videos?

Videos that are 2 minutes and 30 seconds in length or less are considered to be short-form videos by most standards. However, there is no consensus that social media platforms have decided upon. For example, short-form videos on TikTok are 60 seconds. On Twitter, short-form videos are up to 2:20 minutes.

As platforms like TikTok began to dominate in the last couple of years, the length of a short-form video is now getting shorter and is generally considered to be between 60 seconds and 2 minutes.

On YouTube, a short-form video can be as long as 10 minutes, since that is the minimum run time before a video can be monetized with ads.

How to Use the Short-term Content Type in Your Marketing?

If you’re not quite sure how to use short-form videos in your ecommerce marketing, here are some ideas:

Create User-Generated Content (UGC)

Customers love UGC and it has the potential to influence their purchase decisions more so than brand- or influencer-generated content. The best part is that user generated content won’t require you to take up additional resources and it’s budget friendly.

The desire for ecommerce brands to chase the latest trends. However, when it comes to setting the standard for your brand, stick with what is on-brand for your ecommerce business.

Behind Your Ecommerce Brand

Customers love to see the behind the scenes at ecommerce brands. So don’t be afraid to pull back the curtain and show customers exactly how your products are made and/or where they come from.

Explainer Videos

Sometimes your customers need help with learning how to best use your services. By creating short-form educational content, such as how-tos and walkthroughs of your website, you’ll be able to help build strong brand loyalty.

How to Use Short-form Videos Authentically

Short-form videos require that you take a more creative and human approach to your ecommerce marketing. Focus on the best ways to engage with your audience that make effective use of the short time span that you have to get your message across.

Whether it is to teach viewers something new or make them laugh, you can show your brand’s unique personality and help your ecommerce brand to stand out among digital giants like Amazon and AliExpress.

Final Thoughts

While you won’t be able to leverage every TikTok challenge to boost your content strategy, there are plenty of opportunities out there. Focus on staying true to your ecommerce brand and connecting directly with your most loyal customers for the best results.

The post Short-Form Video Content Marketing 101 appeared first on Madplum Creative.

To help you crush it with customers, here are 4 tips to help you uncover the anatomy of a highly effective social media ad.

1. Use Stories to Educate and Engage

Stories are short-form content and videos that are available as a content type on social media networks such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. In 2021, e-commerce brands are finding clever ways to utilize storytelling on social media.

By using this content type to engage your audience throughout the day, you can keep  your brand at the forefront of customers’ minds every time they log into their accounts. Make sure to provide quick bites of information with each story that give customers the information that they need to make a purchase when they’re ready to.

2. “Go Live” With Ads

Your fans love when you “go live” because it creates a sense of urgency and excitement. You can create content that will appear to your followers at the specific time of day that they are most likely to be active. For best results, make sure that you track your promotion offer results after going live at multiple times per day.

The other way to ensure that this method is highly effective is to use your conversion rate as the measurement of success for an ad rather than the number of views. This can help you to decrease your ad spend over time by focusing on buyers rather than people who simply watch to watch.

3. Audiences

Most social media channels offer you options to help you reach your target audience. By using different audience targets for each of your ad sets, you’ll be able to reach all of the groups that can help you meet your business goals. Here are some of the audience targeting options available on Facebook and we recommend using all three:

• Core Audiences:

  Core audiences offer a way for you to reach potential customers who are unaware that your e-commerce site exists. By targeting users in a specific location, demographics, interests, behavior or connections directly, you can bring in new prospects.

• Custom Audiences:

  Facebook offers custom audiences to allow you engage with people who have previously shown interest in your online store. By installing a Facebook pixel on your e-commerce website, you can target returning visitors and customers via Facebook ads.

• Lookalike Audience:

  A lookalike audience is popular with advertisers because they are a fast way to connect with users that are the most likely to respond to your ads. One you have created a source audience, then your ads can reach people who have similar interests and traits.

4. Multichannel Ad Campaigns

Even if you have a smaller budget, you should still make an effort to reach out beyond Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads to find customers for your business. You can try platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok to find customers.

While Facebook and Instagram Ads deliver good results, we always recommend that you advertise on multiple platforms so that if one platform goes down, your ads will still be shown elsewhere. Plus you’ll also be able to learn how your customers’ behaviors and interests vary from platform to platform.

The post Anatomy of a High Performance Social Media Ad appeared first on Madplum Creative.

To help you get started with e-commerce marketing automation, here are 9 must have email automation flows for your online store.

1. Welcome Emails for New Signups

The welcome email has become the standard in all industries, especially for e-commerce email marketing. Every customer expects to receive a formal greeting from a company after signing up.

With a welcome email, you can give customers an idea of what to expect from your brand and what they need to do next after signing up.

Automating this process is critical because e-commerce is a 24/7 business. Your email could be the trigger that they need to make a purchase because oftentimes customers  expect to receive a first-time customer discount with their emails.

2. Personalized Product Recommendations

If you have an email list for existing customers, you can make their shopping experience more personalized with product recommendations via email automation. E-commerce emails of this type should be triggered by what a customer has already browsed for you on a website or purchased previously.

3. Discount Email Automations

One interesting thing that you can do with email automation is that you can target it to the exact moment when a customer is about to make a purchase.

By sending the discount right before they head to the cart based on previous sales data, you can make sure that you eliminate price as an objection before they make a sale.

In addition, you can also use discount emails to reach customers who have purchased a product multiple times but haven’t shopped for it in awhile. In this context a discount email would serve as a means of reactivating a dormant customer account.

4. Stop Cart Abandonment

Most abandoned shopping carts on e-commerce sites are the result of a customer encountering an unexpected situation during checkout. For example, there may be taxes, shipping or extra delivery time added to the order at the last step that the customer didn’t anticipate.

By setting up an abandoned email cart flow for your e-commerce store, you can reach the customer after they’ve just left your side and gently remind them to come back. You can also send several email follow ups: one after the first hour, 12 hours later, and 24 hours after the cart is abandoned.

5. Order Confirmation and Shipping Notifications for Purchases

The order confirmation and shipping emails are standard for e-commerce. However, there is no need to send these emails manually. By integrating your email marketing with your existing e-commerce business tools, you can provide the reassurance and transparency that your customers demand after a purchase.

6. Stop Browse Abandonment

Browse abandonment is a trickier problem to deal with than cart abandonment because of the fact that it can happen for a wide variety of reasons. With cart abandonment, price is usually the reason why the customer doesn’t complete the purchase. However, with browser abandonment, you have very limited insight (just the few pages that they browsed) in order to determine what actually occurred.

To combat this problem, you can add email automations that are triggered by category browsing. Then send emails with the products that the browser was interested in, along with one or two products that complements those as well.

7. Customer Feedback and Reviews

Customer reviews are critical for e-commerce stores. Having great reviews is the difference between building a loyal customer base and one-off sales with customers who never return.

Instead of avoiding asking your customers about their experiences, set up a simple timed email automation workflow that will go out a certain number of days after the customer has placed or received their order.

8. Thinking of You and Birthday Emails

Sending emails on the spur of the moment or for a birthday is easy to do with email automation. All it takes is adding an extra special touch like this to ensure that your customer will never avoid opening your emails again.

9. Re-Engagement Emails

If you have some customers whose accounts have gone dormant, re-engagement emails can fix this. By using email automation to reactivate customers, you can avoid churning and raise new interest by sharing recommendations, new products, and updates since their account was last active.

The post 9 Must Have Email Automation Flows for Your Online Store appeared first on Madplum Creative.

Here is how to create a successful brand ambassador program for your ecommerce brand.

What Is a Brand Ambassador Program?

A brand ambassador or brand advocate is simply a person who will speak positively about your ecommerce brand. They can shout-out about your business, show off their latest purchases from your company, and even recommend you to their followers.

Your ambassadors are your biggest fans. They understand and support your brand and are always the first to “Like” new posts and comment on them.

Who Are Brand Ambassadors?

Brand ambassadors aren’t only influencers. They can also be:

Customers: Customers who aren’t affiliated with your company who genuinely support your company and have the ability to influence future customers.

Employees: Employee brand advocates know the inside and outside of your business. They have a relatable nature which can also make them a powerful tool in advocacy.

Business Partners: Organizations that are affiliated with your ecommerce companies or charities can also help to influence your customers’ purchase decisions.

What Is a Brand Ambassador Program?

A brand ambassador program is an initiative that takes place across the brand to help find the people who meet the characteristics of a brand ambassador and encourage them to promote your ecommerce brand.

A program like this will generate relationships and partnerships that you can leverage when you need the support of people who genuinely like your content, company, and product or services.

When you use brand ambassadors as a part of your ecommerce marketing strategy, you’ll be able to tap into a source of positive messages about your company and build brand awareness over time.

Brand Ambassador Program Types

After you’ve established the goals and audience for an ecommerce brand ambassador program, you need to determine the type of program:

• Customers – This is when real customers are incentivized to interact with the brand.
• Employees – This happens when employees are encouraged and rewarded for sharing positive news about the ecommerce brand.
• Students – College students can become brand ambassadors for your ecommerce brand by spreading the word on campus. This works especially well for ecommerce companies that want to target the college-aged demographic.
• Affiliates – Affiliates promote your ecommerce brand on their own sites with a reward in the form of an affiliate commission for every purchase made by a customer.

How to Launch a Successful Brand Ambassador Program

Here is how to launch a successful brand ambassador program in 5 steps:

1. Establish Your Goals

Here are few questions to ask:

What are our key performance indicators for the campaign?

What is the overall goal for the campaign (e.g. build brand awareness, improve brand image, sales, retain customers)?

2. Define Your Ideal Brand Ambassador

Finding potential brand ambassadors is an important part of setting up your brand ambassador program. You want people to have the same values and qualities that are on-brand for your ecommerce company.

Ambassadors have large networks of your target customers and can help increase your ecommerce sales and brand awareness by spreading the word about your brand.

Typically, you should start with your employees and customers.

3. Give an Incentive

For your employee brand ambassadors offer employee recognition opportunities and other prizes that will encourage engagement.

For customer brand ambassadors offer discounts, free trials, get them involved in product testing, or offer free swag. You can get authentic engagement from them; however, your customers will be delighted if you offer incentives along the way as well.

Be clear about what you are going to give and what you expect from your brand ambassadors in response.

4. Offer Training and Support

The best brand ambassadors are the ones who are the most effective at promoting your ecommerce brands. You might want to consider giving them products or content assets that you’d like them to promote. You can also help them to improve their skills at promoting your brand by signing them up for workshops and courses that can enhance their success.

5. Track Performance

Finally, you need to know how your brand ambassadors are doing.

Track their social media to see how often they post and how much engagement each post receives. Compare their progress to your own marketing goals over time to see if they were able to exceed them.

You should make sure to request frequent updates so that your brand ambassadors always have the information that they need regarding company updates. By keeping them in the loop at all times, you’ll be able to maximize their success.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Brand Ambassador Program Success appeared first on Madplum Creative.

When it comes to social media, Instagram is way ahead of the competition when helping e-commerce brands sell. Based on 2021 studies 81% of Instagram’s one billion users use Instagram to research products and services, and 50% of people visit a website to make a purchase after seeing something they want. This means sites where you can connect with influencers like Instagram are a major factor in your e-commerce marketing success.

Instead of just relying on viral influencer content to boost your brand, there is actually a hack that you can use. Here is the #1 social media influencer hack for e-commerce brands for 2021.

What Are Facebook and Instagram Branded Content Ads?

Branded Content ads on Facebook and Instagram give creators the ability to incorporate branded content posts into their advertising strategies. With this feature, advertisers can promote creator’s organic branded content posts as feed and stories ads. These types of ads are also known as whitelisted ads.

What Is Whitelisting?

Whitelisted ads are ads that leverage the creator’s appearance (their @username) and the content that they created can be added directly to your Instagram Ad account. As a result, when consumers see whitelisted ads that you’re running via Instagram’s Branded Content ads, you can rest assured that they are seeing messages from a creator who they trust instead of a faceless brand. Whitelisted ads are not limited to Instagram. In fact, they can be run via both Facebook and Instagram via a creator handle.

How Is Whitelisting Different From Boost or Promotion?

Boosted and promoted ads make use of a creator’s organic post rather than creating an ad that is specifically for the brand from scratch. When you use whitelisted ads, you’re able to create a completely new ad that leverages the creators content.

By doing this, your branded e-commerce content will not interfere with the creator’s organic content. When you whitelist content you’ll be able to test multiple different versions of the ad in order to discover what works for your brand and optimize it.

Why Do Branded Content Ads Work?

According to data from Instagram, 68% of survey respondents reported that they come to Instagram to interact with creators. With Branded Content, you’ll be able to tell your e-commerce brand’s stories via creators’ voices.

With this feature, you can tap into new audiences and measure the response. Tapping into niche markets is one of the best ways to acquire new customers without expending additional ad spend for e-commerce brands.

Branded Ads Are Guaranteed Brand Safe Content

While influencer content remains a reliable marketing channel for e-commerce brands, Instagram Branded Content ads give you more of the granular control that you need to ensure that the content both matches your audience and is brand safe. You’ll also get the transparency that you need thanks to the “Paid partnership with” and brand name that will appear on every post. The Branded Content Tag is available in Feed, Stories, Reels, and Live.

Save Time, Identify Influencers Who Are Proven to Convert

Let’s face it. Having influencers promote your brand is all about improving your results. Whether it’s more sales, greater brand awareness, or reaching new audiences, your e-commerce brand needs influencers that fit the bill.

The post #1 Social Media Influencer Hack for Brands appeared first on Madplum Creative.

Having quick access to information is something that has become a part of our daily lives, so being able to represent data in the real world in a way that is easy to understand is increasingly important. This is why there is a growing need to understand charts and how data is represented on them. Charts make it easier to present and understand complex data sets; however, because there are so many different types of charts to choose from, it can get a bit confusing understanding which is which and which is best for what.

Creating Charts

Bar Charts

Clustered Bar Charts

Stacked Bar Chart

Range Bar Charts

Stacked Pyramid Charts

Bar Charts vs Column Charts

Population Pyramid Bar Charts

Error Bars on Bar Charts

Negative Bar Values

Icons on Bars

Colour Blind/ Accessibility

Linear Gauge

Conclusion

The post Understanding Bar Charts and Column Charts appeared first on Madplum Creative.

Marketing managers, sales representatives, and customer service professionals need to process a rapid flow of information to decrease the waiting time for every customer. It can also help them understand what customers need during these interactions. Organizations that use data visualization and business intelligence can obtain critical information 78% of the time, within the decision window, an improvement of 22% over organizations who don’t use these tools!

Improving Customer Experience with Data Visualization

We are going to discuss a few ways in which data visualization can help organizations do better when it comes to customer experience and overall customer satisfaction.

Customer-Interactivity

Only a few years ago, customer service was based on static texts and automated one-dimensional encounters. Today, the visualization of big data has taken customer experience between a company and its client to a whole new level of interactivity.

Businesses are using different visualization techniques that promote interactivity with their customers. One example of that is application (app) dashboards or live sessions that are operating in real time. They keep getting updates as the customers make any changes to any of the contributing factors. This helps them make a quick and better decision on how they want to do certain tasks which leads to better customer experience.

Investment centers, credit facilities, and banks have added different data visualization techniques to help customers analyze their expenses. This could be in the form of a pie chart or trending graphs to differentiate between their spending and saving allocations. The concept is based on reaping the full benefits of the data present in a customer’s financial statements and creating a customer-centric design that meets their needs.

Analyzing Product Performance

Data visualization has played an important role in bringing the customer experience to a level higher than it used to be. Organizations have switched to visuals to promote their products by using a very user-centric design. Data visualization can help analyze the performance of a product or service. It can also help us address any issues with the product as reported by a customer. Data visualization makes it easier to recognize customer behavior trends about specific products or services. These data points give actionable insights so that we can change our business practices according to the choice of our customer.

Understand Data Consumption Objectives

With enough data present about the interactions with customers, data visualization tools can help customer service professionals understand and answer what data does a user need to access? When and Why? What is the smallest amount of data that will help answer the user’s question? These are some of the questions that data visualization answers.

Creating a Mobile First Design

An interesting application of data visualization is the integration of dashboards on a website. A number of businesses and industries are following this trend of showing their stats using a dashboard on their websites based on customer feedback and demand. Dashboards have also given rise to using an approach when designing a website or an app.

The Mobile First technique is exactly as it sounds, designing an app or a website design for the smallest screen and then moving your way up to tablets, laptops, and desktops. It is a good technique to create a responsive and adaptive design for an app or a website. With very small screens, it is hard to present the customer with their extensive but important data that is where data visualization comes in. It helps show important information which would otherwise fit a whole webpage into small responsive figures which can easily fit on a small display of a mobile phone. Customer analytics shows that mobile first leads to greater customer engagement and longer visits.

Identify Customers with recurring issues

Another goal of designing a better customer experience is to identify customers who are experiencing recurring issues. It is done in order to separate them from the rest of the customer interactions. Teams can attach unique codes to these individuals to keep track of their issues throughout their interaction with the company. Data visualization can help identify this data from other normal interactions and can help make it easier to communicate these customers individually and let them know the status of their problem. Visualization can also help later use this data to solve other recurring problems which enhance customer retention.

Data Visualization is gradually becoming an integral part of company operations as a means to understand big data. Nowhere is it more needed than in dealing with customer service complaints. This data has to be available in real time and analytics tools help to ensure that high priority customers don’t get missed. This enables customer service professionals to handle their interactions with customers in a better way, reducing response times, and providing more transparent communications.

Conclusion

Customer experience is key to modern business and Data visualization is a critical component to deliver consistent customer experiences. From the customer’s own interactions with charts, that enable quick actions, to employees and agents tools managing those customers in the most efficient way possible, many aspects of one’s business can be improved through leveraging these tools.

This article is contributed by JSCharting.

The post Improving Customer Experience (CX) with Data Visualization (DV) appeared first on Madplum Creative.

From marketing campaigns to ardent hobbyists, education boards, and anxious teens, video has become an inextricable part of our lives. In fact, you might even say that in order to be successful in today’s tech-tethered world, video has to be a regular part of your vernacular.

As we delve into the subject of video utilization in 2019, exploring the coolest trends on the horizon, we cannot ignore the evolving landscape of virtual interactions. Amidst these trends, delve into the captivating realm of webcam chathosts demographics, an aspect that adds a dynamic layer to our understanding of video communication. Get ready to immerse yourself in the exciting realm where technology meets human connection.

Well, whether you’re embracing this technology to help drive sales or make an ex-boyfriend jealous, videos are inspiring people, moving them to action, and explaining concepts like never before. So, what are some ways you can use videos in 2019? Check out some of the coolest trends you can look forward to this coming year.

Video Trend #1 Vertical Videos

Don’t you hate it when you capture a video the wrong way, and then when you go to watch it, the screen optimizes it into a tiny view? That’s not the way videos were meant to be enjoyed, and fortunately for us, the techies have figured out how to fix this issue. Today, tools like IGTV are enabling people to capture those cool must-see videos in vertical form and view them full screen. This trend is guaranteed to continue as developers tweak and improve the technology. Thanks, techies!

Video Trend #2 Video Podcasts

Most people have a healthy diet of podcasts sprinkled throughout their week. From riveting historical renditions to Dan Carlin to calming meditations like Headspace, we all love to tune into our favorite podcasts while commuting to work, washing the dishes, or winding down at night.

In 2019, you can expect to see this trend continuing, only with an upgrade of sorts. Podcasts will continue as audio files, but now you’ll be seeing a rise in video podcasts as well. The addition of video to a podcast feed is experiential. Instead of just hearing your host, you can now see them, watch their body language, see their facial expressions, and get to know them on a deeper level. MindValley is an excellent example of taking video podcasts and making them golden. These inspirational talks would be great in just audio form, but you can’t compare the experience when you get to watch the speakers excitedly give over their passion to you.

Video Trend #3 SEO Builders

The generation of absent-minded scrolling has been born, and most of society scrolls through pages of content without even batting an eyelash. So, we have to come up with new ways to snap people back to attention, and video is the answer.

From social media to online retailers, everyone is getting on the video bandwagon. Just imagine you’re scrolling through your Instagram feed, hardly even noticing the enticing entrees your friends had for lunch, the adorable pair of boots someone tried on, and that awesome life hack you’ll probably end up messing up. Suddenly, a video pops onto the screen. The motion alone catches your attention. Even if you aren’t interested in watching the full video, you’ll pause from your apathetic scrolling for a few seconds, and maybe even watch a minute or two.

The technique is being adopted now and will be seen more and more in 2019 as the longer someone spends on a video or website, the better Google rankings, Instagram positions, etc. you’ll earn.

Video Trend #4 Dolly Zoom & Other Visual Effects

When video editing first became popular, special effects were all the rage. They took a little hiatus, but with new and improved technologies at their disposal, videographers are embracing the visual effects with new fervor and vim. This coming year you should expect to see some incredible new visual effects as well as a resurgence of some oldies, but goodies (of course with a facelift, tummy tuck, and Botoxed up!), and the dolly zoom is a great example.

This effect, aka push-pull aka vertigo effect, makes the background elements look like they’re changing sizes or moving when in reality they are not. It’s done with the zoom feature on your device or editing tool, and when done properly, it looks amazing. Watch out for this cool video technique, and if you are considering getting a new drone, hold out for one with this as a default setting.

Video Trend #5 Marketing Videos

Businesses are figuring out a neat trick: people love cartoons! If a cartoon pops onto the screen, we almost can’t help but watch. Those adorable animated figures draw our attention like nobody’s business, and that’s why smart companies have started incorporating animated videos into their marketing playbooks.

Take this video from Behalf, for example. You could read about this successful B2B purchase financing solution on its website, but who wants to sit and read paragraph after paragraph about features, tools, and backend? A clever marketing video can tell potential customers all the key information in less than a minute, piquing interest, and inviting them in for more details. Plus, with animation and video, features and implementation are clearer and more understandable than when they are written out in text form.

Video Trend #6 Animated Tutorials

But why stop once you’ve acquired a customer? Videos can help you educate as much as they can help reel you in. Check out this video from Headspace. Whether you’re into meditation or not, you’ll automatically be taken by the smiling, friendly, and somewhat awkward cartoon figure. You’ll watch the one-minute video…and then you’re hooked. Major companies are starting to add animation videos to all aspects of their business from marketing to tutorials, and they’re seeing great results.

Video Trend #7 GIF Explosion

GIFs are not new to the video scene, but they are absolutely exploding in 2019. One reason for the rise in popularity is because GIFs are just so much fun. You get to see a hilarious shot come to life and express exactly what you’re trying to say or feel. The other reason is because today you can convert MP4 to GIF  in no time. There are great tools like this one to help you download YouTube videos and convert them into funny animated snippets perfect for saying “You go girl!”, “Happy birthday!”, or “Are you for real?!”. Whatever your message, say it with a GIF.

Video Trend #8 OMG! 360 Degree Videos

It’s hard to say which is the coolest video trend we’ve seen for this coming year, but the 360-degree video rotation is definitely one of the top contenders. After all, who wouldn’t want to see a full view of the entire area they’re checking out? This is an awesome tool being used by many businesses in the hospitality industry.

For example, you can go to a BNB and take a virtual tour around the place you are potentially going to rent to get an idea if it’s right for you. Tourism businesses are using 360-degree videos to show travelers exactly what they can expect from a vacation in the Maldives, Great Barrier Reef, or Bali.

And really, can you say immersive? That’s the best way to explain why this video trend is going viral and will absolutely soar in 2019.

Video Trend #9 Story-Showing, the Ultimate Experience

Just a few decades ago, people sat around listening to a story unfold, enraptured by the details, spellbound by the inflections of the storyteller, the expressions on their face, and the sound of the words.

The storyteller was a magician who could tell their audience that anything was true, and they would really believe it. Today, the power of a good story still holds magical properties, but stories have taken on a new face. From businesses to friends and family, people have shifted from storytelling to story-showing, and the experience is even more captivating than it was years ago. Now, in addition to the story being told by a solo expert, skilled at using voice vibrations, eyebrow gestures, and carefully planned pauses, our stories can be told by multiple players, across multiple scenes, and using multiple techniques to drive the point home.

Companies are using videos to tell their story, giving the business a more personal feel, and explaining the human side of the corporate world. Travel bloggers aren’t limited to just breathtaking photos anymore. Instead, travel videos are wildly popular as people feel like they’re actually traversing the mountains, valleys, oceans, and jungles while they view the world from a carefully recorded video.

Video Trend #10 Learning Made Easy

Have you ever tried following a step-by-step how-to article? It might be a recipe for those decadent Margarita cupcakes you had once and need to figure out how to make, or it could be that fabulous wall painting feature you are green with envy over. Whatever the content, getting it to work out the way the Instagram shot shows can prove to be…challenging.

But what a world of difference when you translate that written tutorial into a video. When you see what the person is doing, how each step is supposed to come out, and what you need to do, it helps avoid frustrating, messy, and sometimes costly mistakes.

Businesses are using this to train employees on the job. Gone are the days when a manager stood on top of you to show you the ropes. Today, it’s a DIY world, and employees are looking towards how-to videos to help educate themselves on the job.

Hobbyists are also using video tutorials to learn the tricks of the trade from video game leveling up to professional makeup application to baking like Martha Stewart. Watch a video, and learn a skill. It’s that simple, and 2019 is all over that.

Video Trends: Video Killed the Radio Star, But Who Cares?!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million. What you can convey with a still photo is nothing compared to what you can get across using moving pictures. And that’s why 87% of marketers are using video within their campaigns (and that number is only expected to go up in the foreseeable future). What’s your favorite video trend for 2019?

The post 10 Video Trends We Look Forward to in 2019 appeared first on Madplum Creative.

Madplum Creative was privileged to work hand in hand with PSI (Population Services International), a global health network dedicated to ending extreme poverty in developing nations with a focus on women as catalysts for change. We were charged with building a brand of game-changing beauty in the world of philanthropy. Our mission: to give life to the organization in a way that would be worthy of their incredible mission.

First and foremost, Madplum Creative embarked on defining Maverick Collective’s unique approach: a dedication to “invested investing” championing real-life, tangible involvement— essentially a paradigm shift in the world of philanthropy. To help articulate their mission, we identified and designed four key participation stages—Pilot, Learn, Leverage, and Scale—bringing clarity and approachability to their ambitious model.

With the groundwork set, Madplum Creative was ready to leap into creative development. This included extending our design work to all brand touchpoints including collateral and presentation templates, stationery, emails, as well setting the stage for our website design and video storytelling. In order to ensure Maverick Collective visually stood out as a new and unparalleled approach, we took careful stock of the philanthropic landscape, determining what others were doing and how they were communicating it. We found clear commonalities in the space: bright, saturated colors, busy, text-heavy composition, and poverty-focused imagery. In the end, we found that we could set the Maverick Collective brand apart using a look that was equal parts bold, informative, confident, hand-crafted, and above all, empowering.

In May 2016, Maverick Collective was officially unveiled at the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The event marks the largest global conference in the health, rights, and well-being of girls and women in the last decade. Melinda Gates announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be contributing $80 million towards collecting data about the specific problems facing the world’s female population—and putting that information to good use. Madplum Creative could not be more proud to have helped launch this incredible philanthropy, giving a face of empowerment to a powerful vehicle for global change. Explore the incredible projects of these remarkable women and how we brought them to life at www.maverickcollective.org.

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Not all customers offer equal value so it’s important for businesses to prioritize customers and demographics that offer maximum return on interest. For that, you need to calculate the customer lifetime value and come up with a content marketing strategy based on the data collected.

What is Customer Lifetime Value?

The customer lifetime value is the approximate projected revenue a newly acquired customer might provide over their lifetime as a customer. This concept looks at the future value of the customer instead of the past profitability. Unlike other metrics that focus on short-term profits, the customer lifetime value encourages firms to focus on developing good relationships and associations with their customers. This ensures that customers get the best possible service and you have a base that will provide consistent revenue.

This metric will also help you decide how much you should reasonably spend on your marketing to get returns on your investment. Some businesses spend too much money on marketing and don’t get enough income from their acquired customers.

How To Calculate Customer Lifetime Value?

There are many ways to calculate customer lifetime value. Some of these methods lead to vague predictions that provide very little value. Other customer lifetime value formulas are more sophisticated and provide better results. There are several factors involved in determining the lifetime value so it’s a good idea to hire a professional to help you. Here’s a step by step method to determine the customer lifetime value:

• Average Variables – Before you calculate the customer lifetime value, you need to determine the current value of each customer. You would have to create a group of customers. Five to ten customers should be a reasonable number to get an accurate average. Determine the average amount spent per visit and the average number of visits per week. The current value of the customer per week (a) would be the average spends (s) multiplied by average number of visits per week (c).
• Identify the Constants –The next step is to determine the average customer lifespan(t), customer retention rate(r), profit margin for every customer (p), and rate of discount or interest rates of the discounted cash flow analysis (i). All of these variables are required if you want to calculate lifetime value (m).
• The Formula – Most companies use a number of different formulas to get the best results. The traditional lifetime value equation is m(r/1+i-r). This formula will give a fairly accurate prediction of the future customer lifetime value equation. There are other, easier or less accurate ways to calculate the customer lifetime value and you can find them with a brief Google search.

The customer lifetime value is just one metric out of many that you should keep track of. The more information you have on your customer’s behavior and potential, the better your marketing plans will be.

If you find that your customer lifetime value is too low or that the customers have a short association with your brand, you can use marketing to improve the value. Customers directly associate with content so you should shift focus to content marketing.

Why Content Marketing?

Content marketing doesn’t just lure customers to your website, but also helps retain them. Great content with relevant keywords will rank high in search engines and consistently draw traffic to your website. If you keep posting good content, you’ll develop a good reputation, which can help you improve customer value. After all, the customer that keeps coming back to your website and is engaged by your brand is more valuable than an occasional window shopper.

However, content marketing isn’t as easy as it sounds because search engines have implemented stricter rules to control quality. You need to constantly improve and optimize your content to get the best results. Some business owners don’t realize the full potential of their content and fail to keep track of their campaign’s performance. You should measure content ROI regularly to determine if you’re on the right path.

How to Measure Content Marketing ROI?

Content marketing shouldn’t really be measured in dollar value because that’s not its true purpose. This strategy is used to draw customers to your website and establish your reputation. The latter can’t be measured or tracked easily but the former requires basic analytics to determine.

You can determine the dollar value of content marketing ROI by comparing the amount of traffic each piece of content generates and the average revenue per customer on that batch of traffic. Here are some things you should measure when you want to determine ROI of the content:

• Exposure – Measuring exposure is simply a matter of looking at the numbers in Google Analytics. This platform will provide all the information you need about when, where, and how your target audience reach your content. As the tracking code is placed on every page of your website, Analytics will tell you how many people visit your content page and also how many of them move on to visit other areas of your website. You should also keep track of your content published on other websites to determine the right level of exposure.
• Social Shares – You should also keep track of social shares. If you’re not concerned with the dollar value of these shares, you can simply look at the number of people who have shared your content on different forms of social media. However, if you want to know the dollar value, just create post engagement ads on Facebook, Twitter, and other such social media platforms. Choose a big amount that fits into your budget and let the ad go live. People will click on these ads to like your content and that will allow you to determine the proper dollar value of your social shares.
• Backlinks – If your content is interesting and informative enough, it will be used as research by other content creators. They will link back to your content and bring more traffic to your website. Any effective link building tool will help you determine just how many people link to your content and how much exposure you get from every link. If you hire an SEO expert to do link building for you, the amount you spend per link on average will be how much converting traffic it brings; this will help you measure ROI.
• Leads and Sales –Measuring leads and sales that originate from your content is very easy, especially if you place internal links in your content to direct your prospects to products or services relevant to the topic mentioned. You can set Goals on Google Analytics to determine leads and sales your content generates and know the dollar value of ROI.

A good balance between the customer value and the content marketing ROI shows that you’re on the right track with your marketing. You should keep an eye on the two metrics to ensure they continue to perform well.

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