by Ydraw | Sep 30, 2013 | video
Government Shutdown? Your Marketing Shouldn’t!
While our elected officials argue and point fingers, is your message getting to your leads, contacts, and customers?
Unlike Congress, you need to be focused on results, not just making a lot of noise. Can you imagine not having a budget for your company, campaign, or project? You need customers and you need sales, it’s as simple as that. To do that you need your marketing to work for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week and not take extended holidays, costly vacations, or disappear for golf outings every Tuesday.
In today’s online driven world of marketing it’s a numbers game. You need to get in front of as many potential leads as possible, make them listen, entertain them a moment, and most importantly move them to action … for you! To get those numbers, your marketing can’t work like a part time intern. You need workaholics – and I’m not talking about you personally, I’m talking about your marketing materials and content.
How? There are a lot of answers to this question, but here are a few to focus on:
1) Know your customer/audience (or find out… fast)
2) Be where your customers are
3) Keep testing to make sure they like it
1) Know your customer/audience. Sounds easy enough, but have you taken a close look lately at who your customers really are? What keeps them up at night (besides increasing taxes, worthless government programs, and endless debates)? What do they need, and what kinds of questions are they asking to solve their problems? Some of the answers you might be able to pull from past experiences, but there could be some other info right under your nose.
Tip: Go to Ask.com and type in a question or problem your customer typically has. You’ll see a number of questions, related questions, answers and resources all pop up. This is a great snapshot to see what people are asking, what your competition is offering, ideas for your marketing efforts, and how to tailor your message to meet your customers’ needs.
In just a few minutes you can compile some great insights into what’s most important to your customers right now! They might even be asking questions you weren’t aware of, or thought were less important. Just think of how this kind of information can help improve your company’s efforts, and not just in marketing, but in a number of areas.
2) Be where your customers are. If a senator gives a speech and no one is there to listen, did it really happen (and did it really matter)? In political terms it’s often called a filibuster – taking up time, talking about anything or nothing, so the other person can’t speak. You… don’t have that luxury to ramble on. You have a message you need to deliver, and that message needs to reach your target audience.
So… deliver that message where your customers hang out. Again, sounds easy, but it takes a little research to be most effective. How? You need to ask. On web forms, in surveys, even in your everyday sales efforts, make sure you are asking, “How did you find us?
3) Keep testing to make sure they like it. You’re not gonna know what your customer likes without a little testing. And once you have that figured out, you’re going to need to continue to test. Is what they like now the same thing that they liked 5 months ago? Have their tastes changed? Is that same marketing content getting stale to them? Test, test, test…just like high school.
Let us know if you have any questions or comments concerning marketing for us here at Ydraw. As always, we are here to help!
by Jace Vernon | Aug 23, 2013 | Creative Marketing, Video Marketing, Whiteboard animation, Whiteboard Video
Best Whiteboard Animation: the Best Form of Edutainment
When it comes to trying to sell your product to consumers, especially in the current economy, you may become frustrated with their short attention spans, fast-paced lifestyles, and tendency to hum simple tunes while plugging their ears and clutching their wallets in a vice grip. If only there were a way to trick potential buyers into learning everything they need to know about a product or service all under the guise of being entertained! Well, you’re in luck! Whiteboard animation is the best way to entertain your audience while educating them about your business and all the many ways you can help them better their lives. Here are just a few examples of why whiteboard animation takes the cake when it comes to edutainment:
Improved communication of ideas
Whiteboard marketing videos don’t necessarily need to be promotional. If you have a complex set of ideas that you need to convey to potential buyers or even employees – whiteboard can help to improve learning and increase message retention. The symbolic illustrations in whiteboard videos make complicated ideas easier to understand and therefore, remember.
It’s a different kind of media
With all the many media inputs consumers are bombarded with every day, people have grown skeptical of anyone who even remotely reminds them of a salesman, whether or not they’re actually trying to sell them anything. You could have a product that will make peoples’ lives significantly easier, but if they’re not willing to listen to a sales pitch, you have no chance. Whiteboard animation bypasses message filters in the brain with its visual storytelling method. The creativity and artistic illustrations in a whiteboard marketing video can get through consumers’ thick skin, ensuring your message will reach the intended prospects.
It has an impressive teaching resume
When it comes to education, whiteboard animation has been used as chapter summaries for textbooks, to teach languages, demonstrate new software or products, or teach employees company policies or appropriate workplace conduct. Whiteboard animation has the unique ability to incorporate several different kinds of media including photos, illustrations, audio, animation, even other videos. People tend to find the variety of media in whiteboard videos much more engaging than a traditional advertisement or talking head promotion.
It’s simple
Whiteboard videos use a simplified manner of illustrating to give information to the viewers. The simplistic illustrations combined with voice-over narration promote the feeling of storytelling – in most cases taking the viewer back to the innocence and simplicity of childhood. The presence of a hand in the video, or live drawing, makes the video seem more realistic and viewers are better able to fully understand and retain the message. Whiteboard animation keeps your audience captivated by engaging them in the artistic creativity. Illustrations, combined with a pleasant background tune and professional voice-over make up a deadly trio of advertising – consumers just can’t complain about something so easy.
Originally featured on Business to Community
+Jessica Anderson
by Jace Vernon | Aug 20, 2013 | video, Whiteboard animation, Whiteboard Video
5 Celebrities that Would Endorse Ydraw for Whiteboard Animation
Whiteboard animated marketing videos have become a hot commodity in the recent years – such a hot commodity that there are a few celebrities who know all about them and would love to put in a plug for Ydraw’s creative whiteboard genius. Take a look at 5 celebrities would would endorse Ydraw in a heartbeat – if they only could:
Amanda Bynes
Bynes left movie making to get into the video scribing market, but try as she did, she couldn’t compete with Ydraw’s unwavering success. Turns out this historically balanced and well-rounded actress couldn’t handle the pressure and went seven different kinds of crazy. However, if she were in a more mentally stable place she would totally recommend investing in a Ydraw whiteboard video for your business.
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga actually gets most of her outfit ideas from Ydraw videos. Our artists sketched characters in outlandish getups for audience entertainment purposes, and Lady just went gaga over them – using her endless resources to turn those imaginary outfits into realities.
Ashton Kutcher
Ashton – or shall we call him Chris – has recently proven himself a pretty good guy. With his viewpoints on climbing the ladder of success being kindness and hard work, who’s to say he wouldn’t endorse Ydraw whiteboard videos? We just haven’t had time to ask him yet.
Demetri Martin
Demetri has always been a fan of Ydraw’s whiteboard animation skills. He has even tried to replicate them in his comedy acts, yet he never progresses past a magic marker and jumbo pad of paper. Bless his funny little heart.
Jimmy Kimmel
It’s no secret that Jimmy is always on the lookout for the next hilarious viral video, but did you know that passion was sparked by watching Ydraw whiteboard videos in his free time? It’s true. He was so impressed by Ydraw’s creativity and uniqueness that he started looking for other videos to make him laugh, which brought him to Youtube. Unfortunately, there are so many videos to sift through on Youtube that he hasn’t been able to promote Ydraw videos yet – but just you wait.
+Jessica Anderson
by Jace Vernon | Jul 29, 2013 | Creative Marketing, Explainer Video, video
Video has become one of the effective ways to produce sales leads and increase conversion rates. Many companies will be spending millions on marketing their videos this year, but we wanted to write a post for those companies working on a shoe string budget but still wanting their message to be heard. Once we’ve produced your amazing video, how do you push it out effectively? Here are three steps to marketing your new Ydraw video.
The Day Your Video Launches
1. Email Blast – Email campaigns are one the most effective ways to communicate with your clients and potential customers. We are always looking for new ways to build our email list with genuine leads and find what types of emails convert the best. One way we get high click-through rates is by including a thumbnail of the video and short description of the article.
By linking the article to a blog post or landing page with the video attached, it gives us the opportunity to educate our audience through both video and sales copy. We always include relevant links to previous blog posts and our homepage—the longer you can keep potential customers on your site the quicker you’ll increase your conversions (linking to previous articles also boosts your SEO).
2. Tweet Multiple Times – If you have a following on twitter, tweeting about your video 3 or 4 times the day it launches is a great way to drive traffic. This may sound spammy but because the Twitter community moves so fast, this behavior is acceptable. However not everyone has a huge twitter following, so how can you fix that?
Twitter can be hit or miss for many companies. It is easy to get overlooked by the millions of tweets that are going on all the time. However, if you can find your niche you can drive consistent traffic to your site and create a place to interact with fans of your company. Here is a great way to boost your twitter campaigns:
http://tweepi.com/ – This a site that allows you plug in the twitter URL of leaders in your industry and follow their followers. This a great way to reach out to tweeters who are already interested in your product or service. This tool also allows you to unfollow tweeters who don’t follow you back, this is important because Twitter limits the amount of people you can follow if only a few people follow you back. Tweepi is one of the most effective tools to build a genuine twitter following. This technique takes time, but as you gain a bigger following more people will be willing to follow you back.
Don’t forget to use hashtags in your twitter post. This will increase visibility!
3. Post On Google+ — This social media platform has become a way for business professionals to share their passions. Rather than seeing status updates on what your friends ate for breakfast, people are posting their latest blog post and tips to improve your company. The most effective way to post on Google+ is to use effective hashtags and link your post to a relevant community. If you do some digging you’ll find some communities of like-minded individuals who would benefit from your content and interact with your posts.
Be sure to build out of Google+ profile. Google+ posts are now ranking in Google searches, by filling out your profile you’ll improve your rank.
by Jace Vernon | Jun 7, 2013 | Animated Whiteboard Videos, dry erase board animation, Explainer Video, video, Video Marketing, video online marketing, Video Scribing, Whiteboard animation, Whiteboard Video, Ydraw
5 Ways Whiteboard Videos Can Help Your Business
Big or small, every online business can benefit from a whiteboard video marketing campaign. Here are 5 reasons why you should consider a whiteboard video:
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Whiteboard Videos Are Affordable
In some instances, the cost may be as little as a pack of dry-erase markers from the drugstore. Whiteboard videos are super easy to DIY, and if you’re a bit of a talent then you might be pretty much set. However, if you’re like the bulk of us who can’t get evolve past cave-man drawings – there are several companies out there that will collaborate with you to create a whiteboard video that will stun and inspire any audience.
Whiteboard animation is more dynamic than text, a talking head or radio ad. With whiteboard your characters’ abilities are only limited to your and your writers’ imaginations. Whiteboard videos can also be a lot more interactive, with clickable links and thumbnails that take viewers to other related videos or a separate call-to-action page.
- They Make it Easy to Explain a Concept
Whiteboard videos are especially useful for services or products that require a little explaining to sell. If your target market just isn’t quite picking up what you’re putting down, they might need a little education on why they need what you’re selling, and whiteboard is the easiest and most cost-effective method. This is why whiteboard videos are often referred to as Explainer Videos.
Whiteboard animation is not only more interactive and versatile, it takes your message and condenses it to only the most pertinent information – making it short, sweet and to the point. These are the kinds of videos consumers are willing to share with their friends and family – no one wants to be the guy infamous for always sending those long, dry six minute infomercials.
Whiteboard has the unique ability to grab the attention of all types; its use of images, narration and sound effects are captivating to both right and left brained people. There was a recent post written here at Ydraw that studied the differences in viewer engagement and abandonment across all types of video formats – unsurprisingly, whiteboard videos were able to keep the attention of a greater percentage of viewers for a greater length of time. You can read all about that study HERE.
Don’t hesitate – sign up HERE for a chat with the boss and a personalized quote.
+Jessica Anderson
