 Whether or not to put service rates on your website is a decision each service provider has to make. Should you leave the prices off or should you list the rates for prospects to see? There are pros and cons to both scenarios. We offer services obviously with our company and we choose not to post our rates because each production, web design, or other offerings we have varies from client to client. That does not mean however that posting your rates may in fact benefit your business. The benefits of putting rates on your website: Sets the expectation of your price: Putting your rates on your website helps you weed out people who can’t afford you. It will help you avoid wasting time on sales calls with people who aren’t your ideal client. Sets the expectation of what’s included: You can make it very clear what service comes with each rate if you create packages. The prospect can make decisions on what service will be best for their budget before even talking to you. Taking this approach saves you and the prospect’s time. Gives you the ability to sell passively: Have you ever been in a situation where you were interested in a service but the website says to call for details? This adds an extra step to the rate shopping process. A customer may sign up for the service without talking to you if the price is right. The benefits of not putting rates on your website: Gives you room for negotiation: The prices for your service may change depending on who you’re working with. You may charge a corporation a different price for a service than you would charge a mom and pop store. This gives you space to get details about a prospect before you name a price. Let’s you customize: Not putting rates for each service on your site gives you a chance to customize packages. On a sales call, you can get an understanding of what the prospective needs so you can sell a service package that’s tailored to them. Leaving prices off of your site gives you quite a bit more flexibility in this regard. Helps you express the value of high-ticket services: Prospects may scoff at very high-ticket service offerings when the price is listed on the website. There’s no context behind the price. For these services, a sales call may be necessary to learn their needs and explain how the value and your experience backs up the price point. Keeps your competitors Guessing: Sadly, but a part of doing business, you all know as well as I do that if you don’t put your prices out there, most of the time, your competition does not know what you are charging for your services. Everyone crawls each competitors’ websites or social platforms just to see what they are up to. If you are not doing this, you need to. How else are you going to better your business or stay “in the game”? In Summary You can always do both pricing strategies to test which method performs better. Do a mix of both by listing a starting price on your website. This gives the prospect an idea of what you charge but also leaves some room for negotiation. If you set a starting point for your prices, stand firm in how much you’re charging. And remember that negotiating your prices down can cause the client to undervalue your work. Any freelance or service-based business provider will tell you that low paying clients can be high maintenance and not worth the trouble. -Roy Tags: #websites, #marketing, #advertising, #pricing
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 It is crucial for small businesses to start creating and incorporating video as part of their content marketing strategy. It has been said that 80% of all internet traffic will be video by the beginning of 2020. Now I don’t know if it will be that high, but even at 50% or 60%, you are missing out on a lot of potential customers if you are not using video. Businesses ask us all the time, “What Can I do to create a good video and how do I do it?” You don’t have to make a huge video production out of it but if you want to, you can always hire us! Here are 10 good tips to help you come up with ideas for making a great business video for branding, marketing, or just good-will. 1. Prоduсt Reviews Sіmіlаr to customer testimonials, a product review іѕ оnе where a сuѕtоmеr reviews оnе of уоur ѕресіfіс рrоduсtѕ оr services; hеlріng роtеntіаl сuѕtоmеrѕ mаkе a dесіѕіоn. 2. Behind thе Scenes Tour Vіdеоѕ Gеt mоrе uр-сlоѕе and personal wіth уоur customers and prospects by unveiling your соmраnу аnd allowing thеm tо understand exactly whо уоu аrе. 3. How We Make it Vіdеоѕ You саn сrеаtе vіdеоѕ thаt show hоw уоu mаkе a specific product thаt уоu sell. This would be limited to specific tуреѕ оf businesses, оf соurѕе. 4. Photo Slіdе Shоw Videos If your соmраnу’ѕ products оr services саn be rерrеѕеntеd by іmаgеѕ, put tоgеthеr a montage in PowerPoint аnd turn it into a video marketing ѕlіdе ѕhоw. 5. Staff Intrоduсtіоn Videos Help consumers connect with your ѕtаff bеfоrе thеу even come in tо vіѕіt уоur establishment by іntrоduсіng them оn vіdео. 6. Induѕtrу Interview Vіdеоѕ Prоvіdе value tо уоur сuѕtоmеrѕ аnd рrоѕресtѕ bу interviewing vаrіоuѕ еxреrtѕ іn уоur company оr іnduѕtrу. Thеѕе аrе grеаt fоr dіѕсuѕѕіng іmроrtаnt topics іn the еуеѕ оf your tаrgеt audience. 7. Helpful Tірѕ Vіdеоѕ Helpful tірѕ vіdеоѕ аrе grеаt fоr ѕhоwіng оff уоur expertise, аѕ well аѕ buіldіng сrеdіbіlіtу and аuthоrіtу ѕtаtuѕ іn your industry. Create videos tо аnѕwеr some оf the common ԛuеѕtіоnѕ уоur customers have. 8. Vіdео Artісlеѕ Do уоu hаvе a whole lot оf blоg роѕtѕ or аrtісlеѕ that you’ve written? Brіng thеm bасk tо lіfе bу соnvеrtіng them іntо vіdеоѕ and share thеm асrоѕѕ the wеb. 9. Vlogging Videos A “vlog” is ѕhоrt fоr “vіdео blog.” In ѕhоrt, instead of роѕtіng written articles tо your blоg, уоu can сrеаtе a library оf video роѕtѕ оn ѕіmіlаr tорісѕ. 10. Tutоrіаl Videos Provide уоur audience with value-packed specific training rеlаtеd to your іnduѕtrу; if thеrе’ѕ a product or service thаt саn be bеttеr еxрlаіnеd with a tutоrіаl, create a step-by-step vіdео tо hеlр them out. I hope these tips help you get your digital media campaign going and off to a great start! -Roy Tags: #video, #videoproduction, #marketing, #advertising, #socialmedia, #branding
 I recently came across an article that hit home even for my business. And that is content creation. Content marketing can be a great way to position your brand as a thought leader and build a reputation for your product or service, but content must engage your target audience in order to be effective. More and more companies are finding that focusing on the needs of their audience is the basis of a strong content strategy. In fact, 90% of the top-performing B2B content marketers put their audience’s informational needs ahead of their company’s sales message, according to research from the Content Marketing Institute. However, knowing you need an audience-first approach is only half the battle. Content creation typically one of the biggest challenges business face when it comes to content marketing. Focus on educating rather than selling A smarter approach is to create a piece of content that uses your company’s expertise to inform readers about a topic that’s relevant to your industry -- regardless of whether or not they buy your product. Done well, this approach still generates leads and sales. Content that is more educational than promotional in nature is among the most important qualities of content reviewed during the purchasing decision making process, Be specific -- and honest Another important quality of content that decision-makers consider before a purchase is that it speaks to readers’ specific needs or pain points. One way to forge a connection with readers is by focusing on these pain points -- especially if they’re something your brand has also dealt with. An honest account of how a brand has worked to overcome issues that its target audience commonly deals with can build trust, and it’s a lot more compelling than content that reads like marketing copy. Let the function dictate the format Once you’ve found the perfect topic to engage your audience, you also need to consider which format best suits the people you're trying to reach and the information you’re presenting. Oftentimes, one topic can be presented in multiple ways. A blog post that summarizes a webinar is a quick read and more shareable than an hour long recording. The same information can be condensed even more into an attention-getting infographic that makes a complex topic more accessible. I hope some of these tips I found and shared will help your business next time you need to do do a content campaign piece. -roy Tags: #contentcreation, #contentwriting, #marketing, #branding
 LinkedIn's new reaction buttons LinkedIn sometimes takes awhile to move or catch up with it's rivals. In 2018, the social network for professionals finally got around to launching their version of Snapchat Stories while in February of this year it launched a live video platform. (in beta and by invitation only.) Now LinkedIn has added some more reactions alongside its “like” button, giving you more ways to express how you feel about posts that turn up in your feed. The new buttons include symbols for celebrate, love, insightful, and curious. LinkedIn displayed all this news on a Tweet last week. LinkedIn used Twitter for the unveil. Kind of weird but whatever works, right? Each of the reactions pretty much does what they say on the icons but in a LinkedIn blog post as a follow-up, Cissy Chen gave a overview in an effort to avoid any confusion. “You can use celebrate to praise an accomplishment or milestone like landing a new job or speaking at an event, or love to express deep resonance and support, like a conversation about work/life balance or the impact of mentorship,” Chen wrote. “Insightful can help you recognize a great point or interesting idea, while curious lets you show your desire to learn more or react to a thought-provoking topic.” And it sounds like the LinkedIn team did some good research for their final selection of their chosen reactions. It searched for the most popular one- or two-word comments used on LinkedIn posts, and also conducted “global research” with LinkedIn members to ensure the symbols were useful and universally understood. The new Reactions are beginning to roll out now and will be available globally in the coming months for the LinkedIn mobile app and on the web. LinkedIn is attempting to capture more of its Millennial and even younger users as the platform becomes more of a community of young professionals than a hiring site that it was when it first started back in 2003. It still is just that but LinkedIn has matured way past that stage now as a very competitive Social Media Platform that it’s new owner, Microsoft can take advantage of. Tags: #linkedin, #reactions, #socialmedia, #contentwriting, #reactions
This recent study I ran across from eMarketer is just one of many reasons’ businesses need to embrace digital video. If you are a small business owner, it does not matter. Even on a smaller scale, smaller budget smaller everything, you can still use video for your social platforms. Advertisers and marketers now understand in our mobile society how effective digital media is and are spending millions using it. Where is your ad money going? Check out this report. I condensed it to highlight just some of the talking points. The US ad market will hit two major milestones in 2019: It will be the first year that advertisers spend more on digital than on traditional media, and the first time that Google and Facebook’s share of digital ad spending declines. That’s due to Amazon, which will continue to chip away at the duopoly. How much will US advertisers spend on digital advertising in 2019? We expect US digital ad spending to reach $129.34 billion in 2019, accounting for 54.2%of total media ad spending. An accelerated decline in traditional media advertising, particularly TV, has led digital to overtake traditional slightly earlier than we previously predicted. What formats are driving US digital ad spending growth? Video will continue to be the major driver of growth, especially on social media. Twitter is one platform that has particularly benefited from video advertising, with its total ad revenues returning to growth in 2018. Spending on OTT platforms like Hulu and Roku will also boost digital video ad spending this year. What will happen to the duopoly in 2019? This year will be the first time that Google and Facebook’s combined share of the digital ad market will drop. That said, they will remain the largest digital ad sellers in the country, making up nearly 60% of digital ad spending in 2019, or $76.57 billion. What about Amazon? Amazon’s ad business is growing faster than we (and everyone else) expected. In 2019, advertisers will spend $11.33 billion using Amazon’s platform; not as much as on either Google or Facebook, but enough to start making a small dent in the duopoly. KEY STAT: In 2019, US advertisers will spend $129.34 billion, or 54.2% of their media ad budgets, on digital ads. By 2023, that figure will reach 66.8% Summary As you can see, digital media (video) is huge. We at FDMC Digital Media can assist your SMB to capture your deserved market share you may be missing in the digital platforms. While this report obviously is using figures on a national scale, your small business in your local area is part of that mix. Feel free to reach out to us. You probably have many questions and we have the answers. -Roy TAGS: #advertising, #marketing, #digital media, #mobility, #video
 I recently came across a great article from Social Media Today about how embrace the demographics of Twitter to your marketing advantage. Here in part, is part of that great study! (from Social media today) Twitter gender demographics How many Twitter users are women and how many are men? The answer varies by region. Globally, more men use Twitter than women. But in the United States, more women use Twitter than men.
Where are Twitter users coming from? Consistent with many of the other major social networks, most reside outside the United States.
How old are Twitter users? Not very old, it seems. But also not very young. Marketers can bet on finding millennials on the platform, as well as some of the under-50 crowd.
How much money do Twitter users make on average? The answer is “more than average,” which is pretty standard for social media users across the board.
Along with higher than average incomes, Twitter users are also highly educated. This makes sense as the two demographics usually go hand-in-hand. But in general, Twitter (along with LinkedIn) is known to be a popular social network among the highly educated.
-Roy Tags: #twitter, #branding, #marketing, #social media, #social platforms
 We are currently living in a mobility world. Take a look around the next time you’re at a bus stop, a train station, or walking down the street and you will see people tied to their mobile devices. And this use of mobile is no longer limited to personal use. We are increasingly conducting business on mobile devices as well. The first thing many people do each morning is jump on their phone to check email, the weather, or the latest news and many finish their days in the same way. In fact, most consumers spend almost 4 hours a day on their mobile devices. Smart Phone Marketing With mobile technology being a real contender for revenue generation and ad placement, marketers now have to consider mobile almost as a separate channel when planning their marketing mix. That means more than just rolling out a website to a mobile version. It means thinking of mobile as its own delivery platform, designed for a very different reason than the typical desktop centered web sites. As more platforms are designed from a mobile-first perspective, the way people interact with the platforms is undergoing a transformation. Actions taken on mobile are unique to mobile. This requires a new and unique marketing strategy and businesses have to understand and accept this new reality. Some companies have already started to work from a mobile-first perspective, recognizing the importance of the channel. So why don’t all brands just move more of their marketing and advertising dollars to mobile? Mobile Marketing Hurdles While over over 1/3rd of adults according to a recent study are using their smartphones often for business purposes outside of working hours, B2B businesses have not gone all-in on mobile advertising, and for good reason. There are certain challenges and considerations B2B companies have that their B2C counterparts don’t. To be truly efficient, the B2B marketers have to consider individual actions in the context of accounts they are targeting, which makes tracking and delivering content across devices a bit more complex. company, and then rolled up to an account level so marketers can see all activity within each target account. In addition to connecting individuals to accounts, marketers also have to deal with complications in tracking actions across devices. By connecting the individuals to an account identity, this allows B2B marketers to personalize ads and mobile content based on that account as well as track both online and offline actions these individuals are taking with a brand. How Mobility Marketing Can Win for You Although there are challenges, that’s no reason for B2B businesses to throw in the towel. With proper planning, B2B brands can experience success with mobile advertising and marketing. There are a few simple steps which, if taken, can increase the probability of success. First, invest in the data to look at accounts holistically. As mentioned above, tying individual actions to account-level activities is key. Second, employ campaign tracking that will tell you whether you are indeed reaching your intended accounts. Technology exists which allows you to see the anonymized individual and the business they represent as they are exposed to your ad or land on your website. Using this, you will be able to tell which people are viewing your ads and visiting your site to ensure the ads are reaching the intended audience. Finally, embrace some of the latest mobile trends and test them against your business goals to see if they generate the results you need. Mobility Marketing Trends Video advertising might be one of the easiest mobile tactics to test as it has been around longer than other trends. In addition, a recent Adweek survey found 88% growth year over year in time spent watching videos on a smartphone. Social feeds also offer a new mobile advertising medium for brands. With features such as Instagram’s “stories” and the “swipe up” attribute, brands have a new way to insert storytelling into their ads and engage customers within those stories to drive leads. Mobile-only social networks like Snapchat are also growing rapidly in popularity, and this is driving increases in time spent on mobile devices. Beyond general social advertising, in-app advertising could be key for your business. More than 80% of all mobile minutes are spent in apps, offering plenty of chances for your brand to get in front of the right customers. Whether you are a B2B company who is trying to reach customers within your key target accounts or a B2C business just trying to connect with consumers, marketers have to start embracing mobility as a mindset and designing campaigns and programs that take advantage of the unique connectivity and reach that mobile devices have to offer. -Roy Tags: #mobility, #advertising, #smartphones, #marketing, #b2bmarketing, #socialmedia
 Does your business or brand need more "umph" from social media? In this day and age, who doesn't? Below are 5 resources that I found that will help you get more interaction and folks to perhaps become influencers for your brand. 1. Install a Facebook Customer Chatbot You know those customer chat widgets that pop up on the bottom of a website? You can take them to the next level with a Facebook Messenger website widget. It functions the same way as a normal website chat, but with an added bonus - every time a customer chats with you, they have to opt-in to Facebook Messenger communications. That means you can get contact information from them, and follow up with them down the road. Every time someone talks with you via site chat, you'll automatically gain a new Facebook Messenger contact, and that's a huge win. Upgrading your old customer chat to a Facebook Messenger customer chatbot is a great opportunity to pounce on. 2. Point to Your Social Media Accounts from Your Website Having social icons which link out to your various social profiles is an easy way to broadcast your social media presence to your website visitors. Ideally, you should add them prominently above the fold, so it's impossible for your visitors to miss them. 3. Make Your Content Easy to Share on Social Media Make it simple for users to share your content on social media. Add "Share This" buttons to any blog post, infographic, video, podcast, or any other engaging content you produce. When you make it easy to share your content on social media, people will be far more likely to do so. You can install a plug-in that adds share buttons on every page of your website, especially if you're using a CMS which supports it. 4. Enable Comments Enabling comments on your content enables users to interact with you directly from your site. The comments section of popular posts can host great discussions - just make sure your comment plug-in or widget has a way to automatically filter spam, so the comments section doesn't get overwhelmed with junk. 5. Make Sure Your Content Looks Good When Shared on Social There's an additional step beyond just buttons which enable users to share your content - you have to also make sure the content looks inviting, once a user goes to share it. Have you ever gone to share something on Facebook, only to find that the thumbnail or title was missing? Chances are you probably stopped in your tracks and didn't share it - that's why, as a digital marketer, it's so key that you take the time to ensure that when someone attempts to share your content, it looks like it's supposed to. Mark up the Open Graph tags with a super-clickable headline, and attention-grabbing image which fits the proper dimensions of each network. Always keep social traffic in mind, and stay up to date with the latest trends and shifts to maximize your opportunities. I hope these tips will get your business off and running and embrace better engagement with your social followers. -Roy Tags: #soicalmedia, #branding, #marketing, #engagements
 There's always some new social media app on the market, some rising platform or tool which is destined to become 'the next big thing'. Most end up falling short. Remember Vine' or 'Meerkat'? Some of these platforms are still going, but they've not gone on to become the Facebook challenging players they were once touted as. But TikTok feels different. Backed by Chinese corporation ByteDance, TikTok is growing fast, despite being similar in style to the various Stories tools already on the market. Filling a void left by the disappointment of Vine, TikTok is not only providing an alternative outlet for creative expression, but it's also rolling out features in the US market that it's been able to try out among its large Chinese user base first, giving it a solid testing ground. And it may well become the next big social platform - but will it also develop into a relevant consideration for brands? Rapid Growth Seemingly overnight, TikTok became the social app of the moment late last year. Everywhere you looked, people were posting clips from TikTok, mentions of the app were rising online. Just as Snapchat had done previously, TikTok became the app that you had to see, that people had to share with their friends. That momentum is reflected in the download stats - according to Sensor Tower, TikTok has now been downloaded over a billion times, with 663 million of those downloads coming in 2018. By comparison, Instagram, currently the fastest growing social app, saw 444 million new downloads in 2018. TikTok is now actually growing with greater momentum than the Facebook-owned image platform. More than that, Sensor Tower's figures don't include installs from China, so the total download figures for TikTok are actually likely far higher than this. TikTok has gone from strength to strength, particularly in the US market, where it now has more than 26 million monthly active users, who are spending, on average, 46 minutes per day in the app. You can see why social analysts are paying attention to TikTok's rise. The company is already looking to monetize, using its experience in the Chinese market to launch its first ad offerings. And brands are no doubt paying attention. TikTok has already started testing ads in the US, with GrubHub being among the first to try out the platform's launch screen ad units.If you have tried the app,the ads dominate the full-screen of the app, and open within the initial app launch flow, not within the regular usage process. TikTok is still experimenting with the best ad options. TikTok isn't starting from the same base as other new players in the social landscape, it already has an ad infrastructure and plan. With the app's experience in the Chinese market, which is, of course, very different, the app is starting from an advanced position, which could see it capitalize on its revenue opportunities faster. Tik-Tok is not without it's controversy. Even with it's introduction of tools designed to keep users safe from harassment and misuse, problems have risen for the GenX users. Tik-Tok just got slapped with a multimillion dollar fine from the US FTA. The app company has agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle allegations that it illegally collected personal information from children under the age of 13, such as names, email addresses and their location. The US Federal Trade Commission said in a statement recently that the TikTok fine is a record for a child privacy case. The FTC said its investigation of Musical.ly had "uncovered disturbing practices, including collecting and exposing the location" of young children. Despite receiving thousands of complaints from parents, the company failed to comply with requests to delete information about underage children and held onto it longer than necessary, according to the commission. TikTok has already launched an option to filter out comments by keyword, and offers a range of controls over profile and content privacy, including the ability to define who can comment on your videos, who can 'duet' with your content and a setting to enable/disable downloads. In addition to this, TikTok has also recently launched a new video series to help educate users on how to ensure safety within the app. TikTok is different, that it's more advanced than others have been. Of course, it may well be recency bias, it may feel like TikTok has more capacity for expansion because it's the platform of the moment. But it may well be worth watching TikTok's growth. As noted, it remains to be seen whether users will welcome ads within the app, or if TikTok can maintain it's growth momentum and reach levels achieved by, say, Snapchat. But indications, at this stage, are positive - and if TikTok can grow, and expand its market appeal, it could become a more relevant consideration, and attract ad spend for those looking to connect with younger markets. Tags: #ticktok, #socialmedia, #video, #digitalvideo, #apps, #mobility
 Evergreen content will always be an important part of content marketing. However, relying too heavily on evergreen to drive engagement is not going to be the most effective strategy for marketers going forward. Today’s consumers expect content that’s live, on-demand and hyper-relevant. A recent article I found in Adweek had some great information about digital video. For marketers, I think you will find some of these stats informative. If you’re a forward-thinking brand, you’re probably already considering how to make your content strategy more compelling, concise and addictive. And if the trends are telling us anything, it’s that video is on the rise—from vertical video on social media, to using video for storytelling in micro-moments and geo-located video discovery and sharing. Vertical video on the rise In 2019, video will make up over 80% of internet traffic and, not surprisingly, two out of three marketers expect video to make up the majority of their content in the near future. In the mobile-first world, vertical video rules the day and is only expected to keep growing. Today, 94 percent of people hold their phones upright when capturing content on their smartphones. Billions of Snapchat, Instagram, IGTV and Tik-Tok video stories are created worldwide every year, nearly all shot vertically. It makes sense that we’re seeing major brands across categories move to embrace the vertical video format. Even Facebook is seeing the vertical video light, with a recent upgrade to its default video orientation. In fact, last year, Facebook recently tested the “larger rendering” of vertical video in their news feed on mobile and discovered that not only did people like the larger view, they watch longer—and with the sound on. Live video is taking off, as well: According to Facebook, live videos have six-times the engagement as non-live videos. We’re already seeing more live vertical video on mobile-first platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. Moving forward, we might see even more savvy brands experimenting with live streams across mobile, social and digital mediums. Storytelling in micro-moments It’s not enough anymore for brands to create good content. To stand out in a sea of millions of stories, brands need to also tell stories in shorter increments, with bite-sized videos. Our time is even more fragmented online. Instead of spending hours online surfing the web and social media, people explore the digital world in short bursts, from mobile devices. And those micro-moments—moments when people go online looking for recommendations for what to do, where to go, what to buy—are opportunities to connect through storytelling. People love brands that aren’t afraid to let people in. That’s why the most popular videos on Snapchat and Instagram Stories have a more edgy, intimate feel. They capture human experiences. T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere’s Slow Cooker Sunday is a great example of how authentic storytelling can put a human face on a big brand and connect with people in real-time. In the coming years, we’ll continue to see investment by brands in live, ephemeral and localized content for Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Geo-located video discovery and sharing As a longtime partner of Snapchat, the company Tagboard has worked with dozens of professional and college teams across the U.S. They put Snapchat statics from fans on the big video displays in these stadiums. You probably saw a recent example of this if you went to this year’s college playoff games recently. The power of Snapchat’s “Snap Maps” is undeniable. You share your location for snaps, which then appears to friends on a map and updates when you open the application again. Even today, Facebook is improving it “Go Live” platform and YouTube is beefing up it’s Director Mixer for Brands to deploy their videos. With stronger location and metadata, marketers now have information to deliver content that is much more relevant. Summary Ultimately, successful storytelling and content starts with being human and connecting—having a two-way conversation. Live content, especially when it’s hyper-relevant and local, provides brands with an incredible opportunity to create a fast-track memory shortcut, building real relationships with consumers and brand affinity with people directly in their community -Roy Tags: #digital video, #video, #social media, #video streaming
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