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Now making sales is more efficient than ever before over a recent couple of years. Landing pages contribute to the companies to have greater conversions from leads. The nitty-gritty of a landing page is a Call to Action (CTA) button. A lucrative page with no call to action button means no conversion to sales. In this case, if you do not spend a quality time to develop your call to action button for your landing page, then you will end up with having a generic CTA that results in no conversion.

The important facts to look at whilst developing a CTA button for a landing page that is worth clicking are discussed hereunder.

1. Use First Person

The most powerful word in any copy is “You”. This word gives the reader a feeling of being directly spoken to. Therefore, when you develop content for your web page calling your reader “You” then use “Me” or “My” in CTA button. Hence, the entire content will make the readers consider your landing page more involving and increase the press on the CTA button.

2. Color selection

There is no specific rule to use certain color in your CTA button though Green and Red always gets the highest priority. The selection of color varies significantly from one landing page to another. One color could be more effective in one page and couldn’t be on another page which is pretty obvious.
The vital fact whilst choosing a color is whether the color makes the page stand out or not. For illustration, a page with complete blue impression can’t stand out with any percentage of blue CTA button otherwise the user will not be able to find them immediately. In essence, no color is recognized as best for CTA button. The best way is to try out different colors that catch the eyes on spot.

3. Result Concerned Text

This is a slight but most important feature to grasp attention of the users all of a sudden. In ordinary cases, you are habituated to see CTA text like “Download Annual Report”, “Download Report in Pdf”, “Buy Today”, “Free Trial” and so forth. These texts are not result-concerned. To drive the customer towards clicking the CTA button, you need to tell them the result that will happen after clicking the button. For illustration, it’s more effective to say “Give me a free lesson on generating leads” rather saying “Download eReport”. Such text allows users to be known with the result beforehand. In the same fashion, CTA texts like “Sign in”, “Buy”, “Click” and so on are less effective than texts like “Get”, “Have”, “Own” and likewise.

4. Integrate Strong Words

The purpose of integrating strong words into the text is on the basis of natural human nature which is greediness, laziness, and cheapness. When you are developing the text for CTA button think of your users and target audiences and their probable nature. For each of these natures, the words should be like followings-

1. Greediness: Words that upraise the status of the users.
    Words: Beautiful, Smarter, Attractive, Lovely, Healthier, Richer and so forth.
 Example: Contact us for a beautiful smile.
2. Cheapness: Words that show less or no cost involvement.
    Words: For free, Free of cost, Minimum cost, Get discount, Price cut etc.
 Example: Get this eBook for free.
3. Laziness: Words that need quick action for a result.
    Words: Fast, quick, soon, rapidly, now, speedy, swift and likewise.
 Example: Click now for a free eBook.

5. The Fold

Once the CTA button is ready with all the design, color, and a strong copy, then the next vital fact is the placement of the button. It’s pretty normal to think of placing the CTA button in a position where people can notice soon. It is being observed that having CTA button at the bottom converse the sales by 20% which is not always true. The fold refers to the interface that you can see before scrolling down to the page. In such case, it is not always effective to place the CTA button in the fold as long as the readers find your webpage interesting enough to go through. If your content is well-decorated in accordance with your target audience’s taste, then people will go through your page with interest and find the CTA button.

6. Appearance of Actual Button

The button shouldn’t be designed with a ton of elements and colors that take away its own purpose of identity. Sometimes webpages have a button that does not seem to be as a button but design. The button should be designed considering the following facts:

(a)     Button with a border around
(b)     Motion that makes the button ready to be pressed
(c)     Opportunity to mention the value-adding features of your products or services with live example
(d)     Use shades around the button box

The target audience of your product/service must recognize the button as a definite button in order to be clicked.

A portfolio is an anthology of materials that portrays one’s skills, qualifications, training, and previous job experiences. It provides a clear insight on one’s personality and working ability.

What is a portfolio?

A portfolio is an anthology of materials that portrays one’s skills, qualifications, trainings, and previous job experiences. It provides a clear insight on one’s personality and working ability.

Why do you need a portfolio?

There is nothing more important for your career than presenting your skills in an attractive and professional way. A professional looking portfolio will show an employer proof of your organizational skills, your strong points, your career motives and job experiences. The more informative, easy and accessible a portfolio is, the higher the chances of your resume to be shortlisted by your employer.

Steps to follow to make an impressive portfolio

The purpose of integrating strong words into the text is on the basis of natural human nature which is greediness, laziness, and cheapness. When you are developing the text for CTA button think of your users and target audiences and their probable nature. For each of these natures, the words should be like followings-

(1) Determine the audience for your portfolio: Suit your portfolio according to your purpose. It is important to make sure its impact is perfect. If you are creating a portfolio for a job, narrow down the content to the kind of writing that you need for the position. Write only that is relevant, and skip the rest.
(2) Indexing the portfolio: An index is important at the beginning of you portfolio. It should contain a list of all items and the page number of its location. Arrange the items chronologically. Include a page number on all pages of the portfolio to make it easy for the reader to skip the unnecessary pages or move to the ones that is of interest to him.
(3) Begin and end with key words: It is always a wise move to begin your content with a very strong word that instantaneously grabs the reader’s attention and makes him go through it. Ending the content with another strong key word would get your reader asking for more from you.
(4) Choose what to include: Don’t just include everything in your portfolio. Like if you are applying for a marketing job, it is unnecessary to add your sales skills or any other technical skills that are not in line with the post that you are applying for.
(5) Provide context to your work: When you illustrate your work samples in your portfolio, make sure you add a note to clarify how and why this work was done. Without a proper context, it becomes difficult for anyone to judge you on your working capabilities. Write briefly how the task was planned, coordinated and laid out properly for the reader’s understanding.
(6) Try an alternative: Don’t follow the mainstream methods of a portfolio. Try to introduce something new, something that is unique and out of the box. An employer always looks for something innovative, be that how you handle a task, or how you explain it.
(7.) Make it simple to navigate: People’s attention don’t last very long, so your portfolio needs to be simple and easy to go through. As easy as it may seem, you need to keep the simple, informative, up to the point, convenient and top notch in delivering what the reader is looking for. Try adding a tagline or a brief summary of who you are and how you work. Include proper contact details like your email address, phone number, LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile, and make sure you mention which way of communication you prefer most.
(8) Make sure your contents connect to one another: When you put up information in your portfolio, make sure you set them in a way that the pieces flow nicely from one to the next. Add illustrations, eye catching designs to allure your employer to yearn for more information.
(9) Opinion matters: You have set all your pieces and ready to put it in your portfolio. You have checked back a dozen times but couldn’t find anything else to improvise on. Now let someone go through your portfolio, a friend, or maybe a colleague who would share their honest opinions. Check for spelling and grammatical errors throughout your content, because nothing kills your credibility faster than a portfolio full of spelling or grammatical errors.
(10) Review often, and or delete: Try to review and change your portfolio every once in a while, or at least once in every 6 months. Add new employments, remove old ones, and write about the new challenges that you faced, new trainings that you attended. Before you post your portfolio, make sure it is posted with the relevant information and at the relevant webpage.

Your portfolio isn’t your scrapbook from school where you jot down everything that defines you, but it is a platform where you define yourself as a professional, and a mean for an employer to choose you for his task. So it is very important that you sit, think, plan and organize all the information that you wish to put up in your portfolio, because it is after all a tool that will eventually earn you money, or be the means to it.

If you are in 2 minds whether to outsource your company projects to a 3rd party vendor or not, then probably you should look into the following list of 10 benefits of outsourcing.

 

1. Controls your fixed IT costs

It basically converts your fixed IT costs to variable costs. Which means you only pay for what and when you want. So lesser the capital expenditures, more the profit.

2. Cost effective

Hiring someone for a temporary job isn’t a cost effective solution, and inexperienced IT personals may not work up to expectations. 3rd party vendors handle it with perfection, giving you the right person with the right skills at the least of cost.

3. Lets you focus on prime aspects of business

Your business has limited resources and time span. You cannot focus on too many things at the same time. Let the outsourcing vendors take care of the peripheral parts of your business. That way, you don’t look away, neither do you spend too much time on something of comparatively less importance.

4. Pay as you go

Labor hours are effectively cheaper in case of outsourcing. The same job might require a full time hired professional, whereas you only hire full time/part time employee through the outsourcing vendors as per your work load. So no work, no pay.

5. Promote yourself in the internet

Often times, your website has less traffic due to people being unaware of your presence. Outsourcing vendors can change things for you, bringing you up in Google search, creating more organic visitors which in turn benefits your sales.

6. Enhance sales

Outsourcing enhances your sales by improving your work efficiency, level of quality, punctuality in project deliverance, international standard business value, and lots more.

7. Advantage of time zone

Keeping aside the cost advantage, another way you can benefit from offshore outsourcing is by the time zone difference between your company location and the source of the vendor. Get your job done while you are closed for the day, and wake up to a completed project the next morning. This gives you the benefit to actually work round the clock 24/7, without remaining open for the full time.

8. No shortage of talents

Countries like Bangladesh and India are blooming in the IT sector each day, with more trained IT professionals queueing for more and more work. So you don’t need to worry about looking for the right kind of person for your job, outsourcing vendors have plenty in line for you.

9. Reduce market risks

Every investment within a business carries a certain risk. Competition, rules and regulations, financial disposition, updates in technology, etc. Outsourcing vendors assume and manage these risks for you by first hand market evaluation, and basically they are much better at it than you since it is their area of expertise.

10. Manage seasonal work loads

Since the location of your outsourcing agent is different to your company source, it is often found that holidays in your region are not the same of that of the vendors’ region, thus giving you an upper hand to get your job done even during a vacation in your company location.

 

The ultimate benefit of outsourcing is that it helps your company gain a step ahead in competitive market. Through strategic outsourcing with a reliable vendor, you are not only providing your customers the best of services, but also increasing your efficiency while handling your in-house resources intelligently, at a reasonable cost. Outsourcing can help you get ahead in business and surpass all your competitors who are not yet enlightened to the benefits and productive returns of outsourcing.

Email marketing is a method of connecting to your clients via email. It is an essential tool for organizations in the world of the fast internet because it offers easy and interactive communication. Email marketing is popular because of it is simple and inexpensive. If done properly, it can also generate a number of sales for the company.

 

The proposition behind email marketing is that you as a business entrepreneur create a list of clients/subscribers who wish to hear from you or share the same business insight as for your own. You then market to them by sending email periodically with your offers/promotions to stay ahead of the rest and make more sales. As this is no new concept, you might consider it an obsolete method of marketing, but be assured, email marketing is a strategy no company should ever ignore. Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your audience, build new customers, bring in new visitors for your web page, increase brand value, and fixate your authority over the market.

 

You understand the value of new customers as well as current customers, and you wish to have them coming back to you for more, but can’t afford to invest more time or resources; then email marketing is your immediate solution. It is the most efficient solution that gives you the power to reach the customers at a place they are meant to visit every day – their email inbox. If you are still not convinced, then here are 8 ways how email marketing helps your company grow.

 

An email delivers your message

Gated content works best in 2 ways; drive traffic towards a good content and make traffic provide some basic information in exchange. Gated content is exactly as it sounds like. Contents remain hidden behind an online gate and if readers are interested in to go through the content they need to fill up a short form with some basic information for access. Promoting gated content more on social media augments leads generation. One of the most important features of Gated Content is to have quality content on a simple landing page.

The email looks professional

An email marketing scheme isn’t child’s play. It takes a lot of planning, creativity, designs and relevant content to be finalized and put up. You can add contents of your own preference, your company banner and logos to make it more attractive and at the same time more professional.

Email marketing has larger reach

The total number of email accounts is projected to reach 4.9billion by 2017 (source: Radicati). In contrast to that, Facebook has over 1billion users, and Twitter has 255million. That means there are almost 3times more email accounts than social media account combined. Social media is considered the most effective way to reach a mass audience, but the stats seem to differ. Think of it this way, you don’t need a facebook or tweeter account to open an email account, but it goes the other way. To maintain a presence online, you must need an email account, thus proving there is no route with a wider reach than that of email.

Email marketing steers conversions

All marketers focus on driving conversations, whether this in form of sales lead, membership or any other business strategy, the ultimate goal is to turn potential visitors to customers. And when it comes to such conversions, email marketing is the most powerful channel of all. The average click through rate of email campaigns is 20% of the total recipient while the average rate from tweeter is around 0.5% (Source: Monetate). That means you are 100times more likely to get someone to click through to your website via email than the tweeter.

Email marketing has higher ROI

Email marketing yields an average 3800% return on investment, which means for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $38 (Source: VentureBeat). This is because email marketing focuses on delivering personalized and relevant messages to the audience. Your posts in social networks are read by followers regardless their location, interest, etc. Email, on the other hand, allows you to target specifically the people that are highly likely to be interested in the offer that you are promoting, or the service that your company is trying to sell.

Email is considered the most preferred communication method

Most people in the social networks keep the level of communication strictly within their friends and family members. On the other hand, email is a much more professional method and people expect to receive any kind of business information or product/service details through email only. Studies show that 72% people prefer email for receiving promotional or business contents compared to 17% who prefer social media. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

 

Email is an open platform

The issue with social websites like Facebook and Tweeter is that they are owned and controlled by 3rd party entities, and marketers are bound to follow the changes they make to their platform. Email, on the other hand, isn’t owned or controlled by any one particular entity. It is an open communication platform and there are several different services that provide access to sending and receiving email.

 

Email is forever

Social sites tend to lose their follower/member count along with the change in trend. The once very active MySpace had it followers moving into other social websites within 4 years of being in operation. Email, on the contrary, has a long history of stability. Email marketing has been consistently growing from the day they started their campaign, and email itself has developed to a point where its tools accredit marketers to create and send branded and well organized emails.

 

Over the years, email marketing has been an extremely successful tool for marketing. Some experts may believe that the era of email marketing is over, but email still is the most powerful business communication tool that is used on regular basis.

Social media is saturated with a ton of posts every day from different sources including posts of your friends like share, interact and so on. Although social media is considered to be an effective platform to promote business, however, companies mostly fail to figure out the right way to communicate with the target audience.

With times social networks are becoming the global native distribution channel to generate more attention towards content. To gain an edge over the competitors, companies need to have more reach of contents through interaction (likes, shares, comments, follows, join) of the target audience. To keep your social media marketing curve always booming, few tips are mentioned in further below-

1. Posts According to the Channels

Social media networks are designed with unique features to serve the certain purpose of the users. Users find it useful when you take time to prepare content in accordance with the demand of that specific platform. For illustration:

Facebook – Requires content that is both entertaining & informative and needs less time to get shared and thus, engage fast.
LinkedIn – Platform for professionals, therefore, business and career centric well-crafted contents are necessary to add value to the professional’s requirements.
Instagram – Place for photos. If you are able to create stunning visuals, then use it for Instagram with 30 hashtags for a single post. Instagram involves mass people engagement through hashtags.

2. Master Headlines

The reader’s engagement with the content relies on eye-stopping headlines more than anything within. A title that lacks haunting words is not worthy for the customers to spend any single minute of it. Two ways to follow here:

Create better titles – to grasp more attention from the customers
Create a new title – to share contents in social media

It’s always suggested to change headlines for the same content when it needs to share or promote in multiple social networks and observe what sort of headline is doing the best for diverse social networks.

3. Call to Action Button

Call to action button predominantly makes the user come closure to your purpose to be fulfilled. Design posts in a way so that the call to action button is flagrantly visible such as Sign Up, Learn More, Subscribe Now and so forth. Viewers are more observed to click on these buttons and can easily be tracked down through UTM parameters. As a result, you can develop a better understanding of “Type of Content” driving more viewers to your post and hence, put prompt effort to promote such posts.

4. Use of Hashtags

Hashtag is a vibrant source to augment reach of content. Regarding the use of it, always focus on industry centric hashtags to help reach the content among the relevant people. Emphasis on specific hashtags that people of that particular industry use in certain moments. In Instagram, you can use up to 30 hashtags for each post which is very effective and thus, results in more reach out.

5. Don’t Spray and Pray

It’s quite commonly observed that companies are consistent in developing and posting contents even then the expected rate of return is much less. The prime reason behind such case is not to have a proper understanding to share content on the right platform at the right time. Prior to creating any post, think of the platform and target audience you want to reach out. It’s not needed to share posts in multiple social networks rather a specific network that can generate good engagement. Furthermore, the time of posting is equally important to get a healthy reach. For illustration:

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ Instagram
9AM, 1PM & 3PM 12PM , 3PM, 5PM & 6PM 7AM, 8AM, 12PM & 5PM 9AM ,11AM , 12PM & 1PM 2AM ,8AM, 9AM & 5PM

6. Paid Promotion

Paid promotion of your business/service through social media allows you to present your content to the exact relevant audience that would generate leads and hence, the scope of sales. The target audience will be able to see your content on their news feed for a certain number of days that you pay for. The process is way easier than mainstream marketing, not to mention, turns quite a good amount of leads into sales.

7. Community Engagement

There are millions of communities exist in different social networks. Only LinkedIn has more than two million communities to join in. Communities in other networks like Twitter Chats, Google+ Communities, Facebook Groups and so forth have created an interactive platform for business organizations. Joining and actively participating in such groups help you to promote your content and hence, get a good engagement.

These groups and communities have quite a good number of members that your content can potentially leverage.Growing business through social media is time efficient only when you get to realize the right strategies for it. Most companies fail to extract the true potentiality of social media due to lack of strategical approach. The practice of above mentioned 7 tactics will drive more traffic towards your content and in the same fashion, growth of the business.

An explainer video has the power to convey a story that is convincing and interesting. It speaks out about your business in somewhere about 60 to 180 seconds.It is a great way to engage potential customers and get them familiarized with your services. But it is not just about a good animation or proper illustration of materials, what matters most behind a successful explainer video is the script. A well written script is the foundation of a successful explainer video. Without the proper foundation(script), the video might not engage enough audience as you might want it to.

 

So to make sure that your script and animation is sufficient to draw your audience and get them keep coming back to know more, the first step is knowing what the major points are to make a successful jaw dropper explainer video. It then follows with the preparation of the script, understanding your audience, knowing how much is enough for the audience to look and come visit your webpage for more. The strategy differs from each business or service, but the following are the top points to make sure your video gets what you were aiming for.

Keeping the script to the point

The length of the script depends upon your advertised service and your audience. The script need to be short, informative and to the point. It shouldn’t be too short, and shouldn’t be too boringly long either. The script is often enough to keep the audience engaged even if the animation isn’t up to the mark, so the quality of the script is very important.

Keep it short

Usually internet audience cannot hold their patience for more than 2-3 minutes over a video, unless the video is compelling and interesting enough to make them go on longer. The relevancy of interest of the service or product for the audience also plays a key part in grabbing the attention of your audience. Less than 50% of the audience would go through the complete video, not only because the quality of the video wasn’t up to the mark, but maybe because it did not fall under their topics of interest.

Focus on your audience

The most important point in making explainer video is knowing and understanding your audience. It’s best to create something to help your audience instead of making a video to make sales. Because that way you get to connect to your audience in a way that they become customers later on. Try to sell something that your audience wants, not what you wish to promote for your company. Make it simple so that your viewers understand and get a clear idea about whatever you are advertising. If your video keeps talking about it’s service the whole time, your viewers might lose interest.

 

Highlight your message within the first 30 seconds

The best way to make sure you grab attention of the correct people is by relaying your motive of the video within the first 30 seconds of the video. I mean who would like to go through the trouble of watching a video of 2-3minutes just to know at the end that it was not of something of their interest? So make it as direct as possible, and clear out your motives or perception of the explainer video at the start.

 

Setting the right tone

Visualize your customers when you set the music for the video. It is very important that the music goes in contrast with both the animation and the service described in the video. Try cheerful, soothing and melodious tones. Tones are a vital part of the video in whole. Make sure the pace of the tone is on par with the animation, and the loudness does not cover up any voice that you might add in it.

Keep a steady pace with the voice over

Keep the dialogue between 120 to 150 words per minute. The narrator needs time in between to breathe and your viewers need time to absorb the information. Try not to rush with the content, go easy and slow, pace yourself with the animation in a way that your audience can understand and hear your words properly. Get professional voice over team in case you don’t have the right person for it. Don’t just follow the script, improvise and add during the voice over if you feel it necessary.

 

Be humorous, but do not make a joke of yourself

Humor is a great way to connect to your audience. Your humor basically acts as the bridge between the script and the animation. Don’t be too lousy or get over your limits. Your audience might not take the humor just as you did. Know when to laugh and when to not. Since your video is meant for people of all ages, make sure you research on trendy humorous topics before you decide to add one.

Be a story teller, not a sales person

The basic pattern of an explainer video has a problem, a solution, explanation of how the solution works, and propelling the viewers to get to know more of the advertiser. You can add some additional few seconds on how your company is better at what they are doing, or how they are different and better at solving the problem than the rest. But all of these must be portrayed in a way such that the viewer feels like the narrator himself had the same problem and managed to overcome it with the help of the advertiser. That way, they can relate their problem to that of the narrator and get a better understanding of the whole situation from a whole new dimension.

There are various other things to keep in mind while creating an explainer video. The tools of creating one are most likely free or available at a very negligible cost in the internet today. But the script has to come from you, and with the help from an experienced team who has previous successful records in creating lavish explainer videos, your business might just take a turn to seemingly wider profitability that is beyond your expectation.

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