Mid-West Family hosted another great Wicked Smart Seminar last June with key insights on how your business can currently take steps to overcome some of the struggles created by the Coronavirus pandemic. This webinar featured three keynote speakers: Zach Nigh – Owner of the Green Clock Agency, Kyler Nixon – a StoryBrand Certified Guide and Owner of Kyler Creative, and Andy Bontz – the Marketing Manager of Mid-West Family Madison.
Each guest has a unique and innovative outlook on business and marketing strategy, and they teamed up to provide you with simple, cost-effective[1] ways on how your business can take action and flourish.
Zach Nigh is a strong advocate for utilizing the power of video. Videos are an incredibly undervalued way to connect and engage with your customer, and Zach believes companies are not taking advantage of the benefits videos can provide. While some essential businesses are striving during the pandemic, the vast majority are not. With budget restraints, many companies can’t rely on more traditional forms of digital marketing, like a Facebook or YouTube advertisement campaign.
To help fight this issue, Zach compiled a list of five ways your business can utilize video for free or a very low cost.
- Use Your Cell Phone
Many businesses don’t realize the ways in which they can communicate with their customers through their cell phones. Live streaming is an incredibly useful way to keep your customers up to date. Sending out simple video messages to your team allows you to continue to build the momentum within your team and culture within your organization. You can also send a simple video message to your clients, checking in with them and thanking them for their continued support. In a time of social distancing and online communication, a simple video message can provide
human interaction, and a personalized way to remain connected with your customers. You don’t have to be a professional actor to be in front of the camera, you just have to be genuine!
- Repurpose Existing Content
Zach believes this is an area where businesses have been missing the mark, even prior to the pandemic. When a business creates a video, often they use it one time or use one version of the video. After the content is used for its original purpose, it is often never visited again. Zach argues that footage from old projects can be repurposed to create new content that can be reused during this time. Many promotional videos, home page videos, or blog videos are perfect examples of content that is created and only used once. This content can easily be revisited, and it does not require any additional recording, spending, or human-to-human interaction.
- Start a YouTube Channel
While many businesses are on other common social media platforms, very few are present on YouTube. Zach suggests that businesses that are not on YouTube are missing out on a large audience: YouTube is the largest social media platform in the world, and it is the second-highest search engine, behind Google. This is a unique way to get your business in front of a larger audience that isn’t exposed to many other businesses. Posting content and topics on YouTube can be a great way to add value to your business.
- Prepare for Upcoming Projects
Most companies don’t just pull out the camera and shoot a video. There is a lot of brainstorming, researching, scriptwriting, marketing, strategy, and planning that goes into an effective and successful video. There are many steps you can take to prepare for creating your next video without actually recording.
- Create Videos that Don’t Require Human-to-Human Interaction
Although people are urged to stay socially distant, there are numerous ways to create videos that avoid human-to-human contact. Drone videos are a great way to capture imagescontent of a facility, plot of land, or project. You can send footage of a project or a product to a videographer, who can help assemble a video for your company. Hosting an online meeting with some of your customers to record client testimonials iswould be a great way to establish credibility and maintain client relationships. These are just a few creative ways your business can generate video content during the pandemic and stay connected to your customers.
Zach wrapped up by saying, “Although we have shifted greatly because of this pandemic, anybody can creatively think of a way to incorporate video, and use video to connect with their clients, solve a problem, and move their business forward.”
Our next speaker, Kyler Nixon, is a StoryBrand guide, and he wants businesses to understand the importance of developing and building strong customer relationships. Many businesses are spending time and energy to communicate with their customers effectively, but it is essential that businesses ensure they are speaking clearly to their clients. To facilitate direct communication, businesses can utilize the StoryBrand framework.
On a fundamental level, the StoryBrand Framework argues that every story features a main character who encounters a problem. That character meets a guide who gives them a plan and calls them to action, which results in success and helps them avoid failure. Most movies and stories follow this framework, and Kyler believes your business can apply it to your messaging to engage your audience and ensure clear and direct communication.
However, when we deploy this framework, the customer is the hero and you, as businesses, are your customer’s guide. You are in the story to lead your customers, and clearly communicate what problems you are helping them solve. As a guide, your business should determine what you can offer to your customer that is inexpensive and valuable, but allows you to support and maintain a relationship with your customers. There are many things a business can do to act as a guide, but be sure to remember: Your business is not the main character in the story, the customer is!
Andy Bontz, the Marketing Manager at Mid-West Family Madison, believes you have been given the gift of time, and you should take advantage of it and use it to better your business. One way to accomplish this is to turn strangers into fans of your business. The first step in this process is to develop a lead magnet – a resource you can give to a potential customer in exchange for their contact information.
You must provide the customer with a lead magnet or a resource that will solve a problem for a potential customer. For example, a wedding company could create a wedding checklist for brides, or a clothing company could offer a potential customer a 15% off coupon if they enter their email. A shortcut for this can be to answer a question you know a customer has or answer a question you know a customer should have, but they don’t know it yet.
Lead magnets can grow your email list, identify your potential customers, differentiate yourself from the competition, improve your ability to follow up, and increase the number of leads your sales team can follow up with. If they are structured strategically, leads can effectively help your business start customer relationships.
While the pandemic has caused many disruptions for businesses, Mid-West family is dedicated to helping your business take action to keep your brand active. We hope these suggestions prove useful to your company. Our team would love to help you and your business in any additional ways. Be sure to tune in to our next Wicked Smart Webinar!
