The Benefits of Hiring an Agency Over Doing It Yourself

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, SEO, Social Media | No Comments

Marketing is an important aspect of any business, and when it comes to growth, there is no better way than by investing in marketing. Marketing can be intimidating, especially for smaller businesses, but if you don’t start, you can find your business suffering when it comes to drawing in more consumers, reaching sales goals, and overall making an impact in your respective industry. So, do you go in blindly trying to market your brand yourself, or do you turn to marketing companies to handle this aspect of your business?

While it may seem cheaper and simpler to handle marketing yourself, you’ll find that it can actually turn out to be the complete opposite− you don’t want to sacrifice any manpower on your team, and you also don’t want to exceed your budget in the hiring department, so here are some benefits to hiring a marketing agency over trying to do everything in-house.

Save Serious Cash

This should be one of the most beneficial factors to your company. You don’t want to spend unnecessary funds, and you definitely don’t want to exceed any budgets, so this is where marketing companies will come in handy. The costs that come with running an in-house marketing team can be pretty hefty, and if you’re on a restrictive budget, you might not be able to assemble an experienced group of professionals. The staff costs alone might be as expensive as outsourcing your marketing needs. Things such as content management software, marketing software, benefits package, and other marketing equipment costs can add up quickly on top of employing a marketing staff.

Professional Experience

Since marketing companies are experts in what they do, you’ll be getting quality work done. These agencies are comprised of talented teams who are experts in their respective fields, so you can rest assured that any task you throw at them, they’ll be able to handle with expertise. By hiring an agency, you’ll also avoid the hassle of trying to interview and pick out capable employees.

Avoid Overworking Your Existing Staff

If you decide to bypass hiring a marketing agency and are not able to hire a marketing team due to costs, you might end up overworking your current team by trying to train them in the marketing. Marketing companies can help ease the workload of your staff by allowing your team to focus on their day-to-day work.

Benefits of a Marketing Company’s Outside Perspective

Not only are these marketing companies going to help market your brand, but they can provide you with valuable insight on how you can improve your current efforts. Since they are experts when it comes to what consumers are looking for, they can help establish you brand even further, strengthening connections with your current consumer base while bringing in new customers as well. These marketing companies will evaluate your current strategies, techniques and brand voice overall and give you pointers on how the business can be improved.

Staying Up-to-Date

Perhaps one of the best things about hiring a marketing agency is that your branding and content will always be kept up to date. Since marketing agencies are always in the digital loop, you won’t have to worry about outdated tactics, lingo or presentations to the public.

There are multiple benefits that come with hiring marketing companies, and they generally outweigh the few benefits that come with marketing yourself. If you’re ready to take the next step in your marketing campaign, contact us here at Fusion 360.

Best Ways to Advertise in 2019

By | advertising, marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah | No Comments

Marketing trends evolve every year, and if marketing companies ignore these changes, they can find themselves struggling to stay at the top of the digital marketing food chain. 2019 is no different. If you want to see results and keep clients coming to you, you are going to have to switch it up and adapt to the new trends that 2019 is bringing to the world of digital advertising.

So, will you take initiative to change the way you advertise, or will you fall into the pit of digital media mediocracy? If you’re ready to take your game to the next level, here are the best ways to advertise in 2019 to ensure your company a year of growth and success.

Take Advantage of Voce Search Optimization

Marketing companies are always looking for the best and most relevant ways to advertise, and voice search has definitely become a staple in modern search engines. It has been projected that by 2020, 30 percent of web browsing will be screen-less, and that number will only keep rising. With the sophistication of operating systems, it’s important to make sure that your company utilizes the technology that is voice search optimization. The best way to do this is by extending the keywords your content targets and reworking them into phrases that someone would use when using their voice search option (for example, when they look for things such as the nearest gas station or restaurants). This will work best if you are able to make your phrases sound natural, but craft them carefully so that your services come up when these phrases or keywords are said.

Invest Time and Money into Audio Ads

While video may be the dominant form of advertising, audio content is becoming more convenient to consumers. If you take advantage of it now, you will ultimately see more of a result in more traction. Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to invest all of your marketing budget into podcasts, talkshows or streaming music players, instead, a smart way for marketing companies to approach this method is by taking one blog post a week and uploading it to your website through a program such as the Wix Podcast Player. This is a great way to combine storytelling and advertising. As you begin to get more comfortable with narration, you’ll begin to see an increase in the quality of these audio ads.

Make Visitors Feel Welcome by Using AI

While this may sound difficult, it’s actually a simple addition that you can add to your website to make your customers feel more welcome. In simple terms, you should opt to add a live chat feature on your website. If you don’t want to have a 24/7 live staff on payroll, you can also create automated responses to some frequently asked questions so that that user can be taken care of in a more interactive manner.

Don’t Stop Building on What You Have

This last method is more of a tip rather than anything else, but if you’re using tactics that are working, there is no need to toss them out the window. So, the best thing that marketing companies can do is to create a hybrid strategy that combines new, as well as older, functioning strategies.

These are some of the trending tactics in 2019 that are going to help your company thrive! See which tactic relates to your business and don’t be afraid to give it a try!

Three Ways to Get Out of Digital Media Mediocrity

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, marketing, SEO | No Comments

Companies need to be fearless in their pursuits of success if they want to draw in more clients and market themselves as a reliable company, but establishing yourself as such may not come so easily. If your company wants to be taken seriously, you have to be able to show what makes your company special — something that consumers can’t really find anywhere else. In order to show this to your potential consumers, your online marketing needs to be on point.

When it comes to online content, a lot of companies crack under the pressure of not staying relevant with their target audience and have to rely on the help of digital marketing companies. If these companies continue to try and handle the online marketing work themselves, they will fall into the deep, unforgiving path of mediocrity. From here, the question is, how do you avoid falling into this category? Here are three ways to get you out of digital media mediocrity and how you can become a successful company, capable of pulling in new customers left and right.

Know Your Consumers

This is probably the most important step in surviving digital media mediocrity. If you don’t know your consumers, how are you supposed to successfully find new customers? Experienced marketing companies can tell you that by not taking the time to research and find out who your consumers are, you will waste your time coming up with irrelevant marketing content and, worst of all, miss out on the business of potential consumers.

Place Your Ads Appropriately

Going right along with knowing your consumers, you need to know where they spend their time online; companies that blindly upload advertisements are going to have the least amount of success. If you want to generate results and come across as a competent company, you will need to do as the digital marketing companies do and place your ads appropriately. For example, if your company sells sports attire and equipment, you’re going to want to target other websites that relate to the sports world. You’ll also want to run your ads on videos that fit within the category of your brand’s specific product or services.

 

Declare a Specialty

Consumers are looking for companies that give them some special service or product at all times. If your company has a USP (unique selling point) — and it should — but you are not hitting on it in your online marketing, you will not stand out to anyone and will be obscured in mediocrity. To change this, you need to know what it is that makes your current consumers come to you for your business and not others. When experienced marketing companies start working with companies for the first time, the first thing they do is find out what makes those companies unique. From there, they will make sure that you put your best foot forward and show your consumers why they need your service/product.

These few tips will help any company stay afloat in the online world. If you cannot implement these tips, you may want to seek out help from digital marketing companies. If you’re in need of award-winning digital advertising services, look no further than Fusion 360, we live by these tips and our work shows that.

 

The Perfect Length for Your Video Ads

By | digital marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah, video production | No Comments

Perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions when it comes to video ads is what the perfect length is. How do video production companies know how long their ads should be in order to be effective? Is there a formula, a secret number? Well, it all comes down to your advertising goals. Different lengths are good for different ads, and you’ll have to determine what it is you’re trying to achieve in order to determine the perfect length for your project.

So, when deciding what the perfect length will be for your videos, you may want to inquire with local video production companies to see what they think about your campaign, and how they can help you narrow down what your ad should look like. Here are some tips on how long your video ads should be, and how video production companies have narrowed down time frames to a science.

Recognizing the Different Time Frames

There was a study done by IPG Media Lab and YuMe that measured the impact of the different video lengths on different consumer groups. Here are the findings from this study and how the groups react to various video ad lengths.

Short Ads (15 seconds): Shorter ads have a bigger impact when it comes to established brands, millennials and mobile platforms. It was found that longer ads shown to these age groups had very little impact on the brand in terms of favorability and purchase intent, clocking it at an underwhelming five percent.

Well established brands don’t need more than 15 seconds to push a product or service, as their impact in their respective industry has already built that trust and reputation with their consumer base. When it comes to short ads, there is a formula: short ads + short content + a small screen (mobile device) = a BIG impact. Long story short, mobile ads need to be kept short, as well as ads targeting millennials and ads that come from big brands.

Longer Video Ads (45 seconds): New brands benefit from longer ads because they still need to show any potential consumers what they can offer in terms of services and products. It was found by this study that these longer videos had a great impact on brand favorability and purchase intent by as much as 40 percent.

Video production companies also recommend using these longer ads if your brand has a complex message to convey to potential audiences. Just as shorter videos are effective on mobile devices, longer video ads are effective when it comes to desktop computers and television platforms.

Long and short video ads are effective ways of advertising, but the perfect length depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and who you’re trying to target. If you’re looking for a video production company to help you come up with the perfect video ad, contact us here at Fusion 360 Studios. We’re experts when it comes to video advertising, and we’re ready to help bring your perfect ad to life.

Sources:

https://www.balcomagency.com/blog/whats-best-length-video-ad

How to Increase Engagement with Your Videos

By | digital marketing, marketing, SEO, Utah, video production | No Comments

Video content seems to have broken the internet for the past few years. If you are not creating and posting video content online for your brand, you have a smaller chance of getting noticed. Video production companies work to create entertaining and engaging videos for various brands to help them increase their awareness online. How do they do it exactly? Here are a few tips and tricks that video production companies use to increase engagement online with their videos.

Know Your Audience

This is probably the most important tip of them all. You have to know your brand’s audience so that you can create a video that is tailored to them and their interests. If you don’t produce a video that is interesting to them, they aren’t going to engage or even watch your video.

Video production companies do a lot of research to figure out who their audience is and what type of content they will be interested in seeing. When posting on social media platforms like Facebook, you can target your exact audience by using the “Preferred Audience” and “Restricted Audience” settings. These settings can sort your audience by interests and demographics.

Make Your Topic Engaging

Once you know your audience, you can come up with a video topic that is engaging and shareable. Your video should aim to entertain, inform or inspire your audience. Video production companies usually create a video around one key point or topic. Your video should be able to be summarized in one phrase. Narrowed down topics create great videos for social media because they are quick and to the point. When viewers understand the point of the video, they are more likely to engage with your content and share it with their friends.

Be Aware of Structure and Length

First impressions are important, so the first few seconds of your video need to “wow” your viewer in order to keep them watching. Make sure the first few frames of your video are bold and entertaining in order to grab people’s attention. In addition, make sure you optimize the thumbnail of your video to match the topic of your video. Having an engaging thumbnail will lead more people to click on your video. Think of your video thumbnail as “click bait.”

When editing your video, try to keep it as concise as possible so you don’t bore your audience or cause them to lose interest. Keep in mind that people have short attention spans. Considering that a lot of people will be watching your video without sound, it’s always a good idea to add captions or text overlay to videos you post on social media. Video production companies spend a lot of time editing their videos to make sure they are creating the best most engaging content possible.

Make Your Video Native

Videos are automatically going to get more engagement if they are posted natively. What this means is posting your content directly to multiple online platforms, rather than posting it in one spot and posting links to that content on the other platforms. This tip is especially important when posting to platforms like Facebook and Instagram because of the autoplay feature. In addition, by uploading your video natively, you can get stats on how many people watched and engaged with your video on each platform, which will be helpful in knowing how successful your video actually was.

Video content is powerful and can really transform your brand image. It has the ability to attract new customers and provide an increase in sales if done correctly. If your brand is needing help in creating video content, a video production company like Fusion 360 can help you create both brand and social videos. Fusion 360 has an award-winning video production team that can take on any task given to them. Contact Fusion 360 today to start working on some video content for your brand.

Simple Do-it-yourself SEO Tips

By | digital marketing, marketing, SEO, Utah | No Comments

SEO is the framework of any successful brand and without it you might find yourself struggling to reach the results you’re aiming for. While it may sound complicated, there are some simple SEO tricks you can utilize that do not require extensive knowledge on SEO practices. While it is recommended you reach out to SEO companies to help your brand make its mark in your specific industry, we also understand that sometimes that’s not always an option right away, especially if you’re just starting to figure out your business.

Even if marketing companies are out of the question for the time being, you shouldn’t neglect basic SEO practices. Here are some of the simplest SEO practices you can do yourself while preparing to request the services of professional SEO companies.

Research Effective Keywords for Brand

Keywords are the center point of any piece of SEO content, but it’s not enough to just throw in random keywords that sound as if they’ll fit your piece. To make sure your content ranks well on search engines, you have to research keywords and see which ones are ranking and being searched for the most. If you’re on a budget, you can use the Google Keyword Planner to come up with a list of keywords that you can use within your content to improve your SEO.

Practice Basic On-page Optimization

Optimizing the pages on your website can help your company rank even higher on search engines if done properly. As search engines continue to make improvements, they’re getting better at narrowing down what a page is about by searching for specific keywords. Some simple things you can do to optimize your pages are to:

Use Meta Descriptions: these are a form of tag that help bring in visitors form a search page. The potential visitor will see a link to your site, followed by a description that is usually under 160 words that contains a few keywords.

Use the H1 Tag: this can also be referred to as the heading of a page. This header should appeal to the page’s visitor and describe the page as accurately and interestingly as possible.

Create Alt Tags: these tags appear when you hover your mouse over an image. It’s best to make sure these tags are used as keywords to help your SEO ranking even further.

Create Quality Content

Once you’ve done adequate research on your keywords, you should begin creating quality content in the form of blogs, videos, infographics and social posts. When it comes to content, stick to subjects that may be interesting to your target audience and make sure that you use the highest-ranking keywords within your pieces to draw in visitors and create strong backlinks. SEO companies are usually comprised of different teams in charge of the various types of content, but if your team is limited, you can focus on writing blogs about subjects your company understands.

SEO doesn’t have to be complicated to begin with, but once your business starts growing, you’ll want to reach out to SEO companies for your SEO needs. If you’re ready to take the next step into the world of SEO, contact us here at Fusion 360 Agency. SEO is our specialty, and you won’t find a better marketing agency than us.

Different Video Ads for Different Platforms

By | digital marketing, SEO, Utah, video production | No Comments

Video advertisements are always with new and entertaining ways to represent their brand, and as a result, we get some of some of the most powerful and appealing ads of the time. Even though the purpose of these ads are to promote s specific cause, brand or product, there are many that still are captivating even if you are not a target for the ad.

Watching these ads, you might also notice that depending on the platform, they may also be structured differently. This is because different platforms call for different ad styles, and it’s important for marketing companies to understand this so that they don’t create something that won’t perform on certain platforms. Here are the different types of video ads and what platforms they work on.

Out-stream Video Ads

We’ll begin by talking about out-steam video ads. These types of ads are generally used as stand-alone content, meaning that they can go out without being accompanied by any other sort of content. One of the biggest benefits of out-stream ads is the ability expand your company’s reach and build significant brand awareness. You’ll find that out-stream videos will drive online purchases and target key consumers as well. You’ll most likely find out-stream ads on TV, on companies’ personal webpages, or on different social media platforms (i.e. YouTube, Instagram and Twitter).

In-stream Video Ads

In-stream video ads are the most commonly seen advertisements today. These ads are described as linear because they run in line sequentially with content or material you are searching for. Marketing companies will usually divide these ads into pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll videos that play at the beginning, middle or end of a video you are trying to watch online. You’ll find these ads on video sharing platforms such as YouTube, and streaming platforms like Hulu and HBO ⎯ here are some explanations on these video ads:

Pre-roll ads are ran before a video starts. This can be beneficial to the marketing company because the ad is the first thing that the viewer will see: Although they can be skipped, if marketing companies craft an engaging ad from the beginning, you’ll likely reel in some potential consumers.

Mid-roll ads are played while the video is being viewed. These ads will most likely play in the middle of a video, and although they may be intrusive, it is unlikely that a viewer will click away due to the fact that they may want to finish their video.

Post-roll ads are amongst the most ineffective type of ads simply because they play after the content has finished and a viewer has no motivation to watch them. Marketing companies tend to avoid these types of ads and favor mid and pre-roll ads.

Some Guidelines for In-stream Video Ads:

Make these ads 15-30 seconds
Disable fast forward options
Use a 16:9 or 4:3 ratio (16:9 is the most commonly used)

In addition to YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and HBO, social media platform Facebook has also adopted in-stream ads.

Marketing companies have to know what kind of ads to use for each platform, because the right ad will lead to the desired results. If your brand needs help with advertising, don’t hesitate to contact us here at Fusion 360 Agency. Marketing is what we do best and we’re always ready to help your brand make its digital footprint in the industry.

Four Secrets to Online Success

By | digital marketing, SEO, Utah, video production | No Comments

When you post any sort of content on the internet, it can go one of two ways: you can reach a good number of people and see a significant amount of interaction, or you can witness your post disappearing into the merciless void that is the internet. What it all comes down to is how much time you take to prepare your content; online success doesn’t come easy, and social media marketing companies know that it takes a lot of work to see good results.

It’s important for brands to prepare and optimize their content wisely if they hope to claim any online success, but we realize that there are some companies out there that may require the assistance of professional social media marketing companies. Here are four secrets to online success that will help your brand blossom and give you the results that you’re looking for.

Understand Your Own Vision

The first secret to online success is taking the time to understand your own vision. In order to achieve great online success, both the brand and the social media marketing company need to know what their goals are and how to accomplish them.

Know Where Your Customers Are

Online success also comes down to pinpointing where your customers are spending their time online. Of course, this depends on your services and or products. If your brand sells sporting goods and supplements, you’ll want to target other pages and users in the sports industry. Once you start to pick up steam, you can begin recruiting affiliates within that community to help advertise your brand; online success is all about branching out.

Come Up with an Endpoint

Aside from just understanding your vision and ensuring that your short-term goals are met, successful companies also need to have an end goal in mind. Without a specific long-term goal in mind, you’re going to find it harder to motivate your brand and create quality and optimized content. Long-term goals serve as guidelines for everything that is produced within your company.

Go All in with Your Time

Lastly, you can’t achieve online success without going all in with your efforts. One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is treating their online efforts as a part-time job. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your online presence won’t be either. The best way to achieve online success is to treat your social media like a full-time job ⎯ if you can do that, you should have no problem seeing positive results.

If you’re looking to achieve online success but don’t know where to start with these secrets, contact our talented social media marketing team at Fusion 360 Studios. We can help grow your brand to its full potential.

Three Common Flaws You Will See in Lower Quality Videos

By | SEO, Social Media, Utah, video production | No Comments

DIY video production has become more and more popular as we’ve been exposed to higher grade video equipment, editing software and production equipment. As a result, in an addition to seeing a significant increase in the amount of video content that goes out onto the internet, we also see more videos that should be high-quality but are not.

While it is true that anyone in the world can upload video content to the internet, it’s also worth noting that not every video online is going to be good or even decent. The fact of the matter is, the online videos you see that are truly high-quality are likely produced primarily by super talented professionals and video production companies.

You can’t deny that when you’re watching a poor-quality video that you just want scratch your eyes out or maybe even plug your ears. Unfortunately, in a time where we have fancy cell phone cameras and software available to create visual masterpieces, everyone becomes a self-proclaimed video expert, photographer or professional. We are here right now to help anyone to recognize common flaws and make sure they avoid making the same mistake themselves.

Not Using Proper Microphones

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in video production is poor audio recording. Just like you would invest in a good quality camera, you should always make sure to use a high-quality microphone when filming anything! Your audience doesn’t want to listen to static, poppy, unintelligible dialogue, and neither do your editors.

There are countless options when it comes to microphones; video production companies trust brands such as Rode, Audio Technica and Shure to capture crisp, clean and audible sounds.

Using Too Much Digital Zoom

Zooms and Close Up shots are crucial in video production, but there is a better way to get a closer look at that important object or person than always using the digital zoom on a camera. One other huge mistake that DIY video production individuals may make is not taking the time to physically get closer to a subject for zooms and close-ups. When you zoom in digitally, you’re basically taking the same image and stretching it out, which can lead to pixilation and a loss of quality.

Professional video production companies recommend that you get up close and personal to capture intense and beautiful close up shots; you won’t sacrifice quality and your video won’t look bad.

Editing Mishaps

This is probably one of the worst things you can do in the world of video production. Uploading footage with mistakes in the editing is probably the best way to ensure your video’s failure. You have to take all your clips and run them through an intensive editing team to clean them up; even the best video production companies have to edit their work together, and it is definitely nothing to be ashamed about. In fact, double checking your work in the editing process will not only ensure that your video comes out crisp, but also a second set of eyes on the work. This second set of eyes might provide some good feedback and thoughts on how to make the video look even better.

So, if you’re looking to create a successful visual masterpiece, you’ll want to make sure that you don’t make these three common mistakes. If you need help creating a high-end video for your brand, make sure to give us a call here at Fusion 360 Studios ⎯ video production is what we do best, and that will show in your next production.