Month: August 2017

The Results are in… It’s Video Crisps for the Win

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For years we have specialized in producing high-quality video content. I’ve always been proud of our storytelling abilities and our expertise and attention to the technical quality of our craft – the lighting, the color, the sound…

I don’t think there are many people who would dispute that our team is known for their professionalism and skills, and also for their dedication to producing excellent content and to customer satisfaction.

The thing is, video production is more complicated than most people realize and traditionally the cost of professional production has reflected this fact. At White Knight we knew we could help more people create great video content if we could just get that price point down.

We’ve also extensively studied the mounting evidence that proves video is the most powerful medium for engaging your audience and attracting new clients to your business. There are hundreds of statistics to back up that claim – from the one that tells us that social media posts with video are 1200% more likely to be shared or that people are twice as likely to buy a product once they watch a video about it.

Moreover, we know that these days a company’s values, culture and brand is more important than ever before in creating an engaged and active audience. Every company out there would love to have fans that are so excited about the brand they can’t wait to recommend it to all of their friends. Video can help to create this kind of engagement – with consistent and well thought-out messaging, which is exactly what the Video Crisps do.

Our Video Crisp clients get fresh, custom-created video content delivered to them every month, with a minimal investment of time and money, and so far people love this program! We’ve helped all kinds of companies, from colleges to financial services firms to pet sitters, and across the board we are hearing reports of positive feedback, a broader reach and higher rankings in the search engines.

It’s just one more piece of evidence that proves why video should play an important role in any marketing strategy. What are you doing to create a highly engaged audience today?

You can learn more about our program, see examples and read what people are saying about working with us at this link: http://whiteknightpro.com/video-crisp.html

Tribe it Up

~ whiteknighthub ~ 2 Comments

The other day I had lunch with my friend and fellow entrepreneur. We spoke candidly about some of the challenges in our respective businesses, and as we were getting ready to leave the restaurant she said to me, “I’m so relieved that I’m not the only one who goes through this stuff.”

That statement struck a cord with me because so often as entrepreneurs and small business owners we do feel like we have to figure everything out on our own, and that can be a very lonely position to take. The truth of the matter is, we have more in common than we realize. Even though we may be running businesses in different industries with our own very specific challenges, on a slightly higher level we are all the same.

We face issues and questions around cash flow, sales, employee recruitment and retention. We have to pay attention to marketing, advertising, culture and reputation. As our companies grow we most likely have a team in place to assist with many of these items, but ultimately, as a small business owner, the buck does stop with us.

But that doesn’t mean we have to go it alone.

Taking the time to intentionally seek out and build a support network for yourself is, I believe, key for the success of a business. At a minimum you may want to consider hiring a business coach or a mentor, but beyond that setting up a “mastermind” group of trusted peers will help you to keep challenges – and successes – in perspective.

Elin Barton is the President of White Knight Productions and the host of the podcast, Ready, Set, Grit.  Her first book, Ready, Set, Grit: How to Turn Your Daydream Into a Phenomenal Success, will be released in the Fall of 2017.

I’ll Tell You a Secret

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And that secret is, your customers don’t care about you.

Okay, that may have been a little harsh and it may be a slight exaggeration, but only a little one. The truth of the matter is, many companies spend their time talking about how great they are and how much they have to offer.

I know you’ve heard the pitches. They go something like this:

  • We have the best team.
  • We offer the best service.
  • Come and work with us and you’ll get the benefits of our new and shiny equipment/office/services.
  • We’re so much better than the competition

The thing is, your customers probably don’t care about all your bells and whistles. They don’t really care about your awards, accolades and your team. No offense, but they really don’t.

The truth is, what they do care about is how they’re going to feel if they decide to work with you. That’s it, so start shifting the story that you’re telling and turn it into one that they actually want to hear.

Need help with your content creation? At White Knight we offer both Video Crisps and our total content solution: Content and Crisps. To find out more about our programs, schedule a time for a discovery session.

Content is King

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Remember the old days of communicating with customers when you were forced to rely on broadcasting your message to the masses, whether via TV or radio advertising, print ads or billboards? You put your message out there and calculated that some small percentage of people who saw it would have a favorable reaction and buy your product or service.

These days, of course, we’ve gone a complete 180 and instead can hyper-target who sees and responds to your message. There are incredible tools available to marketers now, in 2017, but what’s more relevant today than ever before is the need to produce quality content. And quality is the key word. Your content needs to be something that your current and future customers will find interesting, relevant and engaging.

Many marketers find that producing such content is time-consuming and challenging. But at the end of the day it is completely worth the investment, and the proof of that is in the numbers. I recently saw a statistic that showed that companies that publish a blog post 16 or more times per month increase their web traffic by three and a half times over companies that publish 4 or fewer posts per month. That is a significant number because of course, every time someone comes to your website it is an opportunity for them to engage with your brand or to purchase your product or service.

When you begin to consistently put out content that people care about you establish yourself as an expert, and you become a trusted source of information. In addition, when your content is interesting and valuable it is shared by your followers and you suddenly find yourself in front of a new audience that you may have not initially been aware of or had access to.

Written content is powerful, but video content can help you take your customer engagement to a whole new level. Consider these statistics. Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined. Brightcove reports that video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines, while MarketingLand says that 62% of Google searches include video. And, of course YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and videos that are hosted there and link to your website can help your Google rankings. “How-to” searches on YouTube have been consistently growing at approximately 70% per year, and this trend is projected to continue.

It’s our belief that written content and video are both important to your customer engagement and your SEO. But be aware that both your written and video content must be high quality or it will be a turn-off for your audience. Brightcove, in one of their studies, reminds us that poor quality video will actually give people a negative perception of your brand.

Need help with your content creation? At White Knight we offer both Video Crisps and our total content solution: Content and Crisps. To find out more about our programs, schedule a time for a discovery session.