Echovine Communications - Blog , Digital MarketingEchovine Communications - Blog , Digital Marketinghttps://echovine.co.za/blogs/digital-marketingFri, 24 Oct 2025 18:06:41 -0700http://zoho.com/sites/<![CDATA[The exponential evolution of Video Marketing]]>https://echovine.co.za/blogs/post/the-exponential-evolution-of-video-marketingSocial media is more than just posting two sentences and a link on Facebook or LinkedIn. It is more than retweeting a funny video. And it is more than ]]>
Social media is more than just posting two sentences and a link on Facebook or LinkedIn. It is more than retweeting a funny video. And it is more than the theory of “customising a message for your target audience”. In a world of constant flux, it is becoming more and more of a challenge to stay connected with your audience.

The year of the video
2017 was dubbed as “the year of the video”. Audiences want to see content rather than read content, and they want you to get to the point within 6 seconds!

The basic principal of video is this: the more senses you engage, the better. But at present, a video is no longer just a video.

Meet Interactive Videos: a phenomenal way to interact and engage with audiences.

Interactive videos are almost like video games where the viewer is presented with options to choose from. What they see next is dependent on the choice they have made a second before.

But why video?
Pretty cool, right? But what does this mean for your business? Here are short and hard facts:

  1. Videos boost conversation and
  2. It is a great tool for remarketing which increases your engagement and frequency.
  3. You will get your money back! The first three months of ROI statistics (views over impressions) will predict when you will start seeing ROI.
  4. Videos build trust(because it’s easier for the audience to engage with).
  5. Google also loves video! This is great for your brand’s Google ranking.
  6. Video is more accessible and appeals to your mobile users (not just millennials).
  7. You can explain anything in a video.
  8. It prompts lazy
  9. Video also encourages social sharing, meaning your viewers will share it on their personal timelines, resulting in higher impression ratings.

Okay, so what is the catch?
– You have only 6 seconds to make an exceptional impression and get to the point.

– Putting the right content out there is easier said than done. You cannot just know about your audience. You have to KNOW your audience as individual members! Only then will you be able to discern what they want to see and what will prompt their engagement.

– Subtitles are of cardinal importance. Luckily YouTube can generate them for you automatically.

Some tips for video marketing
– Have a strategy. If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter where go.

– Be innovative. Play around with different types of video (animation, 360 degrees, interactive, etc.) and the tone of voice (happy, motivating, energetic, sad, etc. – refer back to have a strategy).

– Go live! We have had numerous Facebook Live Q&A sessions with Munchkins. Parents could post questions and get answers immediately.

– Choose the right platform. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter ask for different content and length of videos.

– Have great intros and outros. Get to your point and remember your call-to-action. Remind the viewer (more than once if possible) why they are watching your video in the first place.

– Use the correct metrics. Just because you had 10 000 views doesn’t mean 10 000 people will start buying your products and services. Impressions and views, however, do tell us how your brand awareness has grown. “Views” include all views, from 5-second views to full length views. Know what you are looking at (excuse the pun).
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]]>Fri, 11 Aug 2023 11:09:25 +0000<![CDATA[What's this obsession with Persona Marketing]]>https://echovine.co.za/blogs/post/whats-this-obsession-with-persona-marketingYou are doing everything right according to the textbooks: you have a brand-new website and you are active on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Yet, you ]]>
You are doing everything right according to the textbooks: you have a brand-new website and you are active on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Yet, you don’t get qualified leads from all your efforts, not to mention the amount of money you’ve spent!

What are you doing wrong?

It’s all about your message and those who care to listen to it. In other words, talking to the right people by telling a story they can relate to!

To know how to write your posts on social media, you need to know to whom you are talking, by creating one or more buyer personas.

What and who are these “personas”?
Buyer personas are like characters: they are fictional, yet very realistic representations of your ideal customers. You have to keep in mind how they think, what they want to achieve in life and why they do what they do.

Buyer personas are based on solid research, not assumptions!

How well do you know your audience on Facebook and your ideal customer?
It takes intensive effort to get to know your customers. You cannot just assume that you know them. You need to talk to them! Linda Bustos, Director of E-commerce Research at Elastic Path identified three key techniques you can use:

  1. Have one-on-one interviews with your customers and ask in-depth questions
  2. Observe them by spending a day with them and asking relevant questions.
  3. Listen when your customer tells you about your product: what it does, how well (or bad) it, how it’s used, etc. This is an excellent way to understand how they perceive your product or service.

Columnist Arnie Kuenn also suggests making use of lead forms and talking to your sales team. Additionally, you can interview your support staff, analyse how your audience consumes content and evaluate current content using A/B testing.

What do you do with all this information?

It is best to combine the above research with market research.

Then you can start creating full portraits of your buyer persona/s. A typical framework includes

1. Basic information such as:
    1. Name
    2. Age and generation
    3. Gender
    4. Marital status

2. Demographic information such as:
    1. Career, job responsibilities and roles
    2. Company size
    3. Life outside of work
    4. Income
    5. Budget

3. Behavioural information such as:
    1. What keeps them up at night
    2. Pain points and challenges
    3. Role in purchasing
    4. How they consume content (Facebook, email, magazines, etc).
    5. How often they look for specific content
    6. Whose opinions they trust

So how do you create messages your audience will respond to?
The first step is to familiarise yourself with the buyer’s journey.


Figure 1: The Buyer’s Journey (HubSpot)

You will find that your customers are scattered across three different stages, and you need to get their attention during each stage. You need to meet them where they are.

During the Awareness stage, your customer realises they have a problem. Your message will confirm that you can fix their problem. A typical message will tell them about your products and services.

When they reach the Consideration stage, they will start looking for solutions. Here your message needs to touch their pain points. This means that your message should focus on one problem, one product/service and one solution.

When they are ready to make a purchase in the Decision stage, your message needs to communicate your competitive advantage. Why should they choose you and not someone else? Here you can offer demos, special prices and free trials.

You can also incorporate the PESO model, developed by Gini Dietrich:


Figure 2: PESO Model (Spin Sucks)

In simplest terms, the PESO Model allows you to separate the content and communications you create into media buckets that align with all of the available marketing channels. The PESO Model enables you to better integrate your marketing efforts by identifying opportunities and gaps.

  • Paid Media. Paid media, in this case, doesn’t refer to big, fancy commercials and highly creative print ads. On the contrary, paid media for social media includes advertising, sponsored content and email marketing.
  • Earned Media. Earned media is what we know as either publicity or media relations. It’s getting your name in print. It’s having a newspaper or trade publication write about you. It’s appearing on the noon news to talk about your product. It’s what the PR industry is typically known for, because it’s one of the few tangible things done.
  • Shared Media. Shared media is also known as social media. It’s evolving as well, and continues to build beyond just marketing or customer service teams using it. Soon, organisations will share it as their main source of communications, both internally and externally.
  • Owned Media. Owned media is otherwise known as content. It is something you own, and it lives on your website or blog. You control the messaging and tell the story in a way you want it told.

Why do you need to go through all this effort?
Founder of buyer personas, Toni Zambito, explains 6 reasons why you need to know your customers:

  1. They give you inside infoto adjust your marketing and sales strategies.
  2. They tell you about the words that trigger them and to which messages they will respond.
  3. They provide qualitative and quantitative informationto adjust your customer strategy.
  4. They tell youhow they will use your product and what you need to do to improve the user-friendliness of your product.
  5. Chances are, you will outperform your competitors.
  6. Globalisationis not just for the big companies anymore. “Companies are entering new markets with little knowledge of regional buying behaviours and little room for errors.”

Toni also predicts that if “researched in the right way, buyer personas can help organisations to accomplish an understanding, which has long been absent.”

What happens now?
It is ideal to formulate personas prior to any strategy and to share your buyer personas with your whole team so that they understand who they are trying to engage. Everything you do and don’t do will revolve around your buyer personas.

If you want to be successful, you need to be consistent. Success will not come overnight. Be consistent in your messaging, what you say, how you say it and to whom you are talking to. It’s okay if your persona slightly changes (as they will according to their journeys), but don’t scrap a persona just because you haven’t seen any ROI in a month.
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]]>Fri, 11 Aug 2023 11:09:25 +0000<![CDATA[Social Media Trends for 2022]]>https://echovine.co.za/blogs/post/social-media-trends-for-20222022 Social Media Trends webinar, emphasizing the rise of Brand Awareness and Employee Experience. It underscores the value of brand values, employee communication, and social commerce trends. The Metaverse concept's emergence is also noted as a notable trend in shaping social media dynamics.]]>
I hope you have by now all found your rhythm for 2022 (despite this horrible heat wave) and are ready to utilise the unique opportunities it may bring us all. So along those lines…. I attended a virtual Social Media Trends webinar last week showcasing interesting world-wide research on the latest trends for 2022 and thought I’d share some insights:

Goals
Although Customer Acquisition was a big trend in 2021, interestingly enough, Brand Awareness has been moved to the top spot in 2022 with Employee Experience as another serious contender.

So what does this mean?

• It simply means that customers/clients are no longer just looking to satisfy their own needs but also want to experience the storytelling and personality behind your brand. Your company values ranked at 58 ‘% as one of the factors that consumers consider when making buying decisions. By getting employees to talk about their work and what they do motivates other businesses to buy from you as a B2B business and encourages your clients to also share their experiences.

• Furthermore both potential employees as well as existing employees want to be communicated with and acknowledged on social media for their achievements. Employee recruitment through social platforms will see a huge surge this year and specialists geared to do this will be sought after.

• Covid has also upped the competition on social media due to more people and businesses being online. Gaining customer insight from social media in order to improve the customer experience will be vital as businesses will need to become more customer centric. Consumers are taking control of our brands. Personalised content is therefore paramount.

• Producing engaging content has been identified as one of the huge challenges as more and more channels are created. Brands who partner wisely with content creators are gaining advantage on social media by connecting with your audiences through creative messaging and not just selling to them.

• Social customer service and care has been fuelled by Covid-19 and social media had to make products and services easier to find and consume. The experience needs to be easier and simpler. The start of virtual brand relationships are being seen between customers and brands and actual pics of customers talking about your products will be trending. User generated content created by your customers/clients are seen as more trustworthy and engaging and interacting with your clients on social media is therefore important. So it might be wise to find those customers willing to talk and be brand advocates and rewarding their loyalty by incentivising them.

• Social commerce is also gaining a lot of traction for e.g. shops on Instagram. Facebook and Instagram are still seen as the most effective B2C platforms with LinkedIn as the preferred B2B platform although many businesses utilise the other platforms successfully as well. Brand communities are being created on social media where brand loyalists will discuss your brand and products or service.

• Influencer marketing and the co-creation of content with influencers will be another creative way to showcase your brand and tapping into new markets.

• For those ready for virtual experiences – the Metaverse – Virtual Reality Spaces where users can interact – are becoming real and as such Gucci sets the trend. Our kids are already meeting and playing with their friends in these metaverses. Now brands are finding ways to insert their products into these experiences – fascinating! Read more here

I am looking forward to exploring new and innovative ways to apply your brand and core messaging this year.
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]]>Mon, 24 Jan 2022 14:45:00 +0000<![CDATA[Why your client doesn't care about your brand and what to do about it.]]>https://echovine.co.za/blogs/post/why-your-client-doesnt-care-about-your-brand-and-what-to-do-about-it2022 Social Media Trends webinar, emphasizing the rise of Brand Awareness and Employee Experience. It underscores the value of brand values, employee communication, and social commerce trends. The Metaverse concept's emergence is also noted as a notable trend in shaping social media dynamics.]]>
So, you have registered your company, all the paperwork has been done, you have your website up and running. It’s been at least 6 months, but your sales are not what you thought it would be.

About to give up already?

Before you do, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Have I really thought about WHY I am not getting the desired sales?
  • Have I set myself realistic goals?
  • Do my potential customers even know that I exist?
  • Am I sending out the right content through the right channels at the right time?

It is important to understand that not all leads will turn into conversions (aka buying customers). It is also important to know what needs to be done during each stage of the marketing process in order to increase the number of customers from your sales leads. Being in business requires dedication, commitment, consistency, patience and a whole lot of hard work.

Do not give up yet! Here is some free insight into the customer journey (aka the sales funnel):

The Purchase/Sales Funnel




Awareness
First and foremost: for your company to have a customer, that customer needs to know that you exist and must be able to find you.

At the very top of the funnel this represents anyone who is nowhere close to buying your product or services.75% of potential customers are looking for information to fulfil a need they have, so at this stage it is important to provide educational content:

  • The customer needs to know what your company does and if it will solve any of their problems or needs.
  • It is crucial that your website is found through organic search with the right and relevant key search terms for your product or services.
  • During the initial stages of building your brand you need to create awareness through content from your website shared on your social media channels.
  • Your strategy at this stage mainly consists of organic SEO marketing, which includes content marketing (among others).
  • Your goal is to create content that will raise awareness of your brand and attract a large number of leads.

This process does not happen overnight and needs some thought and planning!

Remember: Creating awareness is NOT selling your product or service!


Interest
After successfully creating awareness and making your potential customers aware that you exist, you will need to continue building interest in your product/offering. These are the customers that have made it to the middle of the funnel. They have possibly visited your website (or sent you a query via one of your platforms) and have some kind of information about your company.

Research has shown that a potential customer will take one of two actions within 40 seconds of visiting your website: 1. stay; or 2. leave.

Is your website relevant, engaging, and easy to navigate and does it have the right content?

  • Once interested, the customer should be able to find all the information they need; be presented with the opportunity to sign up for newsletters; opt in to competitions; read your blog; or go to your social media pages, etc.
  • At this stage you are aiming at building trust. This can be achieved by providing “social proof”, such as testimonials on your website and on social media platforms.
  • Remember that at this stage the potential customer is also comparing you to what your competitors have to offer – so, do you stand out?

This is the perfect time to use email marketing to send them more free relational content (that will add value to their lives) or invite them to further engage with you, to increase the likelihood of choosing your product or service.


Consideration
Your potential customer has now made it to the bottom of the funnel: they have all the info they need; they have compared you with competitors (if any); visited your social media platforms; read your blogs, etc.

  • They are now at the stage of considering “your offer”.
  • They are very close to making a purchasing decision but have not really made up their mind.
  • At this stage you need to send out automated emails, reminders, calls to action, free trials anything to encourage and sway the potential buyer to make a buying decision.
  • They now have an intention to buy, trust you somehow and are now evaluating everything; they might have already put some things onto a wish list.

They’re at the tipping point, and you need to determine what type of messages, content, and promotions will give them the last little push that motivates them to buy. You cannot afford to let them get away. They need to be nurtured to the purchasing stage.


Purchase
After going through all the stages of the sales funnel, your customer has finally decided to buy your product or service. Well done!

Your lead has now finally converted into a customer. If you have online purchasing functionality (aka a shopping cart), do not make it too complicated, time consuming or annoying for the customer to make the purchase. You can still easily lose a customer and their sale at this stage. The buying process should include no more than 3 steps, from choosing the desired product, to making payment.

Retention/relationship, repeat business and referral

It is vitally important to try and retain that customer for repeat business: If possible, get their feedback/review, as well as referrals and testimonials, which will aid in boosting your brand identity, and provide you with information to improve your business.

It is not only important to retain your existing customers, but also to keep those that you have within any of the other stages of the sales funnel engaged and retained. The challenge here is to build a customer base, continuing to pour more people into the funnel, monitoring which ones are at what stage and determining what they need.


Your next step
We know what you’re thinking:

‘’Heck, all I want to do is sell my awesome product or help people with my amazing service offering.’’

Don’t panic, if all this talk of funnels, content, sales and retention has made your head spin. Just give us a call or drop us an email. As digital brand strategists and implementors, it is our specialty to partner with our clients through this process.

Get in touch with EchoVine Communications today
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