Posters. Flyers. Strategically placed billboards. Then came commercials, groundbreaking, catchy and memorable, but usually expensive. Until now. In today’s world, you can get your message out via Social Media and other networking platforms. But how do you promote your blogs, your products or services? Sites like Promo and Animoto are one-stop shops for startups, small businesses and anyone trying to highlight their business without breaking the bank. Let us take a closer look at these awesome tools.
Promo.com
Occasionally, you get that awesome idea for a video. It is cool, catchy and even innovative, but you don’t have the budget for all that high-caliber video content, and image licensing costs. So, what do you do? Scrap the idea and make do with something plain and simple? Well, now you do not have to because the Promo platform does the heavy lifting for you by condensing the commercial creating process into a few easy to follow steps:
Curated Videos
Fashion, pet care, digital marketing, quarantine tips, technology, etc.
Directors Seat
Become the Director (without the megaphone or the beret) and start your search for the ideal video and footage that works best for you. Because of its partnership with Getty Images, you’ll be able to search over 2 million video clips using a simple keyword search.
Personalize
You can personalize your videos with a library of music to choose from, format text and much more. Make the necessary edits before you publish, download, and share you video.
Start out Lite
Start off with a Lite Plan to learn the ropes and grow comfortable with the video creating process. Once you are ready to roll, you can register for the paid versions that start at $59 and go up from there. The cost might seem a little pricey, especially for a new business big on heart, and small on budget, but remember, you are getting promo-quality videos here. Before starting with “I could do the video myself,” consider the difference in quality; and remember, presentation is everything.
Animoto
You may be big on idea and vision, but short on time? Not to worry because Animoto has your back. Once you have uploaded your images and/or video clips, Animoto does the rest for you, literally. It is as simple as upload, then choose your music (from Animoto’s own royalty-free library), and by the time you come back with your second cup of coffee, you are looking at a finished product. Of course, if the finished product is not everything you thought it would be, go ahead re-mix as many times as you want until you are happy.
There is a catch. While you gain in simplicity and a two-step process, you lose in terms of control of the editing process. It is like painting the Mona Lisa with a house painter’s brush. You will do a great job, but you probably will not achieve that Mona Lisa smile (or smirk).
Sure, they’re not perfect, and they won’t turn you into the next Spielberg, or fully replace a professional crew with all the big resources, equipment and know-how, but they can give your growing business a jump start and a spotlight, which might be just what you needed.
Marketing metrics
How are you measuring the success of your marketing campaigns? Hopefully with a good CRM system. If you don’t have a CRM, your missing out. Let me introduce you to Dynamics 365 CRM (aka Microsoft CRM). With Dynamics 365 CRM you can easily set-up, manage, run, analyze and refine your campaigns. You will know which campaigns get the best spend in real-time, so you can better allocate your marketing dollars accordingly.
How about cloud financials?
If your business is growing and using an entry level accounting solution like QuickBooks you may feel the pains of managing multiple applications and databases. What if you could work on a secure and proven platform? One that is cloud-based for all your companies. Gravity Software® (Gravity) robust cloud accounting solution is built on the Microsoft Power Platform (aka Dynamics 365). You can manage all your applications on just one open and proven platform that hosts over 5 million users worldwide. By utilizing the Microsoft Power Platform, as your company grows, you can easily add modules like Sales, Marketing, Service, Subscription Billing, Revenue Recognition, Job Cost, Time and Billing and much more. You can scale up or down based on your business needs.
There are many more video applications out there to help promote your business. Research and find one that works for what your business needs.
Gravity Software
Better. Smarter. Accounting.
This article was originally published in June of 2017 and has been updated and edited for clarity.