Our office will be closed on December 23rd and will reopen on January 9th. For any inquiries, you can send them to team@virtualinnovation.co.nz * All of your emails will be answered once we return. We wish you the very best for the Festive Season and a Happy New Year! See you in 2023! 🎇🎄🚀
What can you do to find out if a company or a product is as good as they claim to be? Simple, check their reviews and testimonials!
A customer’s testimonial is the most powerful and effective type of video content. It helps a lot when you need to build brand trust and inform your target audience of how great your products or services are!
Here are the 5 Questions to Ask in a Video Testimonial:
1. What was your main concern before working with us? All customers have their hesitations. It could be due to the price or other personal pros/cons. By asking this question and helping the customers answer how they overcame this hesitation, you help other people make up their minds.
2. After working with us, what are you most happy about? Creating positive expectations about your service can help you sway potential customers. They want to hear about the positive effects the service has had. This significantly helps decrease purchase ambiguity.
3. What has changed for you since working with us?
Help your customers answer this question as specifically as possible. You want your testimonial to highlight key selling-points. By asking for specific features, you have more to talk about to other potential customers.
4. What surprised you the most about coaching?
This question has two distinct benefits. Firstly, it will provide information about your product that you may not have included in previous marketing materials. Secondly, if you ask this question correctly, it will showcase the customer’s sincerity creating a powerful testimonial with a genuine feel.
5. Would you recommend working with us to our potential customers?
A great way to persuade potential customers to commit is to ask existing customers why they would recommend your service. This question gives you a hard-core testimonial to use across all your marketing channels.
These five questions are designed to get your customers to talk about their initial concerns, their experience working with you and how your products or services have helped them to solve their problems. Ask all these questions and you will surely get a handful of great sound bites that you can use to promote your offer.
Here’s an example of a video testimonial:
Start marketing with video testimonials today!
If you need any help with improving a video testimonial or you want to upgrade the look and feel of a Testimonial’s page, reach out to us at VirtualInnovation.co.nz or book a free consultation below.
Does your business have a blog? You might miss out on reaching a huge audience and on the opportunity to convert viewers into paying customers.
A blog is one of the best ways to leverage content marketing. The idea of starting a business blog from scratch may be a bit intimidating. Even if you have never done one before, it doesn’t have to be an overwhelming experience. It could be very enjoyable
Writing articles related to your business can help establish authority in your industry and they can be a great resource of information. If customers have questions, they can refer to your blog posts for answers. Further, a blog can spark a conversation between you and your customers or potential customers.
Here are the 7 tips to create a great blog for your business:
1. Remove dates from your posts – When we set up a blog, we usually remove the post dates. Many companies will go through spurts of writing blog posts then periods where they don’t. Without a date, your posts won’t age as quickly.
2. Short paragraphs – Make sure paragraphs are no longer than 3 lines deep. This makes it much easier to read on a mobile phone, otherwise, it becomes a massive block of text that people will struggle to read.
3. Make them visual – Use fantastic stock images to make your posts stand out. This will help people sharing the posts and keep them engaged. There is nothing wrong with adding 2 to 3 images through the post.
4. Think 600 words plus – Google loves a good blog post. The longer the better, but I usually have a minimum of 600 words which helps the Google bot fall in love with your website.
5. Pick one phrase – Don’t keyword stuff for the sake of it. Pick a 3-4 word phrase people are searching for. Make this the title, the URL and use it in the alt tags of the pictures. This helps Google know what your blog is about.
6. Consider videos – Whether it is an explainer video like this or a face to camera video, Google loves videos. And so will your viewers. You can create a video and have it transcribed into a post. It can be a great way to create quick enjoyable content.
7. Call To Action – Make sure your blog has a call to action. What do you want the reader to do next? Be it downloading a free report, taking a quiz or booking a strategy call. It needs to be clear.
It takes time for a business blog to build momentum. Don’t be discouraged and be patient if the progress seems sluggish. Slow, steady, and consistent wins the race when it comes to business blogging.
If you need any help with content or you want to upgrade the look and feel of a WordPress Blog, reach out to us at VirtualInnovation.co.nz or book a free consultation below.
Recently, a friend of ours was supporting the Auckland Coastguard by getting people to sign up to an online virtual quiz.
Having been a fan of the odd pub quiz over the years, and for the giant price of $6 a person, it seemed like a fun and meaningful way to support an organisation that is struggling during Covid-19.
Even though the idea sounded interesting and exciting, I had my doubts:
How well could you run a quiz online?
If it was run through Zoom, would people not just talk over each other creating confusion and chaos?
What if we wanted to form a team with people in another household?
Sceptical would be my middle name on this one. Nonetheless, I still dived in and fed my curiosity, while keeping an open mind.
The result amazed me.
Let me break down the technology we used to make this virtual quiz happening and work well.
Kahoot.com
Kahoot is a smart piece of software that allows you to run a virtual quiz. It was originally set up for schools, but it has found its way into the Lockdown Quiz world.
At Virtual Innovation, we are huge fans of explainer videos. Take a look at this quick explainer video below that Kahoot put together to explain how the platform works.
I personally thought that the platform was incredibly spot on. This is what I loved the most about it:
1. All players log in on a different device (1 device per team).
2. It is colourful, simple and hard to get lost on.
3. It creates a leader board that is shared to build on the competition.
What I found most interesting, was that you are not just judged on getting the answer right. The time that it takes you to submit your answer plays an important part. Imagine what could happen during a virtual quiz if people did not know the answer. They would most likely ask Google!
Judging the time is a fantastic way to stop people cheating and find the answers on Google. It is a simple but brilliant idea that keeps the playing ground fair.
Twitch.com
The other platform we used was Twitch.com.
You could use streamyard.com to stream directly to your Facebook, YouTube or other social channels to end up with the same result, but on this occasion, Twitch did the job.
The quizmaster was a real juggler and an excellent entertainer. He shared the questions, talked to the teams and did his best to keep all participants entertained by wearing funny hats and wigs throughout the entire game. We watched the Twitch stream first and then answered the questions on Kahoot.
Zoom
There were 6 people in my team. We got everyone on board through a Zoom video call and then we shared the Twitch screen to show the questions.
The activity was fantastic; we all laughed, joked and had fun while one of the team members inputted the answers into the device. It was a great moment of togetherness and team bonding even if we were apart.
Eventbrite
Auckland Coastguard used Eventbrite to collect the money paid for the quiz and to manage the time and event. The whole process could be done on a Facebook event (if it was free). If I was to run one such event myself, I would probably use Streamyard.
Summary
The activity was incredibly successful, considering that the Coastguard looked like they were doing this for the first time.
There were a few important learning outcomes that we will keep in mind for next time were:
1. Have a short time limit for questions – They set the time at 2 minutes, which in the online world is a very long time. Setting the limit to 60 seconds to get your answers is a much more reasonable time. Less time brings enthusiasm and stamina up and makes the game more challenging.
2. If you are running a Zoom call, it is probably best to mute the host so that you can hear your friends screaming horrendous guesses (and sometimes even getting them right).
In these challenging times, we need to remember the importance of connecting and having fun with each other.
If you are looking to fundraise, do something fun with your community or even for an online office get together, it could be a great activity to have some fun and bring people together!
We know the Covid-19 virus has caused massive upset for so many businesses.
At Virtual Innovation we wanted to give back and have created a video you can download directly and share with your customers & clients to help spread the awareness.
For businesses that need this branded to them with there colours & logo at the end usually we would charge $250 + GST but for now we will do it for just $100 + GST
Did you know that Facebook Messenger is expected to grow to 2.4 billion users by 2021?
You can now integrate your Messenger experience directly into your website.
The Messenger Customer Chat plugin allows you to have a live conversation with your site visitors. This allows your website visitors and customers to interact with your business anytime with the same personalized, rich-media experience they get in Facebook Messenger.
The plugin is very easy to use. It is one of the few free tools available and has the benefit of being simple and easy to install on WordPress.
Besides being a low-cost live chat plugin, it is a fantastic tool for improving conversions on your website. All messages appear in your Facebook messenger system. You will be able to access them and respond to them easily.
How To Install The Facebook Customer Chat Plugin (from Facebook’s help desk)
To add the customer chat plugin on your website, you can either use the setup tool or set it up using the developer steps.
Option 1: Setup Tool
For Page Admins, the Page settings provide an easy setup tool for customizing your customer chat plugin. To use the setup tool, do the following:
Go to Page Settings > Advanced Messaging
In the ‘Customer Chat Plugin’ section, click the ‘Setup’ button.
Customize the greeting message, theme colour, displayed response time, and whitelist the domain of your website.
On completion, the setup tool automatically generates the code snippets that you can copy and paste to add the customer chat plugin on your webpage.
Option 2: Developer Steps
To include the customer chat plugin on your webpage, do the following:
Whitelist the domain of your website For security reasons, the plugin will only render when loaded on a domain that you have whitelisted. Domains must meet the following requirements to be whitelisted: – Served over HTTPS – Use a fully qualified domain name, such as https://www.messenger.com/. IP addresses and localhost are not supported for whitelisting.
Include the plugin on your webpage To add the plugin to your webpage, include a div with the following attributes in your HTML: <div class=”fb-customerchat” page_id=”<PAGE_ID>”></div> By default, the greeting dialogue will be shown on desktop and mobile. To customise the greeting dialogue behaviour, you can use the greeting_dialog_display and ‘greeting_dialog_delay’ attributes.
Optional. Handle the messaging_postbacks event for new conversations If your bot has the ‘get started’ button set up and a user starts a conversation via the plugin by clicking the ‘get started button’, we will send a ‘messaging_postbacks webhook event’ to your webhook. If the ref attribute is set in the include for the customer chat plugin, it will be included in the postback event.
Optional. Handle the messaging_referrals event for existing conversations For existing conversations, if the ref attribute is set in the include for the customer chat plugin, a messaging_referrals webhook event will be sent to your webhook when the conversation is continued via the plugin. The ref can be any string and can be used for a variety of purposes. For example, you could use it to keep track of which customers have engaged with your business via the plugin.
Here are the reasons why a Facebook Messenger widget is better than live chat
If the website visitor or user is already logged in to their Facebook account, they will be able to start chatting with your bot right away. If they are not logged in, a default welcome message will be displayed, and they will be prompted to log in or create a new Facebook account.
If your Page has age or country restrictions set in Page settings, the customer chat plugin will not render for users who are not logged into their Facebook account when they visit your website.
All your conversations are saved in Facebook Inbox. The greeting dialogue state is cached on the browser and persists even when the browser is closed and reopened. You can pick up a conversation with a user who chatted with you even if they left your website. This plugin will always default to the last state the user left the plugin based on the browser cache.
The greeting dialogue will be shown on desktop and mobile. Users may click the close button to minimize the dialogue or you can override the request default with your own display preferences.
You can detect the message’s origin.It may be necessary to determine whether a user is engaging with your business using the customer chat plugin.
You can use Facebook Messenger Plugin as a new communication channel with your audience.
Having trouble getting the plugin to show properly? Try these tips below
If you see a console error like “Refused to display *** in a frame because an ancestor violates the following Content Security Policy directive: ***”, check that the domain of the page in which the plugin is being rendered on has been whitelisted. Also, make sure you didn’t set the Referrer-Policy header to no-referrer.
The Firefox Facebook Container Add-On prevents the plugin from showing up. Remove the add on if you want the plugin to render.
Firefox desktop private browsers (version 63 and above) and Firefox mobile browsers block content tracking by default which will prevent the plugin from rendering. Turn off content blocking (click the grey shield in the search bar) to see the plugin render.
Do your research or read the recent reviews and support threads. Facebook may have unannounced changes and may break third-party plugins.
If you would like help to install this plugin, reach out and the friendly team at Virtual Innovation will give you a hand.
Or maybe you grabbed one of our awesome pre-made videos.
Now you need to decide how you are going to show it.
Here are 5 suggestions:
YouTube – It is the most powerful video-sharing and search engine platform. You can share educational, entertaining and any informational videos. (If you don’t have time to set your channel up we can do it for you – click here).
Social Media – Videos are the most shareable marketing content of all. They generate more engagement and interaction than any other type of content and work very well on social media platforms like Facebook.
Your Website – Most viewers don’t scroll down to the bottom of websites. If you want to grab your visitors’ attention, place your video on the homepage, blog and landing pages.
Email – Videos and emails work perfectly hand in hand. When using video to entice your target audience via email, the opening rates grow dramatically. You can add the video to the body or email signature of your email.
Presentations – Video has a high power of synthesis and engagement to grab the attention of business partners, leaders or investors when you’re introducing your new product. It works great to make a compelling elevator pitch.
