An Overlook to the Future of Mobile Application Development

Mobile app development technologies are changing at a fast pace and are certainly among the actively growing sectors in the global app market. Technologies and trends indeed drive mobile application development.

Today businesses have a lot to gain from the latest mobile app trends. This is all because of technology’s ability to boost mobile applications.

If you are thinking of developing a mobile app or to build an amazing app startup the first question that comes to mind is the cost of application development. So, we have gathered a few details for you on the cost quotations:

According to industry surveys in 2019, the cost of developing a mobile app ranges from $5,000 to $500,00.

An application with a minimum set of features costs around $22,000, while the complex mobile app development cost starts at $110,000.

AppAnnie’s research on the mobile market has predicted that this will be the market for mobile apps by 2022.

Ultimately an effective app development strategy involves more than just technologies and trends. Below are some of the future trends to watch out for in the app development space:

1) Integration of Internet of Things and Cloud

One of the technologies that are a buzzword in today’s times is the Internet of Things. There are many ways in which IoT and Cloud can transform mobile app development.

The global Internet of Things spending is projected to be $1.1 trillion by 2023 and the market is spread in many verticals like wearables, home appliances, smart cars, etc.

IoT and Cloud-enabled mobile applications are going to become a key trend in the coming years because of their capabilities to handle redundant data and connecting multiple devices on a real-time basis.

In the future, apps need to be more advanced. They will need to speak to you, in the same way, devices built on IoT communicate. The cloud’s ability to connect many things with APIs will also be essential in the future of mobile application development.

2) Artificial Intelligence in Future Mobile Apps

People use mobile devices for various purposes, like gaming, entertainment, etc. And expect a high level of features such as navigation, speech recognition, and natural language processing. Artificial Intelligence, in the future for all the apps, has almost everything.

Worldwide revenue from the AI market is forecasted to reach $125 billion by 2023.

In the future, most AI apps will be developed using technologies such as predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms. This will allow mobile app developers to deliver a more personalized experience in their applications, and apps will be able to perform functions such as analyzing the user behavior and alert them about any suspicious threats and breach of information.

AI in mobile app development will help in achieving the goal of translation for conversations in real-time. The apps will be smarter and help you understand user behavior. The AI in mobile applications is changing the face of technology and will take mobile app development to a whole new level. The rapid growth in the use of AI technology in the sphere of mobile app development has shown that this technology can improve overall user engagement on your mobile application.

3) Swift The Language of Future Mobile App Development

Swift programming language will play a more significant role in future mobile app development. That’s why it has become part of the future mobile trends that increase app creation speed, whereas reducing overall cost.

Swift programming language is used by 5.9% of respondents worldwide to develop iOS applications and offers some ravishing features that have never been used by the developers using other native languages. The best highlighting feature of Swift is its Interactive Playgrounds with which you can make changes to any coding without recompiling and fixing errors.

Some more highlighting features of Swift programming language for mobile app development are inferred types and automated memory management. The interoperability between the Objective-C programming language and Swift is also allowed. So, developers don’t need to rewrite Objective-C applications for Apple iPhones and iPads. Moreover, the Swift language undoubtedly of great significance in the mobile application development industry today and in the coming years.

4) Role of AR and VR in the Future Mobile App Industry

According to Statista, the AR/VR market is forecasted to reach $209 billion in 2022. In 2020 the mobile app development industry is aware of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). These technologies will become very advanced and will be part of the great revolution in developing gaming and entertainment mobile apps.

There are various VR-based games and applications developed like Pokemon Go, Sky Siege, iOnRoad, Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, and much more become a show stopper in the global gaming and entertainment industry. So, the VR and AR technologies in mobile app development continuously enhance the performance and features at a rapid speed. In the future, both technologies will surely improve the way developers build gaming apps, travel apps, and live streaming apps.

5) Cross-Platform Development for Future Apps

The future mobile apps will be developed on cross platforms that are the apps that can be used on different mobile applications like Android, Windows, iOS, Blackberry, etc. The development of cross-platform mobile applications involves developing the original application on a native platform or in a particular environment that will then be sent to many different native platforms.

Today developers need to create apps that can run on multiple mobile devices; that’s why they need cross-platforms to develop such modern apps.

Cross-Platform development tools play a vital role in the mobile application development industry. In the future, they will play a more significant role in the process and help decrease costs and increase application development speed.

Moreover, these development tools are React Native, NativeScript, Flutter, Ionic Framework, Xamarin, and more. All these tools are based on standard programming languages such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.

6) 5G Technology

Imagine the technology that can transfer millions of data packets around the world within an eye blink.

Isn’t it fascinating!

According to IHSEconomics, 5G technology is going to witness a revenue-opportunity of $12.3 trillion globally. The benefits that 5G technology can offer to your app is greater speed to increase mobile app user retention, fast data transfer, lower latency, and great user experience.

As you got a sneak peek of 5G’s benefits for your app, this technology will be the revolution for mobile devices. Mobile app development can take advantage of this technology in various industries like AR/VR, IoT, Smart Cities, Supply Chain, Transportation, and in each area that keeps the difference between 2 milliseconds and 20 milliseconds.

7) Blockchain

Decentralized, Transparent, and Immutable are three words that well describe Blockchain. It is the most trending technologies that are changing the way of mobile application development.

According to a report from Nasscom in 2019, the projects built by Blockchain development companies cost over $20 billion. These stats clearly show the popularity and adoption of this revolutionary technology.

By harnessing the Blockchain with mobile app development, businesses can build highly secure applications that deliver great outcomes. Whether you want a health app, a retail app, or a  fintech application, Blockchain can be integrated with each kind of app.

8) Wearables

According to Statista, revenue generated by the Wearables segment is assumed to reach US$18,984 milion in 2020 and the user-base will reach about 441.5 billion.

Whether it’s a Fitbit, a Galaxy Watch, or Snapchat spectacles, these IoT devices got a separate market base. Even though these devices are IoT enabled gadgets, they got different use cases.

From telling the healthcare stats to providing vital physiological information of daily life, the integration of wearable gears plays an important role. Even though we have listed IoT but wearables have separate use cases and user base.

The utilization of wearables delivers effectiveness in day-to-day tasks. And the integration of these devices with mobile app development can bring convenience in your customer’s life through your app.

Final Words

The way app development is flourishing is similar to the idea that traditional technologies have in the past. We can learn from past references to predict the future of mobile app development or what’s yet to come. We can say that the future of app development will look bright and vastly different from contemporary technologies. This will make developers and businesses to do well in the future by providing quality and unique solutions to the users.

Businesses can take advantage of these trending technologies by implementing them with mobile app development. Billions of apps are available on play store, app store, and on many other platforms. To make your app stand-alone and unique, these technologies can be used.

To stand-out in this competitive space, it is important to go for a trusted development partner who can utilize these emerging technologies with appropriate skills. ValueCoders is one of the top software development company in India that offers extensive mobile application development services to global leaders. We deliver cutting-edge and customized mobility solutions for your unique business requirements.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What are the mobile app future trends?

Answer: In this dynamic world, there are a lot of technologies that are providing significant potential in mobile application development:

• IoT & Cloud

• Swift

• Blockchain

• 5G Technology

• Wearables

• Cross-Platform Apps

• AR & VR

• AI & ML

Is Swift beneficial for mobile app development?

Answer: There is no doubt that Swift is future of mobile app development. This language offers multiple benefits for application development like:

• Rapid Development Process

• Scalability of the Application

• Safety and Performance

• Interoperability with Objective-C

• Automatic Memory Management

• Great Community Support

In a nutshell, it is beneficial to opt Swift for your app development projects.

How AI could be beneficial for your business app?

Answer: AI can be utilized to solve problems across multiple areas. Artificial Intelligence can help businesses to boost sales,  enhance customer experience, automate work processes, detect frauds, and provides analysis capabilities.

Multiple industry verticals like automotive, financial services, health care, and supply chain have a lot to capture from AI implementations. AI can also help health care providers better tools for early diagnostics and they can further provide better services.

What are the top mobile app development companies?

Answer: These are the top 5 mobile application development companies who can implement trending technologies to your applications:

• ValueCoders

• PixelCrayons

• Hedgehog Lab

• Appinventiv

• TechAhead

This article was originally posted by Mantra Malhotra on ValueCoders

16 Ways to Increase Your Average Video Engagement

There’s more to creating engaging videos than having a great script and ensuring audio and video quality. To boost your video engagement, follow these 16 tips.

74% of marketers say that videos are more effective at generating leads than blog posts.

But using video to generate more leads for your business requires more than just publishing videos. You have to create engaging videos—videos that encourage people to press play and continue watching from beginning to end.

After all, it’s hard to generate leads if no one’s watching the videos you publish. So in this guide, dozens of marketers weigh in with their expert opinion on how to create engaging videos and increase video engagement.

Let’s dig into the answers.

What is Average Video Engagement?

Average video engagement is a measurement that helps you understand how much of your video people spend watching.

Engagement is calculated by taking the overall number of plays for an individual video and multiplying it by the length (in time) of that same video.

This number represents a 100% engagement (Everyone who viewed the video, watched the entire video).

To measure average engagement, you have to then take the actual hours watched on the videos and divide them by the first number calculated.

So for our latest survey, we set out to determine what aspects of a video have the greatest impact on viewer engagement. We asked about all of the standard things: video and audio quality, script, length, format, and talent.

The responses show that not only are all of these basic things important, there are also many additional aspects that are key to engagement. The two options that received the most votes were “video quality” and “other.”

16 Ways to Improve Your Average Video Engagement

Obviously, there’s much more to creating engaging videos than we anticipated. So what are those other things that drive video engagement, and how do successful video marketers ensure that they get the basics—like quality, length, and format—right?

To find out, we asked 25+ marketers to share the tactics they’ve used to increase their average engagement for videos. Here’s what they recommend.

1. Focus on Quality First

2. Create a Compelling Introduction

3. Ask a Question

4. Evoke Emotions

5. Include Annotations, Visual Cues, and CTAs

6. Include Shoutouts

7. Keep it Short

8. Or Structure Longer Videos Appropriately

9. Format Your Video for Each Platform

10. Cater Your Content to Each Platform

11. Have Someone Host Your Video

12. Create an Enticing Thumbnail

13. Optimize Your Video for Search

14. Include Subtitles

15. Promote Your Video

16. Review Your Analytics Regularly

 1. Focus on Quality First

There may be more to creating engaging videos than having a great script and ensuring audio and video quality, but your success with the more advanced tips below depends entirely on getting these basic things right.

“Create videos that are actually valuable and entertaining to your audience instead of just sharing a message you believe is important,” says G2 Crowd’s Derek Doeing. “Consider what you enjoy as a video consumer, and use that to craft your own videos.”

And beyond content quality, you also have to consider audio and video quality. Quality and loading times are vital factors in reducing bounce rates and keeping viewers’ attention.

 2. Create a Compelling Introduction

“Focus on the first five seconds,” says Advice Media’s Joe Sloan. “You really want to work on how your videos start and figuring out what your hook is.”

You can also try engaging your audience and keeping the viewers interested by mentioning near the beginning of the video, that an important topic or statistic will be covered near the end of the video.

3. Ask a Question

“The most effective way to improve your video engagement is by asking viewers a question. In the video, tell users to comment by answering the question, and your engagement will skyrocket.” shares Growth Hackers’ Jonathan Aufray.

In addition to improving engagement, Sky Alphabet Social Media’s Steve Yanor recommends actually displaying the question as text over the video: “Embed a question at the start of the video—within the first two seconds—as a title that appears over the video.”

Related: How to Improve The Conversion Rate of Every Video You Produce

 4. Evoke Emotions

“Simply having an educational video is not enough to draw people in,” says Andrew Schutt of Elevated Web Marketing. “Instead, increase engagement by using the content of the video to help viewers feel a particular emotion.”

“As humans, we are emotional beings—more than we are logical. It’s crucial to understand this to create an engaging video. If you’re just spitting facts and data at someone, they aren’t going to care.”

“But if you can help them understand how those facts and statistics relate to their lives—and how that impacts them and makes them feel—then you’re going to get much higher engagement. It’s all about pulling on the emotional strings of the viewer.”

 5. Include Annotations, Visual Cues, and CTAs

“Add as many visual cues as you can to help draw attention throughout the video, and embed calls-to-action, too,” says Daniel Lynch of Empathy First Media.

“Use CTAs to encourage viewers to subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social, or download a lead magnet.”

Using annotations and CTAs will help you tell the audience what you want them to do—and how. Do this throughout the entire video, not just at the end or beginning to get leads, subscribers, or other details from your audience who engaged with the content but perhaps didn’t watch the whole video.

 6. Include Shoutouts

“We often include personalized customer shoutouts in our videos,” says Yaniv Masjedi of Nextiva. “Then, we tag those people in our posts.”

“The individuals we tag and their networks just *have* to watch the video—and keep watching until the end to see what’s coming.”

 7. Keep it Short

“Two minutes is the perfect length for the videos we’ve been producing,” says Wealth Continuum Group’s Kelly Andersen. “We’re trying to educate the audience and then provide a call-to-action for them to either contact us or visit our website.”

“The idea of the two-minute video is to provide 3-4 tips or ideas, and then summarize with your CTA,” Andersen says.

 8. Or Structure Longer Videos Appropriately

“If you have information that takes longer than a minute to convey, we find it useful to switch between direct-to-camera footage and voiceover footage every 15-25 seconds,” says Tettra’s Kristen Craft.

“Switching things up like this seems to hold people’s attention and drives a high engagement rate for us,” Craft says.

Jake Fisher of Bridges Strategies & Digital Marketing recommends “composing your video like a songwriter composes a song: intro, verse, verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro. Think of your video in these kinds of structural terms.”

“The intro grabs the user in the first three seconds. The verse is relevant information. The chorus is a short break from the information so that you don’t overload the user. It could be a humorous aside or other lighter content. Then back to the verses, and another chorus.”

“The bridge sets up the outro and often contains the main call-to-action. Then, finish with one more chorus and send the user out with an outro flourish,” Fisher says.

9. Format Your Video for Each Platform

“Don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to formatting your video for different platforms,” says AdEspresso’s Paul Fairbrother. “Ensure that you format the video correctly for each platform.”

“For example, AdEspresso ran a $1,000 experiment and found that Instagram Stories videos can drive results nearly as good as Instagram’s Feed. However, they require different video dimensions as Stories uses vertical video whereas Feed generally uses a square canvas.”

“This requires planning in advance when capturing video footage as it’s very hard to convert horizontal video into a vertical ratio. The platforms which are going to be used—and therefore the canvas dimensions—need to be relayed to the videographer before the shoot takes place.”

10. And Cater Your Content to Each Platform, Too

“Video engagement success rates vary by the channel they are distributed or published on,” says Michael Cardwell of Digital Brew.

“For example, video engagement rates on social (like Facebook or Instagram) are much different than video engagements you would measure on your website or YouTube channel. The most effective way to increase engagement overall is to understand and create or edit for the platform and audience.”

“A video on social media should be short and to the point to grab attention since the response rate is immediate.”

“If your video is a testimonial or an animated explainer on your website surrounding a product or service offering, increase average engagement by ensuring you’re answering pain points, concerns, and other questions your audience has on the subject.”

“You can easily measure average video engagement by the percentage of your video viewed, which most platforms report in analytics or insights.”

Editor’s note: Want a consolidated view of how your videos are performing? Use this YouTube + Facebook dashboard template to pull key video engagement metrics from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Wistia, then view your dashboard to compare them side-by-side.

11. Have Someone Host Your Video

“Boost your video engagement by having a host on-screen,” says Aneesh Babu of Backlinkminds.

A1 Future Technologies’ Srish Agrawal says it helps if the host is “excited or enthusiastic when he/she is talking.”

“When we tape videos, it’s important for the host to feel natural and talk to the camera like they are having a conversation,” says Kelly Andersen of Wealth Continuum Group. “Using your hands to convey points is a great way to make it feel more relaxed.”

 12. Create an Enticing Thumbnail

The most effective way to improve your video engagement is to make it look as engaging as possible. So how do you present your video in a way that encourages people to click play?

Jeff Stanislow of Chief Internet Marketer says to “have an engaging thumbnail image, and write a compelling description that’s seven words or less.”

Orbit Media Studios’ Andy Crestodina argues that “it’s all about the thumbnail image. This is the picture people see before they click, and it has everything to do with engagement.”

“The best video thumbnails have two things:”

• “a person’s face (usually the presenter, but not always)”

• “a little bit of text (usually the title, but not always)”

“The face grabs attention, and the text indicates a benefit of clicking. Those are the two things you need to get engagement,” Crestodina says.

 13. Optimize Your Video for Search

“If you don’t optimize your video for search, no one will find it,” says Ben Walker of Transcription Outsourcing. “You have to get a video SEO guru to make sure it’s optimized with the right words, descriptions, and information for the bots to index it.”

What else can you do to optimize your video for search? Optimize your subtitles, captions, and any other text. Ensuring you’ve got a good description and a title for the video will improve its SEO, allowing your audience to find your videos much more easily.

 14. Include Subtitles

Another powerful way to increase video engagement is to add subtitles to your video. 85% of Facebook users browse their feeds without any sound on mobile, so by adding subtitles, you can capture their attention even without volume.

 15. Promote Your Video

“To boost engagement, promote your video on social, include it in your newsletter, or boost it with ads,” says Janil Jean of Logo Design Guru.

“The more you promote your video, the better your engagement will be because major search engine and social media algorithms tend to push videos with higher engagement to users’ feeds,” Jean says.

Explainify’s Graeme McLaughlin also offered several ideas for how to promote different types of videos.

“For branding videos, boost video engagement by:

• Adding the video to your homepage and/or about page

• Pinning a tweet with the video to the top of your Twitter profile

• Asking your team to share the video across their favorite social channels

• Adding the video to your team members’ email signatures

For software product videos, boost video engagement by:

• Adding it to the landing page for that product

• Sending it to former and existing customers if it’s a new product

• Using the video in paid social media ads—bonus points if you use retargeting to tailor the ads to qualified, mid-funnel leads

For sales videos, boost video engagement by:

• Sending the video as part of a re-engagement email campaign to warm up leads and drive them to the next conversion point

• Giving your sales team an email template that includes the video to share with their current leads

• Including the video on relevant landing pages

• Linking to the video from your welcome message in your live chat tool”

 16. Review Your Analytics Regularly

Finally, how will you know if your average video engagement is already high enough—or if it needs to be improved?

There are two things you can do. First, you can compare your average engagement to that of the marketers who responded to this survey.

While some reported video engagement rates as high as 80%+, others reported rates as low as 1-10%. The overall average was 41%.

The other option is to just see what your current video engagement rates are, use that as a benchmark, and then follow the tips above to try and boost your engagement.

“If you have a Wistia account, you will really want to review your video analytics,” says Advice Media’s Joe Sloan. “They will show when users disengage with your content.”

“And remember, engagement data points may change from platform to platform—Instagram will have different conversion and audience engagement rates—but you’ll want to review these metrics to best leverage your videos to fit the platform you’re sharing them on,” Sloan says.

Editor’s note: Want to find out if your videos are generating engagement? Wistia users can grab this free Wistia video performance overview dashboard template to measure engagement in real time—things like top videos by engagement, total plays by project, play rate, and more.

So Where Should You Start?

If you’re just getting started with measuring and improving your video engagement, start with the basics. Follow Graeme McLaughlin’s advice: “Create the best video for the audience you’re targeting, the message you want to be delivering, and the action you want viewers to take.”

Start there, get the basics right, and then move on testing some of the other tips in this list. Finally, review your data to find out what works best for your brand, your audience, and the different channels you publish on.

This article was originally posted on DataBox by Jessica Greene on January 4, 2021

Jessica Greene writes about marketing, business, and technology for B2B SaaS companies. A former writing instructor and corporate marketer, she uses her subject-matter expertise and desire to educate others as motivation for developing actionable, in-depth, user-focused content.

5 Key Mobile App Trends for 2021

Article Summary: Here are five key mobile trends to keep in mind as we head into 2021, brought to you by the team at leading mobile app agency, Yodel Mobile. From an accelerated shift to a mobile-first lifestyle, to calls for more data transparency, make sure you know what to expect from mobile users in the new year.

For business leaders, trying to predict what a new year will bring is always a challenge–and 2021 holds even more uncertainty than usual. In the past year, we’ve seen many unexpected trends emerge, we’ve seen companies and consumers defy all expectations, and we’ve seen every element of our daily life and work transform. 

As organizations continue to navigate new obstacles and attempt to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, careful planning will be crucial to build stability and minimize uncertainties. In order to plan ahead successfully, businesses need to understand both:

1. How the mobile market is evolving and 

2. How consumer lifestyles are shifting. 

To that end, we’ve assembled a list of the top five mobile trends that mobile app designers and marketers can expect to see in 2021.

1. An accelerated shift to a mobile-first lifestyle

With global restrictions on travel, entertainment, and work, people are increasingly turning to mobile as a channel to complete core tasks efficiently. Your customers are now using mobile apps to learn, shop, network, and even exercise. 

The shift to mobile-first has been occurring for several years, but the pandemic exaggerated the speed of this trend in 2020. This dramatic leap forward will likely cause a notable increase in the number of available mobile apps, leading to an increasingly saturated app marketplace. App companies that want to stand out among competitors need to implement an end-to-end marketing strategy that increases app discoverability, user acquisition, and, most importantly, user engagement.

2. Unpredictable spikes and trends across app stores

As people continue to adapt in 2021, app marketers should expect the unexpected when it comes to new trends and spikes across the app stores. You should make sure that your app is ready for potential sudden influxes of users and can mitigate increased drop-offs, too. 

If there is a rise in users looking for apps in your category, you need to have a proactive plan to ensure that your app is visible in the app stores to avoid missed opportunities. Achieving this means placing a continuous focus on keyword optimization and app store optimization (ASO) to ensure that your app ranks for as many key search terms as possible. Below is a great example from Gymshark:

You should also focus on ensuring that your user journey is seamless; a lack of clarity, complex onboarding processes, or existing pain points can cause increases in user drop-offs that you can’t afford in a saturated marketplace.

3. The importance of mobile UI/UX optimization

With increased dependence on mobile and rising consumer expectations for what mobile should provide, it’s critical that your app has an engaging, easy-to-use user journey. 

FullStory for Mobile Apps helps you deliver stand-out mobile experiences while respecting end-user privacy.

Earning trust, conversions, and 5-star reviews depend on a great in-app experience. FullStory gives you unprecedented visibility into user engagement, performance, and other crucial factors that determine whether your app hits its revenue goals—or gets uninstalled.

FullStory for Mobile Apps is Private by Default. It helps you understand the overall shape of your user experience without capturing sensitive customer data. Need to record certain text fields for discovery and analysis? Our precise privacy controls let you collect just what you need to improve your product, and no more.

Learn more about how FullStory for Mobile Apps works here.

To start, a concise, friendly onboarding process can significantly limit user drop off. New users are unlikely to understand the full value of your app, and will be quick to delete your app if they feel you’re asking for too much intrusive information up front. 

Many companies highlight the value of their app with a quick walk-through for new users or by offering limited access before requiring users to sign up. With increased competition in the marketplace, it’s important to build relationships with your users by providing them with a mobile experinece that is not just informative, but also interactive, intuitive, and delightful.

MyFitnessPal does an excellent job of engaging the user, allowing them to get a feel for the app and all of its key features before they sign up for a free trial.

It is also important to understand which channels your customers are using. If you have a mobile web presence, for instance, you should consider directing users from mobile web to your app—where conversion rates are over three times higher. 

One way to do this is via smart banners on your website. A smart banner will automatically determine whether the app is supported on the user’s device. If so, it will direct the user to either the app store listing or to the app if the user already has it on their device. With proper tracking, these banners can provide valuable information as to how many app users came from the mobile web.

4. The bid for an increasingly data-transparent future

With increasing consumer awareness and concerns around data usage, there has been a significant shift among big tech companies to be more transparent about user data. 

One significant upcoming change is Apple’s depreciation of the IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). Once introduced, app users will have to opt-in to the IDFA. This means mobile apps will have to request permission to track unique user or device data, in particular device advertising identifiers. 

Many third-party tools, such as attribution and analytics platforms, rely on IDFA as their primary method of collecting data; because of this, there will be a significant push to diversify the ways in which data is collected ahead of its depreciation. It is worth noting that some third-party solutions, such as FullStory, already have a privacy-centric model in place, which negates the effects that many other platforms are currently facing.

There are of course other ways of collecting data that fall in line with Apple’s new regulations as well as increasing privacy regulations from governments. This includes being more dependent on probabilistic attribution models—using historical data to determine the probability that an install was driven by one or more campaigns—as well as using predictive power to curate in-app experiences. By widening the net when it comes to the data you choose to track, you can still learn a lot about your users.

You may also have to re-evaluate the growth metrics you track. Whereas before many mobile apps were reliant on metrics that required device identification, such as Cost Per Install, testing out more advanced metrics, such as Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) or Lifetime Value (LTV), may be key to using less precise data to build out a more comprehensive picture of your users.

5. Using consumer-centric marketing to build user loyalty

In order to truly engage your customers, you must humanize the relationship. Users are more likely to react positively to humor and empathetic messaging (especially during times of crisis!), so it’s important to consider incorporating this throughout the full user journey. 

My Theory Test by James May is an app that provides users with a fun and engaging alternative to existing theory test apps. James May, well-known for being one of the presenters on the UK TV series Top Gear, is the face of the app and his humor is incorporated into the videos, lessons, and training plans—all intended to provide users with a more engaging way of passing their theory test.

Another popular approach is to get personal with users. Customized push notifications that include a user’s name and are specific to their preferences (e.g. based on their search history) can go a long way to improve open rates and drive engagement with your app. Thoughtfully tailored marketing across all channels will help you to build long-lasting relationships with your users. 

Planning ahead for mobile app success in 2021 

To drive long-term app engagement and remain competitive in an increasingly crowded app marketplace, your company needs to implement a holistic app marketing plan. A successful approach blends organic and paid growth strategies to maximize app discoverability, user acquisition, and, most importantly, retention of high-value, loyal users. Proactive planning and testing–and staying on top of mobile trends–are the keys to implementing an effective app marketing plan that drives larger business goals. 

To learn more about app marketing and mobile trends, you can read our blog post on understanding the app marketplace or watch our Mastering Mobile Marketing video series.

About Yodel Mobile

Yodel Mobile is the leading app growth consultancy and Mobile Agency of the Year, specializing in launching and scaling apps. We plug in as an extension of our clients’ growth team, with app experts supporting success-driven strategy and implementation to accelerate app growth.

This article was originally posted by The Yodel Mobile Team on FullStory

App Trends 2021 - What Should App Marketers Focus On?

2020 was a year of fast learnings for app marketers. As people around the world had to self-isolate and supermarket shelves ran out of toilet paper, apps became essential tools for staying up to date and in contact with society. People turned to apps to focus on mental and physical health, stay productive, interact with brands, do their shopping, and stay entertained.

So how do we continue navigating through the future unpredictability? Here’s our prediction of app trends to help you decide what to focus on in 2021. This post covers the following topics:

• Trending categories in app stores

• Marketing and branding for apps in 2021

• App trends 2021: "Super Apps", social commerce, and app profitability

• Trends in-app analytics, attribution, tracking

• Trends for mobile app advertising

• How will users search for apps in 2021?

• App marketer as a Superhuman

Disclaimer: We won’t be looking into chatbots, user-generated content (UGC), influencer marketing, omnichannel marketing, nor the importance of ratings and reviews as these are acknowledged from previous years. Let’s try to focus on newer ideas!

Trending categories in app stores 2021

Increasing app usage and emerging options to build apps without a single line of code is massively encouraging competition on the mobile landscape. At the same time, the coronavirus pandemic brought changes in consumer habits that will most likely also stay after social-distancing is over. Hence we believe the following app types to continue flourishing.

The rise of “at-home” category apps

According to App Annie, app users will be spending on “at-home” categories such as education, streaming, shopping, up to 1.3 trillion hours on Android apps in 2021. E-commerce has been booming as people use their mobile devices to shop in a lock-down environment. Consumers have got used to not walking into a store and making a purchase anymore but rather using their mobile devices for that. Grocery shopping apps alone saw a 200% increase in the US during February and March.

Additionally, an increase in mobile payment options has been giving a boost to consumers’ mobile experience. Although Apple Pay has been around since 2014, Google Pay since 2015, and Facebook Pay since the end of November 2019, these big players have been adding new countries to their operations list rather slowly. For example, Austria was introduced to Apple Pay and Google Pay only during 2020.

So as people have gotten used to virtual fitness classes, video conferences, and grocery delivery as well as mobile payments, we’d expect this trend to continue.

Apps with video streaming and live events will continue booming

As people had to stay home alone this year quite a lot, video chats and online events had a significant boost in their growth. We believe apps making use of this will continue to grow even more in 2021. Therefore creative content, event, and advertising ideas for socializing, building connections, and sharing experiences should be at the center of every app marketers plans. Besides already existing live streaming platforms, new opportunities have opened up, for example, with LinkedIn Virtual Events.

Funny fact: By now, Tinder has added video chats between matches. The feature is called Face to Face, so now you can have literally an online date!

Mobile gaming isn’t stopping but growing even more

Gaming apps have been for years the most popular category among active apps in app stores. In 2021, we expect the wider rollout of 5G to enable smartphones to provide experiences that were previously only available on Console or PC. This, as well as the new habits, learned from social-distancing, will lead to continuous growth for (hybrid) mobile game genres as well as for multiplayer games.

Marketing and branding for apps 2021

In general, the importance of defined brand values and sticking to them was challenging for most businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. In times of uncertainty, consumers become more sensitive and ask for compassion and empathy as well as clear values. In the United States, additional political conversations added to the branding challenges, with many companies losing their audiences’ trust as people no longer identified themselves with the brand.

App branding 2021: Showing empathy and doing good

As a result of the current worldwide health challenge, there’s a natural demand for brands to do good. And (app) businesses who are able to show it will gain a lot more brand awareness. Hence, as an app marketer, you should first make sure your brand values match your audience and communicate them correctly. And secondly, try to push your organization to take meaningful actions on social issues (that’s not just branding but simply being a good citizen!).

Not too late to get a share of audio marketing

Podcasting has exploded in recent years.  It’s not too late to get on the train and create your own. Or, as an app marketer, if you have the budget, you can make use of the increasing amount of advertising and sponsorship opportunities for podcasts targeting your audience.

Extra tip: add the podcast App Marketing by App Masters to your playlist.

Pushing even harder on video communication

There seems to be no end to video marketing growth. Not only are more marketing channels integrating video, but also new ways of using it are constantly being added, like live story features and AR filters. Staying authentic and “close” with your app users will continue being important, no matter if you choose live videos and stories on IGTV, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook for it.

Also, the rollout of 5G will enable app marketers to provide engaging experiences that might have been so far unavailable due to bandwidth and speed limitations. So we do believe richer creative usage to emerge because of faster load times, opening up new ideas for app marketing.

Additionally, there is increasing usage of one-to-one videos that we’d expect to become more trendy in 2021. Personalized video messages are getting more popular for B2B and B2C, for building relationships, and for mobile ad personalization.

More and better AR (augmented reality)

As already mentioned last year, AR still has space to innovate. The concept of “try before you buy” has been growing in eCommerce. But the true importance of AR for app marketing lies in engagement - AR has the potential to increase your app engagement rate significantly. Interactive content can add value in many ways, from something as simple as a loan calculator for your financial product to quizzes to find the perfect wine pairing for dinner.

It’s not without a reason that major brands are investing in start-ups that work on innovations to try on makeup, hairstyles, clothing, and jewelry inside apps. Furthermore, Facebook is supposed to bring its AR glasses to the market in 2021, and Apple’s AR glasses are supposed to follow in 2022. So you might want to get your creative hat on to be one of the first ones using this for app marketing and advertising.

App marketing learnings from adopting to uncertainty in 2020

Staying flexible to act fast on market demands.

Fitness app Down Dog offers yoga and HIIT classes to thousands of users. During the first wave of COVID-19, the brand was providing free access to its suite of apps. With a focus on France, Italy, and Spain needing help, the company quickly translated its content for those markets and achieved more than 400,000 people downloading their app.

Focusing on helpfulness during self-isolation.

Nextdoor, a neighboring app that helps communities stay connected and share information, saw an 80% month-over-month increase in daily engagement.

At the same time, many countries had governmental organizations launching COVID-19 apps to notify their people about potential infection. Surrounded by many discussions around costs and effectiveness, the apps for Austria, Estonia, and Germany do not however seem to be as widely used and well-rated as wished.

Even Google and Apple got together and created joint effort with “Exposure Notifications”

App trends 2021: "Super Apps", social commerce and app profitability

Moving UA outside of app stores as app stores show their power

In 2020, we witnessed the growing power of iOS and Android app store owners on the user acquisition of apps. Google announced to remove all third party cookies on Chrome by 2022, redesigned Google Pay and made its Play Console more user-friendly for app developers. Apple made App Store Connect look prettier as well, played around with IDFA as well as got into a fight with Epic Games due to its commission rates.

To illustrate the latter, when we compare the fees of a payment provider like Stripe and an app store like Apple, the commission difference is 3% against 30%. So it’s obvious that app user acquisition outside of the app store, for example, on a website, is a significantly more profitable way to go. A difference that can make or break your app business. It was already in 2015 when Spotify was asking its users to stop paying through Apple’s App Store. And although they remained listed on app stores, they focus on pushing its app users to start the Spotify monthly subscription on their website.

Funny fact: here’s a rather interesting timeline about the conflicts between Spotify and Apple App Store.

Rise of social media commerce

In a lock-down environment, people didn’t spend increasingly more time only shopping online but also on social media. Whereas mobile commerce is nothing new, social commerce has been slowly evolving. But it is getting progressively easier as the big players have been jumping on it during 2020: Facebook Shops (May 2020), Instagram Shop Tab (Nov 2020), TikTok partnering with Shopify (Oct 2020). Also, the messaging app WhatsApp includes a shopping button.

All these big platforms come with already existing marketing and community-building opportunities but also with shoppable ads, which will continue boosting social commerce in 2021. We’d also expect others like Snap to join the club to provide its creators with more opportunities to make revenue. Monetization opportunities will be the main reason users will stick with one app or go with the other.

Growth of Super Apps aka “one-app-fits-all” model

This trend is mostly coming from Asian countries. In Europe and the US, consumers might be more up to using one app for social media, the second one for messaging, the third one for money transfers, the fourth one for ordering food, the fifth one for getting a ride, etc. In China, the typical consumer uses one multipurpose app - such as WeChat - that offers it all.

These kinds of “super apps” are defining the app user experience. The seamless experience doesn’t only create higher app engagement but also optimizes the app publisher’s marketing and sales costs. According to Morgan Stanley research, these super apps are likely to dominate also in the rest of Southeast Asia, with expected to create a $23 billion revenue opportunity for a one-app-fits-all model by 2025.

Trends in app analytics, tracking, attribution

App marketing in 2021 will continue to include data collection, monitoring, analyzing, and reporting. And, hopefully, become automated along the way. As an app marketer, you need to consider users' entire experience from inspiration to actual purchase. Understanding this is based on gathering data for analytics, which means tracking your app users.

However, people like to be less and less tracked. Especially in 2020, privacy protection has been a hot topic. From the governmental side, GDPR for the European Union as well as in the US California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 went into effect. For app stores, Apple introduced its IDFA. Also, TikTok and Facebook faced many accusations, security reviews, and bans, but nevertheless kept their growth.

Trend in-app analytics: moving away from user-level tracking

Standards and regulations like IDFA and GDPR lower the amount of user data we have access to. These data collection changes pressure app marketers to analyze data differently and come up with new ways to get needed answers.

"One tool to rule them all"

As marketers, we continuously strive to improve our understanding of the path that our app users are taking to improve user engagement from one side and from the other side, increasing our app user acquisition. This means trying our best to integrate all marketing platforms we’re using into one seamless experience. Therefore, we expect that various app marketing tools will also focus in 2021 on bringing as much data together as possible so that app marketers can have one source of truth.

Namely, seeing that your app installs are down is one thing. But understanding why they are down so you can actually act on it, is the key. Is there a correlation with the app crash rate or with the recent app store update you did? Have you dropped in your main keyword rankings, or maybe your competitor got an advantage by being featured in the app store? These questions can be easier visualized and answered when you have various data sources brought together into one app marketing dashboard.

App Radar Dashboard helps you understand your app store performance and impact factors on one page --> try it for FREE.

Make sure to have a clear and transparent privacy policy

People continuously want to know how your app collects their data and how their data will be used. So as an app marketer, it’s important to stay transparent and explain what data you store about your app users and how they can delete their data.

Random fact: as the United States witnessed a 50% increase in mobile banking in 2020, the FBI saw a need to release a warning about mobile bank fraud.

Trends for mobile app advertising

If wanting to increase impressions and clicks for your app store listing, app marketers cannot get around paid user acquisition, that is, running ads on various channels. And the pressure to meet your app marketing KPIs like ROAS and CPA will also not leave us in 2021. Although, as more businesses are taking advantage of mobile app advertising, optimizing ROAS is also getting harder.

Better ads, more ads, higher ad engagement

Mobile ad engagement rose during the first wave of the corona pandemic by 15%. As consumers engage more with the ads, the effectiveness of in-app ads and app store ads, such as Apple Search Ads and Google UAC, remains. The increased engagement and more time spent on mobile devices bring more money to mobile advertising. For example, ad-selling platforms like Amazon have more traffic, so they also sell more ads.

Additionally, as ads evolve, location-focused ad spending is forecasted to grow. The same applies to in-game advertising, which is the usual move for game developers to keep their game free of charge.

More automation - mobile programmatic advertising gets big

Programmatic advertising is an automated way for app marketers to buy and optimize digital ad campaigns. In its basis, it gives you higher-level insights about your budget spending. It increases your targeting potential thanks to bringing together the performance of various ads on multiple devices and channels into one analysis.

Instead of looking at where each app user comes from, you’ll be able to analyze how your media budget distribution impacts your overall app user acquisition. It sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it? We’d also expect this trend to create new businesses offering innovative solutions for app marketers, such as Kayzen.

Trends for searching apps in 2021

Understanding your app users’ search methods is highly relevant for your app marketing, including keyword strategy for content creation (SEO & ASO). As an app marketer, you should consider 3 search methods for your app users:

• written (typing in the search field)

• spoken (voice search via Alexa, speech to text searching assistants)

• visual (scanning images)

So do you know how users will search for your app in 2021? For example, the searches on mobile devices for “best right now” (e.g. “best running apps right now”) have increased two times in the last few years. Also, because of COVID-19, searching for local suppliers to support the local ecosystem has increased.

To do a proper keyword search on app stores, use an ASO tool where you can track keyword search volumes, difficulty, and rankings for yourself and competitors. Start 7-day FREE trial.

How relevant is voice search for apps?

More and more people are using voice for their shopping lists and making their purchases. In the US, by now, one-third of the nation uses voice search. As examples of voice search benefits are Domino’s Pizza letting you order as you speak from your sofa and PayPal users talking with Siri to send money to friends.

The main challenge for app marketers is that the search terms people use in typing and speaking are different. If focusing on content writing for voice search, marketers need to target the conversational style of the speaker, also by using long-tail keywords.

Furthermore, considering the spread of coronavirus, smartphones can be seen as one of the main bacteria sources. How often do you clean your mobile phone? One could estimate that people will be trying to touch their phones less frequently and hence use the voice search instead.

How important is visual search for apps?

Visual search is based on image recognition and getting more popular year by year. When a user does a visual search, he or she looks for a product with a photo or screenshot, instead of using keywords like for written or voice search. Visual search engines are, for example, Google Images (launched 2001), Pinterest Lens (2017), Bing Visual Search (2017), and Google Lens (2017).

Brands like Asos and Amazon are continuously experimenting with visual search on their apps. The more image recognition technology evolves, the more we expect brands and advertisers to find new ways for mobile marketing and advertising focusing on visual search.

App Marketer as a Superhuman

To summarize this overview of app trends in 2021, let’s ask the most relevant question for ourselves as app marketers: what will be the role of an app marketer in 2021? The fact is, the job is continuously getting more data-driven, and the responsibility areas and expectations on us are growing.

As Thomas Petit discussed in his App Promotion Summit 2020 talk, an app UA manager is expected to be, at the same time, a creative storyteller and data analyst. He/she needs to be planning and executing omnichannel and cross-functional, as well as doing organic and paid UA both.

And let’s also add to the above interpersonal skills like excitement to test, being good at managing stress, adapting to uncertainty, and deciding/acting fast. The responsibility is moving from “just” marketing to app growth.

To conclude, successful app marketers in 2021 will excel in:

• Organic and paid app user acquisition (incl. app store optimization and advertising)

• Building brand awareness as well as referral machines

• App onboarding as well as app monetization

This article was originally posted by GRETE from App Radar

8 brilliant color trends for 2021

As we move into the second year of the decade, the color trends for 2021 are amping up to be a drastic response to a lot of the trends that were slated to define the past year. In 2019, we thought the next decade would be defined by futuristic designs and bright, bold, colors. Then 2020 happened.

In 2021, the color trends you’ll see will largely feel calming and soothing. We’re not going to see a surge of neons or crazy contrasts. Instead, the upcoming color trends are softer and feel like they were picked for humans, not for computers. The past year pushed us to reconnect with our humanity, and in 2021, we’ll see that connection play out visually.

Think harmony, not dissonance. That’s 2021’s color trends in a nutshell. We’ll see lots of single-color designs, muted colors, colors found in nature and palettes that easily blend together. Ready to see them up close? Check out each of these top color trends that will define 2021:

Here are the top color trends for 2021:

1. Super-saturated, juicy colors

One of the color trends we’ll see dominating designs in 2021 is saturated, juicy colors paired with much paler hues in the background to make the intense colors pop.

After a challenging year like this one, people are craving positivity, so designers are giving us the cheerful, vivacious corals, magentas, and oranges we need right now. These deliciously juicy and rich colors have a rejuvenating and uplifting effect. They are warm, but not hot. Refreshing, not brash.

And the combination with pale pinks and creamy tones creates an intriguing contrast that just works. In these designs, the pale background is as important as the focal color, grounding it, and making pop.

2. Human skin tones

When we said 2021’s color trends feel human, we meant it. One of the biggest color trends coming our way is color palettes focused around the beauty of human skin tones. In 2021, brands and designers are getting under your skin with human-hued designs. And not just a tiny range of human skin tones like we used to see on bandaids and other products labeled “nude” or “flesh-toned”. In 2021, designs will work with every color of our organic rainbow, frequently making one or more human figures the focal point.

3. Harmonious, analogous palettes

In 2021, people will want harmony. We’ll want the comfort that comes from unity and togetherness, and that will extend to the color trends you’ll see in new designs. One of the upcoming color trends we’ll see a lot of is analogous color palettes; palettes that easily blend into each other.

Trends evolve over time, and we’re seeing the gradient trend that has been popular for several years now morph into the analogous palette trend. As you can see, some of these harmonious color palettes are made up of shades of all the same colors while others are collections of shades that are located next to each other on the color wheel. In any case, they create a soothing gradient-like effect, but without the perfectly smooth color transitions we’re used to seeing from gradients.

4. Surreal and expressionist color

Adding to the list of harmonious, feel-good color trends we’ll see in 2021, we’ll be seeing a lot of designs that use colors in unexpected, even surreal ways to create dream-like images. These designs make a statement by coloring objects in colors they normally aren’t. The goal here is to be playful and create escapist landscapes where people can find a few moments of solace away from our challenging reality.

5. Monochrome plus one

Monochrome palettes aren’t a new trend—we saw them really picking up steam in 2020. But here’s the difference between a 2020 monochrome palette and the 2021 version: in 2020, monochrome designs relied on using lots of shades of the same color to create depth and visual intrigue. In 2021, designers are dropping single contrast shades into otherwise-monochrome, greyscale designs to create the same effect. The addition of one expressive, bold shade takes the design into the world of color without making it too colorful—a modern way of keeping things simple while being excessive at the same time.

6. Soothing colors that are easy on the eyes

In the past year, we spent a lot of time looking at screens. Sure, okay, we did a lot of that before, but in 2020, the year of Zoom meetings and socially distanced celebrations, we spent a lot of time looking at screens. And we learned that certain colors are a lot more comfortable to look at than others. In 2021, those comfortable, easy-on-the-eyes colors will be trending. In fact, designs created for ocular comfort, in general, will be trending. That means subtle, simple designs and lots of cool, natural colors that make it easy to keep watching and scrolling for hours.

7. Worn & faded-looking colors

Another one of the upcoming color trends you’ll be seeing a lot in 2021 is colors that look lived-in. What does that mean, exactly? Think of your favorite pair of jeans or your favorite baseball cap. Their colors are long faded and the stress lines where they conform to your body are bright and visible. That’s exactly what designers are capturing with this trend.

There’s more to this trend than distressing colors to make them look well-loved. Designers are also using rough, frayed textures to further make objects and images look like they’ve stood the test of time.

8. Organically-shaped color blocking

Organically shaped color blocking isn’t just one of the color trends you’ll see making a splash in 2021. It’s also slated to be one of the year’s top packaging design trends. The color blocking you’ll be seeing in 2021 won’t be like the color blocking you saw in the 90s. Now, instead of sharp angles and boxes creating a multicolored grid, we’re going to see imperfect, textured, squishy, squeezy-looking shapes working together in complementing colors.

Get a great (re)design with the biggest color trends of 2021

It’s common for trends to develop in response to recent years’ trends and events, and 2021’s color trends are no different. After weathering 2020 and rediscovering what really matters, it’s no surprise the upcoming design trends we’ll see feel so human. Whether you’re redesigning your current look or launching something completely new, give your brand a human touch by working with one or more of 2021’s color trends.

Hope you enjoyed this read! This article was originally posted by 99designs Team

30 Truly Fascinating App Usage Statistics to Know in 2020

For those searching for new and interesting information on apps, there’s no better place to be than right here. For your amusement and education, we’ve compiled a list of the most important app usage statistics that show just how phone-centric our lives have become.

Mobile apps are not only a source of entertainment; they’re also a source of numerous conveniences, and they can be a lucrative business for those with the right idea. From video games to banking and ride-sharing apps, mobile app development has become one of the most promising industries.

Here’s the list of statistics that show how much time, money, and human resources are involved in the world of mobile apps:

Top 10 App Usage Statistics

• Consumers downloaded 204 billion apps in 2019.

  1. In 2020, there should be over 592 million daily app downloads.

  2. The number of mobile app downloads will exceed 250 billion in 2022.

  3. Social media mobile apps are the most used app category.

  4. 2% of app users open an app over 100 times per day.

  5. WhatsApp was downloaded over 230 million times during the first three months of 2019.

  6. 81% of mobile users have Facebook installed.

  7. 51% of US smartphone users avoid downloading apps.

  8. Only 4% of all Android apps are paid.

  9. The iPhone’s App Store has 500 million weekly visits.

Apps, Downloads, and Relevant Statistics

1. 178.1 billion app downloads were registered in 2017.

(App Annie)

During 2017, almost 180 billion app downloads occurred. The number shown represents both free and paid apps, across all mobile platforms. In 2018, that number climbed to 194 billion, only to further increase to 204 billion in 2019.

2. 51% of US smartphone users don’t download apps.

(MindSea)

Around 13% of mobile device users in the US download one app per month. Data on the average app downloads per month shows that just 5% of users download eight or more apps during the same period, while 51% of all US smartphone owners don’t download any apps.

3. 194 billion app downloads were registered in 2018.

(App Annie)

Despite the previous stat, there was still a 9% increase in app downloads between 2017 and 2018.

4. 258.2 billion apps will be downloaded in 2022.

(MindSea)

The numbers shown in the global mobile app market size reports for 2018 are expected to keep rising exponentially in the near future. Industry leaders predict that 2022 will be the year when we exceed 250 billion app downloads.

5. There are more than 592 million daily app downloads in 2020.

(Statista) (App Annie)

Even though exact numbers for daily downloads aren’t available, we can easily calculate how many apps are downloaded each day in 2020. If we add a conservative 6% growth of app downloads to the 2019 numbers, we can estimate that there will be around 216 billion app downloads by the end of 2020. Divide that by the number of days, and we get an average of 592 million app downloads each day.

Mobile App Usage Statistics in 2020

6. 52.2% of all website visits in 2018 came from mobile devices.

(Statista)

People embraced the convenience of mobile internet access as soon as it was offered, and mobile app usage is only going to become more prominent with time, mobile app user statistics show. The shift from desktop to mobile devices has been noticeable for a while. In 2018, according to mobile marketing statistics, 52.2% of all online traffic came from smartphones and tablets.

7. 52% of males over the age of 18 use mobile devices.

(Digital Information World)

39% of them choose smartphones as their content consumption device of choice, while 13% use tablets. Clearly, the potential app user market is immense. Meanwhile, desktops are the primary device for 48% of adult males. 

8. 65% of females over the age of 18 use mobile devices.

(Digital Information World)

Female users represent an even bigger part of the mobile device market. Mobile app usage demographics show that 49% of females primarily consume content on their smartphones, while 16% of them choose to do so on tablets. The remaining 35% prefer desktops.

9. 39% of the most frequently used apps are related to social media.

(The Manifest)

The majority of the apps that are used most fall into the social media category. When it comes to usage percentages, 39% are social media apps, 10% are gaming apps, 10% are meant for communication, and 7% are retail-related apps.

When it comes to social media apps, 4 out of top 5 apps in 2019 were Facebook-owned. First place went to WhatsApp Messenger, followed by the Facebook app, and Facebook Messenger. WeChat, which is, according to internet statistics, the fifth most popular social media site, took fourth place, while Instagram ranked fifth.

10. The reach of communication and social mobile app categories in the US is 97.9%.

(Statista)

According to the app usage statistics from September 2019, apps in the communication and social categories have a 97.9% reach among online users in the US, which is even higher than web browsers (97.6%).

11. 81% of mobile users have Facebook installed on their device.

(Digital Information World)

Facebook is the app we’re most likely to have installed on our phones. Statistics show that 81% of all mobile device owners have this app installed, with 46% of them keeping the Facebook app icon on their home screen. As the latest Facebook statistics show, the Facebook Lite app has 200 million active users per month. The most popular app categories for 2019 will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future, it appears.

12. 71% of mobile users have YouTube installed on their device.

(Digital Information World)

The second most popular app among Android and iOS users is YouTube. Almost three-quarters of all mobile device users have this app installed on their phone, and they watch over 40,000 years worth of content annually. One of the reasons behind this is the fact that YouTube is owned by Google, so the app comes pre-installed on Android devices.

13. 68% of mobile users have Facebook Messenger installed on their device.

(Digital Information World)

Facebook’s Messenger app holds the third spot on the app popularity list. According to these mobile app download statistics, users who have the basic app may not care as much about its messaging features.

14. Amazon was voted the most essential app.

(BuildFire)

When asked about essential apps, 35% of US consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 said they couldn’t live without the Amazon mobile app. Boasting more than 1.5 billion active users, Gmail took the second spot, with 30% of those surveyed listing it as essential, while Facebook took the third spot with 29% of those questioned finding it to be a vital part of their daily lives.

15. 98% of app revenue comes from free apps.

(BuildFire)

Facts about apps like this tell us that those thinking of developing a paid app should think twice, as just 2% of the total app revenue can be attributed to this type of app. The rest of the app revenue comes from free apps that implement ads or other income-bringing methods, such as in-game currencies.

How Much Time Do We Devote to Apps?

16. 51% of people check apps on their phone 1–10 times per day.

(The Manifest)

Recent surveys and mobile app usage statistics show that 51% of mobile app users check their apps anywhere between 1 and 10 times a day. 25% of users do so 11–20 times per day, while 2% of them admit to opening apps over 100 times in a single day.

17. An average US consumer spends more time using apps than watching TV.

(Social Media Today)

The downtime habits of an average American have shifted in the last few years. TV used to be our main preoccupation during downtime, but now we spend more time scrolling through mobile apps. The average time spent in front of the TV is 168 minutes per day, while app usage stats show the following numbers:

18. An average person spends 3.7 hours per day in mobile.

(App Annie)

An average person devotes close to an eighth of their day to mobile content consumption, meaning we spend 3.7 hours browsing our mobile devices.

19. Those aged 18–24 spend an average of 3.2 hours in apps.

(Social Media Today)

Young adults are the ones with the highest number of daily app hours. Those between the ages of 18 and 24 spend an average of 96 hours in apps each month. When it comes to the older demographics, mobile app usage by age is as follows:

• 25–34: 2.6 hours per day, or 85.6 per month

• 35–44: 2.3 hours per day, or 78.8 per month

• 45–54: 2.0 hours per day, or 62.7 per month

• 55–64: 1.8 hours per day, or 55.6 per month

• 65+: 1.6 hours per day, or 42.1 per month

20. Social media is responsible for 30% of our time spent online.

(Social Media Today)

When it comes to app usage, social media takes the majority of our time. Close to a third of all time spent online is dedicated to these apps. Keep in mind that this accounts for both desktop and mobile visits, although 60% of them are from mobile devices.

Android App Statistics

21. There are 2.85 million apps available for download in the Google Play store.

(AppBrain)

The Google Play store has 2,850,421 mobile apps available to Android users as of February 2020. When the numbers from the final quarter of 2018 are compared to the latest ones, we see that Google increased its app selection by 7.9%.

22. There are just 120,392 paid apps in the Google Play store.

(AppBrain)

4% of all apps available in the Google Play store are paid apps, smartphone apps statistics show.

23. WhatsApp was downloaded 199 million times in 2019’s first quarter.

(Sensor Tower)

During the first quarter of 2019, WhatsApp was the most downloaded Android app, barely missing the 200 million downloads mark. The top five Android apps in the world during the first three months of 2019 were the following:

• WhatsApp

• Facebook Messenger

• TikTok

• Facebook

• Instagram

24. Netflix is the top-rated Android app of all time.

(apptrace) (Running Wolf’s Rant)

Considering how many apps are downloaded a day, the fact that Netflix’s official app has managed to keep the top spot for as long as it has, with an average rating of 4.0, is highly impressive—especially since the app has over 120,000 ratings. Based on the branding statistics that show the company spent $1.8 billion only on branding in 2018, we’re sure Netflix set aside massive funds for their mobile product as well. According to Running Wolf’s Rant, Netflix has a subscriber base of over 180 million as of April 2020. The company’s app is followed by Minecraft, YouTube, Fortnite, and Microsoft Word as the next top apps in the Android store.

25. The average time spent in the Google Play store is 46 minutes.

(Verto Analytics)

Google Play visitors spend an average of 46 minutes per month in the store. The average number of monthly sessions per user is 42.

iPhone App Usage Stats

26. There are 1.84 million apps available for download in the Apple App Store.

(Statista)

At the end of the last quarter of 2019, 1.84 million mobile apps were available for download to iPhone and iPad users. Compared to the final quarter of 2018, this shows a drop of 3.63% in the number of apps.

27. TikTok was downloaded 33 million times in 2019’s first quarter.

(Sensor Tower)

When it comes to iOS, worldwide mobile device usage stats show that TikTok was the most popular app, with 33 million downloads. Here’s the list of top five iOS apps for January, February, and March of 2019:

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Instagram

• WhatsApp

• Facebook Messenger

28. An average of 500 million users per week visited the App Store in 2018.

(Business of Apps)

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, announced last year that the company’s App Store reached the major milestone of 500 million weekly visitors.

29. The average time spent in the App Store is 33 minutes per month.

(Verto Analytics)

The average time iPhone/iPad users spend in the App Store is 33 minutes every month, with an average of 13 visits during the same period, iOS app usage stats point out.

30. 3.29 million in-app purchases were made from May 5 to June 5, 2018.

(App Store Connect)

In a single month—from May 5th to June 5th of 2018—3.29 million in-app purchases were made in Apple’s App Store. The total revenue from those purchases was $23 million.

Conclusion

Mobile devices, whether they’re smartphones or tablets, have become items most of us can’t imagine our lives without. The goal behind this list of app usage statistics is to point out how useful these devices can be, how prominent they’ve become, and how much time we can sometimes waste on them. But still, every once in a while, remember to lift your head up, breathe in the fresh air, and forget about technology for just a second.

This article was originally posted by WebsiteBuilder

Last Updated: November 20, 2020

10 Ways to Set (and Achieve) Goals for Your Small Business in 2021

As 2020 is (finally!) coming to an end, you might be ready to start planning for a better 2021. To help your small business start the year on a good note now’s the time to start thinking about your business goals for 2021. There’s a lot of advice out there when it comes to setting goals for your business, but not all of that advice is super relevant for small businesses.

Keep reading for ten unique, practical, and slightly unconventional ideas to help you set and achieve all of your goals for your small business in 2021.

1. Create a vision board 

Before you say no to creating a vision board, it’s important to know there are many ways to go about creating one. Not into crafting? Don’t worry, you don’t need to start cutting things out of magazines to create a vision board. A vision board can be as simple as saving a few images that make you feel inspired! One of our favorite ways to make a quick vision board is on social media. As you come across photos, videos and quotes that inspire you, save them to a collection on Instagram or by creating a quick board on Pinterest called ‘2021 Small Business Goals.’

2. Make goals for work & personal life

If you made a vision board, you might have realized that some of the things that you saved are more related to your personal life than your work life. It’s just as important to set personal goals for yourself in 2021 as it is to set goals for your small business. Setting and achieving goals in your personal life is a super important way to help you achieve business goals as well. 

3. Set small goals

Have you ever had a task to do that was such a big one that you felt overwhelmed and procrastinated doing it until it was too late? Sometimes, it’s good to dream big and set big goals for your small business – but not always. If you do have a few big goals you’ve already set for 2021, try breaking them out into smaller, more achievable goals. This way you won’t get overwhelmed and you’ll be continually excited as you cross off tasks and goals from your to-do list!

4. Set loose deadlines

While a hard deadline might be motivating to some people to hurry up and complete a project, it’s actually better to set a loose deadline when it comes to goals for your small business. Just like setting small goals, a loose deadline is less overwhelming and provides you with more flexibility in terms of when you achieve that goal. 

5. Write your goals down 

This piece of classic advice is a good tip for a reason! Writing down your small business’ goals for 2021 can help you remember your goals more easily. Also, you can easily hang up your goals in your office space so that you can see it every day and stay motivated. Besides, who doesn’t love crossing things off their to-do list?

6. Don’t be *too* specific

Okay, so this tip is a little unconventional. Most articles about setting goals will recommend setting ‘SMART’ goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). But when it comes to setting goals for a small business, it’s better not to get too specific. Not only will it take you much longer to set your goals, but it can also make setting business goals more overcomplicated and overwhelming than it needs to be. Instead of spending a ton of time getting super-specific about every detail, you want to achieve, sometimes it’s better to just get started on achieving your 2021 goals. 

7. Talk about your goals 

When it comes to setting goals for yourself and your business, there’s a common piece of advice to tell your friends and family about your goals to help hold you accountable. We like this piece of advice for an additional reason as well – the more you talk about your goals, the more tangible they will feel and the more they will be on your mind. (And when your goals are on your mind often, you’ll be more likely to achieve them faster!) 

8. Celebrate small achievements 

Treat yo’ self! 2020 has been a rough year for small businesses and you deserve to celebrate all of your successes – both big and small. Also, celebrating the big and small achievements can help you stay motivated and help you achieve even more of your 2021 small business goals.  

9. Track your progress

Besides not setting ANY goals for your small business in 2021, the worst mistake you could make when it comes to setting goals is to not keep track of your progress. Keeping track of your goals and the progress you’ve made doesn’t need to be complicated. Take some time each month to reflect on the goals you’ve set for your small business and see what type of progress you’ve made towards achieving your 2021 business goals. If you haven’t made much progress yet, see if you need to make any adjustments to help you better achieve your goals. 

10. Change your goals

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that life can be pretty unexpected and it might just not be possible to achieve some of your goals. Instead of just forgetting a goal that isn’t achievable at the moment, why not take some time to change your goals? It’s always admirable to set goals for your small business and it’s okay if those goals have to change every once in a while. 

We hope that these practical and unique tips help you learn how to set (and achieve!) goals for your small business in

Good luck and have a Happy New Year!

This article was originally posted by Boosted Lightricks

The Top 12 Must-Have Digital Marketing Apps in 2021

Is it possible to run your entire business via your phone? In 2021, it’s not just possible, it’s actually easier.

Even though mobile technology has drastically improved, most businesses owners today still depend on desktop or laptop computers for a lot of their day to day tasks.

Over the past decade, technology has come a long way. With all the changes that have happened in the world during the past year due to Covid-19, there has been a massive increase in online activity.

The phones we hold in our hands today are actually mini computers. And the way that most people enjoy using them is via apps. Apps (short for applications) are purpose-built pieces of software that help make life easier or entertain us in some way.

Marketing Goes Mobile

But one aspect of business that is becoming possible to manage via mobile devices is marketing. Because consumers spend so much time on their phones today, it makes sense that digital marketing apps would start to migrate there as well.

Trying to manage mobile content from a desktop can actually be cumbersome in some situations, not to mention inconvenient. A lot of marketing content is becoming more in-the-moment and even low production content can go viral today.

For business owners and entrepreneurs, there are thousands of cool apps to make your work life easier. But which are worth using? Here is our list of the Top 12 marketing apps for 2021.

List of The Top 10 Free Marketing Apps for 2021

1) Buffer

Buffer is one of the most well known social scheduling apps. Its main function is to schedule updates to multiple accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest. The app also allows follow-up with statistics on how each post performed. The newest version of the iOS app even allows for sharing and scheduling from inside other popular apps like Safari. Buffer currently offers a free subscription and four competitively priced plans: Pro ($15/month), Small Business ($99/month), Medium Business ($199/month), and Large Business ($399/month).

2) Hootsuite

Hootsuite is another social media management tool that allows you to schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Youtube. While more expensive than Buffer it gives you more ability to plan at every plan level. Currently, Hootsuite’s free plan allows users to manage up to three social accounts, and schedule up to 30 posts at a time. Payment plans start at $25 per month and allow you to add team members, schedule more posts, and manage additional accounts.

3) Facebook Pages Manager

Today Facebook is a huge monolith of content. However, with Facebook Groups, Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Watch, and the regular news feed all taking up space, it’s almost impossible to figure out how to keep on top of your Facebook business page. The Facebook Pages Manager app allows you to streamline most activities that are part of managing a Facebook page. These can include posting, commenting, and liking, and also replying to private messages. You can handle page management controls via this Facebook app, change details, images, and even track statistics. Best of all the app is totally free to use.

4) Facebook Ads Manager

If you run ads for Facebook or Instagram, this marketing app assists with running Facebook or Instagram advertising campaigns from your phone. Stay on top of your campaigns, edit schedules and budgets, easily create and track Facebook ads, and receive notifications all in the palm of your hand.  No matter where you are, this app will help you stay on top of your ad spend and your campaign success. Just like the pages app, the Facebook Ads Manager App is free.

5) Later

Originally launched as Latergramme, the Later app allows you to schedule and publish posts for Instagram at your own convenience. One of the most frustrating things about Instagram is the inability to post at a later time. Later takes away this problem by allowing you to post later (hence the name). Another great tool is the ability to manage multiple Instagram accounts in one place, You can source images from a library or even from Dropbox and Google. Analytics is easy as well with reports on user activity and hashtags. The Later app is free with limited use, and paid plans range from $9/month for a single account, up to $49/month for multiple user accounts.

6) Mention

Need to know what the internet is saying about you? Mention has got your back. An app designed to monitor social media, blog posts, and news sites, Mention will give you up to date reports on who and what is being said online about you, your brand, and anything else you want to know. You can link to social media accounts for easier access, as well as create customized statistics that matter to your business. For smaller businesses, a free plan will probably suffice, but there are also paid options starting at $25/month up to $600/month for large corporations.

7) Canva

If you need to create professional images for social media, Canva’s new app brings all the features from the web right onto your phone or tablet. Use pre-built templates, and drag elements into place to create custom images to share. Thanks to Canva’s integrated social sharing you can easily share them directly to social media with a few taps on your phone screen. If you just need a simple image editor, then Canva is a great free tool. For Pro and Enterprise plans, you can gain more features starting at $10/month.

8) Grammarly Keyboard

Nobody wants a bunch of typos in their emails or marketing posts. The Grammarly Keyboard is just like having a professional editor in your pocket. The app lets you use a special keyboard that automatically scans your writing for misspellings and grammatical errors. It helps to remove mistakes and poor grammar and over time helps you become a better writer. Best of all this marketing app is completely free and works inside any app on your smartphone.

9) REP

If you are considering working with Influencers in your business (or you are an influencer) then REP could be incredibly helpful. REP is an app that offers a ‘marketplace where brands and influencers can connect and collaborate’. Brands can use our tools to source influencers, and to access analytics. Businesses can share their products and have influencers apply to promote. There are options for free, paid, and pay-per-click collaborations. Influencers can use the app to earn money, getaways, prizes, and products. You can even send payments directly through the app, which makes it easier to handle transactions.

10) Plai

One of the biggest issues with marketing is having to log in to a bunch of websites to track all your data. Plai (pronounced ‘play’) is a new app that combines analytics reports from Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Youtube. It offers a smooth visual experience that helps track your marketing results from day-to-day. The app also offers keyword research and trending content. Before creating a marketing campaign or even a social post, you can access trending content in your niche, discover relevant keywords, and learn the latest marketing strategies. The easy to use marketing app is a great way to get more familiar with your marketing analytics for your business.

11) Over

Creating mobile content used to mean working on a desktop and then exporting to a mobile device. However, with Over, you no longer are tied to desktop image editing software. Over has tons of incredible graphics templates. Play with filters, graphics, and fonts to make your social media posts stand out. You can easily make your custom social media content by adding your logos, fonts, and color palettes for quick and easy access. They also offer a library of videos, graphics, and font collections, and full access to stock photography on sites like Unsplash, Pixabay, and Google Images. Over offers a free version with some decent functionality. If you want to use the complete version, it costs $9.99 per month, or $69.99 if you pay annually.

12) Google Analytics

Digital marketing is nothing if you aren’t tracking your results. Knowing who is clicking on your content, how long they are staying, and where they are leaving helps you to improve. The good news is that the official Google Analytics mobile app lets you monitor all of your website Analytics properties easily from your phone. With the app, you can keep track of your business metrics while you’re on the go.  This free app offers rich reporting and insights about your websites, your target audiences, and your digital marketing efforts.

Grow Your Skills and Success

All these marketing apps can help you to run your business directly from your phone while traveling or outside the office in 2021. You can create, track, audit, and stay connected with your customers while on the go. Best of all, many of them are free or very low cost to use. As technology continues to evolve there is a huge benefit in adopting these new mobile tools to your business.

This article was originally published By Daniel | November 19, 2020 | DESIGN, MARKETING, SOCIAL MEDIA

Fonts and Typefaces for Motion Design

Wait... aren’t fonts and typefaces the same thing?

Ever wonder how to choose fonts for your projects? What about typefaces? Wait a minute… what’s the difference? These terms are mistakenly used over and over again. So to help break through the noise here's a quick overview.

Typefaces vs. Fonts

Let's start with the most confused type terms in the world...

Typefaces refer to a font family. Arial, Times New Roman, and Helvetica are all examples of a typeface. When you refer to a specific styles of a typeface you are talking about a font. For example, Helvetica Light, Helvetica Oblique, and Helvetica Bold are all examples of Helvetica Fonts.

• Typeface = Helvetica

• Font = Helvetica Bold Italic

Way back in the olden times, words were printed using letters made of metal that were rolled in ink then pressed on to paper. If you wanted to use Helvetica, you had to have a giant box of metal letters that contained Helvetica in every size, weight, and style. Now that we have magical computer machines, we can use all kinds of different fonts just by choosing them. Meanwhile the ghost of Johannes Gutenberg is cursing us under his lifeless breath.

The 4 (Major) Types of Typefaces

The major categories of font families (aka typefaces) that you have most definitely heard of by now are serif, sans serif, script, and decorative. If you want to get super nerdy about it, there are many types of families within those categories and you can check them all out at fonts.com.

Serif - Serif font families have flourishes or accents (aka serifs) that are attached to the ends of the letter parts. These are typically used more in printed material rather than video.

Sans-Serif - Sans-Serif typefaces don't have the little accents or tails at the end of the letters. These fonts are usually easier to read in MoGraph. Note: “Sans” is another word for “without”. Right now, I am sans coffee and I will have to rectify that situation asap.

Script - Script fonts look like cursive handwriting. If you were born after 1990 you might not know what that is, but that’s OK. Just think of scripts as typefaces that look like handwriting.

Decorative - The decorative category basically catches all the other typefaces that don’t fall into the first three categories. They can get weird...

Type Anatomy

There are some properties of type that can be changed without changing the font itself. Here’s a quick illustrated rundown of the basics:

KERNING

Kerning is the horizontal space between two letters. This is typically done to a single letter pair to adjust an issue caused by a capital next to a lowercase. There's also a wonderful reddit dedicated to bad examples of kerning called keming (Get it? because the r and the n are too close...) Here's an example of kerning.

TRACKING

Tracking is like kerning, but affects the horizontal space between all letters:

LEADING

Finally, leading (pronounced “ledding”), affects the space between lines of text.

Nerd Fact! In the old metal letter printing days, strips of lead (that toxic stuff in your drinking water) were used to space the lines of text apart from each other in the printing press, thus the term:

By adjusting those type modifiers on your projects you will be a type rock star. Speaking of type rock stars in the MoGraph world, let’s drop a few typography names.

Typography Inspiration

SAUL AND ELAINE BASS

If you don’t know Saul Bass, time to get inspired. He’s basically the granddaddy of film titles as we know them. Originally a graphic designer working on movie posters, he became one of the first to create main titles to introduce the mood of a film. You probably recognize his work in classic titles like The Man with the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder, Psycho, and North by Northwest.

These are not only bad ass awesome motion design, but they are also a serious labor of love in a world before After Effects. Check out the amazing legacy of his work at Art of the Title.

KYLE COOPER

Remember the first film title you saw that made your brain explode? For quite a few of us motion nerds it was the title for Se7en. If you don’t know it, watch it right now...

Mind blown? OK good. Se7en is the kinetic type at its best (in a 1995 kind of way).

The man responsible for that is the one and only Kyle Cooper, co-founder of the agency Imaginary Forces. Pick your top ten favorite film titles of all time and chances are, his name is on at least one of them.

Inspired yet? There are loads of amazing examples of kinetic type out there. I’m going to leave it there for now so we can get down and dirty with some techniques for picking type.

Choosing Type for Mograph

Type is communication. Type communicates the meaning of the word but the visual style of the type communicates so much more than simply the word itself.

Finding the right typefaces and fonts for a project is a subjective process. It’s a bit like choosing your color palette.

Think about what you want to say and then how you want to say it.

Is it a strong statement? A nuanced detail? A directive? Is the message insistent? Hurried? Scared? Romantic?

Emotions and ideas can be created in the viewer’s mind with the choice of font, hierarchy, scale, tone, and color. The most important thing is that meanings are understood. We talk a lot about typefaces and layout in our Design Bootcamp.

While there are some generalizations that can be made, it really comes down to making your own personal design choices. Think of the keywords in your composition and how your choice of font can create personality and contrast. This piece from MK12 is a great example of kinetic typography that tells a story:

Like animation, kinetic typography takes time and practice to master.

Where to Find Fonts

There are loads of places to find both free and paid fonts. Here are a few of our favorites:

• Fonts.com - $9.99 per month

• TypeKit - Different levels both included and in addition to Creative Cloud (We use TypeKit quite a bit here at School of Motion)

• DaFont - Lots of freebies

Animated Type

If you don’t already know about this, you might want to kiss me after you read this next bit... This is a mega cool time saver.

A little company in Amsterdam called Animography has been hard at work making animated typefaces available for us MoGraph nerds to purchase and use. Think After Effects text animation presets on MoGraph crack. You can thank me later.

Go check it out over on Animography, and while you're there browse their entire library. It's pure MoGraph gold.

Awesome Type Pairings

We asked the School of Motion team to share some of their favorite type pairings. Here are some of the favorites. Feel free to use them in your next project.

Best of luck with all of your new typography knowledge. But the most important thing to remember when it comes to type is...

Never use Comic Sans... Ever.

This article was originally posted by Sara Wade from the School of Motion.

Top 20 Motion Graphics Animation Trends of 2020

The taste and preference of people are always changing in the modern, fast-paced world. There is still immense competition among businesses to come out with innovative ideas and strategies to lure customers to their product/service.

The tremendous changes in the world today also lead to innovation in the world of motion graphics animation. You cannot expect to get the desired results by publishing the same old style of animated videos over and over again. To give what the market wants, you need to be aware of the latest trends in motion graphics.

However, you need to learn how to make motion graphics animation before you can fully capitalize on the market trends. 

Cisco predicts that the internet will surpass 1 million minutes of video each second by 2022. Here is another chart that shows the massive growth in the market for online videos.

Before moving on to the motion graphic trends, if you are looking for someone to create highly engaging and outstanding motion graphic animation videos for your business, then you are in the right place. Check out our video production services along with our video pricing to get the best ever videos.

20 Motion Graphics Trend in 2020 

The trends are always changing, which is the reason you need to be aware of the market. Some trends stay on the market for a long time, so there is a chance that what works in 2019 could do well in 2020 as well.

Let’s look at the current 20 motion graphics trends to know what the market wants:

3D Everywhere

3D Everywhere comes first in the list where motion graphics artists are emphasizing inserting 3D elements everywhere from the sales presentation to game design. below is an example of 3D video created by our team for a successful client- Mbits.

Merge 2D and 3D

Mixing 2D and 3D is still gaining momentum in 2019, as people love how the video tells the story when motion graphics artists combine 2D and 3D.

Integrating 2D and 3D animation, inserting 2D overlayers with movement are some examples of it. We are not only observing this trend in big-budget advertisement videos, but also digital ads of small scale.

Kinetic Typography

We generally prefer not to stretch or do something unconventional with fonts and images. However, there are times when we can break the rules and still produce great results. The kinetic typography is all about stretching, twisting, and distorting letters and people are loving it.

Check out an our amazing typography video which helped our client Healthy Lead Funnel to reach the business heights. 

Broken Text

The designers are now playing around with fragmented texts for giving poetic meaning to the video and people are taking it positively. We can see many others experimenting with it.

Sophisticated VFX

Adding complex visual effects to a video is now catching the attention of the audience. We can see all sorts of scenes added in a video like explosions, firestorm, and other computer-generated animations.

Animated Logos

Even huge corporations are buying into the idea of motion graphics logo animation. It works perfectly in capturing users’ attention, as we can add all sorts of visual effects in a logo.

Seamless Transitions

Designers are now using sleek technologies and bringing down the number of cuts to give a more natural touch to the video, which results in a smooth flow of a video.

Thin Lines

Lines have numerous functions in a video like giving a direction, deciding the shape, and more. The artists are now trying to draw thin lines like an original drawing for experimentation, and it does look good.

Grain

The grain is a tool that we use for adding life to dull visuals. It is an excellent way to insert texture to vector imagery, and it also adds roughness.

Retro Motion Graphics

You can expect more use of retro motion graphics in 2019. The designers are using it to make videos fresh and add nostalgic feeling to the video.

Morphing

The concept of morphing logos, images, and other things in a video is gaining popularity to present quick and smooth transition, appealing to the short attention span of users.

Web and Apps Motion Graphics

The study shows that around 38% of users will not engage with unattractive sites and apps. The use of motion graphics templates in web and mobile apps is getting typical for retaining visitors with animated logos and giving life to boring graphics and loading screen.

Liquid Motion

The designers add a fluid motion to make video creative by replacing clean transitions into more of splashy shifts. It is delighting in seeing the liquid transforming into new shapes.

Isometric design

Isometric design is about representing 3D elements on the 2D screen. This type of design is successful in bringing attention to objects that matter.

Huge and Bold Typography

The large and bold fonts are in use in various motion graphics videos to communicate the messages by giving it extra emphasis.

Digital-surrealism

Digital-surrealism is about adding spectacular visuals that seem simultaneously familiar. The users see evaporating objects, the magical formation of things, and more.

Gradients

We call color transitions as gradients, and it is getting trendy due to its use by large organizations like Stripe, Instagram, and so on. It comes out like a vibrant UI, illustrations, and background.

Fantasy

The use of fiction in motion graphics is also trending with its use in popular series like Game of Thrones. It is about adding reality with the mix of fantasy characters like mythical beasts or magical landscapes.

Virtual Reality

The video for virtual reality is now increasing as we can now see designers focusing on superior quality surreal effects in the video. There is no limit to the creativity that you can use in motion graphics animation for virtual reality. The market size of virtual reality is expected to touch $44.7 billion in 2024 with a compound annual growth rate of 33.47% (Source).

New Minimalism

The final trend that we are mentioning in this article is New Minimalism. It is an advanced form of minimalism, which is nothing more than stripped down texts. In new minimalism, we add more to the video by inserting added textures, loopable sound, bold fluid styles, and more.

Over to You

Despite the trends and popularity of certain types of videos, a motion graphic artist must keep in mind that the selection of videos highly depends on the nature of your video. For instance, you cannot insert rock music in an intro if you are selling medical supplements, just because the trend is there on the market.

Having all that said, there is an excellent chance that the trends that I’ve listed above will be useful in cases of most of the types of businesses who need motion graphics animation. Go through each one of them and select the most appropriate trends that will serve your purpose.

This article was originally posted by Chehak Wadhwa on WebDew

Chehak Wadhwa is a Creative Head at webdew and has an intensive 10+ Years of Experience in Designing & Animation. She has produced 500+ Videos with her team including some of the well known brands in the market like UBER, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Calendar, etc.

What is Mobile Video Advertising? A Comprehensive Guide.

The mobile video ad train has been picking up steam over the past decade.

Where mobile devices were once limited to phone calls and text, today our smartphones and tablets make up a massive amount of our daily time.

Some studies have found that the average American spends roughly 3 hours on their phones daily, while others have found that at least half that time is spent on social media and YouTube.

As we’ve shifted our attention from the silver screen to our phones, so have marketers’ efforts to reach consumers.

Alongside the mobile revolution, we have also upped the amount of video content we consume.

Today, Google estimates that 6 out of 10 people prefer to watch online video, and others have found that we’re upping our mobile video consumption by a whopping 100% every year.   

If you’re just getting started with your mobile and video advertising, read our latest video marketing guide to boost your efforts and give you the video engagement your brand needs:

What Exactly is Mobile Video Advertising?

Video advertising refers to any online ad that has a video component.

While in traditional media ads are usually played as intermissions, online video ads can be played pre-roll (before a video plays), post-roll (after a video is complete), or on any non-video page as embedded media.

Videos can also be displayed in-stream along with other videos, or out-of-stream, such as on blogs, websites, and other non-video content.

There is some debate about what exactly constitutes digital video advertising, with some claiming that any video that sells a product or service is an ad, while others argue that even traditional advertising inside of a stream could be considered a video ad, regardless of the type.

In mobile advertising, video tends to focus on the former more than the latter—ads that are videos rather than ads in videos.

4 Benefits of Mobile Video Advertising in 2020 & Beyond

When planning your marketing budget, it’s important to allocate the right amount of resources to your mobile strategy. Emphasizing mobile video ads gives you several key advantages, including:

1. Mobile video drives better engagement. A study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau found that mobile video showed 2x better click-through rates than nave, and 3x better than both banner and interstitial ads. Moreover, with the number of people who watch video on mobile, the market keeps growing. Video is undeniably effective for marketing purposes.

2. Mobile videos are likelier to been to the end. Mobile videos tend to be shorter (thanks to platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and the now-defunct Vine), which means consumers are more likely to watch them to the end. Indeed, some studies have shown that roughly 88% of 30-second videos are watched in their entirety.

3. Mobile encourages sharing. One of the best things about video ads—and particularly viral ones—is that they are easy to share on mobile. This provides your ads with an organic boost that improves your exposure and gives you better value for every dollar spent.

4. Better target your video ads with geo-location. Mobile advertising tends to be more accurate thanks to the use of geo-location and users checking in at different locations. This lets you target your videos based on users’ current location and get better insights about who watches your videos.

Video Advertising Apps:

Boosted has an amazing promo video maker app that you can use for all of your video marketing needs, and is compatible with every social media platform, including: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, & YouTube.

3 Awesome Mobile Video Ad Execution examples:

A good mobile video ad will get your consumers talking, interacting with you, and sharing your video to their friends. Here are some of our favorite mobile video ads, and why they’re so effective:

1. Albert’s conversations with a user highlight their value. Budgeting app Albert created a series of quickfire Instagram ads that show the platform in action in a variety of situations. In a memorable one, a user decides they want hamburgers, and Albert gently reminds them they’re down to the last of their monthly budget.

2. SquareSpace encourages users to dream with Idris Elba. Another Instagram campaign, this one sees a short version of an ad featuring celebrity Idris Elba in several “dream jobs”, encouraging users to work and follow their goals.

3. Spotify takes advantage of vertical. Music videos have traditionally been the purview of television and PC screens, but mobile is becoming popular. To promote new artists and its own platform, Spotify has encouraged superstars such as Selena Gomez to record “vertical music videos” to be released on Spotify.

3 Important Tips for Successful Mobile Video Advertising

Here are three great strategies to kickstart your mobile video advertising efforts:

1. Choose the right platforms for your target audience. Social media and mobile video is great, but a scattershot approach does you more harm than good. Find out where your users and target demographics spend their time and prioritize your efforts there.

2. Embrace vertical video. Though you may instinctively try to shoot videos in landscape mode, most mobile users still prefer portrait orientation. Keeping your videos vertical means less work for users to see your videos, and a higher chance they’ll watch all the way through.

3. Tell stories with social media. A relatively new but highly popular feature of Facebook and Instagram is the story. These temporary posts let you add small segments to a larger collection and create in-depth stories and narratives from small, bite-sized clips.

Mobile Video Advertising Statistics and Trends in 2020 and Beyond:

As you prepare your mobile video ad strategy for 2019, here are some of the most important trends and statistics to keep in mind:

• Advertisers are slated to spend roughly $15.93 billion in mobile video ads, with the number rising to $24.81 billion in the next three years.

• Americans have shown a clear preference for watching retail ads on their mobile devices rather than their computers or televisions, with retail making up 33% of video ads consumed in 2017.

• More people are viewing videos on mobile. Approximately 187.7 million will watch videos in 2019, with an expected 205 million mobile video viewers by 2022.

• Consumers are likelier to interact with a brand when they see a video on social media. A Brightcove survey showed that 53% of responders engaged with brands based on social media videos.

Moving Forward with Branded Video:

Mobile video advertising is quickly becoming the preferred marketing strategy for companies across verticals.

The increased preference by consumers for video content, and especially on mobile devices, means that brands must shift their focus toward the sectors where they can have the biggest impact.

Advertising with mobile videos gives you several advantages, including better engagement, a higher rate of organic brand awareness, and better ad targeting for improved results.

Jumping on this trend can help you kickstart your brand’s efforts and help you spread the word about your company much more easily.

4 More Mobile Video Advertising Tips For 2020 

1. Optimizing Videos Size And Length

Just like the way marketers need to optimize their blog content for search engines, mobile videos should also be optimized to ensure the best user experience possible. 

The fact is that most modern consumers only have an attention span of about 8 seconds. Therefore, whether they’re using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, they usually expect their videos to load within just a few seconds, or else they’re likely to abandon all hopes of watching it. 

Therefore, video length, as well as quality, should always be kept in mind when optimizing videos for mobile use. This, combined with the fact that smart devices often have spotty reception, means that shorter video ads, of no more than 15 to 20 seconds, usually perform the best. 

Not only do shorter video ads ensure faster loads times, but they also make it more likely your viewers will watch the entire ad. TikTok is all the rage these days: be sure to check out our TikTok video length guide here.

2. Offer Value

While the goal of any mobile video advertising campaign is going to be to promote a brand’s products or services, it’s best to avoid being too “sales-y”, and instead, it’s better to focus on delivering value to your viewers. 

In fact, video ads that are too product-focused or brand-centric are usually seen as spammy and often go unnoticed by consumers. 

Therefore, in order to create powerful, effective video ads, you first need to have a clear idea of what you want your ads to achieve. Of course, the ultimate goal is going to be to sell whatever products or services you provide. 

But, it’s an even better idea to try to create video ads in terms of what type of value your products or services can provide to potential customers. For this, you’ll first need to have a firm understanding of your target audience and your ideal buyers. 

3. Mobile Video Ads Should Include Text And Sound

Although there’s no doubting the fact that sound can bring your ads up to the next level, it’s important to realize that a large number of consumers might not end up viewing your ads with their device volume turned on. 

In fact, many people are leery of leaving the volume turned on on their devices, especially when they’re in public because they don’t want to disturb anyone nearby. Furthermore, when video ads are viewed on platforms like Facebook or Instagram, your content won’t be played with audio unless the viewer happens to tap to enable the sound. 

Therefore, if you want your video ads to be as effective as possible, you need to make sure that they make sense with or without sound. Make sure to use a top notch promo video maker to ensure this.

4. Branding And Consistency

As mentioned, modern consumers already have an extremely short attention span. 

In turn, this means that mobile video ads tend to lose their effectiveness as soon as they begin to stray away from the main point, or when they fail to deliver the message in a prompt and efficient manner. 

Therefore, in order to create effective mobile advertisements, marketers need to ensure that their branding is clearly presented at the very beginning of their videos. 

This ensures that viewers will see the name or logo of the brand, even if they don’t watch the video all the way through to its end. 

Furthermore, you’re always going to want to maintain consistency amongst your branding. In other words, the same logos, fonts, colors, and voice should always be used consistently throughout your video ads and other types of promotional content.

This article was original posted by Boosted by Lightricks

HOW TO USE MOTION GRAPHICS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA AND ADS

With over 3.2 billion people using social media, they have probably seen every kind of social post an ad there is to see. Standing out from millions of social posts and capturing the attention of your audience takes a lot of imagination, creativity, and ingenuity.

One way to grab that fleeting attention and convey your message is to use motion graphics in your social posts and ads.

What is Motion Graphics?
Motion graphics are an offshoot of animation and is widely used today. Specifically, it is graphic design when design elements, objects, shapes, images, and text are animated or put into motion.

For a more accurate Motion Graphics Definition, take a look at what Wikipedia has to say, “Motion graphics are pieces of animation or digital footage which create the illusion of motion or rotation, and are usually combined with audio for use in multimedia projects.”

While motion graphics are a form of animation, there is more to it. It is an amalgamation of animation, graphics, and text with the purposeful intention of presenting information to the viewer.

It can be effectively used with clever copy, live-footage, voice-over, and sound to create eye-catching explainer videos, presentations, and even social media posts and ads.

Motion graphics take graphic design to another level. You don’t have to have a story or narrative to create a piece of content with motion graphics.

In fact, you can use motion graphics to create an interesting variation of your logo or add some excitement into a boring old graph in a video presentation or even present information interestingly in a social media ad.

How to Use Motion Graphics in Your Marketing
Motion graphics is a new marketing medium that gives you the benefit of videos, audio, infographics, text content, and graphic design—all rolled into one impressive piece of content.

There are two ways to create motion graphics. You can either start with the animation itself or you can use flat pieces of graphic elements in your content library and use software or a visual editor to add animation and transitions to it.

Motion graphics can be used for various applications in your marketing campaign such as:

1. Traditional television ads or online ads
2. Explainer videos to explain concepts, ideas, processes or tutorials
3. Social media posts to engage with your audience and increase brand awareness
4. Social media ads
5. Brand promo videos to publicize your business or brand
6. Culture marketing video to showcase your brand, people, value and causes

In Summary
Motion graphics can be used to enhance your marketing strategy. It is one of the most popular styles of videos used today by marketers due to its high engagement value.

Motion graphics are easy to produce and this means less production costs for businesses and less time taken to create stunning content.

With so many benefits, it’s no wonder that motion graphics are becoming a dominant form of marketing content for most brands and businesses globally.

Are you ready to take your marketing to the next level with motion graphics? Try Crello, where making motion graphics is a breeze.

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Source: www.idealightsindonesia.com

Guide to Using Animated Videos For Political Campaigns

by Emma Rose

The COVID-19 crisis has moved 2020 campaign activities online. In this environment, political campaign ads are more important than ever. They may be the only chance a campaign has to get in front of voters. But with restrictions on group gatherings, shooting a live-action campaign video is nearly impossible. Fortunately for campaigners, there is another option—animation. 

Don Sipple, President of Sipple Strategic Communications has crafted dozens of successful campaigns over the years. “I do a lot of ballot measure campaigns—animation in my view, facilitates simplifying substance in a visually interesting way,” Sipple said. 

To put that another way, whether your campaign is promoting a candidate for office or educating voters on a vital issue, animated videos can help you make your point. 

Disclaimer: The videos linked below are great examples of animated videos for political campaigns, and that’s why we chose to feature them. The views and opinions expressed are those of the advertisers and do not necessarily reflect the views of IdeaRocket, it’s staff, or the writer. 

Techniques: Animated video for political campaigns

Sipple isn’t the only marketer who believes in the power of animated political campaigns. 

As it turns out, politics and advocacy groups have been using animation for decades. Consider this Eisenhower for president ad from 1952.  

Dated as this ad might appear to the modern eye, it’s also warm and eye catching. The jingle sticks in your mind and the simple 2-D animation style would have been familiar to voters at the time. 

For a more modern example, consider the standard negative ad showing black and white photos of an opponent complete with intense music and quotes from candidates or news sources.

This composite style combines live action clips with animated elements to drive home a point. Without the flashing arrows and moving backgrounds, this ad would be much less effective. 

Whiteboard animation is another common technique for political advertisements. Sipple said he likes whiteboard animation because it’s visually interesting, quick and inexpensive. Here is a video IdeaRocket produced for Sipple’s firm on behalf of Prop 52, a California Ballot Measure that won approval.

Notice how the simplified color palette and symbolic images help viewers follow the key message: Prop52 has broad support. Without including any live actors, this video still relies on social proof. It implies that a large group of people endorse this proposition, so you should too. 

Why cast your ballot for animated video?

As Sipple mentioned, animation excels at making complex topics easy to understand. Take our video on Congressional Communities, for example. It introduces average voters to a new community-based model that can impact and inform political discourse. 

The simple animation in this video strips out unnecessary details that might lead to distractions. You can’t tell the race, age, or socio-economic status of the characters in this cartoon. That can be useful for a message like this because the topic applies to everyone. The animated character acts as a placeholder. Any viewer can image themselves in that place. 

With animated video for political campaigns you can: 

• Illustrate complicated ideas

• Liven up a dry topic

• Engage your audience

• Remove distractions

• Appeal to multiple voting demographics equally

Animated ads are also relatively quick to produce—in some cases, no more than a couple of days. That means you can respond to breaking news or quickly adjust your messaging to meet new challenges. 

Of course, in this time of social distancing, live video has become more difficult to shoot. Avoid gathering camera crews, casts of actors, and other production staff. Animations can do the job just as well without large gatherings. 

Intensifying a trend in political advertising

As the public adjusts its idea of what a candidate can look like, it’s also adjusting its idea of what campaign ads are. Although COVID-19 is pushing more candidates and causes to move their political campaigns online, the virus is fueling an existing trend. 

More candidates are turning to less formal, more personal videos to propel their campaigns. These videos spread online and sometimes even go viral. 

“Digital has shrunk everything….window of opportunity; time window; and screen,” Sipple said. “You now have 10 or 15 seconds to get the job done.”

Animation is one way that candidates can make themselves relatable and reach more diverse audiences.

Animation can also help political action committees and other third party groups get their message across. In this 15-second spot IdeaRocket produced endorsing Luz Rivas for Assembly, we use a drawing of the candidate in place of actual footage of her. This avoids a complex video shoot or the need for stock footage. Instead, we create a warm, personal advertisement using animation. 

Tips for creating animated campaign videos

If you’re making animated videos for political campaigns, these tips will help you create engaging and effective animations that support your campaign goals. 

• Choose an animation style to match your message. Animation can be bright and colorful, dark and brooding, serious, silly and anything in between. Choose a style that enhances your message. If you’re not sure how to do this, your design team can help you decide.

• Keep it short and simple. A short video will hold viewer attention more easily than a long one. In this case, short means less than 2 minutes.

• Avoid self-centered advertising. One big mistake that some campaigns make is focusing on the ego of the candidate instead of the orientation and interests of the viewer, Sipple said. As with any advertisement, an audience-centered approach works best.

• Give it character. Smiling faces build trust. Your characters need not be completely lifelike, but every video should include someone that the audience can relate to. As noted in the congressional communities example, ambiguous characters can sometimes be more compelling than a lifelike representation of a real person.
  

• Don’t rely on sound. A stirring soundtrack can increase the emotional impact of a video, but keep in mind that many online viewers watch videos without sound. Make sure the intent of your video is clear even if the sound is off.

• Distribute everywhere. A TV commercial is just one way to use your animated video. But don’t stop there. Get your message out by sharing on social, emailing your constituents, posting to YouTube or other video sites, and adding it to your website or blog.

Animation is flexible, customizable, and abides by social distancing guidelines. Think creatively to give your candidate some character or illustrate your issue with animated videos for political campaigns. IdeaRocket, can help. Contact us to get started. 

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This article was taken from Idea Rocket Animation’s website.

Making a political campaign video

When did video change the face of political campaigns for ever? Let’s go back a few years…

It’s the summer of 1952. TV ownership is on the rise. US presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower meets advertising legend Rosser Reeves to talk campaign strategies. Reeves, the Don Draper of the real world, suggests a series of 30 second ads with a simple premise. A viewer asks a question. The candidate answers.

“Eisenhower Answers America” is born. Reeves and his team run the ads between popular shows, reaching the largest number of viewers possible. The campaign is a roaring success and Eisenhower wins the election.

Fast forward to today. Video ads are everywhere. They’re on your TV, on Hulu, on YouTube and bang in the middle of the article you’re trying to read. Smart marketers are using video to promote social and political ideas. With the explosion of digital media and viral advertising, creators can reach larger audiences faster than ever before. Smart devices and easy to use software means that anyone can become a video maker.

You don’t need a Hollywood-worthy crew and a camera the size of your head. You just need a powerful story. Whether you’re running for president of the world, a seat on your local council or to be class president, video can change the face of your campaign.

What makes a great
political video?

But what makes a campaign video work? Over the years we’ve seen some fantastic videos – and many deeply questionable ones.

Effective videos tend to have a few things in common.

1. A clear, overarching message

What’s the key point you want voters to take away? Take the heart of it and mould it into a slogan.

There’s a reason slogans are so prevalent in advertising campaigns. They work. Why? A slogan draws on your emotion, on the deep-seated way you see the world, and pulls it up to the surface. It’s the shared sentiment you and your voters share, distilled into a catch phrase.

The “Yes, we can” slogan transformed former President Obama’s election campaign in 2008.

Yes We Can – Barack Obama Music Video

Repeated throughout the video (and the speech that inspired it), this slogan became an integral part of the movement. It perfectly captured the driving force behind the campaign and the desires of the voters.

Find your slogan. But remember, it takes time. Dr. Pepper is still out there looking for the perfect one!

2. Hit the emotional notes

Imagine you and your best friend are on opposite sides for your local elections. Obviously, your candidate is better but you kind of like your buddy. They’re a mostly reasonable person even though you can’t understand how they back that other candidate.

So, armed with the facts, you tell your friend exactly why your candidate is superior. For some unfathomable reason, instead of instantly changing their mind, they double down. Why would a reasonable, rational person do that?

Because we aren’t as rational as we like to think. Most of our decisions are driven by emotions, not facts. Facts are the things we use to back our point of view once it’s been established. Don’t believe me? Go find an article espousing a point you completely disagree with. They quote a bunch of stats. What makes their numbers bad and yours good?

For numbers to work, your viewer needs to be ready to believe them. Draw on the emotions you share. Find your common ground and tell a story about how you’ll help make improvements on it. Paint a story of how you’ll make things better.

Use music and imagery to capture the eye and imagination and draw your audience in. You want your constituents to picture themselves in your shared vision of the future and feel excited to be a part of it, because, long after your words have faded from their minds, people will remember how you made them feel.

3. Repetition

Repetition shouldn’t really affect the way we think. Hearing something ten times doesn’t make it more true than hearing it one time, right? Actually, it does.

In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, researchers found that when people we trust repeat certain ideas over others, it influences our decisions. When you combine this with the mere exposure effect, you’ve got a powerful combination on your hands. Mere exposure is the idea that we prefer certain things, ideas and people just because they are familiar. The more an idea is repeated, the more familiar it becomes.

How do you know what you should repeat? Identify the key things that are on your voters’ minds. If you’re running for class president it might be better library hours or a fantastic prom venue. Sketch out a few phrases that highlight those things and use the phrases often in different contexts. When you’re asked a question, bring it back to this key point.

During the 2016 US campaign, Donald Trump always steered the conversation back to a few key points he repeated over and over again. This confirmed his standing and priorities to his voter base over and over again so when he was questioned, the combination of the backfire effect and mere exposure made them double down and stand by him.

4. Social proof

Would you rather buy a toaster that has 100 reviews and an average rating of 4.8/5 or one that has zero reviews? Most of us would be drawn to the first one. Why? It’s proven. Other people have tried it and made sure it makes proper toast.

The power of social proof isn’t new. It’s a deeply embedded evolutionary adaptation that encourages us to wait until our brave but slightly foolish friend Ug finishes eating the strange berries and still looks OK before we dive in.

Show your voters you’ve got the trust of people just like them. Include positive testimonials in your video or interview people that support you. The key is to show voters that people they know, like, and trust feel the same way about you.

5. Call to action

Once the video is over, what do you want the viewer to do? Cast their vote? Share the video? Now you’ve captured and focused their emotional attention, use it to drive a specific action that helps your campaign.

Be direct, let the viewer know exactly what comes next. Ideally, if your ask is big, there should also be an accompanying small action they can take right away. This directs their momentum, lets them get used to doing what you ask, and actually increases the likelihood they’ll act on the bigger ask later.

Whose vote are you trying to get?

You’re never going to get everyone to like you or vote for you. Some people will love you no matter what. Some people will hate you no matter what. In reality, you’re fighting for the undecided.

To win them over, try to understand them. While they aren’t a big homogeneous group, most of us tend to want one simple thing: a better life for ourselves and our families. It’s your job to figure out what that means to the people you want to win over. Easy, right?

Let’s say you’re trying to win a group you don’t mesh with well. You’ve got different interests and priorities. To be honest, if you met for a coffee, you wouldn’t know what to talk about. If you want to create a video to appeal to this segment, don’t throw your beliefs at them and hope something will stick. Instead of going in, intellectual guns blazing, re-frame the argument as a partnership that builds on your commonalities.

But how do you make your video when you don’t have access to fancy equipment? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Campaign video templates

You can easily make a great political campaign video with Biteable. There’s a huge range of video templates you can customize any way you like, or you can start from scratch and make something completely new.

Edit this video

Campaign video ideas

Biteable users have made some compelling videos for their unique audience.

Three Great Reasons to Back the Lib Dems in the New Forest

This political campaign video by the New Forest Liberal Democrats shares some of the key things they stand for. This type of video is a great way to introduce new ideas to voters who haven’t heard of you before and get your vision out there.

When it comes down to it, a great video tells a powerful story that’s designed to appeal to a specific group of people. Get to know your potential voters and create something with them in mind, building on the things you have in common.

Happy electioneering!

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Source: Biteable’s Blog

How Video Animation Can Improve Website Traffic

We’ve heard the phrase, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’ but what about animation? Is it worth more or less? The rising use of video in digital marketing suggests it is an excellent way to grasp the viewers’ attention and boost traffic to your site.

Video has grown to be an indispensable component of marketing to drive traffic, conversions, and improve engagement. Moreover, it is also an opportunity for brands to connect with their audience on an emotional level.

So, if you’re still wondering whether to hire a video animation service provider, the blog is for you. Here you’ll find the different types of videos you can create and how they work to drive traffic, improve conversions, and more.

Types of Video

Unlike other digital products, a video is a malleable form of content. You can shape it to be whatever you want. From motion graphics to whiteboard animations, explainer videos, and more, you can create various animations to deliver a single message.

That said, here are a few types of videos you can create to boost traffic on your website.

• Product Demos

Product explainer videos are especially beneficial for B2B businesses and e-commerce customers. They can be how to use your product correctly and tips on making the most of it. According to a study by HubSpot, 90% of users claim that product videos are a valuable contribution to their decision-making process.

That said, instead of having a host talk about a products’ benefits, it’s best to ‘show’ people the proper way to use your product and how life is more comfortable after its purchase for the best results. It will enchant users’, making it impossible for them to turn away.

• Promo Videos

Another way to showcase your brand is through promo videos. Here your creativity is as limitless as your imagination. You can produce engaging videos as a way to connect with your audience on an emotional level, share your brand story, vision, and goals.

Aside from your brand, promo videos are also an excellent opportunity to announce new products or services. You can share these videos with your contacts through social media or other digital channels to create a buzz around the product before its launch and show how it will benefit users. It will guarantee more significant traffic on the launch day and after.

• Testimonials

Nowadays, buyers are more aware of what they are looking for than before the internet. Thus, brands need to provide proof of why they are worth buying. Video testimonials are an excellent solution in this regard. You can ask your customers to quote their real experiences and the results they had.

People can understand when someone is sincere. Showcasing real customer testimonials will help show your brand as someone that sees people as more than buyers. It will humanize your company, which ensures not only traffic and conversions but also customer loyalty.

That said, make sure the first few seconds of your video are engaging enough for the viewer to watch till the end. Otherwise, your efforts might be fruitless.

• Whiteboard Animations

To state, whiteboard animations are entertaining. They are fun and attention-grabbing – an ideal way to engage users and convey your message. They also help you stand out from the ever-growing world of video and animation.

Whiteboard animations are often created as explainer videos, but they are also an excellent form of storytelling to share your brand journey or testimonials.

• Blog-to-Video

Another form of animation is turning your blog content into a video. Since most people are always moving about, video is an excellent way to recreate and reuse your blog content. You can share tips and tricks, product reviews, buying guides, and other blog titles as part of an engaging short video.

How Videos Drive Traffic

Knowing the type of videos you can create, you might think it’s time to hire a video animation service company and work on your strategy. But before you start making calls, first understand how a video drives traffic and why it helps:

• SEO

SEO is a significant part of digital marketing that is responsible for your website’s ranking and visibility. Using specific keywords in your site content, blogs, and other written content helps Google understand what the website is about, your products and services, and whether you are valuable to the users looking for similar products or services.

Similarly, incorporating keywords in the video titles and descriptions will increase its visibility and rank in the search results, ultimately improving your website’s visibility and traffic. You can also use video backlinks to increase your page ranking; the higher your rank, the more traffic comes your way.

• Links

If you host your video on other channels, such as YouTube or other social media, you can include the website link in the description and encourage people to visit.

If people love what they see, they need an easy way to find you. Adding a link in the description is an excellent way to do that.

• Social Media

Most users scroll through their feed on social media; only rarely do people linger to get a closer look. Thus, videos can help grab your audience’s attention better than static image posts or texts. They almost guarantee an increase in organic traffic through social media, which also increases conversions and sales.

• Call-to-Action (CTAs)

As stated before, you can include your website link in your video descriptions to increase visits—CTAs in the video work to a similar effect. For example, including a compelling call-to-action in your video, asking viewers to visit the website will be significantly more impactful than any other channel.

• Time on Page

If you embed your videos on your website, instead of an external channel, you increase visitors’ time on your page. It positively affects your search engine ranking, which boosts visibility and traffic. Plus, it will also increase engagement on your website, improve conversions, and allow visitors an opportunity to explore your site.

Tell Your Story with an Animated Video & Improve Website Traffic

In a nutshell, animations improve your website’s visibility and search engine ranking, ultimately boosting traffic and conversions.

They are also an excellent way to set apart your brand from the competition. You can build a relationship with your audience, gain customer loyalty, and much more.

So, hire a video animation service provider and share your story with the audience through an engaging video!

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Above article was taken from News Patrolling. Posted by: Twinkle Goel 12 days ago in Business-News

Animation Video & Political Campaign- Let’s Explore The Unexplored

In today’s blog by Animated Video, we have decided to come up with this lesser-trodden topic – how animation video has changed the scenario in political campaign. How effective are they in assisting an individual to achieve their canvassing milestones? Let’s find out below…

So, how did it all start?

“It’s the summer of 1952. TV ownership is on the rise. US presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower meets advertising legend Rosser Reeves to talk campaign strategies. Reeves, the Don Draper of the real world, suggests a series of 30 second ads with a simple premise. A viewer asks a question. The candidate answers. “Eisenhower Answers America” is born. Reeves and his team run the ads between popular shows, reaching the largest number of viewers possible. The campaign is a roaring success and Eisenhower wins the election.”– Source

Eisenhower Political Video

From that time until today, we find videos everywhere – on TV, on streaming platforms, social media platforms and even the games we play on our phones come with animation videos upon watching which – one can get quick rewards. The marketers are making use of videos in the wisest ways possible to promote contents, products and services but blending the possibilities of videos with political campaign is a combo of sure shot success.

Today, with the explosion of digital media, advertisers are reeling in unprecedented exposure – their advertised products & services become viral and are ‘shared’ like wildfire. This ensures the heightened reach of the advertisement. What’s more? Through this amazing popularity, marketers are coming up with content ideas that are never-seen-before. Also, smart devices are making it easier for the contents to reach the audience faster than ever before.

Running For President? Or As A Local Councillor? Videos Are Versatile

So what does a political campaign video need? A Hollywood style crew? A Hollywood style technical team? NO, NO & NO! All you need is a powerful story that will be presented in an equally impactful way – through animation video. And for that, getting hold of the right animation agency is a precursor. Videos are very much versatile and they can change the face of any campaign (even if that’s for getting elected as the office union president! Just saying!).

What Makes A Political Video Successful?

The points mentioned below are extracted from the trends, analysis of political videos over the years from popular election campaign ideas of many political dignitaries. From deeply insightful to some extremely questionable ones, we all have come across them during the election seasons and taking lessons from them here, we are laying down some of the best tips:

1. Set A Clear & Lucid Point Of Takeaway
What message do you want to convey to your audience? Turn it into a slogan and then put them across various slides of the video. Slogans are prevalent in any type of advertisement because THEY WORK! They work properly to get the audience attention since the 1st slide itself. A slogan connects deep into the emotion and impact in a deep-seated way. In a video when slogans are incorporated wisely, they get imprinted in mind. It becomes a shared sentiment for the voters as one with the candidate’s war cry.

The best example would be Barrack Obama’s “Yes, We Can” which became so popular, that there came out a music video based on it.

2. Hit The Right Chords Of Audience’s Emotion
Imagine this – you are standing against your brother in the election. You both know that you are a better candidate than he is. But the outsiders do not know that. Even the most reasonable voter will face a dilemma if they do not get to understand what each of the candidates are offering as solutions to their persistent problems. What’s more? People love to get a glimpse of their favourite leader’s personal life – like what he or she does in the free time, educational qualification, hobbies and what not?

In a video, especially in an animated video, you will have the full scope to present yourself in the most attractive way. People cannot travel past to get a flashback of your achieving high school graduation – but you can definitely show them that through a compelling animation of how you did it.

With the right frame, right color, moving voiceover – magic can be created.
Animation video is known to be able to connect to the audience with awe-intriguing visual factors and when it comes to connecting them emotionally, they work wonders.

3. Psychologically Engage Your Audience With Video
We all have grown up watching cartoons. Watching Ben 10 on screen has inculcated a feeling that we can be powerful in combating challenges when we need. Scooby Doo told us that humans are the only ghosts to be scared of, beneath the mask. Animation Video has psychological effects on human minds in the most possible ways. For a political campaign, what more can be useful? The intention is to educate people about your ‘political goals, aims and desires’ that will help them to be hopeful about your candidature and when coupled with animation video, their envisioning of your greater picture becomes easy.

They will believe in you more, through the video.

4. What’s Your political campaign strategies’ score?

Get that answer on how your digital political campaign video is performing on the social media. Today, social media platforms have given people a number of benchmarks of gauging a content’s popularity through the elements such as like, share, comment, care, love, angry, sad and what not! It is important to have a social proof so that you can convince more and more people without even directly saying anything about yourself. Your political campaign ad video will do it all.

The video, through these benchmarks will get a review in the eyes of the people as to how you envision in changing their lives. They will rate you and if the rating is higher, then my friend you will stand to get more followers automatically. Videos come with an excellent power of connecting to the people so make great use of it. And how do you get to know your score? It is through the analytics data generated by and obtained from the same platforms like YouTube, Facebook or Instagram.

5. The Best Election Campaign Messages Carry A Strong Call-To-Action
The vast world of online marketing we all understand that without a compelling CTA or Call-To-Action any marketing asset stands as a useless creation. An animation video in this case, is an effective CTA itself as it constantly plays the bugle of your feats and reflects your bright and unique ideas of welfare.

I mean, come to think of it, your brand name, your campaign logo, featuring you (or your cartoon figure), speaking of your aims and then asking others to join you in your mission – what else can be more evocative than an animation video for your political campaign. The stronger your message will be, the louder your CTA in the video will become. That’s the power of animation in political campaign.

Taking Point 2 Into Consideration, Will The Privacy Of The Candidate Be Compromised?

Well, that depends – in case of live videos, the exposure is more whereas, animated videos give an individual the window to be creatively selective about giving out the details of your daily activities. In politics, security of an individual stands at a vulnerable position and keeping it in the front seat of consideration is important. So in an animation video, one has that freedom to change the scenario he or she is working in. So, every morning if you are going out to a certain place for morning exercise, you can just depict it as your own garden at home. It is as simple as that. And no, it is not lying, but it is all about keeping security of yourself prioritized alongside social welfare.

A Small Tip To Success: Conduct A Survey To Gauge The Public Pulse!

Conducting anonymous surveys on public can get you a practical image of what they think of your ambitions for social welfare. Once you get the pulse through a thorough survey, the next step will be strategizing a new pitch that will help you tie-up the ‘loose ends’ or the flaws in your political strategy. But how would you conduct a survey?

Take the assistance of versatile evaluation and assessment platforms service providers around you. They will design a simple survey set-up as per your requisite which will fetch you the exact data of your desire. This small step will benefit you in the long run surely!

And All You Need Is A Professional Assistance Of A Professional Creative Team

At Animated Video, we make it a point to keep our creations unique and in the same line of your requisites. That is why, we put ourselves as your extended creative team first so that every video we make for you are original, emotional and carrying the perfect story for impactful telling. Our creative experts and thinkers work for you and with you until we see that smile of content and satisfaction on your face. Those are our ultimate rewards, our driving force. Explore our range of video specialties today.

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This article was taken from Animated Video’s blog site.

What Is a Brand Persona, and Why Do You Need One?

There are many reasons why customers relate with brands, the same way have reasons for choosing the closest people in our lives. There are certain things about these people that you seamlessly connect to. It could either be a shared interest or passion, a belief or some other common grounds.

The same way humans have a personality, brands do too.

Every piece of communication that your brand has with a customer tells them something about your business. Each piece is a part of an overall puzzle. Audiences always know how to make sense of collective information. This is why companies need to purposefully and consistently communicate what they are all about.

With a brand persona, it is easy to do this, and in this article, we will go through the basics of a brand persona and why you need one.

What Is A Brand Persona?

A brand persona collects personality traits, values, and attitudes that your brand showcases regularly. Brand persona helps you to effectively connect to your audiences. This is because it enables you to identify various audience segments and helps them connect with your organization.

Just as humans have personality traits that make them likable or otherwise, each brand has a unique personality. In marketing, your persona is the foundation upon which the rest of your marketing efforts are built.

Your brand's persona will help audiences to create an overall perception of your brand. This will influence the way people feel about your brand.

When developed successfully, an organization's brand persona will help to correctly answer fundamental questions, such as;

- Who are we?

- What are we passionate about?

- What do we stand for? Etc.

Why Do I Need A Brand Persona?

Without brand personas, it is difficult for businesses to appeal to the needs of their target market. Moreso, without a persona, businesses may not recognize their target market.

A well-defined persona can go a long way in helping you build a great marketing plan. It also allows you to effectively target your value proposition to the right groups of prospective customers.

With a brand persona, it is easy to understand your customers’ needs and wants. This makes it easier to reach your target market and build strong relationships with customers.

Also, an authentic persona can help you to establish trust with users. This is a great way to maintain loyalty and turn customers into fans of your brand.

Benefits Of Brand Persona

Apart from these general benefits of a brand persona, there are some other specific gains. They include;

Differentiating Your Brand

There is no business without competition; it is the way life is. This is why businesses need to ensure that they find ways to differentiate their brands. Marketing is all about differentiation, and a great brand persona can help you build rapport with customers.

In most cases, customers make purchasing choices based on how much they trust and identify with the brand. A distinct brand persona can help you to effectively stand out from your direct and indirect competitors.

Showing The Real Benefits Of Your Brand

There are specific facts about your brand that customers look out for in a product like yours. Your brand persona can show customers all the juicy details they need to know about your offer. Your brand persona can also inspire customers to feel a certain way because they feel more connected to your product or service.

For example, think about Nike and the ‘just do it’ tag. It is a persona that inspires greatness and helps people seek to be the best they can be. The brand benefits from this persona because it suggests that they make the best possible products.

Keeping Customers Close

Long terms customers are people that keep coming back for your product or service. When it comes to keeping your customers close, your product or service's quality is never enough. This is why you need to gather data and use it to get close to your customer base.

Understanding customer data can help you understand the intentions and perceptions of your customer. A well-defined brand persona helps you communicate with your audience. This back and forth communication makes it easy to gather crucial information about your customers.

Prioritizing Leads

Customer targeting is one of the most important aspects of a business. You need to understand your potential customers and the best way to find them. A brand persona helps you to better target customers and get potential leads.

It is easier to find more leads when you target leads whose personalities align with your brand’s persona.

Reviewing Your Brand Persona

Creating a brand persona is not the last lap of the job; if anything, it signifies the beginning of regular work.

Your brand is like a baby, and over time, it is bound to change in some ways. This is why you need to plan to review and update your brand persona as your business changes and improves 

As your persona changes, you may also need to change your marketing campaigns and the type of content you produce.

Your brand's tangible and intangible assets are influenced by your brand persona at every point in time. A well-developed persona will help you build the best products and services every time. (In this case, "best" refers to the exact needs of your customers)

Rounding Up…

Marketing is not what it used to be. Back in the days, customers formed impressions about businesses by listening to what the business owners had to say.

However, these days, customers expect that every business would say great stuff about itself. Therefore, it isn’t really about what you say but about the aggregation of your actions.

For every action that brands take, an impression is formed in the mind of the audience. Therefore, a brand's personality refers to the overall perception of the brand in customers' minds.

This is why it is essential that you purposefully set out to create a stellar overall impression of your brand.

A stellar brand persona can help you to achieve fantastic results in your branding and marketing efforts.

In subsequent articles, we will go through the process of creating your unique brand identity.

Thank you for reading; we hope you learned a thing or two?

5 Signs you need an Animated Video for your Small Business

Here at Wyzowl, we love animated videos!

But hey, who doesn’t?

In fact, we did a survey and found that 44% of video marketers PRIMARILY use animated explainer videos. So, it appears it’s not just Wyzowl who are passionate about animation!

An animated video will offer endless benefits for your small business — they’re fun, they’re persuasive, and they build trust.

But, how do you know if you really need an animated video?

Well, in this blog post we’re going to go through 5 signs that you need an animated video for your small business. So, read on for some animated video enlightenment!

1. You’re Not Interesting Enough

This is a pretty tough call to make. We’re all passionate about our businesses and business ideas, so it would be quite a shock if you looked at your own company and said, ‘Yep. This is just not interesting‘.

However, it’s not just about your business, the content that your business produces also needs to be interesting. For a small business, customer acquisition is just as important as customer retention, and a surefire way to acquire customers is to pique their interest. Animated videos are great at this. People like watching animated videos because they tell stories in a fun and easy to digest format. They’re also highly shareable which, with the vast reach of the internet, can incredibly increase the visibility of your small business. Proof of this is that 92% of mobile video viewers share videos with others. Check out the video below for a great example of a really fun and interesting way to tell a simple story:

2. You Have A High Bounce Rate

This leads on from the above point, because if your website is not interesting enough then visitors will leave, and research shows that they will leave in as little as 6 seconds. In contrast, websites with video content have the ability to grab the attention of visitors and keep them on your site for approximately 6 minutes.

It’s not just the fun factor of videos that keeps people on your site for longer. Videos also present you as a professional and current company, which encourages people to do business with you. An effective animated video can even present you as an expert in your field.

3. Your S.E.O Is B.A.D

I’m sure you don’t need us to tell you that hardly anyone scrolls past the first page of Google. That’s why it’s vital that you fight tooth and nail to get your business on that first page. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that the first page is only reserved for giant companies, any company can reach that goal, big or small, simply by having great SEO. As a small business, the best way to increase your SEO is to get an animated video. Statistics have found that pages with video are 53x more likely to rank on the first page of Google.

And, it’s not all about Google. YouTube is the second largest search engine. So, just by having a video you can increase your visibility on the top two most visited sites in the world!

4. Your Brand Isn’t Human Enough

This is a struggle for any small business, particularly if you’re new, and online-only. Customers feel more comfortable purchasing from businesses they know and trust. Animated videos are a great way to break the barrier a little, they give you the chance to humanize your brand and ultimately, begin building much needed trust with customers.

Animated videos are the most successful type of video for humanization because you can create a character modelled on your ideal customer. This way, people will watch your video, relate to your characters, and ultimately become loyal customers.

5. You Need To Keep Up With Competitors

68% of marketers believe that video is essential for their business. If your competitors are among this group of people then you should be too! Customers love to watch videos, and most would prefer to do so over any other form of marketing. So, if your competitors have a video, and you don’t, then every view of their video is practically a loss in business for you.

As mentioned above, a brand video can really present you as a current, capable, and professional business within your industry. And, the better your video, the more this fact will stand. A high-quality animated video can really help you get ahead of your competitors without breaking the bank.

Closing Thoughts

Bottom line: Your company can’t afford NOT to get an animated video! Videos are everywhere these days, and they’re only going to become more prominent in the future. Animated videos are a great, inexpensive way for small businesses to jump on the video marketing bandwagon.

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This article was taken from Wyzowl’s website.

Promote Your App: 13 Creative Ways to Reach Out to the Users Easily

These are free offerings to promote your app

There are huge sharks in the market that every new mobile app developer or publisher has to compete with when launching a baby app. And believe me, it is not at all a cakewalk even for experienced entrepreneurs to stand first among the equals.

Being said that, it’s not the case that you can’t get the recognition that your potential app deserves. The tactic is to promote your mobile app in a way that it should reach out to the audiences in no time and with some offerings they can’t even ignore.

Promoting an app among audiences also states that:

• You are easily discoverable to audiences on prominent app stores

• The app downloads increase simultaneously, and

• The app referrals increase in sync

Does that seem tough? If it is yes, I have got the elixir for you. Follow it while remaining a prominent service provider in the market. Let’s get into the details.

App Store Optimization

It’s the king in the world of SEO or rather ASO can be termed as the SEO of the ecosystem we call the mobile app world. The more you can optimize your app store listing page, the more prominently your app will rank in different stores. Easy discoverability makes it easier for users to discover an app. Let’s find out more about it.

It is important to know what steps you should take to create a perfect pre-app launch strategy and what are the key caveats you need to be careful about app store optimization. No matter how phenomenal you have developed your product until you have applied the right strategy you can’t ask for the desired results. Here are other steps to follow.

1. Optimize App Store Title

Your App Store title appears at the app store listing and it is the first point of interaction for users to interact with the product. This makes it important to appear impressively for users and the ideas to follow here are:

Be simple when creating the title

• Take an idea(name) that show resembles with your mobile app

• Reflect the brand image clearly

• If possible, focus on the keywords

If the name has been used earlier somewhere, it is not unique. You may lose the leading position while competing against already established names in the industry. And users may ignore your offering on the grounds of an immature offering that you have featured against the mature ones. So, research well before you titles your product.  

Some additional suggestions:

• Keep your title under 50 characters

• Apple recommends to keep it under 23 characters

2. Invest Your Time in Burst Marketing

How would it sound you to get exponential downloads for mobile apps? It seems soothing to ears. Right? And the way to get the desired result is to invest some efforts in the burst marketing campaign.

Such a marketing tactic is acted upon in a very short time period and gets you the desired downloads within a week or two. And all that it asks is to spend a considerable amount of money on your marketing campaign.

The burst campaign effect can get you the following results:

• Improved search result for your product

• Decreased CPIs (cost per install)

• Organic downloads increase

• Your user base growth gets massive

3. Reach Out to Your Customers

Marketing is one prominent aspect to promote your app successfully and it requires you to reach out to users along with all the offerings (functionality) it has for them. As the rule of thumb in the marketing domain, the promotion of the applications starts long before it even arrives at the market.

Mark that point as the most important of all. Reaching out to the customers is more important than having a daily discussion with the developers when you are brainstorming with them to create the perfect mobile applications for your users. Reaching to your users is important so that you can talk and include their feedback in the app development procedure.

You are building a product that is going to be an exclusive offering for users, why not create it in such a way that you can promote your app with it.

4. Talk To Influencers About Your Product

App marketing merely to the audience is going to do nothing except for you rather you will have to reach out to the influencers. Their potential connection is all that you would require for the word of mouth promotion of your application.

Do try developing authentic mutual connections with influencers who have got the right skills to promote your app to potential users. These influencers are sure to help you out with the product promotion.

Influencers as individuals harness the power to influence your product’s buying and selling along with bringing the engagement to it. While meeting with such experts you will come across a number of such professionals who may seem to help you out.

However, my recommendation is to find out a resource who can truly value your mobile app development company and the product.

5. An Official Blog Can Serve as a Prominent Tool

You have reached your audience, you are connected to an influencer who seems to fit the bill for you, you have invested wisely in a burst campaign, what’s next?

It is the official time for you to feature your app in a blog that seems relevant to the functionality of your application. This is a well prevailing promotional strategy that has got the potential to market the app perfectly in the market.

No idea on how to include your mobile app in the blog? Here is what you can do

• Write a paragraph about your product in a blog post. Highlight the prominent features

• Include a hyperlinked (app download link) CTA anywhere either in the middle or at the last of the write-up

• Dedicate a blog post solely for your product

When writing an exclusive blog post to promote your app, try to include every possible information in the write-up. Present your idea for the purpose of developing this product.

Tell the entire story to the users, add some screenshots, show the entire functionality through a video, and talk about the offerings that are exclusive to your mobile app.

6. Release Teasers Of Your Product

Images reach quickly to the users with an additional catch that they are more engaging than content. And teasers bring the message more prominent if we talk about any other communication medium.

It is in the psychology of the users to see things themselves first and then decide whether to believe something or not. Use teasers that give a sneak peek into your product, Don’t reveal everything but just a hint of your product. Let the users wait for it and till then create hype about your offering in the market.

There are a number of such ways you can promote your app or services. Here is a brief on them:

• Create screenshots and promotional videos

• Recreate the initial wireframing to help people understand the components of your product

7. Engrave Your Mobile Apps in the Emails

You cannot ignore the potential of emails when you are promoting a mobile app or any new product. As a business, you must be practicing the email campaign for every new product the business produces.

Why not add a few lines about the product you are going to develop and then wait for your advertiser’s, influencer’s and potential customer’s review on it. You will get to know the perception of top leaders who are in the business and from those also who will consume your services. In both cases, you are only going to get the best of advice.

While drafting the email copy, include the following elements:

• Besides developing an engaging email body, do include a separate PDF

• A newsletter that describes the functionality could also work for you

• Graphical representation such as infographic could also do the promotion for you

8. Register Your App In Alternative Stores

Registering your apps in prominent app stores i.e. on Google Play for Android and Apple App Store for iOS does have the benefit of its own but it comes with the additional burden of fighting against other prominent apps too. Why not take a way out of this and register your product at other prominent stores? Some renowned store other than Google Play and App Store are:

• GetJar

• SlideMe

• Opera Mobile Store

• AppsLib

• Amazon Appstore

• AppBrain

If a mobile app is registered at relatively less popular stores, the expected downloads can increase with a speed of 200%. All the app stores mentioned above will have a suite of other apps but the competition that you will be facing here is much lower as compared to the two most prominent app stores.

9. Join The Different Developer's Group

The developer's community is one such that could bring huge recognition to your mobile application. There is also an option of joining professional communities on LinkedIn. Communities on Facebook and Google+ can also help you to bring visibility to your application.

It is important to be known among developers and entrepreneurs. Making your offering prominent among these well-known personalities is important and it can help as an external marketing effort to bring recognition to your product.

After you get connected to any such group ask for the feedback either from the developers or from other prominent entrepreneurs who are in the business. These professionals have the required experience that can help developers to get that extra edge from their competitors.

Make it a practice to discuss the latest features, bug fixes, and other valuable points.

10. The App Icon Should Be Engaging

The number of icons available in the app stores has reached the million count in App Store and Google Play. Every category in any of the app stores is making a lot of noise and thus to make the presence felt of a new application in the market you need to be different at least with your icon.

So, what are those points that make an icon stand out from the rest of the crowd? Here is the round-up of the best suggestions that are the contemporary winners.

• Develop a unique shape that could easily stand out among a thousand icons

• When choosing the pallet, limit your choice to a max of 2 colors

• Avoid using texts. Don’t use pictures. Instead, design one to let it appear realistic

Look at these examples. Every icon has something to convey to the users and this is what makes them different from all.

11. App Landing Page Is Important Too

An exceptional landing page is a must for every product that is going to initiate the journey of reaching the users successfully. Having a great landing page is like having a great business card. It’s good to have with you in order to attract the clients towards your services and the products.

See this example here. It is the landing page of a prominent marketplace the page is exactly about what the business does for the clients. It has all the elements that first-time users would easily get even if there are coming to the website for the very first time.

Amidst all this information that is shared over the page, the most important of all is the link that makes it easy for users to search for the assistance they are looking for.

Many such landing pages also include the links of Google and Apple stores to gain the opportunity of getting shared by the users (more users will get to know about the business when the existing users will share the business links to other users.

In such landing pages, the placement of CTA (call to action), its design, and the tiny text over it matter the most in order to attract the clients.

In case you are confused about the design of your mobile application, here is a link to some great templates for you to start. There are well-known, globally recognized marketplaces that help you to design your own template by offering exceptional templates to edit as you like it.

12. Be Ready For The Press

Be prepared to publish your services or the product on prominent platforms. Talk about your services through press releases, invite journalists to cover a story on the same, do indulge in blog post practices about your services, and probably do it all that is required. You can practice the word of mouth advertising for your business.

Your users are only going to know about the business when they will hear more and more about it from different sources. Talk more and more about your services and let other social channels advertise for the same to promote your app.

Users have typical psychology to getting attracted to a service they often hear about. Let the users hear about your services in the same way. It can be a great tool to let users’ engagement flow into the business.

The Upshot

While many of the advertisers can get lucky with any of the above-illustrated practices, you may get the luckier one even by practicing a single one. Do brainstorm on new app development ideas or to promote your app for free. Offer services that users can never deny. Always remember, users, are still after great business deals, in case they like it they are sure to practice the same.

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Author and Source: Arpit (Business Development Head) / Mobile App Daily

WHY INFOGRAPHICS AND ANIMATED VIDEOS ARE A GREAT WAY TO BOOST BUSINESS

Are you looking for new ways to bring business to your company? Are you looking for a way to add some flavor to your website? Well, today is your lucky day. In this article you will discover two new ways to make your website and business more attractive and compelling to your customers. 

Queue the infographic and the animated video. These new marketing tools can help boost your business’s SEO, simplify communication, and enhance your business’s brand. Continue reading to find out how these tools can help your business, what they can be used for and tips and tricks to making them successful. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 

• Infographics

• What are they?

• How can they Help Business?

• How can you Use them in Business?

• Tips for Making Successful Infographics

• Animated Videos

• What are they?

• How can they Help Business?

• How can you Use them in Business?

• Tips for Making Successful Animated Videos

INFOGRAPHICS

What are they?

Infographics are a popular marketing tool used by businesses to, you probably guessed it, inform their customers about anything from how to’s to product showcases. But infographics aren’t just a boring way to give your customers information, they are fun, colorful images paired with words. Infographics are a more effective way to make difficult and dull information easier for customers to follow and understand. 

How can they help your business?

So you know what infographics are, so you are probably wondering why they are an effective tool for businesses? To start, the brain takes in 90% of its information in images. As humans, we are created to remember pictures. We can remember about 65% of daily information if it is presented to us visually, as opposed to 10% if the same information is given to us via spoken words. 

Now aside from the science side of how infographics affect the brian, infographics also increase web traffic. Posts that include images are more likely to be viewed than posts that just have words, 650% to be exact. Along with this, posts that include both images and words, an infographic, is one of the most engaging and effective ways to advertise a business. Infographics also help improve your business’s brand and optimize your business for search. Infographics are an effective way to get your information on as many platforms as you want. You can use them on any social media platform, website, media kits, email, or anywhere else. Infographics also last a while, and can be used for months, or even years. 

Overall, infographics help businesses advertise in effective ways, but here are some more specific benefits that infographics provide. 

Simplify Communication

Let’s think about this scenario for a second. If you were to be presented with a PDF of information with no pictures and a PDF of the same information with pictures, which would you most likely choose to read? You probably chose the document with pictures because it is easier to understand, right? When communicating information to customers, you want them to understand what you are saying. If you use pictures with simple captions instead of flooding the customer’s brain with detailed worded directions, the customer is more likely to comprehend the topic you are presenting.   

Inviting and Attractive

Using infographics is a great way to attract potential customers to your business. When customers see an article with an interesting picture, they are more likely to click on it to read it. If you are advertising your business using an infographic it is important to make it unique and amusing to entice a customer into reading the information. It needs to have inviting colors, easy to read font, and a limited amount of words. If your information is attractive, your viewers will have an easier time finding the motivation to read the important information. 

Boost SEO

You might be wondering how an infographic can help boost your search engine optimization. For starters, infographics have the power to increase your ranking factor and authority of your website and business. When you post a high quality infographic, it becomes enticing to bloggers because it gives them a way to keep their audience interested while still giving credit to the creator of the infographic. When bloggers post your infographic, it creates a backlink to your website, increasing your Google ranking. 

Simply said, the better the infographic, the more likely it is to be used by others. The more backlinks the infographic makes, the higher ranking of your business on Google. And lastly, the higher ranking on Google, the higher SEO your business will have. 

How can you use Infographics in your Business? 

Now that you know why and how infographics can help enhance your business, take a look at the specific ways you can use infographics. 

How Tos

Infographics are a great way to explain to an audience how to easily execute a complex task. They can provide useful pictures and simple phrases so the audience can easily follow along. Check out this infographic on how to make an infographic, how ironic. 

Show off Product or Service

You can use infographics to introduce a specific product or service that your business offers. The infographic can include the breakdown of the features, prices, steps needed to purchase the service, or anything else you think your infographic needs. The infographic below highlights the services that Sustainability Studios offer. 

Compare/Contrast Things

After you showcase your product or service, you might want to compare the different services/products your business offers along with anything else you feel the need to compare. For example, an infographic can be used to compare and contrast an hourly pay and a salary pay.

List 

Along with showcasing a product, an infographic can be used to display a list, whether that be a Top 5 List, a features list for a certain product, or a list of all the services you offer. Below is an infographic that gives a list of the 10 types of infographics and the best case to use them. 

Call to Action

Just like at the end of a persuasive speech or essay, an infographic can ask the viewer to take action. By informing the audience of a specific problem and providing solutions to that problem, you can efficiently persuade your viewer. The infographic below gives the viewer the causes, effects, and solutions to climate change. 

Timelines

You can also use infographics to create timelines. You can use the timelines to give a brief history of a topic or the story behind your business and how it has gotten to where it is today. The example timeline is the story of how Uber became one of the most popular ride-hailing companies. 

Show off New Product or Brand 

Infographics are a great way to showcase a new product that you are providing. You can come up with an interesting way to portray your new product that is different from your competitors and will engage your customers. Pictured below is an example of an introduction to a new product by Amazon. 

Tips for Making a Successful Infographic

After reading this, you are probably dying to create your own infographic to help your business flourish. Here are some tips and tricks for getting started. 

Know Your Audience

Like every advertising campaign, make sure your infographic is targeted to your specific consumer. Everything that goes into your infographic needs to be tailored towards your intended audience, such as color, words, and graphics. 

Good Title

When creating an infographic it is important to include an eye catching title. Your title should include what the infographic is about, while still making the audience intrigued to read more. 

Should be Informative

In a successful infographic there are very few words, but those words should still be very valuable to your topic. Even though you are using images and graphics to display more of your information, make sure the amount and quality of information is still powerful. 

Information Flows Should Flow

When creating an infographic, you can be easily carried away with the design. Make sure your design is easy to follow and has a simple flow. If the order of information is confusing, it will be hard for your viewers to follow.  

Cite Your Sources

Like any paper in school, or powerpoint presentation at work, you need to be citing your sources. If you use statistics or quotes in your infographic, those should be cited at the bottom of the design. 

Keep it Simple

Infographics can be fun to mess around with, but you need to make sure you aren’t making your infographic too busy. Don’t be afraid to include white space in your design. Too many elements can be confusing and overwhelming to the audience. 

Include Your Information

The most important step in creating a successful infographic is adding your business’s information. Be sure to include your website and contact information at the bottom of the infographic to show customers where they can learn more about this product, service, or topic. 

Animated Videos

Similar to infographics, animated videos are another great tool to help boost business. 

What are they? 

Animated Videos, also known as motion graphics, are another great marketing tool to convey dull information in a more exciting and interactive way. Animated videos use animated pictures, text, or symbols to display a certain message or information. Along with the moving images, there will be a voice over that lets the viewer know what is going on in the animations. Like Infographics, animated videos are a great way to keep customers interested in the information a business is trying to convey. 

How can they help your business? 

Motion Graphics are a great way to add some spice to your business proposals, employee training, basic information you want your customers to know, or any topic you feel needs an interesting touch. With motion graphics, you can turn boring spreadsheets and instructions into a fun, amusing video that effectively informs the customers. Information given through an animated video is absorbed fast and more efficiently than reading a dull pamphlet or bar graph. I mean, think about it, would you rather watch a minute long video or read a one page statistics sheet? 

Motion graphics can have a huge benefit to the advertising of your business, and here is how. 

Boost SEO

Are you wanting to get to a higher position on the search results? It seems almost impossible with the amount of business owners taking the same steps to reach that higher position. However, there is a way, with less competition, to get to the top of those search results. When you create an animated video and embed that video in your website, your business is more likely to be featured on the first page of Google search results. A motion graphic also helps the ranking of your website which boosts your SEO. 

Enhance Brand

Because human brains process 90% of information in images, motion graphics are extremely memorable. If your animated video is engaging and eye-catching, the viewer is more likely to remember the information presented. The information given in a motion graphic can also help the audience understand a more complex idea and allows you to tailor the video to your target audience. A high quality motion graphic can have an impact on the viewers, and therefore increase your brand recognition. 

It’s Shareable and Cost Effective

Animated videos are a great way to get your business’s content on all different devices. More people are starting to use their phones and tablets rather than laptops or desktops, but the good news is that animated videos can be displayed on all devices. Just being able to reach smartphone and tablet users alone, you are increasing the exposure to your business. 

If the motion graphics are interesting enough they can be shared on Instagram, Facebook, or even Snapchat to reach even more potential customers. Videos are an easy way for people to share information they find intriguing.

Along with being easily shareable, animated videos are cost effective. You don’t have to spend the sum of money needed for studio time, actors, or expensive camera gear for a real video, instead you can hire a designer to create an animated video for you. Even though you have to spend some money on a designer, the money will get right back to you with how successful motion graphics are at bringing business to your company. 

How can you use animated videos for business? 

Like infographics, there are many effective uses for animated videos, here are just a few. 

Explaining an Idea or Concept

Motion graphics are a great way to help viewers understand a certain concept. Sometimes it can be hard to explain a certain idea or concept, but with motion graphics, the viewer has an easier time visualizing and understanding the process. Here is a great example of an animated video we produced for a local moving company Jake’s Moving and Storage.

Tell Your Business’s Story

Like a timeline infographic, an animated video can give a brief history of your business and how you became the business you are today. You can also use an animated video to tell any kind of story you want, it doesn’t necessarily have to be your business’s story. Here is a great example of an animated video we produced for the La Crosse Community Foundation.

Branding 

You can use a motion graphic to brand or rebrand your business. Creating a memorable video will help you stand apart from your competitors and increase your business. Here is an example of an animated video we produced for the United Fund for the Arts and Humanities.

Logo Animation

Do you want to give your logo a little extra spice? You can achieve this by adding animation to your logo. This will make your logo stick out and attract potential customers. Check out what we did for Irishfest‘s logo to make it fly into frame.

Tips for Making Successful Animated Videos

Now that you know what animated videos are, how they can help boost business, and specific ways to use animated videos, it is time for you to learn how to create a successful animated video that will bring you business. Take a look at these tips and tricks that we think are important to know when creating an animated video. 

Know your audience

Like infographics it is important to know your target audience so you can tailor your animated video towards them. You want to make sure the message, the colors and the graphics, all are cohesive and speak to the type of customer you are intending. 

Hire a professional 

Motion graphics are an amazing tool, but can be harmful to your business if not done correctly. A great animated video has seamless transitions and that only comes from designers that are experienced with motion graphic work. A designer can also help your vision come to life. They will work with you to decide colors and graphics to ensure the animation represents your business how you want it to. 

Compelling Script

Your script for your animated video is just as important as the graphics that go along with it. Having great motion graphics but a lousy script will not keep your audience interested. To know if your script is too dull, read it without the pictures. Does it still have the same effect? The combination of both amusing graphics and an intriguing story, will make your animated video a success. 

Make it Flow

One of the most important things to remember when creating an animated video is to make sure it flows. It is important for both the script and graphics to be in sync at all times and for the transitions between slides to be effective. This was mentioned briefly before, but make sure that your animations are seamless. If your graphics are chopping, your video will look unprofessional. 

Stick with the Same Style

A professional designer can help with this, but it is crucial that you stick to the same style and aesthetic throughout the video. If your video is made in two different styles, it can be confusing to viewers and look unprofessional. 

Wrapping Up 

Both infographics and animated videos can help boost your business’s SEO and bring more traffic to your website. They are also great ways to enhance your brand and simplify communication between businesses and customers.

If you are looking for cost-effective ways to spice up your business advertising, infographics and animated video are the way to go. They both help boost your SEO and bring more traffic to your website. Check out more examples on our video page HERE!

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Source: Elevate Media Group Inc. website