Building a Video Marketing Strategy 11 Sep 2024, 6:54 pm

Video is one of the most effective ways to educate and engage your customers across all digital channels. It’s become a primary tool for advertising and marketing communications and is an indispensable asset for businesses looking to position themselves as an industry leader. Proactively planning and implementing a well-defined video marketing strategy allows you to maximize impact without overwhelming limited resources. Integrating video into your marketing strategy involves the following key steps:

Step 1: Goals

First things first – know what you want to achieve with your videos. Think about your business goals and how videos can help you get there. Here are some of the top marketing goals video can help accomplish:

• Building brand awareness
• Driving leads and converting leads into sales
• Showing products in action
• Educating customers
• Defining your brand through stories
• Demonstrating thought leadership
• Increasing engagement

Step 2: Audience

Next, clearly define who you’re talking to. Knowing your target audience inside and out lets you tailor your content to their needs and interests. Ask yourself who needs your service, why they need it, and where they’ll look for it. Determine specific user personas and develop journey maps for each to ensure a customer-centric perspective is followed. Think about:

• Demographics: age, gender, location, education, job, income
• Psychographics: interests, hobbies, values, beliefs, lifestyle
• Behavior: how they spend free time, purchasing habits, how often they need your product/service, decision-making factors
• Media consumption: social platforms they use, content types they love, favorite websites
• Product-specific: problems your product/service solve, objections they might have, features they might care about

Step 3: Content

Now that you know who you’re talking to and why, let’s determine what content pillars and video formats will best align with your goals and resonate with your audience. Identify the core themes, or content pillars, that you can use as the basis for producing meaningful and actionable content. Content pillars serve as a framework to organize topics into thematic categories. This ensures consistency and relevance in your messaging and demonstrates your brand’s commitment to its core values. Also determine the best formats to use. The following are some common options for video for guiding your audience through the marketing funnel:

Awareness

Videos at this stage are designed to attract attention and introduce potential customers to your brand and show them that they have a problem that your product or service can solve.

• Explainers: Animated videos that break down complex concepts.
• Vlogs: Video blogs that add a personal touch to a content platform.
• Livestreams: Real-time broadcasts of events that actively engage users.
• UGC: User-generated content showcasing real experiences with your product.
• Event coverage: Highlights and summaries of attended or hosted events.
• Behind-the-scenes: Glimpses into the daily operations of the company.

Consideration

These videos will help potential customers evaluate your offerings by providing more detailed information.

• Testimonials: Real customer stories.
• Interviews: Conversations with industry experts, clients or team members.
• Tutorials/how-tos: Step-by-step guides to supplement product or service information.

Conversion

At this stage, your videos should build on the information provided during the consideration stage, offering that final push needed to encourage a purchase or desired action.

• Product demos: Showcase your product’s features and benefits.
• Vlogs: Video blogs that add a personal touch to a content platform.
• Interviews: Conversations with industry experts, clients or team members.

Loyalty

Videos in this stage should aim to nurture relationships, encourage repeat purchases or desired actions, and turn satisfied customers into loyal advocates of your brand.

• Thank you videos: Personalized or generic messages thanking a customer for purchasing from your brand.
• Exclusive content: Special access to videos that offer behind-the-scenes looks, sneak peaks, or insider information.
• Loyalty program promotions: Highlight perks and benefits of your loyalty program, encouraging customers to continue engaging and earning rewards.

Step 4: Platforms

Next is deciding where to reach your audience. Different platforms suit different types of content and audiences and help determine the appropriate frequency of outreach. Example Platforms:

• Website: Embed videos on landing pages to boost engagement and SEO.
• YouTube: Host livestreams and long-form content like webinars and tutorials.
• Facebook/Instagram: Share short-form, engaging content.
• TikTok: Share short-form engaging content to a younger audience.
• LinkedIn: Post professional and industry related videos.
• Other: Don’t forget platforms like X, Pinterest or Reddit if they fit your audience.

Step 5: Budget

A great video strategy will include a healthy mix of high-production and lower-production value projects to post across different platforms with varying frequency. An employee takeover of Instagram stories is a low-effort, fun monthly task, while a detailed webinar series may involve extensive planning and scripting. Budget tips:

• Repurpose existing content: Convert popular blog posts into videos, use existing video footage to create new content or break out longer videos into multiple chapters.
• Pilot projects: Start with a few test videos to gauge what works best before investing in larger projects or committing to a series.
• Leverage in-house talent: Encourage employees to participate in video creation. They can share their expertise or provide behind-the-scenes content.
• Optimize production costs: Film multiple videos in one session to save time and resources.

Conclusion

A well-thought-out video marketing strategy can transform your business by engaging your audience and driving conversions. By setting clear goals, understanding your audience, defining content pillars and formats, choosing the right platforms and balancing quality and quantity, you can establish a solid video strategy. Ready to take your video marketing to the next level? Contact Signal today for expert guidance and innovative solutions tailored to your needs.

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Meta Is Replacing Dynamic Creative With Flexible Ad Format 14 Aug 2024, 6:58 pm

More Dynamic Than Ever: Meta’s New Flexible Ads

As a digital agency, we’ve seen the evolution of dynamic creative ads from Google in 2011 to Meta’s adoption in 2015. These ads revolutionized online advertising by allowing a set of variables in imagery and copy to automatically change based on user behavior, offering a substantial improvement over traditional static ads.

Now, Meta has introduced flexible ads, a significant step forward from dynamic creative ads. Flexible ads are designed to connect advertisers with consumers even more effectively by leveraging advanced predictive technology.

What Are Flexible Ads?

Flexible ads allow us to add multiple creatives to a single ad, offering up to 10 images/videos and 5 options for text, headlines, links, and CTA buttons. AI determines the best combination depending on placement and target audience, so viewers might see a single image, video, or carousel, optimized to display the best-performing creative. It’s like having several ads in one.

While flexible ads share many features with dynamic ads, they bring new customization options. Advertisers can now tailor the creative media for placements across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, ensuring the best practices and most effective assets are utilized. Additionally, flexible ads can generate carousel variations based on the images provided, which was not possible with dynamic ads. This format not only focuses on the content but also on how it is presented.

Benefits of Using the Flexible Ad Format

From our experience, flexible ads simplify testing and optimization, allowing our team to focus more on creating excellent content. The ad format is automatically optimized, showing viewers what the AI predicts to be the best format. This means we no longer need to create multiple ads per ad set to test different formats. AI determines the most engaging ad formats for various placements, and we can customize ads by grouping certain media with different combinations of texts to keep them fresh and interesting.

By leveraging predictive technology, flexible ads enable the creation of highly tailored ad experiences with multiple creative variations, ensuring the most effective combinations reach the right audiences across various platforms.

When to Use Meta’s Flexible Ad Format (and When Not To)

Choosing a flexible ad format simplifies the ad creation process and enhances campaign performance through automated testing and optimization. This approach can significantly impact campaigns, especially when the most effective creative direction is uncertain.

However, it’s important to recognize when flexible ads may not be the best choice. For campaigns with very specific creative requirements or where precise control over each element of the ad is necessary, creating separate ads might be more effective. Additionally, if your campaign is small-scale with a highly targeted audience, the benefits of dynamic optimization may not outweigh the simplicity and direct control offered by traditional ad formats.

Incorporating flexible ads into your marketing strategy can lead to better engagement, higher conversion rates, and improved ROI, especially for larger, more dynamic campaigns where many viable message permutations are possible. Whether you’re facing resource constraints, targeting diverse audience segments, or aiming for broad campaign objectives, flexible ads offer a versatile and efficient solution. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, embracing flexible ads will help you stay ahead of the curve, delivering impactful and relevant ad experiences to your audience. Just remember to consider your specific campaign needs in choosing the most appropriate ad format for achieving your goals.

The post Meta Is Replacing Dynamic Creative With Flexible Ad Format appeared first on Signal.

Digital Marketing Trends: Mid-Year Check-In 28 May 2024, 9:10 pm

In the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape, staying informed about platform changes is crucial to ensure your strategy remains effective and competitive. Continuously adapting to new trends and advancements can help you better connect with your target audience and develop your short and long-term digital strategies.

User-Generated Content (UGC): A digital staple

Whether it be incorporating positive reviews on your eCommerce site, filling your socials with consumers’ photos using your product and/or service, or scaling ambassador programs for your business, UGC is quickly becoming a staple for B2C and B2B marketing strategies. Gartner reported that over 80% of consumers reported that UGC improves product discovery, brand trust and experience; additionally, a 2024 Gartner Survey shows that authenticity ranks as the third highest value U.S. consumers identify with (behind equity and loyalty). And if consumers value the voices of other users most, then integrating user-generated photos, reviews, comments and experiences into brand strategy is the logical next step.

How to take action:

• Reviews and comments: With platforms like Yelp, Google Reviews and even the comment sections of socials, consumers are constantly sharing their experiences. Find the gems and rework them into testimonials for social posts, site content or even incorporate them into trade show collateral.
• Monitor social media: Google Alerts don’t cut it these days. It’s good practice to check social mentions, tags, and keep a watchful eye over sentiment. When doing these routine checks, set aside posts you think would incorporate well into your content platforms.
• Be mindful of regulations: Be sure to comply with applicable regulations, ask for permission to use people’s content, give credit and be mindful of legality when using UGC.

Social media decays as misinformation rises

Gartner reports that 53% of consumers believe the social media has decayed in the last five years, with reasons for the perceived decay ranging from toxic users, bot traffic and misinformation. Additionally, a Forbes Advisor Survey shows that 76% of consumers are concerned with misinformation from artificial intelligence. Despite user hesitancy, search engines and social platforms have already started to incorporate AI into their platforms: from Meta AI assistant, Grok on X and even Google AI overviews. While there’s no reason to abandon social media as a pillar of your digital strategy, it’s important to monitor the trajectory these platforms might be on.

How to take action:

• Assess channels: Just because a platform was working for your brand last year doesn’t mean it’ll keep working. Be sure to monitor user concerns from channel to channel and remain agile in the social media landscape.
• Invest in the old-school: SEO and email marketing aren’t trends – they’re tried and true methods. If users do begin to step away from social media, it’s good to have other digital marketing pillars in place.

Prioritizing first-party data

In 2025, Google Chrome will entirely phase out the use of third-party cookies; other browsers like Safari and Mozilla Firefox phased out third party cookies years ago, but Chrome is the go-to browser for an estimated 63% of internet users. As third-party cookies deprecate, digital marketers are having to pivot their PPC and paid social strategies and conversion tracking.

How to take action:

• Audit use of third-party cookies: Scan your website for third-party cookies currently in use and if they are used in your retargeting or conversion tracking.
• Scope out first-party alternatives: Social platforms are keenly aware that their pixels won’t have much or any lucrative data to build audiences from in a year. They’ve been prepping for this with look-alike audiences, AI enhanced audiences and creating first-party alternatives to their current third-party tools.

Let’s talk!

If you’re interested in taking your marketing efforts to the next level, the Signal team is ready to help. Contact us to learn how we can assist you in UGC efforts, pivoting toward SEO and email marketing, or making sure your paid campaigns are ready to be sustained on first-party cookies.

The post Digital Marketing Trends: Mid-Year Check-In appeared first on Signal.

Embracing the Power of Video AI 2 May 2024, 7:03 pm

Artificial intelligence has met its new frontier: video. From generating custom footage, to trimming long-form video into shareable clips, to creating entire videos from simple text prompts… the technologies are undergoing rapid evolution and daily improvement. As this transformation occurs, Signal is working to master and incorporate video AI into our current systems along with anticipating how it will change our future workflows.

Generating Footage with Text-to-Video Models

The days of stock footage libraries and b-roll shoots may soon be behind us. Technologies like Sora, Runway and Lumiere give users the flexibility to produce unique, tailored content, providing a personal touch for branding and marketing efforts. Right now, these models generate footage without sound, so keep concepts with voiceovers and background music at the forefront of the mind when brainstorming use-cases.

Sora

Made using visual “patches” (like the text “tokens” used to develop LLMs), OpenAI’s highly anticipated contribution to the video AI landscape, Sora, is to be released to the public in the second half of 2024. Sora can currently develop videos up to a minute long of high-fidelity (720p) video. Among its competitors, Sora stands out as most photorealistic and accessible model, and may become the industry go-to for generating high-quality stock-like footage for b-roll.

Runway

Runway Research has been at the forefront of image and video neural networks since its founding in 2018 – Runway-Gen-1 and Gen-2 were both released at the start of 2023. Like Sora, Runway-Gen-2 allows users to generate text-to-video prompts. However, Runway-Gen-2 offers more flexibility and an entire editing suite for designers and artists to work with. Additionally, the platform has a variety of different methods for video generation, allowing image inputs and making storyboards come to life. With flexibility comes variability in quality in output, as some results aren’t photo-realistic. Additionally, Gen-2 is presently capable of generating videos no more than 16 seconds long.

Lumiere

Google’s addition to the scene, Lumiere, seemingly aims to offer the artistic flexibility of Runway-Gen-2 combined with the photo-realistic nature of Sora. The research Google published in early 2024 indicated that they’re still fine-tuning the product – current videos generated by the model are 480p and only up to 5 seconds. As of this writing, Lumiere has no announced release date.

Converting long-form video to short-form

Have you recorded a webinar, conference or podcast chock-full of great insights? No need to waste time or budget on sifting for the shareable bits for your LinkedIn or Instagram. There are several platforms, like Munch or Vidyo, that take the legwork out of developing clips. Of course, a human is needed to referee and catch any mistakes, but having a sidekick to jumpstart the process and speed up workflow is always welcome.

Creating videos with no existing assets

All-in-one AI video generation plaforms – like Invideo AI, Synthensia and Kapwing to name a few – allows users to create script, voiceover and footage with a single prompt. Of course, output quality is unpredictable and varies, but with intuitive web-based WYSIWYG editors at the user’s disposal, these tools may be a good option for jobs when creators have flexibility and need something quick and simple.

Enhancing audio

Adobe offers audio editors tools to quickly elevate audio to create professional-sounding voiceovers and podcasts with Adobe Podcast. Hear some examples, or read how Signal has been incorporating Adobe Podcast features into video editing.

Conclusion

Video content development has historically been a high-budget item for marketers. With the expense of scripts, shoots, talent, animation and editing, making even short clips for social can be costly and laborious. New AI tools seek to make video more affordable with shortcuts that optimize workflows and save time.

Signal will continue to closely follow the developments in video AI and carefully and cautiously incorporate emerging technologies into our routines to remain faithful to our core principle of Creative Intelligence.

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AI Image Generation: A Creative Conduit 23 Feb 2024, 9:45 pm

Come with me, and you’ll see, a world of image generation.

With roots stretching back to the early ’70s with the conception of the AARON series of computer programs, AI image generation has undergone exponential growth over the past few years as the AI boom has emerged and forged on.

How do AI image generators create images? Behind the scenes, these generators employ neural networks that learn from large datasets to produce new images through a process of pattern recognition and generation.

For a user, using an image generator merely involves entering a prompt like “A young boy playing baseball” and watching the magic appear on-screen. Amid a competitive market, two of the most popular text-to-image generators are DALL-E and Midjourney.

Tools Defining the Landscape

DALL-E

DALL-E, OpenAI’s contribution to the AI image generator landscape, has three iterations to date. DALL-E 3, the most recent iteration of the series, is accessible through OpenAI’s GPT-4, Copilot Designer, Microsoft Paint, and other platforms that use its API – though the version accessible through GPT-4 is the most full-featured version. Previous iterations (DALL-E and DALL-E 2) are web apps that operate on a pay-for-credits system. The more intuitive of the two, DALL-E 3 allows users to edit individual aspects of generated images and creates images with an illustrative feel.

Midjourney

Midjourney is a bit more difficult to jump into, currently being accessible only by means of a Discord account (although a simpler web interface is planned). When a user enters a prompt, they are immediately given four different images that they can choose from. What Midjourney lacks in intuitive navigation, it makes up for in a more polished and photo-realistic look compared to competitors.

A Practical Approach

As with any emerging tool, there are risks and limitations that come along with using image generators: AI images often have a distinct telltale appearance (marked by a soft, airbrushed look, mangled or excess fingers, and impossible object positionings or overlaps); AI can struggle to stick to the prompt you provide; and AI certainly is not yet able to follow brand guidelines. Additionally, there are ethical and copyright concerns surrounding intellectual property rights when using AI-generated images commercially.

Image generators like DALL-E and Midjourney are useful assets, providing quick access to an array of visual concepts and styles. Signal is eager to leverage the creative potential that AI image generation offers as a catalyst and assist-maker, using these tools “mid-journey” (see what we did there?) and not as an end destination. As always, Signal will continue to monitor the landscape to harness the potential of emerging innovations and stay true to our guiding principle of Creative Intelligence.

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Predictive AI: Marketing’s Crystal Ball 29 Jan 2024, 10:51 pm

The post Predictive AI: Marketing’s Crystal Ball appeared first on Signal.

Creative Catalysts: Generative AI Tools from Adobe 10 Jan 2024, 12:55 pm

Every day, Signal’s creative team finds solutions when available content elements are less than ideal. Whether it’s headshots that are too low-resolution, stock photos that need editing, or video clips with poor audio, we try our best to work our magic – but sometimes the results can still be pretty lousy. But new breakthroughs in generative AI are giving us more capabilities to save the day.

Adobe’s suite of generative AI tools presents a cutting-edge evolution in creative technology, with more sophisticated ways to address our clients’ challenges and enhance creative output. Our team is especially excited about the potential of the Adobe products Firefly and Podcast.

Adobe Firefly

Adobe is calling Firefly “your imagination’s new best friend.” It offers generative design features like text to image, text effects, generative fill, and generative recolor. Firefly can be used as a standalone web app or integrated into Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe Express, or Adobe Stock.

• Generative Fill. Even highly skilled designers can find it daunting to remove distracting objects from backgrounds or insert elements in a way that looks natural. Generative Fill allows them to save time and effort by simplifying the process of adding, replacing, or removing specific parts of images. It’s a great way to make a portrait-oriented photo fill a horizontal space, for example.

• Generative Recolor. Want the people in a stock photo to be wearing the colors of your brand? Using tool allows designers to recolor images with ease. Whether it be for mood boards or marketing materials, Generative Recolor allows users to quickly explore a multitude of different color variations.

• Text to Image. So the ad concept needs to show a middle-aged woman on roller skates walking a dog in an autumn scene by the Eiffel Tower. But there’s no stock photos matching that, and a custom shoot is out of the question. When all else fails, the Text to Image feature of Adobe Firefly allows users to create images by simply inputting a text prompt.

Adobe Podcast

This standalone web app provides audio editors with tools to quickly elevate audio to create professional-sounding voiceovers and podcasts. Adobe Podcast can also be applied to video files, such as recordings of webinars or video conference calls – which often have suboptimal sound quality.

• Enhance Speech. When dealing with poorly recorded audio, previously our team might have to spend hours applying filters and balancing levels to make things sound fractionally better. With Enhance Speech, editors can use AI to quickly remove ambient noise and echo from voice recordings, making them immediately much more professional and easier to understand.

• Other Tools. With the app still in beta, Adobe is currently fleshing out features like Studio and Mic Check, which will allow users to edit audio in browser and improve microphone setup before recording, respectively.

Signal’s core value of creative intelligence is centered around combining creativity and technology. While we are excited to utilize and explore Adobe’s AI features as they continue to develop, we recognize that these tools are no substitute for human creativity. Rather, AI serves as a catalyst in certain creative processes, and offers powerful new shortcuts to tackle long-recurring client challenges.

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Signal Case Study: Menemsha Paid Digital Marketing Program 9 Jan 2024, 8:42 pm

Situation

Menemsha provides survey, architecture, construction and management solutions nationwide. With roots in restaurant and retail development, Menemsha now works across multiple market segments to complete commercial development projects.

Signal assumed management of Menemsha’s LinkedIn page in June 2021, with activities including facilitating weekly meetings to collaborate on content, coordinating photography, interviewing SMEs, and writing and publishing to the client’s portfolio and blog. Our organic efforts improved all metrics, including a 300x increase in engagement and 100x increase in reach.

When considering the company’s trajectory and goals, leadership at Menemsha decided they wanted to increase marketing efforts for design-build projects and projects in the healthcare and banking industries. To pursue these marketing efforts, we ran a 90-day pilot period from August to November for LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads.

Our Solution

With a primary goal of brand awareness and secondary goal of lead generation, we leveraged these paid platforms to create significant increases across all metrics when comparing against pre-pilot analytics.

For LinkedIn, Signal created an audience using industry and job title targeting. We created two carousel ads for design-build and a static image ad for both the banking and the healthcare industries.

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For Google, we developed Search campaigns targeting users actively seeking construction support for design-build, banking and healthcare projects.

Signal also created engaging landing pages for each targeted industry that were linked to on both LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads.

Throughout the pilot campaign, we optimized ad copy, landing page copy, and keywords to hone in on our audience and generate relevant traffic. In our weekly meetings with Menemsha, we discussed incoming leads and shared performance reports with them monthly.

Results

Awareness

LinkedIn Organic, LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads combined generated 1,505% more impressions for Menemsha than organic posts alone. The increase in impressions led to a 180% increase in engagements with the brand, as well as an impressive 6,712 website visits—a 244% increase.

Lead Generation

The paid campaign generated 18 leads, of which over 50% turned into sales opportunities. With Signal’s assistance, Menemsha was directly led to sales opportunities in the markets they were looking to expand further into.

Moving forward

Given the success of the pilot period, Signal and Menemsha are currently continuing PPC efforts for LinkedIn and Google.

The post Signal Case Study: Menemsha Paid Digital Marketing Program appeared first on Signal.

Your Own “Private ChatGPT”? How to Build a Proprietary AI System for Your Company 5 Dec 2023, 3:42 pm

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT have captured the popular imagination, igniting widespread interest in potential business applications. At this early stage, the biggest pitfall surrounding generative AI is uncertainty in the source material being used. When a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT writes an article, is it plagiarizing from unidentified source(s)? Is it drawing on inaccurate data or “hallucinating” false conclusions? Companies are rightly hesitant about the risks of using AI-generated content of questionable provenance or integrity.

One way to solve this dilemma is by taking control of the input data used to “train” an LLM. Imagine if your company could have its own customized ChatGPT-like system powered by internal data and documented sources, rather than whatever has been pulled from the internet? What if you could generate AI content and insights with confidence in its legitimacy, leveraging your own knowledge and keeping external references duly documented and footnoted?

This is not a hypothetical scenario for the future. Right now there are ways to train an LLM with your own set of proprietary data. It’s off to a slow start, but it’s happening. Having your own customized in-house LLM may soon be as commonplace as having your own website.

Pathways to Proprietary AI

An overview in the Harvard Business Review lists three primary ways to go about training an LLM using your company’s data:

1. Training an LLM from scratch
2. Fine-tuning an existing LLM
3. Prompt-engineering an existing LLM

The first option would require a massive amount of data and development expense, leaving it unfeasible for most companies. Besides, it generally makes sense to build on the platform foundation of an established LLM and focus on making it “smarter” with your inputs, instead of wholly reinventing the wheel.

The third option enters the realm of the “prompt engineer,” the emerging skillset of crafting detailed prompts in order to elicit desired outputs from an LLM. In the short term, this will be the most commonly used of the three methods. There is virtually unlimited potential to train an LLM on your company’s unique data on a point-by-point basis, with the option to create templates for frequently used prompt sets. But the process can be tedious, requiring extensive reviews and trial and error. There is also the risk of entering proprietary data into an LLM system where it may become fodder for at-large generative AI use.

Which brings us to the middle option, fine-tuning an existing LLM. This may prove to be the Goldilocks choice that’s just right: easier and more affordable than starting from scratch, but more powerful, user-friendly and secure as compared to prompt-engineering.

There are a number of open-source LLM solutions available that allow fine-tuning for commercial use, including Databricks Dolly, Mosaic MPT and TII Falcon. These platforms offer methods to simplify and integrate proprietary data ingestion from hundreds of source types, although some level of data science expertise is required. An open-source LLM is the best option for fine-tuning, as opposed to proprietary models like ChatGPT from OpenAI. These may allow for some degree or fine-tuning, but they carry restrictive licenses for modification.

Applications for Proprietary AI

Once you’ve developed a unique LLM trained on your company’s data, the potential uses are limitless. You will gain access to generative AI output that’s more complex and reliable than a general purpose LLM, aligned with your specific knowledge and research, product details, industry conditions and brand positioning. This would be a tremendous advantage for internal reports and analysis, as well as client presentations, hiring and training, sales tools and marketing communications.

You can grant creative and PR partners access to your LLM system so they can collaborate to craft better marketing materials more efficiently than ever before. While it’s true you could let the system write your white papers and press releases and social media content, we believe there will always be a role for the professional agency touch to elevate your communications. And of course, a technical partner like Signal also has the expertise to help you build and maintain your proprietary LLM in the first place.

In the long run, it’s clear that the generative AI tools making a big splash today will be seen as rudimentary first steps. Proprietary LLM development marks a promising next step toward a more powerful and responsible application of AI that both furthers and protects your company’s best interests. Contact us today to discuss the possibilities.

The post Your Own “Private ChatGPT”? How to Build a Proprietary AI System for Your Company appeared first on Signal.

The Power of a Messaging Platform: Building Blocks for Marketing Success 27 Nov 2023, 9:59 pm

As businesses grow and evolve, one crucial aspect that often gets overlooked is the power of messaging. Imagine going to a restaurant with no menus or any signage about their bill of fare. To order, you can only tell an uninformed server what you might like, and they have to go ask the kitchen if they can make that. Unless you have limitless time and patience, you’d leave at once. Similarly, in today’s competitive market, having a clear and concise messaging platform can make or break your efforts to attract and retain customers.

A messaging platform is a foundational document that outlines the key messages, value proposition, and unique selling points of your company’s product or service offering. It serves as the basis for all marketing and advertising campaigns, ensuring consistency and effectiveness across all channels.

The Value of Capturing the Messages

Is it really worth going to the trouble of developing a messaging platform? Yes! Let’s explore some reasons why it’s a vital exercise for any brand or campaign.

Although creating a messaging platform may seem like a yet another task on top of all your busy slate of marketing initiatives, you should view it as a fundamental necessity. In the long run, it can save you time and resources by providing a solid basis for all communication efforts. With a well-defined messaging platform, you eliminate the need to constantly brainstorm and come up with new messaging for every campaign. This can also help streamline collaboration between different departments, as everyone is on the same page with the company’s messaging.

Your messaging platform is essentially the voice of your brand. It communicates who you are, what you stand for, and why customers should choose your product or service over competitors. By having a clear and well-defined messaging platform, you can establish a strong brand identity and differentiate yourself in the market.

In today’s digital world, businesses need to have a presence on multiple channels – from social media to email marketing to traditional advertising. Without a messaging platform, it can be challenging to maintain consistency in your messaging across all these platforms. This can lead to confusion and dilution of your brand message. With a messaging platform in place, you have a clear set of guidelines that ensure consistent messaging across all channels, strengthening your brand’s overall impact.

At the end of the day, businesses need customers to survive and thrive. A well-crafted messaging platform can be a powerful tool in attracting and retaining customers. By clearly communicating your unique value proposition and addressing their pain points, you can connect with potential customers and build trust in your brand. And once they become loyal customers, consistent messaging will help keep them engaged and satisfied with your product or service.

Typical Components

Next let’s dive into the typical anatomy of a messaging platform. Understanding these elements will help you construct a robust and effective messaging platform for your business that can serve as the cornerstone of all your marketing and advertising initiatives.

• Core Messages. These are the key messages that define your brand and product or service offering. They should be concise, memorable, and aligned with your overall brand identity.
• Value Proposition. What makes your product or service stand out in the market? The value proposition highlights the unique benefits and solutions you offer to customers’ needs and challenges.
• Target Audience(s). Understanding who you’re talking to is crucial in crafting effective messaging. Your messaging platform should clearly define your audience (or multiple distinct audiences) and their pain points so your team can tailor your messages accordingly.
• Brand Tone and Voice. Your brand’s tone and voice are essential in creating a consistent and recognizable brand identity. Whether it’s friendly, professional or humorous, make sure your tone aligns with your brand values and resonates with your target audience.
• Supporting Evidence or Proof Points. To make your messaging more credible, it’s essential to back it up with evidence. This could include customer testimonials, statistics, case studies or any other data that showcases the benefits of your product or service.
• Call to Action. Finally, every messaging platform should have a clear call to action (CTA) that tells customers what to do next. Whether it’s signing up for a free trial, making a purchase, or contacting your company, the CTA should be easy to understand and compelling enough to motivate action.

Let’s Talk

Having a messaging platform is crucial for any business looking to succeed in today’s competitive market. It provides the necessary framework and guidelines for effective communication with customers, ensuring consistency and clarity in your brand messaging. If you’re interested in seeing some examples of well-crafted messaging platforms, don’t hesitate to reach out to us – the Signal team is ready to help you take your marketing efforts to the next level.

Contact us to learn more and see some examples of successful messaging platforms in action.

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