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Archive for Information Marketing

Table of contents for Using Google to Market Your Business

  1. Using Google to Market Your Business
  2. Using Google to Market Your Business Part 2: Google Analytics
  3. Using Google to Market Your Business Part 4: Google Keyword tool
  4. Using Google to Market Your Business Part 3: YouTube

YouTube is now owned by Google so this is yet another way to use Google as a marketing vehicle. With over 100 million U.S. viewers of YouTube (never mind the rest of the world) as of January 2009, clearly YouTube is a way to reach a large number of people.

Why should you add YouTube videos to your marketing plan?

SEO

First, search engines are starting to rank video higher than longer articles and blog posts. If you’ve used good keywords in your title and meta tags, your video is more likely to get found by Google and other search engines. Additionally, since you can include a link to your own website, you can further increase the ranking of your site by adding videos to YouTube.

More Clicks

Our eyes naturally go to photos. If your video shows up in a search someone does on Google, the thumbnail of your video is more likely to catch their eye and get clicked than a text only result. This means more traffic for you.

Link Bait

Good videos are “link bait”. YouTube automatically includes a link for views to use to add to their website. If you provide interesting or useful content it is more likely someone will add your video to their website, increasing the number of people who see and hear your message.

You’ll be cutting edge

Even though people are moving to YouTube in droves, the majority of small businesses haven’t tried it yet. If you start using video online today, there’s a good chance you’ll be one of the first ones in your industry to do so. You’ll be seen as cutting edge or just reach people your non-YouTube competitors don’t.

Works well with other social media sites

Social media sites like Facebook are designed to work with YouTube. You can easily and quickly import your YouTube videos and get double duty. Even if someone has never used YouTube before, they can still watch your content.

The rule of seven

YouTube was made for the Rule of Seven. I’ve said it before: people like to do business with those they know, like and trust. And getting to know, like and trust you takes time – at least seven contacts with your marketing message. Video is a great way to let people get to know you: they can see your face and hear your voice. You’re no longer an anonymous entity online but a living, breathing person. If you combine that with interesting and helpful information, video can speed up the process of getting people to feel comfortable enough with you to be willing to open their wallets and purchase your products or services.

Tips for creating a good video

I’m not a videographer so I’m not going to give you tips on how to actually use a video camera. If you need help there, hire someone or find a teenager who knows what she’s doing.

However, there are some tips I can give you to get better results.

  1. It doesn’t have to be perfect. While you don’t what to look completely unprofessional, if your video is too polished viewers may feel like they’re viewing a commercial. Sometimes a slightly homemade quality to the video can make your message more authentic.
  2. The average YouTube viewer spends 2.5 to 3 minutes per video. Keep your video in that range and you’ll likely get more viewers.
  3. Dress professionally. I know I said a homemade quality may sound authentic but that doesn’t mean I think you should create your videos in your pajamas. Unless your personal and business brand is very quirky, dress how you would if you were meeting clients. Clean up your office – if that’s where you’re shooting.
  4. Provide good, useful content. People don’t want a sales pitch. The best format is to talk about a problem your customers have and give them tips on how to solve it.
  5. Don’t forget a subtle sales pitch. If you’ve given useful information, end your video with a soft sell. Include your website address and some sort of call to action – what do you want the viewer to do next. An ideal call to action is send them to a place on your website where they can get more information.

If you haven’t started using video yet, now might be the time to give it a try. Go to YouTube, see how others are viewing the site, get out your video camera and give it a try.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Are you using video and YouTube to market your business? Let us know how it works by leaving a comment. Also, if you know of businesses that are doing a good job with video, leave us links to the best online videos.

Sep
15

Truth in Blogging

Posted by: Andrea J. Stenberg | Comments (2)

Writing a blog has been an interesting experience. While I often include my own personal thoughts and opinions, I also try to include useful information paired with hard data. As a result, when I come across an interesting statistic or a quote by an industry leader, I try to include it in my blog post (complete with a link). This habit comes from my journalism training. Plus I hope it makes the articles more interesting and useful.

The other day I came across a link to an interesting blog post that included a very startling “fact” about social media use by small businesses. It said that 65 percent of small businesses don’t use social media at all. Naturally I clicked the link to the article. It repeated the startling fact and included links to the sources for the statistic. Because I wanted to know more, I clicked the links.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of the links wasn’t valid and the other link went to a study that didn’t include the statistic mentioned. In fact, the data mentioned on the study could be interpreted to mean the exact opposite of what was quoted in the blog post. It mentioned that 64 percent of small businesses use social media for answering customer questions. No mention at all of businesses not using social media.

This misrepresentation of the data left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Rather than adding this blogger to my RSS reader and quoting him in this blog, I’ll never trust what he has to say again. By fiddling with the data to create a catchy headline, he lost a reader forever.

I’m all for using surprising or startling facts in your blog posts or headlines. They make for interesting reading. Just make sure that the “facts” are true. Otherwise, you’ll lose me as a reader, customer and referrer.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Comments (2)

It doesn’t matter who you are or what business you are in, marketing can be a time consuming process. For many, the idea of writing a blog, using social media, creating a podcast, putting material up on YouTube and a host of other marketing tools can seem overwhelming.

However, with a little planning, it doesn’t have to be. The key is taking one piece of content or one idea and using it multiple ways. The initial concept and the initial creation of a piece of marketing content is the hardest part. Once it’s there, reusing it in other ways and on other platforms is simple and takes much less time.

Here are seven simple ways you can repurpose your blog posts to create some powerful marketing tools. Read More→

Like all things social media, social bookmarking is something I have known about for a while but have hesitated using because I didn’t really understand it. However recently a few friends have convinced me of the benefits.

I’ve spent some time using both Delicious (formerly Del.icio.us) and StumbleUpon, added plug-ins for both sites to my web browser. Since I’m starting to get the hang of all this I decided to write a blog post. However, while researching for this blog post I came across this video. Since I don’t think I could possibly say it any better, I’ve included the video here.

Tomorrow I’ll share what my social media network has to say about social bookmarking strategies.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Building your list – increasing the number of people who subscribe to your offer – is one of the most important steps in building a business online. Once someone takes the step to signing up for your ezine, free report or teleseminar, they are so much closer to becoming a customer than someone who comes to your site for the first time.

So many people know they need to build their list but aren’t quite sure how. They think it’s some mysterious secret that top online businesses know that they don’t. But there really isn’t a secret. The key is practicing a small number of strategies consistently. Here are a few strategies to try.

Ezine Advertising

Find ezines of people with similar target markets who offer complimentary products and services. Ask if you can have a line or two in their ezine promoting your free giveaway. If the publisher is someone you already have a relationship with, you might even get the advertisement for free, particularly if you have an affiliate program or can offer a reciprocal ad.

Online Articles

Even if you already publish a blog, repurpose your posts into articles at article directories such as ezinearticles.com. In the author’s bio at the end of the article include a pitch and link for your free giveaway.

I confess I have neglected this method after only a brief try. However, so many of my mentors swear by it that I’m once again giving it a try. Experts tell me the critical mass is 25 to 50 articles. Create short (300 to 500 words) articles around the same topic and you will begin to drive massive traffic to your site.

As I write this post I can’t swear by the results based on personal experience but enough people who know have been telling me to do it that I’ll be aiming for 25 articles by mid-February.

Tell-A-Friend

Once someone has signed up for your free offer or made an online purchase, give them the opportunity to “tell-a-friend”. On your thank you page, have a tell-a-friend link that lets the subscriber pass along your info. Alex Mandossian says he gets an average of 2.4 referrals per subscriber. That’s an awful lot of traffic that doesn’t cost anything.

To add the tell-a-friend script to your site, either get your techie to do it or try a Google search for “tell-a-friend scripts”. You should be able to find something for free.

Signature Files

In every email you send, be sure your signature includes a pitch and link to your free offer. You’re sending the emails anyway, it doesn’t cost anything to include a signature and you never know what you might get. Best of all, once you set up your signature, you can forget about it. It’s automatically includes.

Business Cards

When I first heard this tip I mentally kicked myself because I just had 1000 cards printed and I wish I had thought of it. Most people have business cards with just one side printed. Why not use the back of the card to sell people on your free offer. Include a compelling headline and a URL to a page where they can subscribe.

Social Media

At the very least, include an offer for your giveaway in your bio. From time to time mention your free giveaway in your posts: Tweet about it on Twitter, refer to it when answering a question in LinkedIn Answers, mention it in your Facebook status update.

Does this work? You bet. I often find someone starts following me on Twitter, then they connect via Facebook or LinkedIn. Next thing you know, I see them on my ezine list.

Press Releases

When creating a new free giveaway as an enticement to signing up for your list, send out a press release to traditional and online media. Pitch the problem your giveaway solves and that it’s available for free. Just one mention in the press can cause a spike in traffic.

Better yet, if you are giving a radio interview, don’t forget to mention your free offer and where to get it. You won’t be stepping on toes. Radio interviewers expect you to promote yourself as part of the deal

As you can see, there are many ways to build your list. Pick a couple of the tactics mentioned here and commit to using them regularly for the next three months. Then compare the size of your list to what it is today. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Comments (2)