Video Marketing – What You Do Not Need for Success
Video marketing can bring tons of traffic to your website, leading to the potential for increased sales and profits. It is a great tool for people who want to really create a buzz on social networking, video sharing sites and across the web. You need to put in a bit of time and effort, and a certain amount of creativity. However, there are a few things you do not need to be a video marketing success.
1. Fancy Video Equipment You will definitely need something to take video with, but you do not need top-of-the-line professional video equipment to create a superb marketing video. If you have a nice camcorder, then by all means, use it. On the other hand, some very fascinating and popular video has been recorded with nothing but the equipment included in a camera phone.
2. Expensive Editing Equipment While it is true that there are people who use expensive equipment to edit their videos, there are as many or more people who do not. Between the software you probably already have on your computer and some free software you can download from the Internet, you can put your marketing video together just the way you would like it. 3. A Professional Director Large companies which make marketing videos may hire video directors. If you have a great idea and people to participate in your video who understand you concept, you should be able to manage without an expert director. You can express your ideas and instruct the people who will be shown in the video to follow your prompts. For a short video, you can do the directing yourself. 4. Expert Knowledge of Technology You do not have to be technologically gifted to get a video made and uploaded to a video sharing website. Inexpensive video equipment is easy to use. Once you move the raw video to your computer, you can use simple programs to edit it and make it ready for viewing. Next, you go to a video sharing website and upload it following the instructions on the site. The video sharing sites give such straightforward and simple instructions that even children upload videos with ease. 5. A Large Budget You probably have everything, or nearly everything you need to make and distribute your marketing video already. What you do not have, you can usually get for free. You can get into the business of creating amazing videos with just what you have on hand in many cases. There are so many things that you do not need to make fine videos; it would be a shame not to jump into this special type of Internet marketing. As long as you have an imagination and a desire to succeed, you should do fine.
Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Google Insights – Keyword Research Tools to Help You Structure Your Marketing Campaign
There is a variety of keyword tools to help you do research for SEO Internet marketing campaigns, but Google Insights is one of the best free ones available. You can find the top keywords to use in your content writing and in your Pay per Click campaigns. You can even use this valuable information to help you decide what feature or aspect of your product to focus on in your marketing campaign.
When you go to Google Insights, you have the ability to input up to five keywords to produce a comparison. You might choose different aspects of your product, or different products you carry. You might select five different services you offer, instead. You can do it as many times as you like, so do not be afraid to experiment.
You can choose from four different types of searches, such as web search or image search. You can specify a geographical location, and you can nail down a time frame from the last day to years in the past. When you have typed in all your data, click “Search” and you will see your results.
There will be a graph showing the comparative performance of all your five keywords over the time period. There are also numbers you can see if you dig further by following the given link. A map shows you the search volume for different regions, and you can toggle from one keyword phrase to another to see the volume for each phrase. Rising keywords are also given that you can add to your list.
What does all this mean to your company? It means that you can target your ads specifically to a region based on keywords that are popular in that region. It means that you can choose certain keywords to use in your search engine optimization rather than others based on current status. It will help you choose keywords for Pay per Click and give you an idea of what the bidding will be like to get them.
The interesting thing is that keyword research tools such as Google Insights give you so much more than words to use. They also give you concepts to shine your light on in all parts of your Internet marketing campaign.
Say you have an in-home bakery business. Does “homemade bread” have more volume than “natural bread?” Then, you should make ads and content talking about the pleasures and memories of homemade goodness. If it is the other way around, you might have a campaign based on natural foods with no artificiality. The product is the same, but the focus is different.
With a good keyword research tool, you can learn a lot in a little amount of time. Google Insights is just one of these keyword tools you can use, but it is a good one to try if you are beginning in SEO. Other tools include the other Google Keyword Tool Box, WordTracker and WordStream. The point of all of them is to make your life easier in SEO and in Internet marketing.
Hammer And Spanner by Anna Cervova
Short Reports Gone Viral – Give Away Info for Your Marketing Campaign
Everyone thinks of video going viral, but just about any kind of content can do the same if it is compelling enough. Short reports have the potential to reach a large number of readers if you handle them correctly. Here are a few things you need to know.
1. A short report is a 7-10 page report you write that can be on any topic you choose. As long as it is informative and specific, it will usually fill the bill.
2. Write what you know the most about that is related to your industry. This is just another way to establish yourself as an expert.
3. Give your report a great teaser in the Introduction to get people curious enough to read more. Then, follow through with fascinating information and insights that they can get nowhere else.
4. Put the link to the report on your website and request people give their email information in return for the report, especially if you give it away free.
5. You can sell a short or special report, but it is often advantageous to give one away. As an Internet marketing device, its primary goal is not to earn direct money.
6. You should put your contact information on each page of the report. Put it in as a clickable link, in case the reader views it on her computer rather than printing it out to read.
7. Do not be stingy. Allow, and in fact encourage your readers to pass along your report in any way they would choose, as long as they include all your contact information.
8. Mention your report on your Facebook Page as an offer for your Fans. This is another way to encourage sharing.
9. Publicize your report through the regular Internet marketing channels. That means writing SEO articles about it for directories, blogging about it and even putting out a press release about the offer.
10. Be available to answer questions that you have not covered in the short report. When you do, begin establishing relationships with readers to gently convert them into customers.
All that being said; a short report may not have the viral potential of a video in most cases. Yet, you can encourage sharing and see it spread fairly quickly. If you have supplied uncommon details and information that is extremely helpful to your target demographic, your video can reach a large audience.
Email Marketing Strategy – Refining Your Auto Responders
Email marketing still has its place in the Internet marketing world. Within email marketing, one of the most effective types of campaigns is sending out auto responders. The idea is simple enough. You just send out 10 or so emails to each customer, each one in succession getting more sales-oriented. The customer always has the option to opt-out at any time, but if you use a refined strategy, he will keep receiving your emails until he sees it through to the end and gets your final marketing message.
The first thing you need to do is to make sure you have a brilliant overall concept. The emails should have a common thread running through them besides “buy my product.” If you sell clothing, you might have an auto responder series on a particular season of the year, for example. Your overall theme might be “winter activities” and all your messages would lean in that direction. This gives the auto responders the feel of an ongoing conversation.
Another step you can take to make your auto responders more impressive for the consumer is to do some research on your subject. Your messages, especially the early ones, should be chock full of valuable information. Dig a little deeper to find information that is surprising even to you and you can be assured that you will capture the interest of your readers.
You should strategize very carefully about how to introduce the sales aspect of the auto responders. In the first few messages, you should say very little about sales. You want them to know that you have something for sale, so you will definitely mention your business name and industry. However, you will have to be careful to avoid pushing the idea of buying too early, or the reader will drop out before you get to the actual marketing message. If she does, she will not be inclined to buy from you at all, and may even report you as spam.
Finally, craft the final marketing message before you start writing the first auto responder in the set. This is similar to the playwright who composes the last act before starting on the first lines of the play. It helps to know where you are headed. That does not mean that you rush to get there. In fact, just like the playwright, you want to engage your audience and bring them along for the ride. Yet, in the end, you want everyone to arrive at the destination of your choosing. In other words, you want them to purchase your products and become customers. With the right attitudes in your writing, you can make that happen.
Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Tie Your Marketing Video to Nostalgia to Go Viral With Baby Boomers
The Baby Boomers represent a very large segment of the market for many products and services. If you want to reach them with viral video marketing, you need to find subjects that speak to that generation. Here are a few facts to consider when you try making your video go viral with this crowd.
1. Baby Boomers remember certain products from their childhoods that are now obsolete or gone.
If you get a chance to show Baby Boomers a product from their past, they will enjoy looking at it. They will share the experience with others whom they know remember the same thing. This works best if the item is one that is rare or unusual now, but was common back in the day.
A great way to find out about these little items is to have a chat with a Baby Boomer and let her reminisce about the past. If you are a Baby Boomer, think back about your daily life and look at old pictures. You are bound to find old products that you had forgotten existed. Your video will be even more popular if you can show these products in action.
2. Social, cultural and political attitudes have been in a state of change throughout the lives of the Baby Boomers.
If you can aim your camera at the remaining evidence of a cultural revolution or a social shift in attitude in the past decades, you can capture the hearts and minds of the Baby Boomer generation. This group of people wants to be seen as intelligent, sensitive and caring people, and they want to see signs that their efforts to reform the world made a difference. Looking at signs of past successes reminds them that they can have a great affect on the world. It stirs them up and makes them want to share. Your marketing video will go viral in no time.
3. Baby Boomers like to see styles of dress and appearance that they had all but forgotten.
You can touch this group with images of people dressed and made up in the same ways that they saw them in past years. To get accurate portrayals, look at old photos or home movies. Make a compilation video, incorporating your own marketing message. You could also use the details of the images to make up period-accurate dress and style for a nostalgic-looking video you make yourself.
The Baby Boomer generation is a group with money to spend. They are particularly prone to purchasing health products and services, retirement homes and leisure products. What is more, they are a great market for general products such as cars, clothes and furnishings. Target them for your viral video by using nostalgia to wonderfully engage them with your company.
Free Stock Photo: FreePhotos.com
Using Mobile Marketing Campaigns at Live Events
SMS mobile text marketing campaigns have been used lately to tap into the target audience of consumers who use their cell phones and smart phones almost continuously. Some companies have tried putting up billboards or using traditional advertising methods such as radio and TV to get out the word about the actions they want their audiences to take. As it turns out, there is a much more effective way, and that is to give out the information at a live event.
For example, you could start your SMS mobile marketing campaign at a sports event. During a break, whether it is halftime or between innings, you can make an announcement that there will be a contest or survey for people in the stadium who text a certain word into your special number. In such cases, you may get an overwhelming response that is greater and more immediate than with any other kind of SMS campaign.
The event does not have to be a sporting event, either. You can do mobile marketing campaigns at concerts, trade shows or any other event where a large group of people will be gathered where you can make an announcement. Relate your mobile marketing promotion to the type of event where it takes place.
One of the keys to making an event-based mobile marketing scheme work is to have memorable words and numbers for your audience to remember. You can put your word on the big screen if you are in a professional stadium that has one. Even then, you will get a bigger response it your audience can remember what they are to type into their phones.
The words you have them type can be very easy to choose. You can use simple terms from the sport or event where you are. Make them the very simplest terms, though. Even a person who knows very little about the event should be able to participate. For example, you might have people vote for their choice of four stadium foods such as hot dogs, peanuts, nachos or cotton candy. When they vote, they get a discount that they can redeem by showing their phone to a merchant. Then, display or announce the results of the vote to complete the participation circle.
You can get a big response from an onsite, event-based SMS mobile marketing campaign. People are usually in a festive mood already. They welcome the chance to join in a contest, survey or game along with the rest of the crowd. Mobile marketing at events is a great way to make contact with new potential customers and engage them in a direct way.
Free Stock Photo: FreePhotos.com
Varied Internet Marketing – When to Spread Out for Maximum Exposure
One method of reaching out to potential customers is not enough to make it in today’s market. You will get much farther with your Internet marketing campaign if you spread your efforts across the web. Now is not the time to specialize in just article marketing or just in social media; now is the time to use a variety of tools to get your message out there.
Limit involvement with each marketing device to suit your capabilities.
If you do not have enough time or peoplepower to keep both a Facebook and a Twitter campaign going, choose one. The important thing is that you get a social media site covered with regular updates, photos and videos. Use different techniques available to you in attracting customers to your business and products on that site, but do not expect to have a large presence on every social media unless you have a large available staff.
Spread your marketing efforts around when it is advantageous and time efficient. Article marketing is an example of a marketing method where it pays to spread your marketing around the Internet. It involves very little more work to submit to several different directories than it does to submit to just one. You can set up an account in seconds and start submitting articles right away. You should, of course, read the guidelines over once. However, the guidelines are usually very basic and commonsense rules. Once you have learned one set of guidelines, the rest come easily. Then, when your links come back to your website from many different sites, it improves your ranking in the search engines.
Use different media to spread the word. Use text, audio, video and images to tell your story about your business and products. Place them in articles, blogs, on YouTube, on Facebook and on your website. New media will attract the search engines more effectively, so change the content or add to it on a steady basis.
Always remember that, as you spread your message to all those viewers, readers and listeners, you need to include your own link somewhere in or with the content. When you do that, you are also aiming back in the direction of your own website. Your content has come full circle, and users who have interacted with and enjoyed it will follow it to your chosen destination.
Colorful Arrows by Vera Kratochvil
PPC Budgeting – What You Need to Know to Financially Manage Your Adwords Account
PPC budgeting can be a little scary if you are not familiar with the process. After all, if you do not choose the right settings, you could end up paying much more than you wanted to spend or even more than you could afford. Here are a few tips you can use to help you choose your PPC budget more wisely.
1. Your Pay per Click campaign can fit your budget.
You do not have to have a huge budget to do Pay per Click. As of 2010, you can have a budget as low as $5 per day with Google Adwords. In case you have not done the math, that is only $150 per month; not much for increased exposure on Google.
2. Choosing the right keyword phrases can improve the effectiveness of a small budget in niche markets.
If you have a very tight niche, your keywords will likely be unique to your business. There will not be a lot of competition for them in most cases, so you will not have to bid high to get them. Yet, they should be effective because people searching for your products or services will type those words into the search engine if you have chosen the keyword phrases wisely. That gives you laser targeted traffic.
3. Use the Google Traffic Estimator’s Keyword Tool to help you in budgeting for Adwords.
The Keyword tool will show you the approximate number of hits any given keyword gets in a month. All you have to do is type in the keyword phrases you want to explore and click Search. You will get an estimate for each of the keywords you have chosen, plus many related keywords as well. The tool also shows a chart of monthly differences over a year. From all this, you can get a basic idea of how much that keyword phrase is going to cost if you max it out.
4. Try out the Traffic Estimator on Google for more Adwords budgeting information.
With the Traffic Estimator, you type in your keywords and you daily budget. The traffic estimator will give you an approximation of the daily cost, along with the cost per click. Beware, though that these are averages. Some keywords will yield a zero cost per day because the action happens mostly on certain days; when it is spread out over the period of a month, it is immeasurable in Google terms. That does not mean you will not get any traffic. Combine what you learned from the Keyword Tool with this information for a better understanding. Use all these methods to help you set your advertising costs, and you will come closer to your budgeting goals.
Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Ebook Offers – How Information Giveaways Can Help with Your Internet Marketing Efforts
Offer potential customers a free ebook that contains information that is valuable to them, and they will come running to your site. Everyone wants something for nothing, and if people feel that the something is worth their time, they want it enough to give something in return. The goal is to eventually make sales, of course. The key to success is in knowing what to give, how to give it and what to expect from those who consider taking you up on your ebook offer.
What to Give
You have some kind of specialized knowledge if you own or manage a business. You are in a trade, a profession or an industry with specific products and services to offer. These products and services are valuable to your potential customers, or you would not be able to sell them. Therefore, it stands to reason that you can present information related to the products that will also be important to them.
Writing an ebook is simpler than you might think. If you look at it like writing a full length book, you are bound to be intimidated. Do not get caught in that trap. An ebook need not be over 50,000 words, and it can be as short as 2500 words. If it is long enough to create a valuable experience for the reader, it is long enough.
Yet, like in writing any other book, you should go by the old adage, “Write what you know.” You are an expert in your field. If you are a toy seller, write about the how to choose toys for a child. If you are a dog-walker, write about how to handle dogs when you take them for a walk. You might have to do some research about some themes, but you should have a basic understanding of the topic in order to make yourself believable as an authority on the subject.
Make sure you supply a link back to your website in the ebook whenever appropriate. If you do that, people will not forget you or how to find you again.
How to Give It
There are several ways to get the attention of your target market with your ebook offer. One way is to write articles for article directories and place the ebook offer in the resource box of the articles. The offer only needs to include the title of your ebook and a link users can follow to go to the download page.
Another way is to have the link for the download page on your blog. It is a good idea to mention the ebook in your blog if it is natural to do so. Pique people’s interest so that they will read to the end of the blog and follow your link to the ebook. You can even put the link to your ebook download page right on your website. If you have done plenty of SEO on your website, you will get visitors to your site who will see the offer. Make sure to put the ebook offer right on the front page.
What to Expect
The first thing you can expect is that people who are interested will follow the link to your download page to check out the offer. The one thing you will definitely want to get from people who want to take you up on your ebook offer is some of their contact information. Ask that they opt-in to your newsletter or marketing emails. This will build your database of potential customers.
The third thing to expect is that, if you have done a good job of writing your ebook, your potential customers will become more interested in your industry or products. Finally, you can certainly expect that some of these ebook readers will convert into paying customers when they return to your website to find out more about your products.
Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Market towards the Future and Not Just the Past
In most of your website analytics, you are looking at the past to see what has already worked for you in the Internet marketing game. While this is a valuable use of your time, it does not tell the whole story. Some aspects of the market are bound to change during your upcoming marketing campaign, and you need to be ready for them. Here are a few ways you can plan for the future.
1. Trending Topics Trending topics and trending videos on social websites can give you an idea of the next big thing. You may have to wade through a lot of chatter and silly ideas that are destined to be no more than fads. However, there are trending topics that will tell you about the newest ideas on the minds of people everywhere. Some of these are problems for which no solution has yet been created. Just think: you can be the first to solve the problem with a hot-selling new or repurposed product.
2. Developing Patterns Patterns are all about the past, right? Well, actually, no. The individual bits of information making up the pattern are a part of the past, but the overall curve usually marches on into the future barring any new developments. It is graphs over time where you will see where your marketing efforts are heading.
Look up a keyword in Google Insights that you might use for your business, and see how it has fared over the course of the past few years. If there is a recurring pattern, use the keyword in your SEO articles and on your website in the next such period of time. For instance, if you sell textbooks, you might see a spike in the keyword phrase “used textbook” just before the start or right after the end of a college semester. Use that information to employ that keyword heavily at exactly that time.
3. News Stories Keep up with the news, both general news and industry news. You will want to be the first to know when something is happening that will affect your business. Do not wait for the information to filter down to you through casual channels. Go out seeking enlightenment on the subjects that are pertinent to your business. You will stay ahead of many of your competitors, and you will know what your target audience wants the most.
4. Talk to Everyone Talk on Facebook, Twitter or whatever social networking sites where you have accounts. Bring up hopes, plans and needs for the future. Share your expertise, but most of all, listen to what your target audience is saying. They probably know what they want better than you could ever dream to. All you have to do is give them the time and the respect of listening to their ideas.
Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net