Archive for Internet Marketing for Small Business
Webinar Marketing – It’s Really Working for Me
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Webinar Marketing – I’m Loving It
I’m really loving Webinar Marketing.
It’s bringing me so much business that I’m in an enviable place of being able to choose who and what to work on. It’s working so well, I’m thinking of specializing more on webinar marketing for businesses.
Is it a “silver bullett”? Heck no. It’s still a lot of work — Planning, preparing, promoting, practicing, presenting, recording…the process is still as demanding as any other marketing approach. But it’s so much more…well, efficient.
Webinar Marketing – How’s It Working For Me?
Here’s whats happening. I’m using Google keyword tool and business forums to discover what people are truly interested in. The keyword tool tells me how many people are looking for a particular search term and the forums tell me what people are talking about.
I then create a brief (less than one hour) presentation to offer a solution to one (or several) of the problems that people are talking about. The focus is on education (with a little promotion mixed in).
I promote this presentation as a semi-weekly webinar…and people sign up, attend and then contact me after for more in-depth discussion.
Webinar Marketing – The Results
Three things have happened
- I’ve help a bunch of people with new ideas and possible solutions
- I’ve developed relationships as a trusted authority with people who can potentially become my clients (at an extremely low cost)
- Since I record the webinar, I have high quality marketing materials that I can re-purpose in a variety of ways
And did I mention the low cost?
No other marketing (although email marketing comes close) is providing me with as many benefits. Yes, I’m going to keep doing webinar marketing. I’m probably going to start concentrating on webinar marketing for my clients.
Yes, I’m falling in love with webinar marketing.
Webinar Marketing Resources
Here’s a couple a great resources to get you thinking about webinar marketing.
First the wonderful folks at Hubspot. They use webinar marketing extensively, they’re a great company and it’s well worth your time to steal…um…model what they do with webinar marketing.
HubSpot and Citrix have teamed up and created a webinar app that makes it much easier to use webinars for lead generation. Now that you are on your way to mastering webinars for lead generation, ensure that they are integrated with the rest of your marketing.
And another article on planning and presenting your own webinars fro an excellent webinar company, webattract (great name isn’t it?):
7 Tips for Success Marketing With Webinars
Webinars – also called web conferences – are a highly effective content marketing tactic. In fact, a recent B2B Content Marketing study gave them an extremely high effectiveness rating, second only to in-person events.
webattract.com3/11/12
Want to find out more about how a webinar marketing program can generate business for your company? Give us a call..or attend one of our webinars!
Web Video Marketing – How Small Businesses are Using It
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Web Video Marketing Questions
More and more of my clients are questioning me about web video marketing.
Can I get a video on my site?
What should my video say?
How much does it cost?
It’s interesting that I get these questions, but very few ask me, “What will web video marketing actually do for me?”.
Web Video Marketing Answers
Although I answer with that web video marketing will
- improve understanding of your products or services
- provide visual and audio experience for the watcher
- enhance your credibility and trust
- make you an authority
- differentiate you from you competition
- make you rich and famous (ok maybe not…but is has done that for some)
These are certainly benefits, but I make the mistake of describing how specifically web video marketing is making a difference to my clients.
In the article below, Fox Small Business Center describes how several businesses are using and benefiting from web video marketing.
Small Businesses Weigh In: Are You Using Video Marketing?
smallbusiness.foxbusiness.comFor many small businesses, video marketing is uncharted territory. Blame it on lack of resources, intimidation or even just too little time, small businesses are often late to the game when it comes to web marketing and social media branding.
If you’re not already using web video marketing, have a look at it. There’s many types of video that can be made for your business and the cost is no longer prohibitive.
Webinar Marketing – Solving the Problem of Promoting Your Webinar
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Webinar Marketing Concerns
One of the biggest concerns that I manage with my webinar marketing clients is the fear of nobody showing up. “But Ed, what if we put time, money and effort into this webinar marketing thing and nobody registers? I’ll have to answer to (boss, colleagues, directors, board, wife, etc.)”
Even though I assure them that that won’t happen, until they see the registrations come in, the tension is there.
Webinar Marketing Promotional Channels
One of the biggest benefits of using social media to promote webinars is that there are so many different channels for promotion.
In this article by Studio1C, a creative design firm in Las Vegas, seven different media are listed to find an audience for your webinar.
Using Internet Marketing to Promote Your Webinar
www.studio1c.com11/11/11
Promoting Your Webinar, Ideas to promote your webinar.
Don’t worry, people will show up. Generally not as many as you would like (sometimes to your surprise many more show up than expected). For effective webinar marketing, always record the webinar and re-use it and please, for heavens sake, follow-up with the attendees.
Yes..You Will Attract More Traffic With Content
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Visualizing Content
I’ve been playing around lately with different types of visuals to get complex ideas across.
I learned many years ago during my training delivery years that audiences respond more positively when they can see a visual. Usually the visual would need to be a graphically appealing (no screen beans please), well defined, relevant picture that related to the concept being delivered. And if the picture had humorous overtones, the better.
Content Visualization – Visual.ly
I’ve discovered an excellent source of really compelling visuals. The site is visual.ly, a site devoted to infographics. Read More→
How to Create a Buzz About Your Brand
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Although many businesses want to generate “buzz” about their products and services, few know how and those that try usually experience less that satisfactory results.
Buzz is attainable, but as with any profitable pursuit…you need a plan.
Here’s a detailed post from Fox Small Business Center that identifies some of the steps needed to create “buzz” for your business...
Creating Buzz About Your Brand
How a small business creating a buzz could is important: it could mean the difference between getting new investors and the company fizzling out. “Small businesses really have to take a holistic approach” to creating buzz, says Paul Morin, …
Although having a plan won’t guarantee you get the “buzz” you want…but you learn what works and what doesn’t so future “buzz” efforts will prove more and more successful.
Picking the Right Domain Name for Search Engine Optimization
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Written by Ed Andriessen
If you want to improve your chances of getting the right traffic to you site, then selecting the right domain names is one of the simplest, yet most
powerful business decisions you can make.
Because there are many free hosting options, people make the mistake of thinking that they can save money and get good results. They think that signing up and picking a site name that sounds clever (or using the name of their business). This type of thinking leads to lost opportunities and frustration.
The first issue is, when you sign up for a free site (no matter how reliable) you don’t own anything. Everything belongs to the site provider.
If it is a service like Blogger.com (owned by Google) and something on your site is not to their liking, they suspend your service. Read More→
Overcoming Short Attention Spans With Web Video
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Though Web video has become extremely popular, there are still many potential viewers who choose not to watch your videos.
Not only do you have people hesitant to commit to watching a video online, those that do may have short attention spans.
So, how do you convince viewers to watch your video and how to you keep them watching?
The reason many people hesitate to click a Web video’s play button is because they simply lack the time. Web surfers are accustomed to being able to quickly skim text to see if an article is relevant to them before committing to reading the article in depth.
With Web videos, it’s harder to skim. If viewers perceive a large time commitment just to see if the video is worth watching, they may opt not to watch in the first place.
To overcome this initial objection, it’s important to make the following crystal clear:
- What’s covered in the video
- How the viewer will benefit from watching it
- The Web video’s length
These three key points let viewers know if the video is relevant to them. Outlining the video’s content is a substitute for the skimming that many visitors need. By listing at least one benefit, you’re giving your viewers a compelling reason to click the play button. Telling viewers the time commitment lets them know just how long it will take to receive the information – and the benefits. Read More→
Email Marketing Campaigns – 7 Top Tips For Your Next Message
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Email marketing campaigns are still the easiest way to build a relationship with your customers. You should redirect as much of your traffic to your Optin page as possible and get people onto your email list whenever you can. Follow these 7 top tips to make your next email marketing campaigns super effective
Is there An Actionable Message In Your Email?
Is your email requesting the reader to take an action? If not why are you sending it? Every email you send should have a call to action in it. It can be as simple as directing someone to your blog or watching a video. And if you train your readers to do something, then they’ll learn to expect that in all your messages.
Does Your Subject Line Entice Your Readers?
Your subject line is the most important part of your email marketing campaigns. It has one purpose and one purpose only. To make the recipient click on it to read your message. If they don’t like your subject line then your email will go unopened.
Make it catchy and try and create some intrigue. For example instead of saying “Read My Latest Blog Post On Email Marketing”, say “My Top 10 killer Strategies For Success In Email Marketing”. Read More→
Internet Marketing for Small Business: 3 Great Ways to Attract Targeted Buyers
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When attempting to promote your small business online, it can often seem like you’re a small fish in a huge pond.
You know that there are lots of people who should know about you and your business, but reaching the people who would be most interested in your offers can seem a bit overwhelming, unless, you have an internet marketing strategy in place.
Internet marketing for small business can be very rewarding once you target the right customers.
Maybe you’ve already done some preliminary research on how to promote business on the internet and found some good ideas. Yet, you are still left wondering how best to implement an online promotion with very little spare time, and on a tight budget. Fortunately, there are a few really effective small business marketing solutions that can give you the results you’re looking for – without busting the budget.
Of course, each of these strategies involves an investment of time and energy to plan and implement. However, once you’ve set them up, they can bring in targeted buyers for the long-term by creating a viral buzz about your business.
Remember: Your business may be small, but you need to create a large profile online in order to get noticed.
Here are three excellent ways to attract targeted visitors to your business website: Read More→
5 Deadly Marketing Mistakes
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The 5 biggest marketing mistakes I have seen (and done myself!) are things that can be easily corrected.
It’s been said that “A problem identified is a problem half solved,” so after personally coaching hundreds of people, and seeing everything from miserable failure to fantastic success, here’s my list of five deadly marketing mistakes, hopefully it can help you in your marketing efforts.
1. Not getting started. Yup, seems pretty obvious, but this has got to be number one by a long way. Question: why do we buy programs, courses and books, learn some great ideas and techniques, but not take action? Purchasing information can be like a drug, it feels good at the time, but leaves us worse off than we were before. That’s how too many people treat the very information that can help them be successful.
2. Bad Philosophy. OK, I know that may sound weird, but I’m convinced it’s another huge reason people don’t succeed in their online marketing efforts. They have bad philosophies. Here’s some samples of destructive philosophies:
-”How quickly will this work?” That’s a killer. It’s a nonsensical question. It doesn’t matter how long it took the people in the testimonials, it doesn’t matter how long it took anybody. Your story is your story. It will probably take longer than you hope, but if you quit it’s guaranteed to never work for you. Don’t waste time thinking about something that is impossible to predict. You might succeed faster or slower than others, but the only way to know how long it takes is to persist until you succeed. Read More→
