Tag: marketing

5 Reasons Why Your YouTube Marketing Doesn’t Work

This is another guest post written by Celina Conner. If you’d like to write a guest post please contact me.

psyYouTube marketing has been gaining momentum and companies exploring the benefits of Video Marketing are continually increasing. Because more and more people prefer watching videos over reading an article about a product online, businesses take advantage of the entertainment that videos provide in selling their products or services. With that being said, video marketing is becoming an essential part in any company’s business strategy.

However, getting people to view your YouTube channel is not all there is to it. While gaining page views is important, turning your visitors into buyers is another challenge. If you have a YouTube channel and you have millions of page views but fewer sales, there might be some discrepancy that needs to be fixed.

Let us help you analyze where the glitch is so that you can improve your marketing on YouTube. Here are five probable reasons why your YouTube marketing does not convert.

1. Your videos are too long. Yes you may have the most dramatic video about care-giving service, but before people reach the end of it to recognize your company name they stop watching. People lose interest after the first two minutes because most of them who are online have shorter attention span.

2. Your video title is dull. People who look for products or services online usually are captured by interesting titles since it is what they see first in the search engine results page (SERP). Your videos may not even bring in the traffic because the video labels do not stick and are not appealing enough to grab their attention.

3. You have not given a clear call-to-action. A visitor may have enjoyed watching your video but this page view will not convert to a sale because he/she have no idea what you want them to do. Many companies make this mistake because all they were focused on was gaining page views. Your brilliant video marketing may be beautiful but it defeats its purpose if you do not inform your visitors a clear call-to-action after watching it.

4. You have not maximized YouTube’s features. YouTube is continually improving its interface to provide better service to individuals and companies alike to market themselves. For some users, they can actually choose the thumbnail that will show in the search page. There are settings that will make your channel more branded and will present your videos better such as customizing the background and choosing the “Player View” layout. There is now a “Post Bulletin” tab that you can use to inform your contacts and subscribers about your video updates. And there are plenty more if you explore YouTube’s features and use it to your advantage.

5. You are not uploading videos regularly. As with all things, not following up will definitely make you lose the opportunity of converting your viewers to be buying customers. Uploading a video with too long periods in between is not wise for it gives other companies in your niche the opening to steal your viewers and turn them into their customers mainly because they are more diligent in uploading their video ads.

Gangnam styleSo how can you reverse these and increase your YouTube views and convert them into buying and loyal customers? Let me give you some tips:

1. Create videos that are less than two minutes. Carefully conceptualize your video to be short yet creative and too irresistible not to be purchased. Make it unconventional and interesting that will make your subscribers share it to their friends and contacts.

2. Think of keyword-rich video titles that are concise and catchy. Make sure that it is relevant to your video else, you will just annoy your viewers for tricking them into watching your video that is totally unrelated to the title.

3. These people landed on your YouTube channel because you have what they are looking for. Then plainly tell them what you offer and direct them how to acquire it. If they need to fill out a sign up form, tell them. Do they need to contact your sales representative? Provide the information in a clear way. Don’t be passive about it and instead give out a clear call-to-action for them to follow.

4. Take time to explore the features of YouTube and research latest trends how to make your channel and video more appealing to customers.

5. Create a series of videos that will be uploaded on a regular basis to draw people in. You may make video ads in a story line that are segmented which you can upload throughout the week. Any approach will do so long as you post videos frequently that will make people check out your channel more often.

It is time for you to translate those millions of views into millions of dollars. Review your video marketing efforts if you fall in any of those we mentioned above. Heed our advice and see how you can convert your visitors into loyal patrons of your business.


Celina Conner is a Yoga Instructor, a holder of a Diploma of business from Martin College Australia and a mother of a beautiful daughter, Krizia. She has a passion in cooking and formulating vegan recipes.Follow her adventures on her Twitter.

Steps for Success in Online Marketing for WordPress

This is a guest post written by Olga Ione. If you’d like to write a guest post please contact me.

Marketing online is the only way that companies today are going to be able to compete. Most people are online daily, and you need to be able to reach those people who would be your prospective customers and clients. When you have a good strategy, you will be able to do just that. The following steps are going to get you started in the right direction with your marketing.

Creating the Plan

The first step is to start writing down your marketing plan that you will be able to follow. You will need to know your goals and objectives, and you have to know who your ideal customer is going to be. Only when you know what the customer wants and expects will you be able to market to them successfully. You should have a plan that will cover many different aspects of online marketing, such as blogging, working with social media, and even the PPC ads. You will also want to make sure that you are spending special attention to search engine optimization.

Developing the Perfect Site

Having a high quality website is going to be essential for your business. One of the fastest, simplest, and most cost effective methods of getting a great site is with the WordPress platform. WordPress themes come in many different styles, and you will find that many of them are going to be very easy to customize. When you do customize your themes, you will be able to make them look and work just the way you need.

You want to have a site that offers a professional appearance as well as easy navigation. The site should also be search engine friendly and easy to update. You also have to consider the mobile market. Make sure that the theme you use is mobile friendly, or that you have a developer who will be able to ensure that your site looks great in all of the mobile devices on the market today.

Converting Traffic to Leads

Once you start to generate more traffic, you have to be able to turn those visitors into actual customers. You will need to have a call to action on your site that shows them why they need the product or service that you are offering. You will also need to make sure that you are engaging the customer and that you treat the customer well in all interactions. Once you have customers and leads, you have to make sure that you nurture your relationship with them. Provide them with special offers and start a smart email marketing campaign that targets them without trying to oversell and enter the realm of the annoying.

Consider Outsourcing

Something that you might want to do, as well, is to think about outsourcing some of your marketing needs. If you are trying to come up with off page content for your site, then it could be a good idea to hire some outside help. You could always work with someone for writing content for your site and for other sites, and have other freelancers work to help with marketing and social media. If you do not have the employees to take care of all of these different aspects regularly, then you might find that outsourcing is a good option.

Once you have your plan in place, you will want to give it a bit of time to see how well it works. When you start measuring your success. Which areas worked as well as you had hoped, and which need improvement? Did the PPC ads come through, or was blogging the real winner for you? Knowing these things will make tweaking your online marketing easier.

About author

Olga Ionel is a creative writer at ThemeFuse.com – a top provider of WordPress themes. She is passionate about studying online marketing industry and sharing informative tips.

5 Elements of a Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign

This is a guest post written by Gina Smith. If you’d like to write a guest post please contact me.

Everybody wants to succeed at social media marketing. It seems like such a good idea when you think about it.  Social media, on the face of it, appears inexpensive and immediate and imminently scalable. Social media is guerrilla marketing on steroids; a tempting sea of potential customers lurking out there on Facebook and Twitter, just waiting to “Like” your product or become your company’s friend.  Or so it seems.

In some ways social media is almost too useful a tool for marketers.  Far too many of them have succumbed to the temptation to indulge old bad marketing habits in their social media marketing campaigns.  They go for big numbers and neglect to personalize their contacts. They create new organizational silos by forgetting to connect their social marketing to customer call centers, special events and more traditional types of advertising.

They frequently use the wrong metrics, measure the wrong thing or fail to do any measuring at all. Marketers often flood social media because it’s easy and cheap to do. In the process, they wind up diluting their own message and turning off potential customers.

Finally, some of our marketing brethren fall back on the same old boring marketing tricks, using the same incredibly dull content, sanitized by the legal department.  Many of these outbound marketing strategies hardly worked when they were new. They certainly don’t gain any power simply because they’ve been foisted on a new medium.

Successful social media marketing campaigns require five key elements to insure that you accomplish what you set out to do and that’s win friends for your company.

  1. Listen:  Before you ever post the first blog, tweet the first Tweet or put up a company Facebook page, listen to what your customers are saying to you. Find out the five W’s – who they are, what they want, when and how they want it, where they want it and why they want it.  Studying the demographics of your target group is essential. Just because social media is cheaper, doesn’t mean it doesn’t cost anything.  Your time is extremely valuable.  Social media makes up for its low up-front costs by draining your time.
  2. Plan:  Draw up a clear marketing plan.  Decide who does what and which medium each of the elements of your team is going to target. Develop guidelines for what can be said and almost as importantly, what CANNOT be said.  A lot of companies have paid dearly for ill-chosen comments by their young social media “experts” on Twitter and Facebook.  Even informal stories and jokes need to advance your marketing goals in some way. You can’t afford to let those who generate your inbound marketing content indulge their private whims.
  3. Communicate:  The strength of social media is the facility with which it opens doors to potential customers. But having 20,000 “friends” doesn’t mean you’re getting through to any of them. If you are not communicating with them in a meaningful way, your blast posts have likely been reduced to white noise and are being ignored. Spend some real time communicating, not just with groups, but with individuals. Reply to their comments. Offer them help or content that’s of value to them. In-bound social media marketing is all about building the relationship. You cannot do that unless you’re spending a great deal of time producing content that makes your customers sit up and take notice. Whether it’s humor, important information or special things that are of real help to them, customers notice companies that give them things they enjoy, want or need.
  4. Monitor & Measure:  If you aren’t monitoring what’s going on with your marketing efforts on social media, you’re wasting your time.  Facebook, Google and Twitter all have tools that help you monitor the behavior of your fans. Use them. Track how often your posts are shared or your company is mentioned. Social media is, after all, largely electronic word of mouth. If they’re not talking about you, you have to give them something to say.
  5. Adapt:  The other part of monitoring and measuring is putting that knowledge to use.  You have to adapt and change your strategy if your tracking data shows you’re not getting through to your customers. Social media marketing is a dynamic process.  This is living organic communication. It’s about building relationships and delivering more value to your customers than the other guy.  You have to always be striving to be honest and genuine with your customers. If you’re phony or you assume their loyalty without delivering the goods, you’ll make far more enemies than friends.

Social media marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  To work it has to be interconnecting with everything you do from manufacturing to marketing and sales. Done well, social media marketing is the job of every single person that works for the company. Failing to back your social media marketing with alternative communication tools like customer service call centers, chat rooms, excellent tech support, focus groups and surveys soon waters down everything you’re doing on social media.

Social media IS important, but it’s no magic wand. You can’t wave a bunch of tweets over the heads of your online friends and expect to generate the kind of buzz that gets your YouTube video three million hits in a week.  It can be done, but it takes hard work, thorough research, planning and imagination.

Gina Smith writes freelance articles for magazines, online outlets and publications on behalf of a number of companies, including Spanning.com. She covers the latest topics in the business, golf, tourism, technology and entertainment industries.

Top Five Key Facts For Online and Offline Marketing Strategies

This is a guest post written by Brianne Walter who is a freelance blogger who is passionate about writing. If you’d like to write a guest post please contact me.

Marketing is as vital to a business as environment is to us. Without marketing, our products never get recognition and they die an unknown death. In this era of internet technology, marketing is no more limited to newspapers and television advertisements. It has reached a global level, thanks to the gift of internet. With almost 70% of the world’s population having access to internet, brands can aim at bigger and international level goals. The Internet has enabled two different types of marketing – online and offline. In order to make your business succeed in both these types, there are some marketing strategies which you must adopt.

Firstly, you can put up a URL or any other printed material to track offline marketing successfully. Also make sure that the URL is optimal as well as targeted so as to successfully track your company’s offline marketing performance on the basis of analytic. Information like webpages which are frequently visited, the number of individuals who complete forms and the area from which people are visiting your site, can be gathered from the way of proper tracking. Through this way, you get an idea of your online and offline marketing approaches.

Secondly, you can use your social networking site to drive your contacts towards your offline marketing site. You can offer people who follow you on your social networking site, an exclusive item. This step will instigate them to visit your site on a regular basis, thus increasing the page traffic on your marketing page. This will enable you to get a pretty fair idea of how successfully your online and offline marketing strategies are working.

Thirdly, you may take into consideration the technology involved inside the mobile market i.e. Quick Response Codes or QR codes. These codes perform the function of sending offline prospects to your website if visitors fill in a survey form in it. This technique could turn out to be the most powerful online as well as offline marketing strategy if used wisely.

Fourthly, you can add your social networking site’s link address to the offline version of your site. In addition, ads which are free to your social networking company may also be put up there. After taking this step, you may suggest your friends to follow you and thus get special offers via social networking sites. You should work manually to promote your business rather than just putting up your company’s logo to notify people about your presence. You don’t just need a presence; you need a high degree of activity as well.

Finally, you can also make use of offline mailers. Prospects will be asking you some questions. You need to reply them back as soon as possible and also consider asking them things like their background, their location etc. Through this way, you shall be able to build a relationship and make the conversation part much easier. Through the conversation process, you are able to establish a mutual correlation between yourself and your client.

These are some of the online and offline strategies which you may follow up to establish a flourishing business, available both online and offline.

About the author: Brianne is a blogger by profession. She loves writing, reading and traveling. Beside this she is fond of luxury cars and wishes to own one day Audi R8 V10.

Enhancing your Offline Marketing Strategy

In terms of marketing your products and services, the possibilities and potential of the Internet can make it easy to forget all about traditional methods of promotion. Sitting in a dark basement, clicking a mouse, might be profitable for you, but face-to-face communication and traditional marketing will always play an essential part in business, regardless of whether you provide the majority of your services online or off.

Online marketing has proven its worth over recent years, providing a simple, cost-effective, and lucrative solution to reaching a global audience. Businesses that use Pay-Per-Click advertising through AdSense or Facebook have realized the power of having mechanisms in place that work for us while we sleep, generating customers and promoting our products. However, these methods need a lot of testing before being finalized, and we need to keep an eye on our budgets to make sure that successful advertising campaigns don’t grow beyond our financial means.

On the other hand, offline marketing is much simpler to keep track of. When we invest a small amount in some eye-catching business cards, we are able to make contacts wherever we go, building on the first few moments of a new relationship to capitalize on the power of that first impression. Unlike a URL that requires someone to go home, load up the Web, and search for us, a business card carries all of our details in one simple and portable device that people can refer to, providing a quick prompt for them to pick up the phone and get in touch when they need our services.

The Power of Local Networking

In the old days we touted our services to a primarily local audience. This is because we had less accessibility through transport, and customers tended to trust people they knew and had met in person. For all the power of globalization through the World Wide Web, business owners should always remember the quiet power of their local environment.

I have a client who runs her own business, and she never goes “off duty” from promoting her Web development services. When people come over to clean her windows, maintain her garden, or even just to socialize, she finds out whether they have websites in place, and if they don’t she quietly and effectively persuades them to take her on to give them a great online presence. She has managed to get a host of free services by talking to people in the local area, building a website for them, and receiving their services in return . My friend has never forgotten the effectiveness of face-to-face networking, and looks on every new meeting or chance encounter as a potential sale. I am always amazed to hear her say she is building a site for her local bakery, setting up the village cobbler to sell online, or working with the landscape gardener to set up a new blog to develop his services.

Similarly, savvy business owners should take local opportunities to promote themselves and their products, putting flyers in their local mall, writing articles for the village newsletter, or dropping flyers in coffee shops and libraries. This quiet, cost-effective promotion can reap dividends when a chance advert catches someone’s eye and they feel comfortable choosing a local service provider to help them out. Unlike large scale online advertising, it is these small steps towards developing a locally-known brand that can provide the “bread and butter” revenue that we all depend upon to succeed long-term.

Other ways to attract attention include classified adverts in local papers, letting readers know who you are and what you do. Many newspapers are happy to provide the information for free, or for a nominal charge, and you get to capture the attention of people in the area who respond to the opportunity of sourcing their services from a local provider.

Another great way to gain local customers is by placing signage on your vehicle. It’s amazing how much people notice when they are stuck in traffic, and sitting behind someone offering services will often attract attention – this is a highly effective and budget-friendly way of saying “Look! I’m here! Give me a call!” Seeing livery on a van or vehicle will often prompt people to remember that they need your service in the first place, and even if they don’t get in touch straight away your advert will stay with them until they are ready to make a call.

Reaching a Happy Balance

You probably already have a sound strategy in place for your online marketing activities. You already understand that there is great potential in SEO for keywords, blogging, online press releases, and email marketing. You probably already use AdSense or something similar, and you’re probably busy using social networking to promote your business. If you are in that great place online where you have a recognizable brand and a firm process in place for generating online traffic and increasing your customer footfall, is it time to revisit the possibilities of offline marketing?

The great news is that both forms of marketing complement each other perfectly, so you’ll never need to choose one over the other when it’s time to plot your newest promotional campaign. A sign in a local shop can be as effective as an advert on Facebook, so build both of these options into your marketing approach. Combine affiliate sales with local articles, global online press releases with handing out business cards, and you’ll be well on your way to conquering the widest possible audience for promoting your services without compromising your overall strategic approach.

Your blog or company website will work for you in the background while you turn your attention to face-to-face business networking. Each time you hand out your business card, people have the chance to go back to their office and look you up through your Web address. In this way, you’ll capture every available outlet for promoting your services, freeing you up to focus on what you do best – running your company.

The Art of Storytelling as a Marketing Tool

This is a guest post by Mitch O’Conner is an online marketer and writer. If you’d like to write a guest post please contact me.

The other day while at the bookstore, I came across a large crowd gathered around a man at table. Some were seated, others standing. The man was reading out loud a book about business. Through vocal animation and the way he poised such questions like “How do I get more fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter?” or “Am I selling the only widget or service that nobody seems to care about?” in a non-timid way, the crowd and even myself, were drawn in by this man reading about business.

But why? Simple. It was the way he told the story. Granted, reading about business facts sometimes isn’t very interesting, but it’s a type of literature that isn’t read in the right context. And a piece of literature can be read with passion and be interesting; it’s up to the storyteller on how to read it and a well-told story sticks in the mind of the listener. So how does storytelling benefit today’s small business owner? Would you believe that the art of storytelling as a marketing tool is actually well worth a second look?

The connection between storytelling and social media

Pen and paperThe magical connection that occurs during marketing and storytelling is the emotional bond that the consumer forges with the brand. Peter Guber, as quoted on Simon Mainwaring’s “We First” blog calls this the realization of the goal to transport your mission. Of course, getting to uncork the emotions of the audience in the first place is a hit or miss proposition. It takes practice, diligence and the commitment to keep at it consistently, learn from mistakes and improve upon success.

Learn to use storytelling in every piece of content you write, with some exceptions. For example, if you need to write an article on wireless Internet, you could create it very straightforward with the “nitty-gritty” information like the web developer did on this wireless Internet site. This works for the tech crowd that’s really just interested in the numbers. However, you might also decide to couple the “specs” content with some stories about how customers made the switch to your promoted company.

When the consumer makes a buying decision from the heart, rather than from the head, the effective marketer has succeeded in getting the emotional buy-in. It results in a stronger sense of brand loyalty, the rationalizing of a purchase that might involve more money than initially budgeted and also the willingness to work with a company on resolving a problem — rather than taking it to task with the Better Business Bureau.

Unfortunately, getting the emotional buy-in and active involvement in the woven tale is not always easy. As highlighted by Cloud Ave, passive observation has become an ingrained trait of character. Thus, the skilled entrepreneurial storyteller must make a concerted effort to engage the social networker in such a manner as to elicit a response. It is not necessary for the response to trigger an immediate click of the “buy now” button. Instead, getting the would-be consumer to “like” a product’s page or interact on the Facebook brand profile with a bit of helpful advice or a recollection is just as useful.

Citing Pew research, it still holds true that the 18 to 29 demographic is most heavily represented, but the 65 and over group is starting to make itself known. As of May 2010, about 26 percent were involved in social networking and the trend is growing steadily.

How to write a compelling story

Now that you recognize the importance of using storytelling as a marketing tool, you’re probably wondering what it will take to write a compelling narrative from the ground up. Fish Networks explains that a gripping story is a clever mix of a curious visual and an accompanying text that explains it. The initial written hook takes the form of a question: pose a question that makes the consumer wonder what the answer might be.

Much like a song the social media user cannot get out of his head, there will be an overwhelming need to discover the answer to the question. On the way to delivering the response, the clever marketer ensures that a lot of the brand information and product facts come through in even short text. College Grad suggests the interjection of personality, flair and interest. It sounds easier said than done, but really there is just one small trick to successful storytelling for marketing: put yourself into the shoes of the consumer.

What would you like to know about the product you sell or one like it? What would be the main reason for not buying it? What stands out the most about the item? From this intellectual exercise, take it up a notch and surmise the emotional component. Why would you worry about making a sound buying decision? Is it because you might feel taken advantage of? Do you worry about wasting money in a tough economy? Do you think that the widget is too big or odd and might make you seem un-cool in the eyes of others?

Storytelling as a marketing tool refutes feelings-based objections with intellectual data. This mix is an unbeatable combination that the small business owner can use to a marketing advantage. The goal is to elicit an emotional reaction in the social networker; the tools are the product facts, figures and stats. Who knew that entrepreneurs could now also be storytellers?

About the Author: Mitch O’Conner is an online marketer and writer. When he’s not busy testing sites, generating traffic or writing content, he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, playing games and camping.

How To Be Psychic: Preempting Your Customers’ Needs

An element of foresight is invaluable when you are running a business blog. By this, I mean having the ability to think ahead and anticipate your customers’ needs and requirements, and find ways of meeting them.

The best way to evolve your blog is to develop it in line with your customers’ expectations, making sure that whenever they decide they need something from you, you just happen to already provide it.

This psychic ability isn’t all smoke, mirrors and magic tricks. It’s much more about strategic planning and a healthy dose of sound business sense. Another element of the psychic challenge for bloggers is to find ways of persuading your customer base that they need something, even if they didn’t think that they did, before.

This is a great way of appearing to be psychic, when actually all you are doing is some really savvy selling.

The following tips will help you sharpen your psychic abilities, leaving you as sharp as Derren Brown on a good day…

Keep ahead of current trends

One of the best ways to work out where the market is headed in your industry specialism is through newsfeeds and articles. Staying alert to new developments in your industry will help you plot future trends and direction in your industry sector.

Make sure you have a strong strategy in place

Making a success of an online business takes careful planning and strategic thinking. By plotting a one, two or three year plan, with strategic direction and expansion will support you to structure your thinking in terms of where you are currently, and where you would like to be in the future.

Build upon what you have already found to work on your blog

You already have a fair idea, as a blog owner, what works and what doesn’t when it comes to catering for customer demand. Articles that you write which generate a great deal of feedback and backlinks will be an indication of what your customers want, and where you should concentrate your focus for subsequent writing.

Staying aware of what has been popular in the past is a good way of gauging what may work in the future, and it is simply a question of monitoring responses and being alert to new ways of meeting the demand which your customers have for your articles.

Think from the customers’ perspective

What you want from your blog, and what your customers will respond to, may be entirely different things. It’s well worth standing back from your blog and what you enjoy doing, and considering what your customer may be looking to achieve. The best magicians achieve magic by being completely absorbed in the person they are performing to, adapting and changing to their shifts in perception and mood.

By keeping ahead of new technologies and industry shifts, being aware of your customers’ requirements before they are, and providing a site which preempts them, you are well on the way to achieving magic 101 and becoming a truly psychic service provider!

Straightforward Marketing Advice

I’m pretty much a fan of straight talking, no-nonsense when it comes to marketing advice. There are all sorts of snake-oil salesmen and saleswomen, promising the world but delivering the same old spiel. The amount of online courses that promote life-changing advice, yet simply take your money and feed you things you know already, drive me slightly mad.

Where to get good advice is a source of worry for me sometimes, and also where to refer my clients to when they ask. Of course there are great courses and businesses out there too, and often I point them towards this man, Brendon Sinclair of Tailored Web Services. Here he is talking about getting good search engine rankings (if you can’t see the videos, go here):

While that was good, here are some of his finer moments:

No bull, no spin, just good, solid, actionable advice. Good on ya mate!

You can follow him on Twitter at @brendonsinclair, but how his ego fits into 140 characters, I’m not quite sure!

Do You Practice Value Based Marketing?

Pure Growth Books

I’ve finally found time to write a blog post since returning from vacation/holiday. I’m currently working my way through my backlog of work and emails, so apologies for the delay getting back to you. On with the post…

My client, and good friend, Patricia Cliff is a business and personal coach. She has a website and blog in one that shows what work she offers, and the values that she does that work by. Working with many qualified health practitioners and therapists, she provides them with the support and framework for success in their chosen field.

Her site also showcases her latest book, Pure Growth for Reflexologists, and promotes her free email newsletter. The blog is simply inserted into the website template to have an almost seamless transition from one to the other.

Her latest blog post is all about value based marketing, so if you’re a health practitioner or therapist (or someone who is interested in those areas), why not take a look and see if you can answer the two key questions she poses. There is also some great information in her four part series on What everybody ought to know about Market Research, plus Patricia shows you how easy it is to create a business plan.

Take a look at Pure Growth Books.

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