How to Get It All Wrong with Video Marketing

Hasn’t everyone and anyone told you that video marketing is a snap, and you need to get going like, yesterday? While part of that is true, plunging into the deep end without understanding some of what lies below the water might be hazardous to your wealth! Sitepoint offers a glimpse into what can go wrong with your video marketing campaigns, and ways to avoid some common mistakes.

5 Killer Ways to Kill Your Videos

1. Overselling – Hitting your viewers with a hypey, persistent sales message is a sure-fire way to get them running for the exits. No-one likes to be sold to, and the best method to convey your sales message is by showing them the benefits of this product or service to them, not all the spiffy features you’re so proud of!
2. Underselling – On the other hand, if you are so bashful so as not to ask for the sale in anyway, you deserve what you get. Be sure you include multiple calls to action, and ask for the action you’re seeking, whether that is a click, purchase, opt-in or something else.
3. Boring as the day is long – If your video is boring, there is little chance they will even watch it all the way through. If it’s an instance of not knowing enough regarding the subject at hand, perhaps it might be wise to engage an expert, or find an angle that makes the subject more engaging that it appears on the surface.
4. Not specific – Understanding your target audience and attempting to match message to market is paramount here. The more focused you can be on a particular need or want of your audience, the more likely they will be to not only watch your video, but act!
5. Information overload – Closely related to the point above, trying to cram too much information into one video will leave their heads spinning. Keep the message concise and direct, in order to avoid any confusion.

Content Marketing: Are You on Board?

Did you know that more than 70 percent of consumers prefer getting to know a company via content marketing rather than ads? Still companies spend more on advertising than on content creation, according to ContentPlus. So is this a matter of really trusting the content marketing model, or more a reflection of the need to generate traffic and leads more rapidly? The answer: probably some of both. Content marketing is without question the best vehicle for developing your authority and brand. The thing is it can be a lot of work. Plus, it can take much longer to find out whether your content is delivering in terms of leads and sales, in contrast to advertising traffic.

Content marketing is an important part of the success of your business!

While it can be difficult and time-consuming, if you wish to develop your brand into a long-term success, you need to sell out to making content marketing an integral piece of your online marketing. But how do you make it work for you? With all the new content arriving every day, exactly what can you do to make yours stick out from the pack?

5 Ways to make your content marketing rock!

1. Write what your audience wants to read – Ask or otherwise obtain clues as to what your site visitors wish to read, and supply this. Checking out your Google Analytics for your best performing pages can be a help in this.
2. Write substance – Longer, more purposeful content is what Search engines love, and ultimately this type of content is shared a great deal more often.
3. Answer questions – One of the better ways to endear yourself to readers, is to answer their concerns and questions. See how one pool company did it.
4. Use Google authorship – Not only does this help in the search results, it can improve your authority in Google.
5. Encourage and promote sharing – Sharing brings links and traffic. Have you already got enough off those? Not to mention that social signals surrounding your content are now a part of Google’s search ranking algorithm.

Get your content marketing helping you now so don’t have to buy that traffic later.

The age of looking at mobile marketing as just a “fad” or the “next big thing” has ended. It’s here, it’s big, and it’s just going to get bigger. A recent survey by the Web.com group found that some 69 percent of the people surveyed declared that they thought that mobile marketing is going to be crucial to their business over the next five years, yet the majority of those hadn’t yet implemented it. With 84 percent of those using mobile marketing reporting a boost due to mobile, there isn’t any excuse for falling further behind the curve!

5 Tips on how to get mobile marketing active in your small business

• Mobilize your website and social media pages – Ensuring that your website and any significant social media pages, such as your Facebook business page, are optimized for mobile is crucial. Keep in mind that mobile versions of your content really need to be Spartan in size, images smaller, and textual content more brief and concise, so they won’t lose the busy mobile browser.
• Claim and optimize your local listings – Ensure that your local listings, such as on Google local, Yelp, FourSquare or other local directories are up-to-date with regards to contact information, directions, and any promotions you’d like to feature.
• Optimize your email – One that frequently gets brushed aside, optimizing your email for mobile devices is crucial as well. eConsultancy tells us that 41 percent of email is now opened on a smartphone or tablet, and of that group, 63 percent close or delete any emails that aren’t mobile optimized. Try to use one-column layouts, font size of 14, and line spacing to 1.5 for small-screen readability.
• Use Google Analytics – If you’re just guessing about whether or not mobile is helping you, you’re gonna be wasting lots of time and money. Get hard data you can use by utilizing Google Analytics. There is a mountain of data available, but you can simplify by segmenting smartphone and tablet visitors and analyzing their on-page behavior, allowing you to see how your campaigns are performing.
• Offer irresistible deals – Everyone loves a deal, and mobile shoppers are among the most voracious. Moreover, they are out and about NOW, and you can entice them with timely offers and coupons.

Use Google Analytics to Get Actionable Intel for Your Small Business

Many of us understand that using Google Analytics to understand how our marketing efforts are doing can be a key to unleashing future success. Yet many people are overwhelmed by the incredible immensity of the data facing them. You should begin with answering the right questions: what are my goals, and what do I need to know to achieve them. Google Analytics can indeed be a perplexing mountain of data to decode, and without having a game plan you could get lost quite easily. Let’s take a look at some ways to know which metrics to follow, and how to use Analytics for your best advantage.

Which metrics do you need?

Each business possesses its own needs, or course, but here are a few common needs.

• Total visitors – The number of both “unique” (first time) visitors, and total visits, which includes returning visitors.
• Keyword phrases – Which keywords are people inputting to get to your pages? This is critical data, and will help you learn how to target your marketing.
• Most popular pages – See which of your pages are receiving the most visits.
• Visitors country of origin – Where in the world are these people originating from.
• Referral pages – Seeing which pages are driving traffic to your website is extremely valuable information. This could be from affiliates, video, images, social media and many more sources.
• Search engines – Which of the search engines are delivering the most traffic to your pages.

Use these advanced Google Analytics features to help sort the data

Three advanced features are incredibly useful with regards to deciphering and sorting the data.

Custom reports allows you to craft a version of Analytics to suit your business specifically. You select the information that’s helpful to you, and organize it in whatever way you want to.

Advanced segmenting provides you with the ability to view various segments of your traffic, like mobile or tablet traffic.

Intelligence events, much like Google Alerts, sends a notification your phone or email when anything significant takes place on your website, such as an up or down spike in traffic.

Don’t make the mistake of not using Google Analytics. Spend some time to make it work for you!

Bad Reviews – How to Deal with Them Quickly and Effectively

Everyone has an opinion, and unfortunately as a business owner some of these opinions could cause your business a great deal of trouble. Managing your online reputation has become a must-do item on your daily checklist. Fail to do it, and you might find people deserting you in droves. Bad reviews are a fact of online life. They are very easy to post, and will often influence large segments of the target audience in your favor or not. The key is having much more of the positive to outweigh the inevitable negative.

What to do with a negative review

Here are three steps to proactively deal with the sporadic negative review.

1. Customer service ought to be a top priority – Many times the reason companies are working with a especially nasty online review is that they neglected to attend to business when the problem first appeared. Oftentimes the customer attempted to reach out, but received no response, and felt as if they had no choice but to air their problems online at a review site. A great deal of this can be avoided by having a proactive process with respect to monitoring your onsite and social media channels, so you’ll know when a problem appears.
2. Deal professionally with people – Whatever you do, don’t inflame the problem by turning to vitriolic he said, she said types of scenarios online. This will NEVER work in your favor, even if you are right. Remain professional, generous, and don’t forget you are trying to keep a customer, or at worst not lose more of them! The truly problem customers are few, and not worth the possible damage they could do should you get in it with them!
3. Encourage good reviews – One of the better ways for you to actively really make a difference is by encouraging and even rewarding positive reviews of your services or products. Get an ample amount of these on a regular basis, and the infrequent negative review won’t stand a chance of remaining high in the search results. On the contrary, they will most likely provide you with even more customers!

The bottom line in dealing with negative reviews is to be aware when they occur, handle customers with respect and professionalism, and make managing your online reputation a top priority! In this day of instant communication, you virtually have no choice!