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Can Video/Podcasting Help Market Your Small Business?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IALOpkVOqYo

This is an easy one … the short answer is yes.  Video is great for marketing and driving traffic to your business website.

Video, when done correctly, can help with:

1 – Raising awareness about your business/product
2 – Getting your website on the first page of Google (based on keywords selected)
3 – Increasing customer retention

Video offers a more personal strategy for prospective clients to feel familiar with you. It also helps your website get a better search engine ranking.

Video Podcasting is an underused and powerful tool that can pay for itself and market products at the same time. The revenue from podcasting is doubling every year while the costs are staying the same. 100 million people are downloading podcasts from iTunes every year.

Perhaps most interestingly, advertisers are starting to fall over themselves to sponsor podcasts. Although they realize podcasts’ audiences are small, they also realize they are niche and very loyal.

If someone has bothered to go to iTunes, download the podcast, transferred it to their iPhone, and then watch it …. they are pretty likely to be interested in whatever the podcast is about, and therefore also interested in related products.

In one very successful podcaster’s words …. why spend a fortune on advertising on a TV show with an audience of 5million when you really only want to reach the 100,000 people interested in your product? With podcasting you are spending a fraction of the money on a show that reaches your targeted 100,000 people in a much more measurable way.

If businesses create a regular show around their brand that isn’t the traditional business podcast (i.e. what has our company been doing this year) ….. but is a piece of entertainment based around their brand …. they will get a wider audience riveted. Once you capture your audiences attention you can strengthen the relationship via a mailing list (have a way for them to opt-in). You can also link directly to some specific product or service related to the podcast. They’re interested in the “subject” after watching your “show” … and are now primed to take the action you want which is to buy.






Social Media: Word of Mouth on Steroids

Major Players

Founded in 2004, Facebook enables its members to set up a personal profile within the network. Facebook users “friend” each other — meaning they invite each other to view their profiles. Users search for existing and new friends on the network, blog, chat, play games, take quizzes, as well as post links, photos and videos to their heart’s content. Notably, companies can set up free “fan pages” of which Facebook users can become “fans.” Initially aimed at college students, the site now has over 300 million active users — defined as those who have visited the site within the past 30 days. Half of those users log in daily for an average session of 25 minutes.

MySpace is similar to Facebook, though it distinguishes itself by allowing more flexibility in setting up creative profiles using wallpaper, music and other options. The site has a lot to offer music fans through MySpace Music, the largest music platform on the web. MySpace launched in 2004 and has nearly 125 million active users.
Designed to connect professionals in the business world, executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies can be found on LinkedIn. Profiles summarize professional expertise and accomplishments. Job listings are also an important part of the mix. Founded in 2003, the site has over 50 million members.

Twitter’s “micro-blogging” network enables its users to send and receive messages known as tweets. Tweets are never longer than 140 characters and are displayed on the author’s profile page to be read by the author’s subscribers, called followers. The character limit was first set to make the service compatible with text messaging, officially referred to as short message service (SMS) messaging. Any business can look up what the Twitter community is saying about it by visiting search.twitter.com. Contrary to popular perception, just 11 percent of Twitter users are age 12 to 17, according to comScore. Twitter was founded in 2006.

YouTube lets its users upload and share videos. Core users range from 18 to 55, with the site receiving over 1 billion views a day. Every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube, which was founded in 2005.

On Yelp, users review local businesses, products and services. Businesses can join and respond to these reviews. Yelp claims over 25 million active users and was founded in 2004.

Facebook Nation
What a blockbuster these forums have become. “If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated,” states Singh, the author of Social Media Marketing for Dummies. Mari Smith, president of the International Social Media Association (ISMA), counsels, “We think of social media as being word of mouth on steroids. With social media, one happy customer could lead to hundreds, even thousands, of new customers.”
“When you are talking about high-ticket items such as jewelry, people are going to go online and do research,” stresses John Moore, a marketing strategist and the “chief evangelist” for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). “We know person-to-person word of mouth is something that can really influence purchase decisions.”

“Social media helps small companies look bigger and big companies get smaller,” Moore attests. Small companies are accessing the very same tools that the big guys use, which, properly utilized, can make them stand out. Large firms, on the other hand, can retain the personal interaction with their customers that often suffers as brands grow.

Wholesalers Connect, Too
It’s not just for retailers. “Wholesalers are predominantly looking for retailers to connect and build relationships with,” Smith reasons. “That’s what these tools are for, to build relationships and find decision-makers, too. It’s like this moving, living, breathing Rolodex and business card and online networking event.” Moore points out that wholesalers can “listen to what customers are saying about products they like and don’t like.”

It is important for retailers and wholesalers to determine their objectives before they begin a social media campaign. Realistic goals include attracting new customers, getting existing customers to buy more and harnessing social media’s unique ability to transform existing customers into brand advocates.

However, Singh warns, “I always think that everything digital goes through what I jokingly consider ‘the nephew phase,’ when you feel that ‘my nephew or my niece can take care of it.’ That changes as soon as companies realize that you don’t want to leave your conversations with your customers to your nieces or nephews.”

A common misconception is the idea that “if you participate, people will follow,” cautions Moore. Just because a company sets up a fan page on Facebook, people will not pay attention unless something compelling is offered.

Finding a Partner
To select an agency or an individual to help launch a social media campaign, Singh recommends looking for a firm that “is practicing what it is preaching.” Secondly, professionals should demonstrate that they understand how social marketing fits into the other forms of marketing. Thirdly, social marketers need to put a lot of attention into learning about your brand and customers, Singh advises.

In addition, Forrester Research ranks advertising agencies, Singh notes. If an agency is represented on the two standards bodies, the Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Social Media Committee, “that is typically a good sign,” Singh adds.

Moore concludes, “Retailers might be doing a lot of traditional marketing, but if they ignore the social media space, they are ignoring the place where a lot of perception is being formed.”

Social Media Resources

Social media isn’t a one-time campaign, “it’s a commitment,” says Shiv Singh, director of strategic initiatives at Razorfish. Some suggested resources:
Social Media Marketing for Dummies, by Shiv Singh
Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
Radically Transparent, by Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge
www.mashable.com
www.socialmediaexaminer.com
www.ismaconnects.org
www.womma.org

By Margo DeAngelo
12/01/09
Diamonds.net


November 16, 2009
Most companies and businesses, regardless of size, have marketing programs in   order to generate traffic and business. Some pay big dollars for print advertising, media advertising, direct mail, and more.  Smaller companies may rely on a small telephone directory ad while others market online with only a website presence.  When I speak with CEO’s and business owners and ask them what their ROI is on their marketing program only a few have any mechanism in place to capture that information.
In today’s changing economic environment, it is critical that money spent on marketing have a powerful positive net effect on profits.
Start by evaluating both your Online and Offline Marketing Strategies.  One of the quickest ways to see the effect of a change is to begin online by having a marketing expert evaluate your website.

Let me show you what I am talking about with a Free Website Evaluation.  Simply click on the Free Website Evaluation tab above – fill in your name, email address, telephone number, the best time to reach you as well as your business url (website address) or send an email to: strategicmarketingprofits@gmail.com, with Free Website Evaluation in the subject line.  In the email include your name, email address, telephone number, best time to reach you and your business url (website address).
One little tweak could return thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue for you.
More News:

Trust

How to quickly build trust with your customers and potential customers… So they will trust you and want to either partner with or buy from YOU!
I’m sure you are wondering how you are going to build trust with your customers/potential customers so they will extend their relationship with you. After all, if your customers/potential customers aren’t buying your great offers, then it’s just an issue of trust. So how do you quickly build trust and maintain it in such a way that doesn’t require you to expand more time and energy? One word… First Impressions.

When people visit you either in person or on your website, make sure the first thing they receive from you is of HIGH VALUE.
It doesn’t matter if you’re giving out a PDF report, samples or some kind of “ethical bribe”… make sure it is so valuable that you could actually make money if you were to sell it.This way, your customers/potential customers will trust your expertise from the very beginning, and open your emails every time they arrive.
And when you sell them something, they’re going to buy it because they trust you.

One more thing… After someone visits and subscribes on your page or visits your webpage or blog for the first time, make sure they know who you are.
On the internet, everyone is blind. They can’t tell what your real name is, your age, your gender, your likes, your dislikes, or your beliefs.
…unless you tell them! (describe yourself to your prospects and subscribers as if you were describing yourself to someone who is sightless).

You must understand, if you are not going to position yourself and tell your story, your subscribers are going to fill in the blanks with their assumptions.
Even if you have strong copywriting skills, all the money to advertise, and a product that kicks butt… if people don’t know, like and trust you they will not partner with you so make sure you let them know you who you are. Either that, or you end up attracting the wrong kind of people in your business and people will not purchase your product.

Have a great week!

Martha
http://mastermindingwords.com/index2.htm