Starring You

A recent email from the smarties at MarketingProfs informed me that:

the average user of online video watches more than 16 hours of video a month and YouTube videos are watched over 3 Billion times a day! This is astounding.

Video is rapidly becoming essential to modern marketing and you seriously need to think about how to get on board before the train is so far from the station that you’re feeling impossibly behind the curve.

Before we talk about how, let’s talk about what.

Here are some potential ways to use video for your business:

1. Instead of blogging, vlog. This is running a regular video blog. Perhaps the most famous one is Wine Library TV from Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Crush It.  Gary did 1,000 episodes of this show and became very famous along the way in the internet economy and marketing world.
2. Run a retail store? Create a commercial every week that would be like a one-minute spot on TV. Feature specials, new arrivals, and an employee spotlight. Keep it light and lively so it’s fun to watch.
3. Are you a coach or consultant? Create regular videos that teach your audience.
4. Are you an artist? Shoot videos that show people how you create your art.
5. Are you a caterer? Show videos of certain signature dishes being made with your unique personality thrown in.
6. Are you a speaker? Record your presentations and edit snippets of them for posting on YouTube so you can get hired as a speaker more easily.
7. Add a video to every email newsletter you send out.

And the list goes on. There are many ways to use video to present yourself and your business in a positive way. I’ve been using ideas three, six and seven lately. Here’s an example:

3 Ways to Engage with Email Marketing

If you’re wondering if I’ve gotten business by using video, I absolutely have. I’ve heard a few times people say that they wanted to work with me after watching my videos.

The clients that are using video best to market their businesses are Aaron Parnell and Dave Crimmen, who both got the power of video a long time ago. Robert Brilliant, who shot the video shown above certainly uses video to market his business since he is in the business. David Neuendorff of 1MinuteReel edited the video above and also uses sample videos on his site.

In a future post we’ll talk about how you can create video on your own or with the help of a pro like Robert or David.

If you have questions right now, send me an email or leave a Comment.

When you look at this article you can’t help but look at the picture, right? And as you look at it, you are probably thinking something positive is going on because of the lady’s smile and two thumbs up. That’s the power of pictures.

This post is intended to encourage you to make the leap to regularly using images that evoke feelings wherever you have words about your business.

We’re talking blog posts, newsletter articles, web pages, brochures, PowerPoint slides, and so forth. Don’t just rely on words alone to captivate and move your reader. You’ll lose against your counterpart that’s using rich imagery in combination with the words.

Two recent events reinforced this idea in my mind. The first event was related to advertising on Facebook. I have a client who’s dipping his toe in the water on Facebook ads. We were disappointed to find that his first ad, which ran for nearly a month had received no clicks. None. So, he didn’t pay anything since we set his campaign as a pay per click. But, that didn’t make us feel good about the campaign.

The original ad featured his company logo as the image. In a webinar I attended on Facebook ads the experts at Facebook advised to avoid using your company logo unless it’s very recognizable. My client’s logo is not well known. (Interested in the webinar? Go to Facebook’s Marketing Page on Facebook and click on the Facebook Live tab to find the May 11 webinar replay).

So, we picked the image above and used that along with some slightly adjusted copy. The good news is that the ad started getting clicks. I really doubt it was just the revised copy that caused the change.

The next event was listening to a webinar on blogging from Jay Baer, a new favorite online marketing guru of mine. If you’re looking for a guru to follow, go with Jay. Anyway, Jay said that he ALWAYS uses meaningful images as part of his blogs and articles. Nuff said.

I often get asked where I get my images. I use 123RF. They have more than 9.5 million in their inventory, charge as little as $1 a pic, and you can use the one you buy over and over. Simple and inexpensive.

Now it does take time to find just the right image. I sometimes spend 10 – 15 minutes finding one picture for one PowerPoint slide or a newsletter article. But i think it’s worth it because the right picture really supports your writing. It’s worth the effort. Start using the power of images going forward and you’ll see the results of your marketing improve.

In the 80′s we had telephones, the mail, fax machines, and face to face. All that has changed now. The ways to communicate with another person have exploded . The old ways still work, but now we have email, instant messages, texting, Twitter, Skype and so on. Wow, it can be overwhelming to consider what ways one should use.

Here’s what I recommend, have about 10 different ways you feel comfortable with so you’re not hitting people the same old way. Email may be your favorite way to contact someone, but what if the other party gets too much email already? In that case your email’s likely to be ignored.

What you can do alternatively is to send them a Facebook or LinkedIn message, or maybe a text. Indeed, they might prefer one of these methods. The fact is they’re more likely to respond if you communicate with them the way they prefer.

So, then, what if the other party likes social networking as a way of staying in touch and you don’t do that? Well, you could pick it up just to communicate with them. For the right person it might be worth it. You don’t have to become a full-blown social networker, but just a casual user for the right times.

Now we’ve only talked about 1to1 communication. What about mass communication? Email marketing and Facebook are great for that. Prefer direct mail? I like SendOutCards, which allows me to send a lot of personalized real cards all at once – very useful and a blend of modern and old fashioned methods.

I’ll just mention one more method here and that’s BLD marketing. What’s that you say? It’s breakfast, lunch and dinner, of course. Many deals are closed during meals. I make it a point to take out all my clients to lunch as often as possible. They really appreciate it and we have a chance to get to know each other better without the clock running. I like to meet prospects over meals or coffee, too. People are generally looser when they’re in a social atmosphere. The conversation seems to flow more naturally than in a quiet office. If you’re not using BLD marketing, then maybe you should read Keith Ferrazzi’s now classic book on the subject, Never Eat Alone.

The last point I’ll make is that there is what I call ‘disruptive communication’. What I mean by that is you get a message to someone in an unexpected way and that disrupts them and makes them take notice. For example, you stop by their office and leave a note and, if allowed, small gift. That will get their attention more than an email. Facebook messages can be disruptive, too, since few people get many of these. Texts are disruptive and are being used more and more for marketing purposes. Use a form of disruptive communication when you’re having trouble breaking through to someone. Don’t just keep sending emails.

If you’d like the handout I used for this talk as a checklist to see just how many communication methods you’ve got in your quiver and what you might want to add, just email me and I’ll send it over to you. And if you have a favorite disruptive form of communication I’d like to hear about it. Please comment below.

Okay, I’m going to get a little technical with you here. Google Analytics is a free software that you install behind the scenes on your website to get a ton of data on the visitor traffic.

A typical report will tell you:
- How many visitors have hit your site in a given period
- What percentage of visitors are new versus repeat
- Where your traffic is coming from, e.g., Google, Facebook
- What percentage is coming from referral sources like Google versus direct input, which would be your URL
- How long visitors are staying on your site
- What pages they’re looking at
- What words they used to find your site
- What part of the country or world they’re coming from

This is just a sampling of the data you can get from Google Analytics. It can also be combined with Google Adwords campaign to give you great data about how well your advertising efforts are working.

With Google Analytics I’m able to understand how my site is doing from month to month in terms of traffic. I can tell how my traffic spikes after I’ve done a lot of public speaking or released blogs through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.What I’ve found is that most of my traffic comes from Google and from people entering my URL right in to a search engine. Since I’m not getting much traffic from Bing or Yahoo, then I know that I either need to focus most of my energy on Google, or figure out why I’m not getting a lot of traffic from the other search engines and work on improving optimization for them.

Another key stat is how long people are staying on my site. On average people will remain on my site for two and a half minutes. I feel pretty good about that. However, I’m also seeing that a good percentage of my visitors are bouncing from my site, which means they stay for just a few seconds and leave. This tells me they didn’t find what they were looking for. I can look to see what keyword searches are bringing people to my site to learn whether my site is relevant for those searches.

Here’s an example of this. I did a blog comparing Costco and Target stores in terms of customer focus. It’s an educational blog for small business owners. Unfortunately this blog comes up a lot for people searching for Costco or Target. They click on the link to my blog, then immediately leave since they aren’t a small business owner. Google Analytics helps me understand this sort of phenomena on my site. As you dig in to the reports you’ll learn some fascinating truths about your site.

Bottom line, it’s an amazing package that every business should have on their website. If you don’t have it, then learn more and determine how to install it on your site. I can refer you to a resource who can install it for you if you’re not sure how to get it done.

If you would like to go through your first report together after you’ve had it installed for 30 days, feel free to let me know and we’ll set up a time to do that.

The bottom line is this: You need to be aware of what’s happening with your website and you will not know unless you get this software installed and activated.

For those of you that have business pages set up for your business on Facebook, good things have been happening lately. Facebook is starting to recognize that we too have needs! I truly believe that this trend will continue in the foreseeable future as Facebook certainly has no issues getting personal users. And one key area of growth is business users. In order to keep expanding that group of users they need to offer more features to them.

There are two key developments that have happened fairly recently that are really good for Page owners.
1. Email notifications of Page activity. In the past we had no way of knowing when someone interacted with our Page except to log in and look. Well, now you’re able to get email notifications anytime someone posts on your Wall or Comments on an existing Post. Hurray! It’s really important that you be responsive when interaction with your Page happens and now you can do just that. Take advantage of it by logging on to your Page and responding to any and all interactions.

It’s really important that you respond to all Comments on your Page as quickly as possible to show people you’re there and engaged with your fans. This will then encourage people to continue to Like and Comment on Posts in the future.

2. Ability to visit other Facebook Pages as your Page. This is a major change that helps a Page to not only network on Facebook with other Pages and further expose the business. But it also enables a business owner who wants to stay fairly private on Facebook to do so. Watch this short video to learn how to do this.

Now that you’re aware of how to be your Page on Facebook I recommend you take advantage of this feature regularly. This is a great new way to increase Likes on your Page and especially if you use this feature to comment on Pages that have a lot of Fans that might identify with your Page.

Picking up from a recent post about creating a great impression, one of the simplest ways for any retail business to make one is to have an impressive sign. The flipside of this is that if your sign is really old or just wrong in some way you’ll make a bad impression, which is probably not any business owner’s goal.

In this post I’m going to highlight a few examples of good and bad signs. The first situation is when a business changes its name. That necessitates new signs. Well, signs usually aren’t cheap, which drives some owners to look for the least expensive way to brand the new name.

In this photo you can see that this real estate agency has changed its name. It’s pretty obvious since they chose to get an inexpensive banner and place it right on top of the old sign. Now if the decision was made rapidly and they needed something quick to put up for opening day I could understand this move. However, this banner still hangs over the old sign months later. It’s even worse at night when the old sign lights up and shows through the banner!

Why does the owner want to keep this as the permanent sign for their real estate office? Probably to save money. I wonder how much this money-saving move is costing in the quality of prospective customer impressions? I also wonder how many of the realtors in this office are proud of where they work driving up here every day? This sort of thinking was the genesis of the saying, Penny wise and pound foolish.

Now this sign is for a new restaurant that’s opened up in the local area. The owner wanted to make a strong impression on those driving by, which number in the thousands daily. The location is on a major boulevard and faces traffic that’s coming off of a major freeway. I apologize for the quality of this picture as I took it with my BlackBerry from my car.

I think you can see that the sign is lighted up though, which is what makes this a nice sign day or night. I’m sure the owner paid a lot for this sign and could have saved plenty by getting a sign that didn’t sparkle. But, in my opinion it was worth every dime as this sign alone makes me want to see the inside. It must be classy is what goes through my mind when I see this sign.

This sign is an example of how to make a strong impression. It’s big and bold and very easy to see from afar. Again, not an inexpensive sign by any means, but as the store is on a major thoroughfare and next to a large drugstore, gym and supermarket it’s probably worth going the extra mile to get something impressive.

Now that you’ve finished this blog, why don’t you take a look at your sign? Is it making a good impression on your business? Does it beckon people to come inside and have a look? Or does it make people think you don’t care about your business enough to invest in it? Your sign is often what creates the first impression someone will have of your business. If it creates a bad impression and turns people away you won’t even know because it’s very unlikely anyone will take the time to tell you. That’s why I’m telling you now to have a look.

I recently visited a restaurant in the south bay and had a conversation with the manager. I noticed that the place was fairly weathered inside with the flooring needing some serious refurbishment. The person I was talking to noted that updates to the interior needed to happen, but they were being postponed due to business being down.

That made me think about what effect the look of the establishment might have on a person’s willingness to patronize the business. As a guerrilla marketer I know that every contact with a client or prospect is marketing and first impressions count for a lot. So, I think you know where I stand on the matter.

I decided to open it up for discussion on my Facebook Page to see what members of my community think since most of them are business owners. You don’t need to have a Facebook account to read the comments. That’s what’s nice about having a Business Page.

Anyway, what I heard was that impressions are important to a business and the owner should do what they can to ensure a good one is made each and every time.

Now if you don’t own a physical location, don’t think this doesn’t apply to you. Think about how your car looks, your shoes, your suit, your hair, your briefcase, and so on. How you present yourself is the impression your business is making.

Be careful when it comes to making excuses for why you’re willing to make a weak impression on customers and prospects for it may be costing you more than you think.

I’m often asked how I get new clients. For nearly two years now one of the tactics I always mention is public speaking. Without a doubt this has been one of the top drivers for growth in my business.

It’s a little known fact I stopped pursuing an MBA in the late 90s to focus on public speaking. Something told me redirecting my energy towards improvement in speaking would take me further in my career (and be more fun!). I was intent on creating my own masters in public speaking. In retrospect it turned out to be a smart move.

I’ve heard it debated on radio numerous times whether an advanced degree really pays off, but I’ve never heard anyone wonder about the value of public speaking proficiency. Have you?

Now back to small business marketing. Inside everyone is a speech waiting to be made. What about you? What’s the speech you could make to promote your expertise, your products, your services? Where could you give it? Who would want to hear it? How would it help you get clients?

If you can answer these questions, then you’re on your way to delivering a speech that could give you a marketing boost.

If you’re one of those people who would rather die than give a public speech, then you do have to get over that first. But take heart, it can be done! I was once so nervous when taking the stage I would sweat and shake.

I’m going to be providing a public speaking workshop in the near future to help small business owners start utilizing this effective marketing weapon. Let me know if you’d like to be on the list to be notified first when it’s ready for registration.

For now, here’s a 2-minute video tip to help you get just a little bit better. I know I look like a wax figure in this screenshot. It looks better while you’re playing it!

Public Speaking Tip: Eye Contact

Want to learn more? Start by watching the other public speaking tip videos I’ve recorded. You can catch all my videos through the YouTube link on my Wibiya toolbar at the base of your window. If you’re serious about improvement, then you might like to visit my Public Speaking Coaching page to learn about how I can help you directly. Have a question about public speaking? Please post it here. I respond to all comments.

December is a time when many professional businesses slow down. This presents a real opportunity to create new content for 2011. What do I mean by new content? Well, here are a few ideas:

› Blog posts (write enough to take you through all of January

› Create videos you can post on YouTube, Facebook and your website

› Create a free seminar that promotes your expertise that you can deliver all throughout the new year

› Create a fee-based program that goes beyond your free seminar for those that want to learn more

› Write an e-book that you can sell or give away via your website and promote through social media

› Write articles you can publish online or in printed publications or newspapers or share with clients and prospects

› Create a webinar that you can present online once a month to generate leads (or sales if you make it fee-based)

The opportunities to create new content are endless. The holiday slowdown represents a real opportunity for you to leverage this slowdown and accelerate the growth of your business in 2011.

I plan to create a new seminar and workshop on public speaking. I currently coach people 1on1 in public speaking but I haven’t ever delivered a full workshop on it. I have people already on the waiting list for it, which is enough motivation for me to get it done.

I’m also going to create new versions of my social networking workshops – advanced use of Facebook and understanding YouTube, Yelp, Twitter and Foursquare for beginners. I expect these workshops will do well since there’s such a surge of interest by small businesses in social networking these days. I anticipate the trend will only strengthen next year.

So, what about you? What will you create in December? I’d love to hear about it.