Internet Marketing Tips, Tools and Strategies

Video is a rapidly growing method of communicating with online buyers and engages them with a product. Recent studies have shown that online video grew 124% in 2009 with over 18.9 billion views and the average person in the U.S is watching 187 videos per month.

With facts like that there is no denying that if implemented correctly video can help grow your business. However compelling statistics don't make the creation and marketing of a video any less overwhelming. There is a common misconception that a production company would be necessary to create a powerful video. The reality is that a simple, in-house videos can have a greater impact than professional videos because they are easier for the viewer to identify with. A small and affordable video camera such as the Flip HD is perfect for creating a video.

Once you've decided to make a video and you have the tools to film it you need a plan to make that video benefit your business.

Here are 5 tips for creating a successful video:

1. Creating Your Own Videos
Your first step is to decide on content. Think about what your target audience wants to hear from you. Promote something that is unique about your business that will hold an audience's attention. Consider promoting an upcoming event, a how-to video to explain a product's use or a product review.

2. Increase Website Conversions
A beneficial way to use video is to improve website conversion rates.
Create your video with a "thirty second intro" that really entices visitors to engage further with your video. You need to get their interest immediately.

Include video testimonials to greatly increase credibility and help the viewer to take the next step.
Share tips and advice with your audience. If you give them information they are looking for and share free resources with them they may be more inclined to see the value in the paid for products and services your company offers.

3. Search Engines
Search engines are unable to sort through what is being said in your video. In order to make sure your video is showing up for the appropriate searches you'll need a catchy title with your keywords and lots of comments. A video with more comments can preform better in search engines especially if the comments include your keywords. If you really want to make sure a search engine is finding your content you should consider a transcription service. Preferably one that is double checked by a person rather than a computer.

4. Marketing Your Videos
You have to spread the word about your video. Email marketing allows you to share you message with you prospects and clients. YouTube's audience is unbeatable in the video world. Post your video on YouTube and potentially reach 9.1 million unique users monthly. Syndicate your video with the free tool TubeMogul that reaches a dozen or more video websites. Writing press releases and blogging are also great ways to share your video.

5. Create a YouTube Channel
YouTube is the largest video network on the internet. Creating your own channel and archiving all of your videos gives users a branded place that represents your business to view your video content.

Don't let video marketing get the best of you. Follow these tips and keep your video in-house and simple and take advantage of the rapidly growing world of video marketing.

Watch our Webinar on Video Marketing for Business

Email marketing is a simple and inexpensive way to speak to your client base. However simply having a list of interested contacts does not guarantee you a successful email marketing campaign. Here are 10 tips to make your email campaign more successful.

1. Grow your list
Your list will fluctuate by 25-30% each year. Most of this is attributed to unsubscribes and new email accounts. You want to make sure your list grows at least as much as it decreases. Find out what pages on your website are most visited and put a field on them to newsletter sign-ups. Engage through social media outlets and offer sign up opportunities frequently. Asking people to double opt-in may grow your list more slowly but it will ensure that you are getting addresses who are extremely interested in what you are offering.

2. Clean up your list
Sending to addresses that will bounce is a waste of money. Do an overhaul of your list every 6 months to ensure you are sending to good addresses. Look at who on your list is opening your emails. If they haven't been opened re-evaluate how you can better connect with those people. Give them content they will want to open.

3. Minimize Opt-outs
By managing expectations and giving options you can keep contacts happy. When someone opts into your email list give them an idea of how often they'll hear from you and what you'll be sharing with them. Consider offering a preference section where they can set their own guidelines. Such as only receiving one email a month rather than weekly.

4. Divide your list to increase relevance 
If a large group of your list is Chicago based while the rest are in the Boston area consider sending two different emails to these groups. Give each group information tailored to their area. You can do the same with retail locations vs. home improvement companies. Speaking directly to these specific groups will make your emails more successful.

5. Design for the inbox
Put your company name in the 'From' field rather than your email address. This will help you be quickly recognized by the recipient and free up space in your subject line which needs to be under 50 characters.

6. Test your message
Make sure you know how your email will look in every major email browser. Using fewer images will ensure that your message is received even in emails that don't automatically load images such as gmail. Lyris HQ includes a tool that does all of this for you.

7. Don't forget mobile devices
1 in 10 consumers only read email on their mobile device. Design emails for a small screen or consider including a link to click on if you are viewing on a mobile device. You can also offer contacts the option of communicating with you via text message.

8. Manage your sender reputation
Make sure that everything you're sending works. Links, photos etc. This will help keep you out of spam folders.

9. Follow laws and email etiquette
Follow federal spam laws (www.ftc.gov) and check for state and country laws where you are sending emails and make sure your emails include your privacy policy. Double opt-ins are a good practice although not a law. Your list may grow slower with double opt-in but you'll ensure that the names you get really want your information and are likely to stick around longer.

10. Test deliverability
Test your message against spam filters. Make sure you do not have "spammy content" such as unnecessary punctuation ***FREE*** You can use the word free but do not capitalize it. Keep it understated.

These simple steps can make a big difference in the success of your email marketing and help grow and maintain a quality list.

Facebook is often thought of as a site where young college students socialize and discuss the latest event and what to wear. For many it is the last place they would think to promote their business using Facebook social media marketing. However InsiderFacebook.com has reported that while two years ago Facebook's demographic was made up of those 35 years and older, today it's made up of woman over 55. In fact, 45% of Facebook's audience is 26 years and older.

Each user spends their time on Facebook in different ways; however the average user is spending 55 minutes a day on the site. Think of that as 55 minutes with a captive audience who is not getting up for a snack during the commercial breaks. Facebook social media marketing has so much information about its users that you can target a marketing campaign to women between the ages of 24-30 years in a specific geographic location and have their relationship status set to 'engaged'. In fact a photography studio called CM Photographic did just this and over the period of 12 months generated $40,000 in revenue directly from the $600 they spent on this Facebook social media marketing campaign.

Not sure how to get Facebook to work for you? "

Follow these four steps to market your business on Facebook:

1. Facebook Advertising - determine your target audience including age, sex, location and lifestyle. While those people may not be searching for your product on Facebook they are in a position to need your services. Use Facebook's business tools to write optimal ads and ensure that your campaign is strong enough to entice your potential customers.

2. Facebook Pages - Facebook requires you to have a personal page before you can have a business page. Due to the nature of Facebook you may have concern that a photo of you asleep on the couch with a magic marker mustache courtesy of your toddler is not how you want your business associates to see you. Facebook's privacy settings allow you to totally separate your personal and business pages while also allowing you to control what information you want users to be able to see. Familiarize yourself with these settings to ensure that you won't have any personal and professional blunders.

3. Get The Word Out - Now that you have a Facebook Page it's time to spread the word.
• Send an email blast to your contacts alerting them of the page.
• Use your website to alert visitors that they can find you on Facebook.
• Encourage people to follow you on Facebook by using a contest or promotion.
• Run a Facebook ad campaign targeting your ideal audience and invite them to join your fan page.

4. Facebook Events - By inviting your audience to events via Facebook you are utilizing the event tool while promoting your company. When someone replies that they will be attending your event it automatically gets posted to their Facebook page thus alerting all of their friends and potentially encouraging them to attend as well or at least find out more about you.

Facebook has proven that it is here to stay. It's time to start using it to your advantage and incorporating this into your social media marketing campaigns. 

Watch our webinar on Facebook Social Media Marketing

A recent study by Internet Marketing software provider Hubspot, determined that business blogs with more posts generate more leads. Business blogs with 0-11 posts, on average, generate 3 leads. A considerable jump occurs when a business blog has 12-23 posts, up to 10 leads on average. The biggest leap in lead action takes place when a blog reaches the 52 post mark and generates 23 leads.

Each blog post generates a new content page on your site.
FYI - You need to be blogging from your domain name and not from Wordpress or Blogger (or any of the other blogging sites available). This is really important to understand. You can integrate some of these blogging tools directly onto your server, or use an integrated solution like WSI eFusion with a built in blog module. If you are blogging from your domain name, you are building the overall size and depth of your site. The goal is to become a “resource” site for your domain name (Google designates sites as “Resource Sites” when they reach the 100 page mark).

Each new post is an opportunity to drive traffic and build site depth.
Blog posts can drive new organic traffic direct from the search engines, and fast. Blog posts can get indexed by search engines very quickly, often times quicker then your other content. Even if your post doesn’t generate a lot of search traffic you are still providing your users with relevant information which will position your company in a different light vs. your competitors who offer very little information about their industry. Blogging effectively really can be a great differentiator.

Search engines love content.
and each post will build upon each other. Before you know it, you could potentially have 30, 50, 100 blog posts filled with lots of good information for you and tons of spider able content with keywords for the search engines. Not to mention when using an RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication), people can subscribe to your blog and get notified automatically when you update your blog, and easy share your content throughout the internet. Content syndication can help build back-links to your site and improve overall PR (PageRank).

Search engines have finally surpassed the Yellow Pages (print versions). Think about....when was the last time you opened your Yellow Pages? The shift in how we find products and services we want is being dominated by search.

The graph below from webpro news, shows that search engines have finally surpassed the Yellow Pages.


Why have search engines overtaken the Yellow Pages and why are they more effective:

• Yellow Page ads often appear next to your competition. (Search engine ads do as well most times, but you can differentiate your business with proper targeting (keywords, location, niche markets), good landing pages, social media, and more).
• An optimized, well planned website, you can differentiate yourself from your competitors. It's hard to tell which company is a better fit for you when looking at Yellow Page ads.
• It's difficult to determine what business came from your Yellow Page ads vs. your other marketing mediums. Yellow Page ads are costly and provide low measurability.
• Using web analytics you are able to track the how, what, where, and when of your online marketing campaigns.
• Establishing a content marketing plan, your website will become a resource and asset to your business.
• Search engines deliver quicker results and allow you to quickly gather more information about the products and services you are interested in. The Yellow Page process is just that....a process that takes far too much time to gather the information you need to make an informed choice.
• Search engines allow us to compete on a level playing with bigger brands. This is not possible with Yellow Pages without having a large marketing budget. Using long tail, niche keywords in your search marketing efforts, you can drive affordable traffic and new leads for your business.

Site visits are not the true measure of your overall internet marketing strategy if you are using your site to generate new business leads. Many businesses get caught up in only tracking how many visitors they drive to their web site. Truth is, anyone can track site visits, and this is far from what you need to be paying attention to. While seeing your site visits climb each and every month is exciting, the true measure of your internet marketing success comes from contact form submissions/email marketing sign-ups/online sales/whitepaper downloads/etc, and phone calls generated.

Every business should be using some type of web analytics software to track the overall activity on their site. We use Google Analytics (free) for most of our client’s sites, but there are many other paid analytics software programs out there that are very good. Using your analytics software, you should be tracking all leads/sales generated directly on the site "Goals" or "Conversions," and setup ways to track all of the phone calls that have been generated from your website and pay per click ads.

An easy way to track your web form submissions in Google Analytics is to setup Goals. Not only will this give you a more accurate picture on what keywords are leading to conversions, but there is also evidence now that Google's search algorithms are taking into account how well your site converts to determine overall organic ranking. This makes sense considering Google's business is setup to deliver the highest quality, most relevant sites to their users, and a great way for Google to determine relevancy and quality of a site is to look at how many people interact or convert (fill out a form, sign up for email list, purchase an item, download a whitepaper) on the site.

Tracking Phone Calls is essential with internet marketing. How many people use their existing phone number and stick it on their web site? Just about every business we encounter has done this. Take the time and setup a tracking number just for your web site, one that will allow you to record phone calls, track number of calls, and even provide a list of who called, where they called from. Use only this number for your web site, setup additional numbers for your Pay Per Click campaigns and other off-line marketing mediums. WSI VoiceMarketer is a tool that we use to track the effectiveness of not only our own site, but many of our clients. And with Click-to-Call options available from both computers (need Skype or similar service installed) and Smart Phones, combined with Google Integration (a WSI Voice Marketer service), you can track what organic keywords let to a specific phone call.

Every internet marketing strategy can be tracked and measured, more so then you ever thought possible. Take the time to setup analytics goals and tracking phone numbers with your internet marketing strategies, and you will see the true picture of how well your marketing dollars are performing

LinkedIn has grown to include more than 55 million users in 200 countries worldwide. LinkedIn has grown on the principle that every person is connected to one another by no more than six degrees of separation. It’s amazing how many people we are connected to through other people we know. LinkedIn allows you to easily get introduced and make new contacts for your business (new prospects, vendors, suppliers, employers, employees, friends, networking, etc).

Surprisingly, when utilizing LinkedIn, it's not always your “strong” contacts that prove to be most valuable when looking for new job opportunities or business opportunities. They typically belong to your same circle, both professionally and socially, and don’t typically recommend a person or business outside of this network. Instead your “weak” contacts are the ones that can open up new doors and introduce you to new opportunities.

Using LinkedIn, you can quickly and easily increase your sphere of influence using your “weak” contacts. When used properly, you can use LinkedIn to generate leads, increase your credibility, increase your visibility, communicate more effectively, and manage your brand.

Make sure when getting started on LinkedIn you have a social media strategy, even if it’s a basic one.
Ask yourself – What are the needs of my business? What do I want to accomplish by using the site? Who am I trying to reach?

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you target the right LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn users. LinkedIn Groups are a great way to make new contacts. Start by finding relevant, local, LinkedIn Groups that you can connect to. Join, monitor, engage (social media is a 2 way street, you need to respond and interact with other peoples post, don’t just push your posts to the discussion boards). Using a “Push” strategy on LinkedIn will probably fall on deaf ears. Make sure you make time to interact with what other people in your network are talking about.

Other Tips:
- Fill Out Your Profile Completely – a poorly thought out or 50% completed profile lacks professionalism and will turn others off from connection with you.
- Use the 1st Person – it has been found that using (I/We/us) is more effective at reaching people then the 3rd person (he/she/it).
- Use Keywords – similar to optimizing a website, optimize your posts with your targeted keywords.
- Get Personal, but Keep it Professional – let people know what you are interested (hobbies, activities, music, books, etc), but keep it professional. Showing you are human and not just a lead generation machine will help people connect with you.
- Join Groups - joining Groups on LinkedIn can be one of the most powerful ways to grow your sphere of influence. Most Groups allow you to post discussions - use this as an opportunity to introduce yourself, network, promote webinars, etc. Don't over self promote, make sure your reciprocate when you can by responding to other's posts. Also, by joining relevant groups, you can contact people in your groups for FREE on LinkedIn, even if they are not a connection.

Content marketing continues to be a great way to improve search engine visibility in 2010, and improve the "stickiness" of your site. Content marketing is when you publish, promote, and syndicate content this is valuable, interesting, and relevant to your brand and overall marketing strategies.

Focus on creating "keyword" rich content that aligns well with the keywords you are targeting for your site and be sure to provide content that reads well and is written for the user, not for the search engines. Many clients tend to get one or the other of these key points, but often fail to utilize both strategies (keyword rich content & written for the user). A recent client of ours provided a well written article, but failed to use any of the keywords that we were trying to target for the search engine optimization campaign. I suppose you can't always use your keywords for every article, but it certainly makes sense to try.

Create optimized content that is specific to what your target audience is searching for:
• Identify the information needs of your target audience
• Analyze your ideal persona's needs
• Include a clear "call to action" in each article and content piece. Your readers will often do what you tell them to do. Call Now! Get More Information. Download Our Free Whitepaper. Buy Now.
• Provide information that fulfills the need of each of your personas - Can't always be done with 1 content article, provide multiple articles over time that speaks to all of your target audience.

Once your content is written, you need to distribute it. First, make sure your content article is on your website as a web page. You can offer a PDF version, but an actual page will allow you to setup internal links to other pages (improves SEO and usability) and add analytics to track the popularity and success of your articles. Use an initial push strategy to begin marketing your content (social media, article marketing sites, blogs, and market it on your own site). This will help get people interested in your content and hopefully they will begin to share it with others. Wherever possible, always include a link back to your article on your site or a targeted page on your site.

Social media sites have changed the way consumers interact with businesses. In the past, marketers could maintain a positive spin on issues that would arise with their products or services, by using a combination of media advertising and news coverage. Only extreme, newsworthy stories got any visibility beyond a small number of people, and big companies had entire departments devoted to dealing with issues that would arise that could affect their brand. With the growth of social media sites, so has the opportunity for consumers to easily comment (positively & negatively) about a companies products and service. These comments and posts are available to view by millions online in seconds.

Are you monitoring the chatter about your company? How are you dealing with negative reviews?

FREE Social Media Apps
Try Google Alerts or Yahoo Alerts. Two free tools that will allow you to monitor keywords relating to your business, brand, products, and people. 
Technorati - the leading blog search engine, will help you keep your finger on the pule of what's being talked about online. Lexicon
Monitter - find out what people are talking about on Twitter. Monitter provides real time monitoring of the Twittersphere.
Tweetburner or Budurl - lets you shorten and track your URL posts so you can determine where your social capital is getting the best results.

The introduction of social networking and social media has leveled the playing field (to some extent) for all businesses. I mention "to some extent" because implementing a solid social media strategy takes a lot of time and skill, those who invest the most social capital tend to get the best results. Most small business owners simply don't have the time or resources to create enough social capital to make an impact vs. the mid sized to large companies who hire full time marketers or outsource to agencies to manage their social media campaigns.

Savy companies, who are open to communicate directly with consumers, can leverage social media in their favor. Responding quickly to negative posts or complaints, in a positive way, can strengthen your relationship with your existing clients and generate new business. Consumers who post negative comments should be met with offers to resolve their issues in a polite soft tone. Avoid re-acting negatively or giving away the farm each time someone files a complaint. Need to strike a balance that works for your company that will help you resolve issues without costing you a fortune in both the bank account and brand degradation.

Pay Per Click Marketing Tips:

Here are some quick Pay Per Click Marketing tips for you to consider when managing your own campaigns.

•  Set Goals - Determine the goal of your campaign (sales, leads, brand awareness)

•  Know your audience – allows you to narrow in on keywords, ad text, landing pages to avoid potential “roadblocks” in the conversion process.

•  Less is more! – don’t try to do too much with 1 campaign. Creating multiple, highly targeted campaigns with focused ad groups and keywords that align well with ad copy and landing pages, will improve your quality score, relevancy, conversion, and squeeze more out of your PPC budgets.

•  Geo Targeting – if your business is local, have your pay per click ads only display in a 10, 15, 25 mile radius of your office or primary market. If you are on a limited budget, the smaller the radius the better.

•  Content Networks – avoid content networks until you have a good feel for your campaigns. Test content networks in small increments to see what works and what doesn’t.

•  Keywords – find niche, long tail keywords that convert and you will get more from your budget. Spending time on keyword research is vital to your success. Review your keywords on a regular basis and search for more. What might work today, might not work tomorrow. Optimize, Optimize, Optimize!

•  Landing Pages – make sure the page you are sending your traffic aligns well with the keywords and ad copy. Investing in a good landing page with a well crafted PPC campaign can produce excellent results.

•  Analytics – study your analytics data and conversion goals. You need to know what is working and what is not producing results.

•  #1 Position Isn’t Always Better– businesses are obsessed with obtaining the #1 paid ad position in the search engines. Why? They believe that being #1 will produce the best results, but this is not necessarily true. It depends on the keywords, bidding strategy, landing page, and conversion results from various placements. A #3-5 position can generate better results with a well thought out campaign with a good landing page vs. a #1 position with poor keyword to ad alignment and a below average landing page. And it will cost you a lot less! That doesn’t mean we don’t see the value in a #1 position, if we can get there by achieving a good Quality Score, and good results for a reasonable investment.

Obviously, there is a lot more to PPC than what I can provide in a blog post, and to do it well is going to take a lot of time. If you are going to manage your own campaigns, you need to stay educated and up to speed with the industry changes. There are lots of great resources online and Google even offers some good educational tools to help learn more about PPC and how to manage a campaign.