Pew Research Center’s recent study of buying habits over the holiday has put tablet and e-readers in the forefront of online marketing initiatives in 2012. According to their study the amount of people who own one of these devices has risen from 10% to 19% in one month. That amount of growth means you need to be prepared that your future customer may be using one of these devices when surfing your website.
What should you do?
Consider the tablet user experience. We know you have a lot of users to consider when building and maintaining a website – rendering on different browsers (Firefox vs. IE), different types of operating systems (Mac vs. Windows), mobile users, etc. It can be overwhelming trying to accommodate everyone, but don’t let that make you leave out tablet optimization. Users will be looking at your website on these devices and you need to make sure the experience is seamless.
Also, if you do online sales/e-commerce on your website, be sure that purchasing on these devices is simple and easy.
Don’t lose sales!
An e-reader is for reading. Obviously you knew that, but have you thought about how your valuable
content is being displayed on these? Be sure to optimize your whitepapers, case studies, newsletters, etc. to be read on these devices. Don’t forget that content can be viewed via various tablet apps as well.
Utilize video marketing. Just like with mobile devices, a user is not going to want to resize and move around content to be able to read it. Meaning information is going to have to be in an easier digestible form – video. You might want to start looking at adding online videos to your 2012 Marketing Strategy.
How users connect and use the Internet is always evolving. Make sure you are evolving with the times by including mobile and tablet users in your future online activities.
Download our
Mobile Marketing Strategy Kit to find out more.
Video marketing is a great way to connect with your customers (or audience) and is playing a huge part in where the Internet Marketing industry is headed. Users are more inclined to watch videos now - they are easier, more dynamic, more entertaining, and more personable. Also, it doesn’t take much to get started with Video Marketing - you don’t need fancy equipment, a big production budget, or a super star in front of the camera.
Here are a few tips to create successful videos that promote your company:
What is your video going to be about? Think about that before starting to record. Target some keywords and not only use that in the title and description (more about this later) of your video, but be sure to actually discuss that topic (and keywords) in the video! Also, create an outline of your key points to help you cover all the items you want to discuss. Mentioning some of your keywords in your video is going to be more and more important as video search engines become more sophisticated and will continue to scan the content in your videos.
An outline can also help you hook users in with content. I suggest “front loading” your marketing video by telling the viewer what they are going to get from this video in the first 10-45 seconds. You want them to watch the whole video and feel like they are being rewarded (or getting something) for watching the entire video.
Share your video and I don’t just mean on YouTube. Oh and by the way, you absolutely need to be on YouTube! Be sure to link to your video on all your social platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. YouTube even makes this easy by allowing you to link to these and other social sites (orkut, tumblr, Blogger, Myspace, hi5, Bebo, and StumbleUpon) by clicking a link located under the video’s share tab. You should also consider creating a podcast feed for your videos.
Another great social trick to get more video views is to post your marketing video in the comment section of appropriate (for your industry) and popular Myspace pages. Example: sharing a cake baking how-to video on Martha Stewart’s Myspace page.
Optimize your marketing video for search. When writing your video’s title, description and tags be sure to include your target keywords. Be sure to also include a link to your website within the description – hint: format your link like this - http://yourwebsite.com/, to make it clickable on YouTube.
Include a call-to-action at the end of your marketing video. You always want to direct your viewer to an action at the end of your video. YouTube allows you to add comments over the top of your video or you could always add a static page at the end of your video. No matter how you chose to do it, the point is to drive traffic back to your website for a sign-up, download, etc.
The last thing I want to share with you is this - Keep it short. Be yourself. Be energetic. Be comfortable.
Now get out there and start shooting your video!
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