“I have no time,” “I don’t know what to do,” “It costs money,” “I don’t need to market,” etc. etc. But the excuses I’ve heard most often relate to how “expensive” marketing is.

So I decided to publish this article to convert you, if you think like this, into a real marketer. Because the truth is there are a whole bunch of ways to market your business for little or no cost.

Let’s begin your transformation.

1. Start a Website or Blog

Although you might think that you need to hire a professional web design company to develop a website or a blog for your business, this isn’t the case.

Yes, if your business has been around a while or if you want a tailored look or special features, such as high-end design or an eCommerce platform, you will need to hire a company like Target Public Marketing.

But if you are on a tight budget, you can probably do it on your own. There are free platforms out there that you can use to create an attractive, fully-functional site without paying a dime! For example, you can get a totally free, high performing blog from WordPress.

You will have to pay for a domain and Web hosting, but you can find these things for about $5 a month (such as from GoDaddy). For this minimal investment, you can build a reasonably good home base for promoting your business.

2. Get Active on Social Media

If you haven’t used social media (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, etc.) to promote your business yet, you are missing on an opportunity to potentially have your company or its products go viral (“viral” refers to a marketing campaign that takes off through massive sharing among social accounts or email).

Hundreds of millions of people use social media sites on a daily basis, and the chances are that you use them too for personal reasons.

Although you might have seen advertisements for pricey social media marketing campaigns and social media tools, you don’t need any of these things to get started to promote your business. You can sign up for business pages on LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest for free.

By creating complete business profiles and pages, working to gain followers by regularly posting interesting and informative content is a great way to make your business more well-known and to keep your audience base satisfied.

It may not necessarily lead to more sales or leads directly. But it is great for public relations and brand awareness. See my previous article, “Why You Don’t Get Leads from Social Media (And What To Do About It)…”

3. Get Added to Internet Directories

There are a ton of highly reputable website and business directories out there, and you need to make sure that your business is listed on them. For example, Yahoo and Google offer these listings, as do Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc.

The listings are mostly free and you might be surprised by their value.

Many of these sites have top search engine rankings. So people looking for your business will find these links quickly because they end up on the first page of search results.

You can also gain traffic and potential customers from those who are viewing these sites looking for businesses that are similar to yours.

4. Get Active with Online Communities

No matter what your business or industry niche might be, chances are good that there are plenty of related online communities out there that you can check out.

From forums to social media groups and more, these communities can provide you with many great opportunities to promote your business.

When interacting with others on these sites and communities, it is important that you contribute useful and helpful information and not promote your business overtly. But in the process of doing so, you can post a link to your website and say with which business you are associated.

This can help you gather up a nice network of connections and establish you as a local expert in your field.

Once people get accustomed to seeing your name and recognize you as an expert, they may want to give your company a try or send business your way.

5. Email and Forum Signatures

Whether you’re posting on forums or sending an email to your grandma, you should always keep your website’s URL and your company’s contact information in your email signature. It’s free and easy to do, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a powerful tool. It can spread awareness about your business and help people connect your name and face with the name of your company.

With most free email programs and on most forums, you can set your signature once, and it will appear at the bottom of all of your correspondence without you having to take any additional steps. Quick, easy promotion.

6. Press Releases

There are websites out there that allow you to submit press releases at no cost. So you should consider utilizing these resources when you have some news to share about your business. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering news, but it should be news.

By submitting a press release, you expand your reach and let more people know about what your company has to offer and even possibly reach an interested journalist who will then contact you for a story.

7. Ask for Reviews

Review sites like Google+ and Yelp make it easy for people to rate their experiences with your business. By asking your valued customers to leave feedback on these sites, you can help spread awareness about your business and get valuable feedback from your client base at the same time.

Plus, you might be surprised by the number of people who use these sites. Positive reviews can help encourage users to give your business a try rather than checking out what your competitors have to offer.

8. Guest Blogging

If you have friends in a similar industry as your own, such as those who you might have met through online communities, you can always ask to submit a blog post for their websites.

When writing the post for them, make sure that you don’t make it sound too sales-like or for the purposes of just promoting your own business. Instead, focus on providing some information or tips of substance and value. But ensure you do have a blurb at the end about yourself and your business with a link back to your site.

The whole endeavor needs to be high quality. Remember that guest blogging is only valuable on reputable websites. So don’t take just any guest blogging opportunity that you can find. Instead, find opportunities on websites that you know are well-respected and are frequented by individuals who are interested in your niche.

9. Create an Email List

An email list is essential. With a signup form on your website, you gather the names and email addresses of people who are interested in your product or service. You can also add the names and email addresses from business cards of prospects that you have gathered. Or any other list of people interested in your business.

Mailings to these lists are tremendously effective. The list members are prequalified because they have already expressed interest in your business by signing up or getting in contact with you. Your mailings let them know what your business has to offer, and you can keep everyone up-to-date on any special deals, offers or sales that you might have.

It is easy to get started with an email service like MailChimp. Most have free versions. As your list builds and your needs become more sophisticated, you can upgrade your account.

10. Share Pictures and Videos

Sites like Instagram and YouTube are very popular, and you can become a member of these sites easily and without spending a dime.

Once you have set up an account and a profile, you upload your videos and photos and take it from there. You start to interact with other users to spread awareness and drum up business.

For example, your videos can tell people about your business. Or you can focus on education-style videos that will teach people more about your industry or type of product.

See my article on how to start taking your own videos immediately at little to no cost.

11. Blog Comments

Checking out blogs that are related to your industry segment can be a lot of fun. Not only is it entertaining, but it can help you network and spread the word about your own business.

Sharing helpful, insightful comments are a great way to become a part of the conversation on a blog. It shows to others you are an expert in your industry.

Don’t just leave a quick comment and a link to your site. That’s bad form and just spam. Make sure that you provide some sort of value to the community and the conversation. People will be more likely to be interested in who you are and what you have to say and just might check out your website.

12. Offer Deals or Giveaways

People love free stuff. So offering a good deal or a giveaway on your website or social media business page is a great way to get more interest and business. You don’t have to offer anything big. Often, a small item will do the trick.

These can be something like a coupon code for free shipping or a percentage off an order. But the business this generates can be great and people often share the good news with their friends.

Don’t put yourself in the hole with the offer. But offer something.

13. Network and Collaborate

It’s always a good idea to have friends and connections in your business niche.

Such connections provide a wonderful way to promote your business online for little or no cost. For example, you can ask to exchange links with your online friends. This is a good way for you to bring in traffic and business, particularly if your online buddies have popular and well-respected websites.

However, the links on such an exchange need to be “no-follow” links for Google’s sake. This is a technical subject beyond the scope of this article, but one of my staff wrote something about this that you should read.

14. Utilize Classified Listings

Although Craigslist is the most well-known, there are plenty of online classified listings out there that you can use to advertise your business. Most of these directories are free. What more needs to be said.

15. Affiliate or Referral Program

Start an affiliate or referral program so you can reward your loyal customers for sharing the news about your business with their friends and associates.

There are free online programs out there that you can use to keep track of these programs.

You only have to offer a small percentage of your sales or a set cash amount to those who refer customers to your business. But those loyal customers are sure to appreciate an opportunity to make a little bit of cash for sharing the good word about a product, service or business that they like and use.

16. Check out the Way Your Staff Interacts With Prospects

Review how your prospects and customers are dealt with by staff or messaging software for improvements you can make:

• How are people greeted by you and your staff when they call in?
• When someone sends an email how fast do they get a response?
• Is it the kind of email you would like to receive?
• When you call to reach someone and leave a voicemail, will the message entice the recipient to call you back as soon as possible?

These improvements to your sales line are not only inexpensive for you to implement, they are a necessity because you are hemorrhaging sales if they are wrong.

17. Publish an Information Pack

You should put together an information pack on your business or products that someone can download from your website. It can be as simple as a PDF document..

The key is to leave some information off your site and offer it only through the info pack. That way the prospect will have to reach out to you, by online form, email or phone, to get a copy.

For example, you can have testimonials on your website or blog, but leave off any case studies and put them in the info pack. Or you can have tips on the use of your product or how-to information or recipes, etc. and use them for the pack. Just ensure the information is valuable and worth the download.

Do it!

While you may be a bit uncertain about doing some of these strategies yourself, learning how to promote your business with little or no cost is a great way to increase traffic, improve your bottom line and help you achieve your goals.

Luckily, the Internet can help you with all of these things and more. If it’s too overwhelming, we are always available to help!

Content marketing: what it is, how to do it, including a case study example and program!

What is Content Marketing?   

Per the Content Marketing Institute “content marketing” is:

“The marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience [your prospects] – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

In other words, it is a knowing method of getting your message into the hands of your potential customers.  Rather than using ads, billboards or mailers to push your message across, content marketing provides valuable information to build trust and confidence.

Gradually, your valuable content builds familiarity and a sense of community among potential customers so they come looking for you as soon as they need your product or service.

Content marketing feels new because it’s only been named and developed as its own subject since the new millennium.  But in fact, every newsletter, booklet or article that helped a potential customer understand how to utilize a company’s products has been based on this strategy. For example, John Deere, the farm equipment company, began publishing a magazine called The Furrow in 1895.  Obviously, content marketing has been around quite a while.

What Content Marketing Means to You

Content marketing applies to nearly every business or industry. You just have to understand the basic principles and get clever with your particular customers.

That said, it can helpful to look at examples of it in use so that you can see how it would apply to your specific niche.  Let’s get practical with it.  I’ll choose an uncommon industry to show you how it could apply everywhere.

Let’s look at how a small tutoring center could use content marketing to attract new customers.  This is a business everyone can relate to, yet very few people would actually understand how to market.

Sample Content Marketing Strategy for a Tutoring Center

The staff and management of the center start by clearly envisioning their ideal client and that client’s needs.

Let’s assume their prime client is the mother of an 8 to 18-year-old child. The staff then asks 30 of these women about their biggest challenges in relation to their children’s educations.

It turns out that getting their kids through homework each day is a battle.  The kids often fib about assignments and seldom put their best efforts into the work.  They listen to the problems and troubles mothers have with their children and start creating an outline of interesting videos, articles and other content which helps the moms solve these problems.

By providing potential clients with plenty of valuable content, the tutoring center proves their expertise and becomes a thought leader in the minds of their prospects. However, they never actually give away their primary service for free (which is one-on-one tutoring).

Lastly, before embarking on their content marketing campaign, they work out an outline of the content they’re going to create and place all these different ideas on a calendar stretching over the next few months.  Now they don’t have to think about what they are going to create for any particular week – they just execute.

Sample Content Outline for a Tutoring Center

Here are the content elements that should be used for this campaign.

a. Videos

These do NOT have to be fancy, but can be very simply shot with iPhones or inexpensive video cameras. A corner of a classroom or small study setup would make a good background. They would publish these videos on YouTube and on their blog, then share them via social media and email.

Example topics would be:

• How to set a homework schedule that still leaves time for fun
• Running efficient homework time, from start to finish
• Surviving science projects
• How to have productive conversations with your children about problems in school
• 10 ways to inspire your child to get creative with homework assignments
• The ideal study space for getting homework done

b. Photos

With schools there are often excellent photo opportunities and with smartphones these days, everyone has a camera (to get some bright ideas see our article 10 Ways To Use A “Selfie” To Boom Your Business).

Some quick content is a photo and caption of an interesting event such as a celebration, students doing practical assignments, etc.

c. Downloadable booklet

“A Mother’s Guide to Helping Her Children Succeed in School” as a title could be used as a short guide that gives the top tips and advice the tutoring center would want any parent to know.

d. Articles

The center would regularly publish articles on their blog. By sharing these via social media and sending them out to their email list, they regularly have people visiting their website to read their newest posts.

Example topics for articles would be:

• Helping your child deal with bullying in school
• What to do when your child complains about her teacher
• How to deal with your child’s school administration
• When is it truly necessary to change your child’s teacher or school?
• Interacting with your school about study assignments
• Helping your child develop simple educational goals

e. Podcasts

Podcasts are basically short audio recordings – like radio shows over the internet.  The center could create podcasts and share them over social media. Ideas include:

• Interviews with teachers on the best support they get from parents
• Interviews with school administrators on what they wish parents knew
• Interviews with parents who developed workable systems of getting their kids through their homework.

f. Finally, an all-day event

The tutoring center could hold an open house or another similar event. Tutors and teachers could speak and it could include booths featuring different study products and services to help parents with their children’s educations. All services and products complement the tutoring service, none compete. The event is filmed (again can just be informal smartphone video), photographed (ditto) and summarized with who attended, their reactions and feedback, etc.

What the Tutoring Center does with these Things

All of these articles, videos, photos and so forth, will need to be distributed.

For example, the tutoring center should:

• Post them on their blog, which will be part of their website
• Share them multiple times on Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter
• If appropriate for a business/professional audience, LinkedIn may also be an option
• Share different appeals, descriptions or features highlighted each time, and other data of interest to parents
• Upload videos to YouTube, where they can be embedded and distributed by students in social media, etc.
• Distribute through other blogs/websites, in your industry, by simply approaching them and asking if they would be interested.

Become the Authority Using These Tools

As you can see content marketing is immensely valuable.

Regardless of which type or types of content you create, if you provide real value to people, they will recognize you as a leader in your industry.  You’ll be referred to their friends as “I saw this interesting article about [topic] the other day…” and so on.

More importantly, when they are looking for a service you provide, they will then think of your company.

So start creating your content today.

We can help you if you need it.  For our clients we produce content on a regular basis, and we automate some of these tasks.  For example, we install software on website that automatically distributes content on social media that we’ve either set up for the client or they have themselves.

So, as always, feel free to contact us.

To your success!

Ancient Sparta had two kings. If one fell in battle or became incapacitated, the country would never be without a ruler. This made Sparta tremendously stable and absolutely confident in times of war.

Ingenious.

This one idea was so simple and solved so much, but was never repeated by any other Greek city-state (or any nation since, that I know of).

This was “thinking outside the box.”

Many people’s thinking is trapped within the confines of what’s easy, what’s comfortable, what’s typical. This is called thinking inside the box. Or, being “normal.”

However, in business, the truly disruptive force–the one who changes everything isn’t normal. They’re someone who thinks outside the box. They’re someone who applies principles from one part of life to a completely different area that no one ever thought of before.

Thinking beyond the norm

As another example, if you are running a marketing campaign that is producing a certain amount of success you may consider running a public relations campaign as well to boost overall results.  In my marketing agency, we have some clients who were very happy to get a good chunk of their business from customer reviews on Yelp.

Since they weren’t paying for it, their thinking went, why should they spend anything on marketing? Typical small business thinking.  Well, the answer became abundantly clear the following year when they got some bad reviews and their new business leads dropped considerably. Suddenly, they came to us screaming for help for an urgent solution.

A more modern example of thinking outside the box is the automotive company Tesla, founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk. Tesla is a luxury automotive brand featuring totally electric cars.  According to a USA Today article from last August, “The swoopy electric sedan outsold all models from other luxury brands – Porsche, Volvo, Lincoln, Land Rover and Jaguar…With 4,714 new Teslas registered over the six months, it even topped some established conventional luxury models like Lexus GS at 2,298, and Audi A6 at 1,619.”

All its competitors were traditional gas-burning cars and established brands. Tesla was a brand-new-no-one-heard-about-before brand featuring “risky” technology: all-electric cars.  Land Rover, for example, was founded in 1948.  Jaguar was 1922. Lincoln was founded in 1917.

When was Tesla founded? 2003. Yet it is now dominating the market with a totally revolutionary product. This is thinking outside the box.

Be Different

Are you selling furniture?  Offer potential buyers free furniture polish if they buy from you.

Does everyone in your industry get their business from trade shows?  Start doing webinars.  Bring the show to them.

Are your competitors lagging in technology?  Create a valuable smartphone app and offer it at no cost.

Analyze your competition.  Businesses in the same industry tend to do the same type of advertising.  Do something different.  Look at other industries–what are they doing that works?

I’ve noticed, for example, that all restaurants tend to distribute copies of their menu to houses and businesses in their surroundings.  I would do this, if I were running a restaurant.  But I would also distribute fliers with the special of the week.  A single offer on one flier.  Very few restaurants do this.

Is everyone in your industry promoting increased profits?  Promote decreased costs.  It’s essentially the same thing but from an opposite angle.

Survey your clients, past and current.  Why did they buy from you?   Do you have testimonials?  Look for common elements and promote those benefits.  This is a type of survey.  In my experience less than 5% of businesses ever do surveys.

Tell your personal story and use it to build your brand.  Be memorable, very few of your competitors will be!

Simple Will Suffice

This stuff doesn’t have to be complicated.  Something simple will suffice.

Once I was headed to Los Angeles for a conference and found out at the last minute that the state legislature was looking at passing a bill into law that would have been of benefit to my clients.

Opposition was apparently significant and it looked like the bill was going to get killed. I was literally getting on a plane the next morning and had to get ready.  The only option was to do something that would be potentially effective and yet take little time.  So I pulled up a personal story of a victim I knew about and, in one draft, put together an email to the legislature off the top of my head explaining why the bill was a great idea and why it had to become law.

Despite millions having been spent to kill it, the billed passed into law and today that state is the only one in the world that I know of which has such a law on the books.

Have a Plan

It is important to have a plan. Spend time working on one. It’s imperative. Most of your competitors won’t even have a plan!

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu stated that “…the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all!” It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.”

One technique I use often is to draw things out.  If I’m in a situation, I draw it out.  This way I visualize all the elements involved and can “see the box.”  I have a marker board in my office just for that purpose.

I remember a time when I got a call from an advertising agency that needed help closing a deal.  They were pitching an advertising contract for a large shopping mall and, because it was significant, major agencies had arrived on the scene and were working on some major pitches themselves.

Using large sheets of paper I drew out all the players: the client, the competing agencies and what their strengths and weaknesses were.  I also drew out a flowchart of the typical ad agency pitch process.  It soon became apparent that there were weaknesses we could exploit.  One of these in particular was something no one else was doing, or likely to do.  It just jumped off the page!

I was so confident that I discounted my services by half with the remainder due only if the agency won the contract.  They won and I was handsomely paid.

Remember, if you want the same result as everyone else, think the same way they do. If you want to rise above—if you want to do something different—you have to think outside the box.

This doesn’t mean that social media marketing is the best type of marketing, however, for all businesses. The key is to have an integrated marketing campaign.

Email marketing is a powerful promotional tool for your business

Although many people claim that email marketing is old and not that useful, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. If you want to use one of the most powerful promotional methods to drum up leads and sales, email marketing really is the way to go. After all, there is a reason why all top internet marketing gurus utilize email as their preferred choice of all the tools in their marketing arsenal.

Moreover, if you read my article on social media then you know that I did an experiment that proved exactly how much more you can get from email marketing than social media. The truth is that even “social media marketing experts” use email to create sales – much more than Facebook, Twitter, etc.

You can reach people right away too as they receive emails on their phone. This is a faster, better way to promote your business rather than sending text messages!

Email needs to target the correct audience with the right message

However, the effectiveness of any emails you send for promotional purposes depends on the appropriateness they have for your target audiences. In other words, the emails you send have to be of interest to those that will receive them. If this is the case, and if you follow a few basic rules you will be a success.

So I want to provide you here a quick, easy introduction to the subject to get you taking advantage of email marketing right away.

Our own experiment

This brings to mind another experiment we did with exceptional results.

For a nonprofit client, we acquired an email list of several thousand identities we wanted to target. They came from a government source and the quality of the list was unknown. However, our client was under the gun and had to move fast so we set up the list and started sending emails to it, often several per week.

Under most circumstances doing something like this, i.e. sending unsolicited emails, would result in people unsubscribing from your list in droves. Yet in this case we had very few unsubscribe or mark the emails as spam. And I mean very few out of a list of over 2,200 names.

Why? Because the emails we sent to them were appropriate for them and contained information of high interest (meaning they were very beneficial).

So let’s get started.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing obviously refers to any type of promotion done via email.

All types of industries use email marketing, and it’s been a popular form of advertising since the early days of the Internet.

The basic premise is to build up a list of subscribers who are interested in your company or your niche and who have opted-in to your list usually via a submission form on your website. Once you have some identities, you can send out newsletters or other promotional notices to your list on a regular basis. Some companies send out daily or weekly newsletters, some send out emails only when something special is going on and many fall somewhere in-between.

Regardless of how you choose to build up your list of subscribers, using email to let people know about what is going on with your company is essential if you want to bring in as much business as possible.

Why Implement Email Marketing for Your Business?

There are so many reasons.

First of all, let’s take a look at the statistics. As of 2013, there were more than 2.5 billion email accounts. More importantly, 91% of consumers who have email accounts check them daily. Data even suggests that workers spend an average of 13 hours out of each workweek reading and sending emails.

There are so many good reasons to get started with an email advertising campaign:

1. Affordability: Although some email list programs can get costly, getting started doesn’t cost much. And when you compare the overall cost of one of these campaigns versus other types of advertising, you will see that it allows you to get the most bang for your buck.

2. Ease and Convenience: This form of marketing can be very easy with a bit of preplanning. Although you might have to work hard to build up subscribers at first, it should handle itself over time. A big plus is that you can write some of your newsletters in advance and set them up on an automated schedule to be sent out. So while you’re busy at other work or asleep, you’ll still be targeting your audience and drumming up leads and prospective sales.

3. It Works: It really works. Did you know that 66% of consumers have actually purchased something online as a result of an email advertising message that they have received? That proves the effectiveness of this form of marketing and why people have been using email advertising since the 1990s.

The Facts About Email vs. Social Media Marketing

You might have heard talk from so-called experts that email advertising is dead and that it has now been completely replaced by social media marketing. Even though social media can certainly be beneficial for your branding and other reasons, it isn’t the end-all and be-all of advertising. That’s for sure.

Social media reaches substantially less people than email. Currently, Twitter has 271 million users, Facebook 1.2 billion, LinkedIn 300 million and Pinterest 70 million. So there are at least half a billion more people that can be reached through email than social media.

And, by 2017, according to a study by The Radicati Group, there will be roughly 5 billion email users around the world.

As customers actually prefer email marketing and that preference has risen by 5% since 2008, it is the handsdown winner.

Here are more facts:

1. It’s Just More Effective: Plain and simple, email marketing is more effective than social media. Surprisingly, it’s 40 times more effective, and the ROI for email advertising is actually an astonishing 4,300%. Those are impressive numbers.

2. People Prefer It: Although some people enjoy reading about and interacting with their favorite companies through their social network channels, many prefer to keep their social networking profiles exclusive to communicating with friends and family. But a whopping 74% of consumers actually prefer to receive commercial related communications in their email boxes. If you give the people what they want, you’ll be more likely to achieve the results you want. In this case, this means putting more focus on email advertising than social media.

3. It’s Less Work: Yes, running an email advertising campaign does take hard work and dedication. You have to work on building up your subscriber list, managing your subscribers, writing your newsletters and handling other aspects of the marketing.

However, a good email marketing platform can make all of this a whole lot easier. Once you set up your list, maintaining and managing it should be a breeze. Plus, you can make things much easier by writing your newsletters up in advance. When you have solid ideas about interesting articles, you can write them all at one time. Then, you can upload them to your email software and set up a schedule for sending them out. Once done, you can pretty much forget about them. Yet your customer base will still receive your communications in a timely manner. Although there are tools out there that you can use for social media marketing, you have to spend time daily communicating with your fan base. With email marketing, things are a lot easier.

4. It Has Stood the Test of Time: Social media marketing is relatively new but people have been using email marketing since the 1990s.

5. You Can Measure Your Results: With social media marketing, it isn’t as easy for you to track your progress. In fact, 53% of marketers don’t keep track of their success when it comes to their social media campaigns while only 17% don’t track their progress and results with their email campaigns. Knowing how well your campaign is working and keeping an eye on the ROI of your efforts is essential if you want to get the most bang for your buck and target your audience in the most effective manner. Email marketing makes this much easier.

Start to Grow Your Business with Email Marketing

As you can see, email is a highly effective way of promoting your business and the products or services that you have to offer. If you have been focusing all of your marketing efforts on social media, you don’t have to shut down your profiles and stop interacting with your audience. But you do need to start putting some of your attention on building a strong email list.

Here is how you get started.

1. Choose your email list software: When choosing, look for a platform that is powerful enough for your needs, that offers plenty of services and that fits within your price range. Many email platforms allow you to start for free and even set up autoresponders so that every time someone emails you or subscribes to your email list or requests information, they will automatically receive a greeting or other email of your choice. This can greatly improve your customer service, especially if you are a sole operator or have few personnel.

2. Start building up a list of subscribers: The first action is to get a form on your website that will allow people to sign up for your email blasts. This will connect with your email list software which will automatically update when a new subscriber joins or someone unsubscribes. The second is to create an offer of some kind that will encourage people to sign up. For example, you can offer a free download of a company report or a downloadable tip sheet about your product to those who sign up. If you use social media, you can use these as a means of promoting your email subscription and your offer.

3. Write the best possible copy for your list:  Take your time and create content that is unique, engaging and interesting, plus that your readers will find to be entertaining, useful or both. Sprinkle in promotions for your products and links to your site without going overboard. It is usually best to write in the first person, as I am here, keeping in mind that the single most important element in getting your emails opened and read is the headline.

4. Manage your list: As you move on, your list will naturally grow to more and more subscribers. Make sure to maintain your list properly and to keep your readers engaged well into the future!

Although there is more you can learn on this subject, much more, you can start with what is covered here and effectively promote your products and/or services.

Give it a try!

More often than not, I have been handed responses like “Wow, I don’t know if I can do that” or “I am not good in front of a camera” or “I don’t know how to do that” or something similar.

With that much reticence, is it worth the effort?

I think once you read this article in its entirety you will enthusiastically agree that it is.  I wrote this article to help business owners and managers get from where they are to where they need to be, producing at least some videos for their companies and products!

 Video Marketing is POWERFUL

Video marketing is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. To illustrate just how powerful, consider the fact that Google paid far more for YouTube than it had ever paid for any other investment at the time, $1.65 billion to be exact!

Since that purchase, YouTube has quickly grown to be the second most used search engine on the internet. You may have noticed too that Google often ranks YouTube videos in the top ten of the Google search engine results.

If you are not already using video marketing to promote your products and/or services, you are truly missing out on one of the most effective marketing tools available today.

Furthermore, this type of marketing is free and relatively easy to implement.

Statistics On Video Marketing

According to comScore, a company that monitors activity on the internet, 188.2 million Americans watched a total of 52.4 billion online videos in December 2013. They also watched a total of 35.2 billion video advertisements the same month. comScore reported that 90 percent of online shoppers say that online videos help them make purchasing decisions.

Wow!

Animoto, an online video creation service, conducted an “Online and Mobile Video Study” involving 1,000 internet users. They found that:

1. 96% of all respondents find video helpful when engaging in online comparison shopping.

2. More importantly, 73% of the respondents said they were more likely to buy a product if there was a video of the product available.

3. 58% of the respondents said having videos posted on a shopping website makes them trust the company more.

4. 93% of this same sample group found it helpful after a purchase to have videos online to show them how to use the product.

More wow!

The following statistics may be even more interesting for online businesses:

1. According to data compiled by the Online Publishers Association, 22% of those who watch a product related video, visit the website address listed with the video.

2. More importantly, 12% of those who watch a product related video actually buy the product!

And if you want to target consumers with the most cash to spend, consider the following stats:

3. According to a study conducted by Forbes, 59% of senior adults prefer to watch an online video about a product rather than read through text describing the product.

4. Approximately half of these seniors actually buy the product they view in the video!

And there is still another, very important reason.

Often when you search for something on Google you will note that one or more videos come up on the first page. Would you not like this to be one or more of your videos? Of course you would!

So, by providing online videos you can help your business increase sales, build trust with your customers and create customer loyalty, i.e. happy repeat customers.

8 Specific Tips For Video Marketing

1. Start NOW with What You Have

Many businesses have delayed getting started with video marketing because they are daunted by the prospect of making a video. In light of this, it is worth pointing out that you do not need to create “professional” quality videos.

In fact, you don’t even necessarily need a video recorder. Most cheap point and shoot digital cameras have a video function as do many cell phones. This is really all you need to produce a quality video.

While I know many professionals who produce high quality video products using good webcams, you don’t need it to start.

The important thing is to start!

If you are struggling to get going, you can bribe your kids or one of your friend’s kids with a pizza and ask them for help!

Making quality videos truly is easy enough that a kid can do it, and many, if not most, kids today do. I know that even my seven-year old niece shoots video all the time.

As for editing, this is simpler than ever. Here’s a download from Microsoft to get their easy to use Movie Maker software. If you own an Apple you can produce excellent videos with the appropriate software  from the company.

2. Face to Face: Let Them See You!

Simple face to face videos in which you are speaking in a conversational tone can be very effective.

Keep it friendly, sincere, and natural. In other words, just be yourself and talk the way you would to a real person.

Remember too, that humans are hard-wired to trust someone who makes direct eye contact. Thus, be sure to look directly into the camera when you speak. This will help you connect with your audience who will then trust you more. If you are demonstrating a product, you don’t have to look into the camera the whole time, but make sure you do so at least part of the time.

3. Show What You Have!

Product demonstrations are very effective.

If you sell home steamers to take the wrinkles out of clothing and drapes, a demonstration of your various products will increase your sales. You can talk about the best way to use them, show how simple they are to use and explain the differences between your different products. You may want to let someone else use the product while you explain what they are doing.

4.  How Do You Use That?

How-to videos are extremely popular.

If you sell camping equipment you could demonstrate how to put up a tent or use a camp stove. To make it more realistic, you could even tape the how-to video while camping in a beautiful outdoor area with your family or friends.

5. Teach What You Know

Another great technique is to simply offer classes or seminars in your store or in a public place if you are an online store. Then have someone video it.

In this way, the video will show the interaction between you and your participants, including the questions they ask for clarification. You can always edit out anything you don’t want included. You can send your attendees the link to the video and invite them to post comments and questions. The more comments you get, the better your ranking will be.

6. Or You Can Have A Chat!

If you have a retail store with loyal customers, you could produce a video having a chat with these customers about your products and/or services. Ask them to keep it “real” and just be themselves. Again, you can always edit out anything you don’t want included.

7.  Humor is Good!

If you want your video to go viral, consider creating something humorous.

Sears Optical hit a homerun with their commercial showing the lady who is calling for her cat to come in and “snuggle with Mamma.” However, she is so blind that she can’t see it is a raccoon that wanders in and gets in bed with her instead! This commercial video, uploaded to YouTube many times, has been shared millions of times between friends and embedded on thousands of other websites. Most commercial videos that are shared to this extent are humorous.

Some creativity can go a long way.

For example, Volvo’s videos and commercial featuring their special truck steering  have gotten tens of millions of views!

8. Don’t Make It Long

Keep in mind that studies have shown you lose about one-fifth of your viewers after two minutes and one-third of your viewers after three minutes.

Getting Your Video Online

The best advice is to stick to YouTube videos.

Although there are other formats and venues, YouTube is the de facto leader and you’ll find plenty of online tutorials and help in forums if you stick to this format. Plus, you can easily embed YouTube videos in your own web pages and others can as well. YouTube videos containing your link(s) can also give you a big boost in your Google rankings. Getting started with YouTube is easy.

Be sure to speak some of your keywords (search terms) in the video, and enable the transcript feature when you upload the video so the keywords will be printed on the YouTube page underneath the video. This will improve your rankings.

You can also add a few extra keywords if you upload your own transcript. To do this, click on the Edit Captions/Subtitles menu and then click on, “Upload Transcript File.” Do not load something that is entirely different than what is said in the actual video or Google may consider it spam. However, you can add a few “clarifications” in which you can include additional keywords or an additional explanation of something “not shown” that would include additional keywords. You could also add alternative spellings in parentheses.

Be sure to add some of your primary keywords to the title of the video and in the description of your video when you upload it to YouTube. This will help your video be found both in Google and in the internal YouTube search engine.

Make sure a website link is included in the video description so it will appear above the fold on most computers.

Include the URL in your video too and give a direct call to action at the end of the video for the viewer to click on your link and do something specific. The URL you provide should go to a page that contains a lead capture system so even if the person does not buy your product, then you can stay in contact with them. They may buy from you later and you can link to other videos in the messages you send to them. You could also offer a free report or a multi-part e-course.

If the video is longer than two minutes, you may want to show the URL with the call to action in the middle of the video as well.

Final Thoughts

Once you upload your first few videos and see the results, you’ll wonder why you waited so long to incorporate video marketing into your marketing strategy. You’ll find lots of ways to repurpose your videos and the transcripts too, such as creating blog posts from them or adding them to the articles you write.

You can also add them to all your social media channels. If you create videos of value, your social network will share them many times over.

Again, whatever advice you need or questions we can answer, my team and I are ready.

So, pardon the expression, but Shoot!

Popular examples of social networking websites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram, to name a few of the top ones.

There is a lot of hype regarding the importance of social media to a business marketing plan, much of it is incomplete, inaccurate or just not true.

In fact, the sad truth is that many businesses gain little to no direct lead-generation value in setting up social media sites (this is not totally true, read my entire article and you will see).

According to a survey of 1,235 small businesses conducted by Mantra, 60 percent of these businesses are not seeing a good return on investment in social media. This includes an investment of time and money.

The purpose of this article is to help you cut through all the false or misleading information and provide you with some facts you can work with. But first the bad and ugly, and then the good!

In his blog article “Social Media’s Massive Failure” from March 2011 author Bob Hoffman documented probably the largest failure in social media history:

Last year, Pepsi substantially abandoned its long-standing commitment to traditional advertising in favor of social media….never before, to my knowledge, has a major consumer brand made a social media program the centerpiece of its advertising and marketing. The results are now in. It has been a disaster.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Pepsi-Cola and Diet Pepsi had each lost about 5% of their market share…this represents a loss of over $350 million…The [project] accomplished everything a social media program is expected to: Over 80 million votes were registered; almost 3.5 million “likes” on the Pepsi Facebook page; almost 60,000 Twitter followers. The only thing it failed to do was sell Pepsi.

It achieved all the false goals and failed to achieve the only legitimate one.

How did this happen? Well, for one this company did not use social media as part of an integrated marketing strategy, as you will read about below, but relied on it to drive all their sales.

To compound their error, they dropped previously successful actions and went with something new and untried. Big mistake. After all, Pepsi began as “Brad’s Drink” in 1893 and grew for a century before social media even existed! So this was a management error of magnitude.

My Own Facebook Experiment

I’ve had my own experience along this line. One day Bill, a video producer in one of our businesses, requested that I authorize him to hire a full time social media expert. He wanted more video views to our YouTube channels and felt that this was the best way to get them. What he wanted to do was send out a weekly newsletter through social media, primarily Facebook, letting our followers know what new videos were released that week. Simple. Or so you would think.

I argued with Bill that this was untried and, although it would be more work, we would probably get better results with some standard marketing. Specifically, I was talking about a website tied to an email marketing campaign.

But he wouldn’t let up. So I decided we would do it his way and if it didn’t work, we would do it mine. He agreed.

Bill’s team did all the right things, including launching a Facebook page. Soon we had more than 15,000 likes (people who subscribed to our page), which is considered excellent for a company our size. Yet every time we sent out our weekly news, of all those Facebook “friends,” we rarely managed to get more than 10 to 15 that showed any interest by watching a video – a dismal 0.001% return on investment.

So we tried it my way. We launched a website with an email lead capture and recently broke 20,000 subscribers to our email list. Video views skyrocketed.

The difference? Every time we send out our weekly news we had an “open rate” (the number of people that would read our news) of 30%. That’s at least 6,000 people or more than 300 times more than with Facebook!

How can this happen? Oh, let us count the ways!

1. Facebook’s “pay to play” rules. It restricts the number of people connected to your page that see what you post. In a December 2013 article in Ad Age, author Cotton Delo said that “Facebook is being more blunt about the fact that marketers are going to have to pay for reach. If they haven’t already, many marketers will soon see the organic reach of their posts on the social network drop off and this time Facebook is acknowledging it.”

2. People who are looking for a particular product or service are more likely to use a search engine to find it. Don’t you?

3. Just because someone likes a photo you posted to Facebook doesn’t mean they’re interested in doing business with you. In fact, overt pitches are typically discouraged on social media.

The Need for Integrated Marketing

If you dig deeper into the situation, you’ll find the reason that so many small businesses fail in their social media attempts is they have no clue how to use social media to their benefit. Further, they totally misunderstand the type of marketing value social media has to offer.

The simple fact is that social media is rarely successful by itself. It must be part of an integrated marketing strategy.

What is an integrated marketing strategy?

It is a plan that includes the basic actions of almost all successful online marketing campaigns.

This means having an effective website (see my website marketing article) that presents your business correctly, attracts interest and gets them signed onto your mailing list. Such an email list has a much higher value that social media lists.

Social media has a positive value when it is used to interest people in your business and product or service.

The Key to Success, Peoples’ Mindset

To successfully use social media in your integrated marketing strategy, you need to understand why people use social media.

People who are active on these channels usually use it as a multi-purpose platform to interact with their family, friends and other associates. For example, most people I know use Facebook to share photos (and cat videos) with family and friends.

As a business, you fall into the “other associates” category and, as such, you need to “mind your manners” on these platforms or else you will not only be ignored but hated. Blasting people with ads is considered boorish on social media platforms.

Social media is first and foremost about people interacting with people. It is about human relationships, enriching each other’s lives, having fun, and being social! It is not about advertising. If you attempt to use social media to advertise, in the same way you would use print ads in a newspaper, your social media efforts will fail to help your business. In fact, you may end up hurting your business.

Think about it: if you were looking for a local plumber would you rather use Twitter or a search engine like Google?

Social Media as a PR Tool

Because of the nature of social media, you can best benefit your business by using it in building positive public relations.

Some businesses don’t understand how valuable this can be so they attempt to send out ads instead and then get frustrated when this doesn’t work.

Keep in mind that people buy from people they know, like and trust. They also recommend businesses when they can interact with people they know, like and trust.

Let’s look at some concrete examples of how to use social media successfully to promote your business.

If you run an online scuba gear website or a retail dive shop, instead of placing ads for products on social media, you may want to set up your business page and …

• Post about what you saw underwater on your latest scuba diving trips.
• Post about changes in road conditions to get to these diving destinations or whether or not the location had showers.
• Write about your vacations to incredibly cool scuba destinations.
• Have your employees and customers do the same. If you offer scuba diving classes, you may want to ask your instructors to post an entertaining report on what the class saw. Invite class members to do the same.
• Throw in some news about coral reefs, sea turtles, marine mammals, or tropical fishes around the world.

If you run a coffee shop, you could post information about musicians and other entertainers who perform there. You can announce when they’ll be performing, what they’ll be performing, and then post and tweet about them as they are performing. Send out a thank you the next day to them for putting on a great show. You might want to throw in some interesting factoids about the history of coffee. Just don’t overdo it or tweet non-stop ads about your coffee or you’ll lose your audience fast.

Here are some other general tips for social media posts.

• Include some humor that your audience would appreciate.
• Include a few tidbits about your family life and the volunteer work you do in your community.
• Don’t be afraid to throw in some “off-topic” stuff like a mini-review of a great restaurant you just discovered or something cute about your dog. This makes you more human and likable.

Very occasionally, you can get away with peppering in a few things about sales or new product lines, but only if they are exceptionally newsworthy. But never let this dominate what you or your staff post in social media outlets. In fact, it should be way less than 10 percent of what you post.

Outside vs. In House Social Media Help

How many times have you been approached, usually unsolicited, by companies or individuals offering to set up and/or maintain your social media accounts? While this started out largely as a cottage industry, it has become big business (thank goodness for the spam filter!).

Companies that specialize in setting up and/or managing social media accounts for businesses often make claims that social media can bring in more leads and more sales than any other form of online advertising. They often boast about how they can add thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, of followers to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. They may try to equate this rapid inundation of followers to instant marketing success, when in fact, this is nonsense.

The media has played right into their hands, unfortunately, providing the hype they need to “prove” their worthiness.

Sad to say, many businesses fall prey to these hyperbolical tactics and end up doing more damage to their business than good. Don’t fall for these pitches.

Outsiders may be able to help you set up your social media accounts, and even help you pick out software that can help you more easily manage these accounts yourself, but they don’t know your business well enough to maintain them. They have no first-hand knowledge of your company.

More importantly, they don’t have a good working knowledge of your target audience, your potential customers and existing customers. In other words, they have no way to delve deep into the mindset of these people and build an effective public relations campaign as part of an integrated marketing strategy. This is why it is often better to handle social media efforts in house, at least once the accounts have been established.

When To Hire An Expert

There are exceptions when it comes to hiring an outside social media expert. The key point being you can afford a really good one because you and/or your staff have limited time to devote to social media.

A good outside social media expert, like a good investigative reporter, will take the time to really get to know your company and your audience. They will want to interview you extensively, and probably interview your key employees as well. They may ask to be copied on intra-office emails/memos.

If you are a retail store or a local service provider, they may even want to talk to some of your customers/clients, visit your place of business, and dig around a bit to see what impression the community you serve has of your business.

Some of the better outside social media experts may not even want to accept an ongoing job until they have completed this research. Just keep in mind that this level of service and attention to detail does not come cheap, nor should it.

But you may want to hire a part-time employee for these tasks. One with a background in journalism might be able to tackle this task better than anyone.

The “Big Four” Social Media Outlets

Let’s spend some time talking specifically about the “big four” social media outlets:

Facebook
According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, most businesses who use social media successfully, currently consider Facebook their most effective social media outlet. Therefore, if you currently have no social media presence, you may want to start here. If you already have a presence on Facebook, you may want to beef up your efforts since it is a proven winner and it’s essentially free, other than the time invested.

Keep in mind that pictures get far more attention than just text so keep your camera handy at all times. You may even want to supply your employees with cheap point and shoot cameras or provide them with cell phones that include a camera. You may also want to invite your customers to submit photos for you to include on your company’s Facebook page.

If your customers (or others) communicate with you on your Facebook page, be sure you are timely about answering back. This small amount of effort can go a long way toward building your public relations.

LinkedIn
After Facebook, LinkedIn is considered the most effective social media marketing tool. It is also gaining pace on Facebook so it could very well overtake Facebook in this department. At minimum, every business should sign up for an account and fill out their company pages. Be sure to include an attractive header image, as users will stay on the pages longer if this is present.

LinkedIn also has a much higher conversion than Facebook in regards to the rate of visitors that sign up as business leads when free reports, e-courses and prize giveaways are offered. Therefore, spending the time to create a lead generator on your company pages is definitely worthwhile.

Regarding LinkedIn’s networking capabilities, it is important to remember that you do not have to accept all the invitations sent to you via LinkedIn. In fact, doing so could spell trouble as you do not want to be connected to a LinkedIn account that gets flagged for spam. Make sure you know the entity sending the invitation, or you at least check them out a bit before accepting.

Twitter
Encapsulating your messages in 140 characters or less may seem a bit stifling at first, but with a little practice you’ll become a Twitter pro.

BrandWatch.com published an extensive Twitter Usage Report in 2013. In their study, they closely monitored 253 of the top brands that use Twitter. Here are a few of their most important findings:

1. Companies that sent out engaging messages that interact with their audience did much better than those that sent out broadcast messages only.
2. Many companies found it best to have more than one Twitter account, with at least two: one for broadcasting messages and another for engaging with customers. Some larger companies set up different Twitter accounts for each department and this worked well.
3. Tweets that include a picture or a video show 3 to 4 times more engagement than tweets that are all text.
4. In most cases, the weekend was the best time to engage customers through Twitter. However, testing other times proved valuable for some companies.
5. Tweets sent between 2:00 – 5:00 pm PST had the highest engagement.
6. The number of followers did not matter much. However, the amount the followers of a business were engaged mattered a lot.

One of the easiest ways to engage your Twitter audience is to ask an offbeat question. In fact, this could also work well on Facebook.

Here are a few examples.

What secret ingredient did the Aztec Indians add to hot chocolate after they learned how to make it from the Mayan Indians (good for coffee shops)?

Do grey whales, humans, or dolphins have more vertebrae (good for dive shops)?

Have you ever seen the green flash and where (good for any company selling outdoor gear)?

You’ll find that people will be frequently checking back to see what other people post and to find out the correct answer, if there is one. The character limit works in your favor here as people can easily scan through all the answers.

Google+
Google+ hasn’t been around as long as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. However, it has rapidly become one of the most important social media networks, especially for businesses, because of the heavy cross-promotion Google does across all its various platforms.

It is known that Google has incorporated Google+ into their search engine algorithm, so it does add some weight to your website ranking to set up Google+ pages.

It’s also free to do so, except for the time it takes, so it is a worthwhile endeavor.

However, although Google reports 359 million active users, this is a small drop in the bucket compared to the other “BIG FOUR” social media outlets described above and it is stagnating a bit. Unless this changes, it would be wise to spend more time on the other “big four.”

 Important New Kids On the Block

While the internet may be one of the most important marketing tools of all time, to be really successful with it, you need to fully understand how rapidly things evolve on the internet. This is especially true when using social media platforms. Don’t be afraid to hop on new trends as they happen. You will be rewarded for doing so as it will give you a jump on your competitors.

Do you remember the search engine, Webcrawler, the original search engine of the World Wide Web?

In the mid-1990’s, less than twenty years ago, it was THE search engine, before Google was even born. There were other dominant search engines before Google too, including Lycos, Infoseek and AltaVista. In fact, AltaVista was so dominant, it is doubtful that anyone at the time could have imagined it would ever disappear so quickly.

The above is not just a trip down memory lane, but an important reminder of how quickly and drastically things can change on the internet.

You should never think of anything as permanent. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter may currently seem irreplaceable in some people’s minds, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, some experts are already talking about their eventual demise.

What’s more important to you, a business owner planning out your integrated marketing strategy, is making sure you jump on social media platforms that are surging in popularity as quickly as possible and just keep doing so as this happens.

A good example of this is Pinterest. The beta version of Pinterest wasn’t launched until March of 2010. However, in four years, it has surged to become one of the more popular social media sites on the internet. Many experts predict it will overtake Facebook and Twitter in the near future.

Pinterest allows users to create themed bulletin boards, or “pin boards,” where they can “pin” images. Pinning graphical resumes and samples of work is one very popular purpose. But more recently, businesses have begun to realize the advantages this social media network offers. Responding to this, Pinterest now offers businesses the chance to set up business pages.

In 2013, Pinterest introduced a new concept called “Rich Pins.” This allows more information to be tagged to an image that is pinned on a board. Product images can now include maps with directions, pricing, availability and the ability to send real time information, such as a price drop to a smartphone app.

Social media can play an important role in marketing

So social media can be an important part of an integrated marketing plan IF the fundamentals of marketing are kept in perspective and you know the mindset of your customers/clients. Social media can then be used for building better public relations and engagement with your clients and prospective clients rather than posting ads.

And social media can help you target your audiences too. For instance, if you are looking to reach female consumers, then interest will be your top choice. If you want to communicate to techies like computer programmers, then Google+ should be your first option.

As usual, if you have questions, I am always available to you. To your success!

This article is one of the CEO Training Guide Series which was written for business owners and managers who need to know more about marketing and need to be educated simply and quickly on the important basics.

Dear CEO,

Thanks for reading this guide, I anticipate you will find it useful. It is one of a series of basic marketing training articles I have written.

When you are done please leave me some feedback as I am most interested in your success and need and want to know if the article helped you. Also, please post any questions you have or more information you need and I will address your request as soon as possible.

George Mentis

CEO, Target Public Marketing

1. What Is Marketing?

First, let me define what marketing actually is, as in my experience, there are a lot of misconceptions out there and false information.

According to Webster’s, “marketing” was first used as a word in 1561 and is defined as:

“the act or process of selling or purchasing in a market” or “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service” and as “an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer.”

A geographic area and….

The word “market” refers to “a place where products are bought and sold” or a geographic area. So if you are based in Dallas and offer local services, then Dallas is your market. You can also have a regional, national or international market.

All the actions one takes to get a product out and sold

“Marketing” describes all the actions and steps that are necessary to get a product or service all the way from inception to getting it to market and sold in volume.

By definition, marketing then includes:

• Research, including product and competition
• Branding and positioning
• Concept and design
• Point of sales assets (like countertop displays)
• Flyers, advertisements, postcards and other similar assets
• Websites and email promotion
• List building
• And a whole lot more.

2. What Is A Website?

According to Webster’s dictionary a website is “a connected group of pages on the World Wide Web regarded as a single entity, usually maintained by one person or organization and devoted to a single topic or several closely related topics.”

In other words, a website is similar to a building, which is a series of interconnected rooms, each devoted to a specific purpose and with specific contents. The difference is that your website is basically an electronic version of your business that exists on the Internet.

It’s what you make it to be

Additionally, your website can be as simple as a one or two page “brochure” or as complete and complex as a full blown store through which you can sell products and services (with a product catalogue, etc.). A website is then the online version of a “brick and mortar” store, office or other location and can refer people to your actual store as well.

Major purpose to generate sales leads and/or sell

But for most companies, the primary purpose and value of a website is to generate sales leads or sell their product or service.

In this article, I cover the basics you need to know to have an EFFECTIVE website.

3. An Introduction to Website Design

When it comes to business websites, simple is almost always better. You want a smart professional design with an attractive color scheme and plenty of “white space” to make your site visually appealing.

Must be easy to find and read information

Make sure that you use dark lettering on a light background so your copy can be easily scanned and read. Despite billions of websites on the internet and countless different designs and color variations, there is nothing better for clarity and legibility than using black text on a white background.

You also want to focus on the organization of your information. A visitor to your website should be able to find what they are looking for within seconds of landing on your homepage.

Make visitors happy, not disgruntled

Don’t add elements just for show.

National Public Radio (NPR) recently interviewed people on what they found most irritating about restaurant websites. One complaint was that so many of them make you watch a long flash animation on their homepage before you can get inside the website to find basic information like hours and a menu.

While you may be tempted to add bells and whistles to your site, this only detracts from your real purpose of getting information to prospective customers. And these showy elements may actually end up alienating a sizable portion of your website visitors instead.

You can’t successfully market to people who don’t want to spend time on your website.

The basic requirements

What your website should have:

• A common sense, easy to follow menu and structure
• Important company information, including a page about the business, important product data, etc.
• Clearly visible contact information on every page
• Excellent hosting and security (nothing is as embarrassing as your site getting hacked and taken over by someone else!)
• It should be responsive, meaning it can easily be viewed on anything from a desktop computer to a smartphone
• And it should be connected with your social media.

4. Who to Hire As Your Website Designer

When it comes to website designers, they basically fall into two camps:

• They’re good at making things look good
• They’re good at internet marketing and programming

Finding someone who is a true expert in both can really be a challenge. This is because each goal requires a completely different skill set. Moreover, one goal sometimes competes with the other.

Design vs. searchability

We have built many different kinds of websites and have clients who are very particular about the design, look and feel of their site because they are in design-related fields. Even though we have an entire team of experts developing a site, it can still be quite a challenge finding a good balance between the requirements of marketing, the purpose of which is to drive new sales leads, and the client’s desire for a particular design.

One factor is that most website designers use pre-made templates (like those available for WordPress) to get started and they modify the design from there. While some of these templates, called themes, are great, many that look nice on the outside have underlying programming code issues that make them ill-suited for online marketing purposes.

For example, the underlying code may make it difficult for search engines to crawl (read) the site. Consequently, they may not record all your text and pages appropriately, which can cause you problems in getting your content showing up on Google or Bing.

Cover all the bases

Given the above, it is better to hire a website design firm that has both of these types of specialists working together on the same team. Alternatively, you can assemble your own team by hiring both types of individuals and asking them to work together. They can serve as checks and balances for one another. Otherwise, you may not be able to use your website to its full marketing effectiveness.

5. Engagement and Lead Capture

One of the biggest advantages of a website over a simple brochure is the opportunity to really connect with your potential customers.

Need for lead capture

Optimally, you want to be invited to communicate with them regularly on things they truly care about. In doing so, you want to earn their trust, respect and loyalty. To do this, you will need to develop at least one lead capture system for your website.

Some businesses simply have a pop-up window asking a new website visitor if they would like to subscribe to a newsletter. They are asked to type in their name and email address before they continue browsing the site. While this is better than no lead capture system, it is not the most effective way to go about it.

Offer something high value in exchange

It is better to offer a website visitor something they perceive as high value in exchange for their name and email. For example:

• If you run a fishing guide service, you could offer them a weekly fishing report for the region(s) you service.
• If you run a financial site, you could offer them a report on how to legally pay less taxes on their investments.
• If you run a retail furniture store, you could offer them free reports on how to clean upholstery, remove water rings from furniture, make your own homemade furniture polish, etc.
• If you sell kitchen supplies online, you could offer tutorials such as 101 ways to use mixing wands, how to sharpen kitchen knives without damaging them, how to get bread machine bread to turn out perfect every time, etc.

Note: If you need bright ideas for your business just drop me a line, I will be happy to help!

Use a newsletter

In each case, you would also ask their permission to add them to your monthly or bi-monthly newsletter. Don’t try to send these out more frequently. Your subscribers will start to ignore them if you do and you won’t have enough time to prepare something really special. We will go into this topic in another article.

Offer e-courses

Another way to engage and get leads is offering e-courses and having a form to sign up on your website.

To do this, you would need to load your courses to an auto responder such as AWeber that would automatically deliver each chapter every few days to the subscriber.

It is best to offer a “teaser” at the end of each of the chapters so they will be anticipating the next installment. Instead of deleting your email, they will be actively looking for it.

6. Keep Your Visitors Coming Back For More

Your goal should be to include elements in your website that motivate your visitors to bookmark your page(s) and plan to re-visit your website.

Use your imagination

This can be as simple as adding a weekly web-only coupon page that gives special discounts that are not found anywhere else.

You could also be inventive and create a “treasure hunt” on your website so that visitors have to find a special word buried on a page which they then can enter into a form to generate a discount code for purchasing a product. Fun stuff!

If you have expert knowledge on a particular subject which people are passionate about, you may consider setting up a discussion board on your site. However, this does take a substantial commitment of time and you may be competing against other boards that are already established online.

Start blogging!

Something which is simpler and easier to do is to have a blog. A “blog” is a word that refers to a “web log” or a journal that is online. This can be part of your website or a stand-alone blog (like WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr or TypePad). Essentially all these are just websites that are simple to operate and easy to update by the user, you. There are many types of blog posts you can do. The key is to blog as regularly as possible. This constant release of valuable information helps you gain visitors to your website and prospects for your business.

My firm provides blog services for clients. There are many things you can blog about including giving your clients tips on how to use your services. To get more reality, check out our own blog here.

What’s Next?

The information above should be enough to get you started on using your website as a powerful marketing tool.

I and my entire team are always ready to help. Should you have questions or wish to share insights, add a comment below or call us at 888-788-5124. Good luck!