Marketing

Tips For Using YouTube And Video Marketing To Promote Online Business

Posted by Bob Friesen in Marketing | Comments Off

Online video is hot right now! Many people enjoy watching videos online, whether they are about funny happenings from around the world, tutorials, product reviews, songs, or any of the many other topics that are popular with videos today. YouTube is the most popular of video sharing sites boasting millions of daily page views and a large user base. YouTube has had a remarkable impact on Internet marketing and has significantly changed and enhanced the ways in which marketers promote their products and services.

While old school marketing methods were confined to text and photos, these days videos are an essential part of online marketing for business. Successful marketers understand that they must stay on top of the current and hot trends to make sure they take advantage of the biggest venues for traffic and promoting their business interests and YouTube is definitely at the top of the list of internet marketing strategies.

Making Videos
There are a lot of cheaper and expensive complex video creation and editing softwares and there are also free easy to use video creators, like Camtasia. In general, since the inception and popularity of videos has hit the web, making videos is easier than ever before. There are services that will make videos as well

Tips For Using YouTube for Online Marketing
To market on YouTube you first need to register for  a free Google account. Also, make sure to add a link back to your sites in the profile, this is a dofollow link. In general, the profile should be filled in completely to elaborate more about yourself and your business.

Well done videos that are useful and interesting have a better chance to grab the attention of others and therefore going viral allowing for even more promotion back to your sites. This includes, people uploading it on their sites, putting it on various lists, tweeeting, getting mentioned in forums, membership sites, newsletters and also blogs.

Longer videos, unless necessary, are not the best way to go. Three to four minutes is a good length for marketing videos. The goal is to create enough curiosity to get viewers click back to your sites with the link that sits at the bottom of the video. Traffic gained from the link can often mean regular income for you.

YouTube videos can rank quickly, as YouTube is a PR8 site, has tons of authority and needs little work to get that video to page one, and that is why keywords are valuable and should be included in the video title.  Remember the fundamental marketing practice of keyword practices is research and title tags and the same applies to YouTube. Without proper keywords your video will not get the best exposure and traffic potential on Google and other search engines.

Make your videos interesting and helpful enough so that viewers send it out to others, link to it, and place it on their sites is what makes the video a viral marketing tool. The more people who click the link to your video, the better your ranking, the more the video will rise in the SERPS and that means more traffic and potential sales.

Create videos related to your niche that will help or entertain people. This is critical. Keep in mind you are still an online marketer, the main difference is the delivery media. Tutorials, guides, product reviews, instructions and how to videos are all great hooks. If you can do something funny or a spoof for a product that really tends to attract a lot of attention and traffic.

Create authority, your entire YouTube profile should be filled with helpful videos, this makes people want to go back to your site and see what more you have to offer.

Check out the YouTube competitors to not only see what they’re doing, but to discover some ideas and opportunities to add a video response to what they might be posting. This is a great way to stay current and on top of the competition. Also, make sure to see which of their videos have received the most traffic and the most comments since this usually shows that those are the topics people are interested in.

YouTube includes a number of intriguing and helpful tools for marketing. First, there is the “Statistics and Data” section, which lists the amount of visitors sent by other websites. Copy the tags popular sites use to get traffic to their videos and use them to improve your listings.

There are services online that will create and submit videos for you if you have no time but have extra income to spend on such services. There are also many video submission sites that while not as powerful as YouTube, are very beneficial to marketing a business online.

In summary, YouTube is an essential part of any online marketing campaign. YouTube has monthly visitors in the millions and hundreds of thousands of new videos are uploaded each day. It’s essential that all marketers take advantage of the huge traffic potential that exists on YouTube and begin their video marketing campaigns immediately.

How To Market Your International Property For Sale

Posted by Bob Friesen in Marketing | Comments Off

Scan the web for information on international property and you’ll find countless articles describing the next property hot-spot, listing reasons why buyers should purchase abroad or providing seductive pictures of beachfront properties available for a fraction of the price of US property. That’s all very helpful if you are looking to get into the market, but what about if you have already invested and wish to sell? Unfortunately in many countries it’s not as simple as contacting a local real estate agent and listing your property with them, as we explore further below.

In many popular international markets, including Costa Rica, Belize, Nicaragua, Spain, Argentina and Panama to name a few, there is no Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and the property market is relatively unregulated. This has a number of important implications when it comes to selling your property:

1. If you list your property with one agent, it will not be added to a shared database of properties for sale that other agents can access. This means that you will be relying on the marketing strength of just one agent.
2. If you provide an exclusive listing agreement this may indeed encourage your listing agent to share the information with other active real estate offices. But will these second tier agents be motivated to sell your property for a split commission when they can get a full commission on their own listings?
3. As there is no central database governing what is for sale and what has sold, it’s easy for unscrupulous agents to avoid paying referrals and commission splits. The result is a lack of trust and little sharing of information among agents.
4. The whole notion of a “real estate agent” in international markets is different to what many US buyers are accustomed to.  In many countries anyone can sell property, including your hotel receptionist, taxi driver and hairdresser.
5. Local agents often don’t approach marketing with quite the same vigor as you would expect. This is becuase in the absence of an MLS, they tend to take a volume approach to listing rather then spending time marketing on a property by property basis. After all why put so much energy into a particular listing, when another agent could simple sell it from under you. (No the answer is not giving an exclusive listing as these often don’t work in the absence of controls and regulation, see point 2 above).
6. As listings are effectively “pocket listings” you’ll find scant information provided to the marketplace about your property. For example location information is rarely provided in an effort to reduce the risk of another agent selling the property.

With that said you should have got the message that markets don’t operate in quite the same way as they do back home. But what can you do about it? What steps should you take to increase the chance of your property selling quickly?

• List your property with every real estate agent active in your region. Don’t fall into the trap of offering an exclusive to a single agent or agency.
• Write your own marketing copy, taking time to stress it’s uniqueness and provide this to all agents and local real estate “actors”. (Don’t assume this is the job of your real estate agent.  If it helps, think of them as buyer agents rather than listing agents)
• Take photos of your property (again don’t rely on local agents for this) and give these out to anyone who is locally active in the real estate market.
• Follow up your listing information until you are sure that it has been uploaded online.  This may take quite a bit of pestering.
• Do a Google search for real estate in the country where your property is located. If any international listing sites appear on the first page, make sure your list with them.
• Consider offering a commission bonus to whoever sells your property. Not only will this encourage straight sales but also referrals among agents if there is a larger commission percentage to split.
• And of course, as with any market, price your property competitively.

5 Simple Strategies to Get Started in Affiliate Marketing

Posted by Bob Friesen in Marketing | Comments Off

Conduct a quick Google search for the words “make money online” and it won’t be long before you’re led down the path to affiliate marketing. You’ll find thousands of people all endorsing affiliate marketing as the easiest way to make thousands of dollars.

Affiliate marketing can be easy and it can make you thousands of dollars if done properly. Here are five simple ideas you can implement right away. You don’t need a website or a mailing list, but some of these methods will require you to own a domain name.

1. Squidoo. Squidoo is a free website building platform where you build a page, called a lens, that is tightly focused on one specific topic. There’s no fee for setting up a lens, and it’s a great way to test the viability of a niche.

2. Social networking. Social networks are all about relationships, so what better way to earn extra money from commissions than by recommending products to your friends? I’m not telling you to go out and mass follow a million strangers on Facebook just so you can slam them all with affiliate links. That’s a great way to get your account banned. But well-placed, non-spammy links can work well.

3. Article marketing. Article marketing is a viable method of driving traffic to affiliate offers, but one or two articles are not enough to make an impact. Most successful article marketers write and submit several articles every day, so it’s best to use this technique if you love to write (and are good at it) and if you know your subject well.

4. Pay per click ads. Affiliate marketers can use this method to drive traffic to a product they’re promoting. Pay per click advertising starts with thorough keyword research to determine exactly where you want your ad to show up. Then you write a compelling ad that viewers will want to click. However, pay per click advertising can be a risky endeavor if you don’t have a clear understanding of how it works.

5. Ebooks and special reports. Similar to article marketing, free ebooks and special reports are simply a collection of useful information a marketer offers at no cost to his or her readers. In exchange for providing valuable advice, the author includes relevant affiliate links to products he or she recommends. Then he distributes the eBook or report through a variety of channels.

As a business model, affiliate marketing certainly has its attractions. The start-up costs are minimal, often no more than a few dollars. There’s no need for formal affiliate marketing training, special licenses, or even an office. All you really need to get started is an Internet connection and a PayPal account.

Can Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Help to Increase My Company’s Revenue?

Posted by Bob Friesen in Marketing | Comments Off

Search engine marketing (SEM) can help to increase your company’s revenue and profits, attract customers, and help to improve your company’s credibility and brand image. Search engine marketing is an effective online marketing technique that can help to draw potential customers to your business by increasing your business’s website visibility on popular search engines. This will ensure that when a potential customer searches for your products or services, your business will be one of the first search results to appear.

By showing up frequently in the top search results, your business will automatically appear to be a credible, professional business that site visitors will be more likely to visit. Having a professional business website is only the first step to attracting potential customers. Next, you need professional SEM services to help customers find your site.

Most effective marketing campaigns will include search engine marketing (SEM) due to its effectiveness and affordability. SEM has proven to provide a much better value than competing marketing services. By attracting your target audience, SEM can accomplish much more than other ads, such as newspaper, telephone, and television ads. These ads are targeted at the general public and, therefore, will take much more time to attract your target audience. SEM attracts people who are currently in need of what your business can provide, saving your business time and money on advertising costs.

SEM is ideal for businesses of all sizes and capabilities. It can improve upon your business’s current marketing campaign or can work for those businesses with no marketing strategy currently in place. It is usually advisable to trust a reputable online marketing company to take care of your business’s SEM needs. They can ensure the most effective services possible, allowing you to focus on more important business matters. After all, they are marketing professionals and know what it takes to improve upon your business’s online popularity.

The Business of Reputation Management

Posted by Bob Friesen in Marketing | Comments Off

The business of reputation management is starting to grow. There are far more people out there who are realizing just how important it is to ensure that your online reputation stays intact. The way many people learn about new businesses is through the internet and the way that the internet portrays your business is something that can no longer be ignored.

As the internet has grown more and more companies are starting to have a “web guy” who makes sure that the company’s website is up and running and is responsible for everything that the company is doing regarding the internet. However many companies are making the realization that their online presence is far too important to be placed in the hands of just one person. Instead of having just one “web guy”, there may also be someone who is in charge of online reputation management and makes sure that potential customers who are looking for information about their company are not finding things which would drive them away.

The separation of these jobs had one wonders for the reputation of many online companies. IT is simply too much for one person to handle being a technical guru and trying to manage the reputation of an entire company.

Choosing a reputation management company can be an interesting choice. More and more firms are starting to implement referral programs to help motivate others to bring more customers to their door. These referral programs can do wonders for a company, as they motivate many people to sign up for their services with the prospect of possibly getting what would essentially be free services if they can generate enough referrals. This is becoming a business of itself, with some people trying to make as much money as possible by simple referring people to other businesses.

What Are Paid Online Surveys For?

Posted by Bob Friesen in Marketing | Comments Off

Companies spend millions in product development and market research. One method of finding out what consumers would like to have or what they like and dislike about a product is by doing surveys. Doing wide scale surveys costs a lot of money and the bigger the sample the more expensive it gets. A way to make it less expensive while making the sample broader is through conducting surveys online.

There are websites that companies hire to conduct these surveys for cash. The cash is an incentive to attract people to answer the questionnaires provided. These websites usually has a pool of individuals that are categorized to fit the criteria needed by the companies in respondents. Those that fit the criteria are sent the questionnaire and when the needed number of respondents are met the results are sent to the companies that ordered them allowing them to make the proper assessment for their market research.

Some websites place questions at the beginning of the questionnaire that determines if the respondent is eligible to take the online survey. This method makes the sample set of respondents meet a specific criteria needed by the companies to make a more precise conclusion from the data collected. An example of these is asking if the one responding uses a specific product the company produces. The question is usually in the form of multiple choice. The choices include the product in question and other related products that are not the subject of the survey. This is to protect the integrity of the data and minimize the inclusion of unqualified respondents.

There are a lot of scam sites though. They make their services seem legitimate and sometimes offer more cash to entice one to join but never actually do pay one what is due. This is why one must be sure that the site that offers one to take online surveys for cash is legitimate. Legit sites are well known and are recommended by a lot of review sites and online forums.