Virtual tips for the savvy business owner!

There may be a lot of buzz about those funny viral videos on YouTube, but did you know video sharing is also great for B2B marketing? If you haven’t started using YouTube in your online marketing strategy, there’s a whole new audience waiting. Here’s how to maximize your online presence with YouTube video sharing.

The Audience
Did you know that twenty hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute?  Consumers demand information quickly these days, and that includes business owners. Their lean budgets and tight schedules require them to find helpful information they can digest quickly.

Today’s Web-savvy public devours YouTube videos, comments on them and helps them “go viral” without a big financial investment from video producers. YouTube’s simple video upload process and enormous global audience make it the perfect place to inform consumers about your solutions.

With a B2B audience dominated by adults over age 35, you can tailor your video segments to answer serious questions your target audience faces. Here are some ideas for maximizing your online marketing with YouTube videos.

The Strategy
Just about anyone with a good quality camcorder and video editing software can create an interesting YouTube video. If your video is simply someone speaking about a topic, a webcam can also work.

When you’re ready to get started, create a YouTube user profile and be sure to link back to your websites and blogs. You’ll also want to tag your videos with the appropriate keywords so they’ll appear in search results.

There are several ways smart marketers are using YouTube to increase sales.
1.    Subscribe to YouTube’s advertising services and take advantage of sponsored videos, YouTube’s Brand Channel and formal video ad campaigns to reach more customers.
2.    Create “interactive” video opportunities such as video contests based on your products. These can be advertised on your website, blogs and other marketing channels.
3.    Create original content that’s useful and interesting to your target market. These aren’t ads, they’re video segments showing how something is done or discussing topics relevant to your industry. They can even be funny vignettes that sympathize with problems people might be facing. The key is to make them easy to watch (in the right video format for YouTube) and interesting enough to cause viewers to comment on them.
4.    Sharpening video production skills and content increases the chance your video segments will be featured on the YouTube search results and home page. Pay attention to viewer comments so you can shift with your audience.

YouTube represents a tremendous B2B marketing opportunity. Learn to create video content that captures your market’s interest. Start small with a free YouTube membership if your marketing budget is strained.

Track what viewers are watching by using the free YouTube Insight tracking tools. Experiment with topics, backgrounds and styles until you find what your target audience responds to best. With a little creativity and attention to viewer preferences, you could be the next YouTube marketing success.

Think about the last time you read something so interesting, funny or useful that you simply had to share it with friends and colleagues. Now, look at what you’re posting on your blog, saying on forums or tweeting about. Can you say honestly that your content is that compelling? If not, keep reading as we discuss ways to help your company win the social media popularity contest.

“Popular” Equals “Sales”
You may not yet be seeing the connection between being a “socializer” and making more sales. That’s because for years online marketing gurus have told you that outbound sales techniques like email marketing are the be-all-and-end-all of online sales.

That’s one idea that definitely needs to be put out to pasture! Today’s in-bound marketing draws web traffic through many channels, including social networking. The idea is to combine traditional SEO strategies with blogging, posting on forums and developing a following on Twitter. The ultimate goal is to have as many “fans” as possible linking to your content, so their friends will want to know more, too.

Starting the Conversation
So, how can you start a conversation that goes ‘round the world? Make the commitment to starting, and maintaining, a content-rich blog. What does your target audience care about? What issues are they facing that your company can help solve? Are there industry blips occurring that you can explain in-depth?

Anything you post on your blog that is interesting, compelling and useful, especially if you depend on B2B sales, can help increase your fan club. Make sure RSS tools are visible on your blog, so readers can receive new content. Most blog applications have widgets that allow readers to share your posts easily on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other social media sites. Make it easy for readers to get the word out about your fascinating content.

Another great way to increase your visibility and build a following is by making interesting comments on industry discussion forums. Your market research should include where your target audience hangs out online to chat. Become a visible participant there, but skip the sales pitch.

Most forums allow participants to include a link to their websites in the signature line. By contributing comments that help others or cause them to think, you increase the chances readers will want to get to know you.

Have the picture now? No matter whether you’re blogging, posting status updates on your Facebook page or discussing topics dear to your audience’s heart, it takes a multi-pronged approach to build social media popularity. Combine that fame with great website content optimized for search engines, and your company could soon be winning prizes for savvy marketing.

If I asked you to give me a snapshot of your return on investment in marketing, could you do it? If your answer is “No!” you’d have a lot of company among business owners. The focus in marketing is usually on getting the next campaign ready, finding new channels and figuring out how to pay for it all. But what you don’t know about your actual return on your marketing investment IS hurting you. Let’s talk about how to get started.

What’s Your System?
Here’s the most important question: Are you tracking marketing results at all? If you don’t have a formal system for doing so, start today. Even if it’s only a spreadsheet, you must have a method of recording the sales, leads and traffic that result from your marketing channels, if you ever hope to become really good at marketing.

Here’s a good way to get started: Make a list of the marketing channels you’re currently using—blogs, social media sites, emails to your list, web content, Google AdWords, etc. Under those headings, create a new listing for each campaign you’ve run for the past six months.

Now, record as much information as possible about new leads, web traffic or sales gained as a direct result of each campaign. You may not be able to record much this time around, but it’s good to go through this exercise to get in the habit of tracking ROI.

Which Worked Best?
The next question is: Which worked best? Did you see a big burst of traffic when you started pinging blog posts on Technorati? Did your latest email marketing campaign yield lots of new leads?

Which AdWords brought the most click-throughs? Can you see a marked difference in website traffic each time you update your Facebook page or get serious about tweeting on Twitter?

This is the time to compare each marketing channel in terms of traffic and leads. Not only will it give you a sense that your marketing is actually working, it will also tell you what’s worth spending time, money and effort on.

Once you know which channels attract the most interest, it’s time to look at sales conversions. Record how many sales resulted from the traffic each marketing channel generated. This conversion rate is the holy grail for marketing, the reason for all that tweeting, updating and keyword agonizing. Once you know which methods of marketing online result in the highest conversion rate, you can focus your efforts effectively.

Tracking your marketing ROI isn’t just about how much money you’ve spent. It’s also about knowing how much time to spend on marketing channels, and when to cut them loose. What you don’t know about your ROI may be hurting you now, but with a little focused effort, it can make all the difference in your future success.

Many online entrepreneurs have jumped onto the social networking bandwagon, but how many of them have actually used social media successfully? Let’s take a look at the top three reasons social networking can fizzle as a marketing tool.

Reason #1: Product-Heavy Content
One sure way to turn off customers on your company’s Facebook page, Twitter tweets or blog posts is by bombarding them with references to your products. The point of using social networking as a marketing tool is to form a more personal connection with customers and potential clients.

Before you make another post to your social networking sites, study your planned content. Are you constantly making references to your products or services, or are you also offering information your readers can use?

Reason #2: Lack of Connection
Another way to turn off your audience is to remain aloof. In other words, are you connecting with them or are you pronouncing from on high? Do you ask your readers, followers or Facebook friends to offer their comments, or are you controlling the entire conversation?

Do you actually respond to their tweets or posts? If you hope to strengthen your link to your target audience, dive in and get to know them. Find out what they like, what issues they face and how you can help. Otherwise, it’s not social networking, it’s just advertising.

Reason #3: Confusing Your Audience
Look at your social networking efforts from your reader’s viewpoint. Can you easily tell who you are, or do you deliberately remain anonymous? Is it obvious what you and your company do?

After reading a few posts, would a reader be able to state what you’re offering that’s of value to them? Although you need to steer clear of heavy-handed advertising, it’s best to be transparent about who you are and what problems you can help them solve.

Leave the obvious marketing ploys to the amateurs; getting to know your target audience is fun and effective. Get out there and socialize, you won’t believe what it can do for your business!

Imagine this—your brick-and-mortar store is filled with lovely products, but your marketing is definitely stuck in a rut. You only advertise on billboards, but they all say the same thing. That’s a scary way to build a business, isn’t it? Online marketers get stuck in the same old channels, too, and that can soon become a nightmare if they’re not careful.

“But I’ve Got a Great List!”
If you’re stuck in old school marketing, you probably rely heavily on your list. You’ve got email campaigns scheduled out to infinity, and you know how to keep yourself off spam blacklists.

Because you’re spending so much time buying lists and writing emails, though, you probably aren’t blogging or even updating your website content. So, how’s that working for you?

If you aren’t making tons of sales sending emails to your lists, it’s time to diversify! Start focusing on inbound marketing, attracting prospects with a wide marketing network, instead of spending all your time in people’s inboxes.

“But Everyone’s Buying AdWords!”
Another common basket to put all your marketing eggs in is paid search terms. Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search are two of the biggest places Internet marketers like to spend money.

Don’t kick yourself if you’re betting the farm on this single marketing area. It’s very attractive, since those search engines are so darn powerful! But what happens if you’re suddenly outpriced in the bidding wars? Keep your pay-per-click account open, by all means, but start looking at other marketing channels, too.

Beef up your keyword-rich content on your website, and create an interesting blog tied to those same keywords. Those are two ways to actually increase your organic search engine ranking without ever spending a dime.

“But My Website’s Wonderful!”
It’s easy to focus all our time on a website, if I seems to be attracting a lot of traffic. But what about conversions? And what happens if the search engines change their algorithms (again)? By building a marketing network of linked channels, you won’t be devastated by the ups and downs of search engine rankings.

In Internet marketing, as in any other kind of business, depending on a single marketing source for customers can become a nightmare. Broaden the scope of your reach by using several inbound marketing channels to attract interest. In that way, you can skip the nightmares and begin building the business of your dreams.

Remember the days when keywords in your web content were the key to being found online? Search engine optimization (SEO) is a whole different game than it was back in the early days of Internet business. If you want to succeed online, you’ll need to learn the new rules for SEO.

We’ve put together a list of things you can do to optimize your websites for Internet searches. If your website doesn’t measure up, it may be time to implement at least a few of them.

1.    Make Links Easy for Search Engine Spiders to Follow: Search engine spiders, those clever “bugs” that crawl the web in search of new content, don’t like links that make them work. If you have multiple pages on your site, include at least one link to them that doesn’t require the user to fill in the blanks.
2.    Avoid URL Sprawl: Search engine spiders tend to ignore links that are too long and complicated. For example, use www.nosejobs.com/smallernose instead of www.nosejobs.com/876547668899&@#smallernose&*((abc.
3.    Write Content That Makes Sense: Web content should make sense to your readers! If you aren’t comfortable writing in the language of your target audience, it pays to hire someone who is. One component of search engine ranking is how long Web users stay on your site. Poorly written copy won’t hold their interest long.
4.    Proof Your Web Page Copy: Broken links and misspelled copy don’t project a professional image and will kill your search engine ranking. If the spiders hit a brick wall when navigating your links, you can bet your web page won’t be on page one.
5.    Don’t Lie with Your Links: Web links that redirect to completely unrelated content are a “no-no” in SEO. That’s an old trick used by blackhat Internet marketers, and it simply doesn’t work under today’s SEO rules.
6.    Forget Keyword Stuffing: The old days of filling the top of your blog with nonsensical text stuffed with keywords is also over. Search engine spiders are too smart to fall for that, and Web users will quickly click away.
7.    Focus on Useful Content: Speaking of keywords, they’re still important, but only in the context of valuable content your readers can actually use. One more content tip: rather than repeating your primary keywords over and over, use synonyms.
8.    Use Relevant Title Tags: Is the title in your site’s search engine result irrelevant, or does the reader know immediately what’s inside? When building web pages, be sure to use title tags that relate to what’s actually on your website.
9.    Keep Track of Your Site: Nothing’s more devastating to your search engine ranking than being dropped because your site’s been hacked. Check your site often to make sure internal links are still connected to your content and not some hacker’s website. If this happens to you, you’ll need to apply to be reinstated on the major search engines once your site is repaired and republished.

You can have a great website that receives plenty of attention on the search engines, if you pay attention to the new rules of SEO. Implement one or two of these ideas if you’re not getting the ranking you want. Keep track of increases in click through rates and tweak your content until the search engine spiders approve. All you have to gain is more interest online, and more opportunities to sell.

There’s a great big lottery going on online, and it’s called search engine ranking. Consistent top-level ranking can be worth millions to your business over time. There are ways to increase the odds a search engine will pick your ticket and put you on their first page. Here are four strategies for winning the lottery worth more than a million dollars.

Winning Strategy Number One: Go Visual
With a great tool like YouTube available free or for a small investment, there’s no reason not to go visual. Some website publishers think they need expensive video equipment to conquer YouTube. The truth is that a regular camcorder with a microphone works just fine for producing videos that attract search engine interest.

Video editing software is user friendly, too, so don’t stay out of the race because you aren’t a Hollywood director. Record videos that show how to use your products, discuss industry issues or otherwise help your target market. Carefully tag your videos with relevant keywords and the search engine spiders will recognize winning content.

Winning Strategy Number Two: Get Published
Another place online entrepreneurs sometimes fumble is in getting their names in print. Decide right now what topic you could write a ten to twenty page ebook about. If you don’t have that much material, do whitepapers or free reports.

Every business owner we know is an expert on something. Either write your ebook yourself or give a copywriter your ideas and have them write it. Use it as a premium for making a purchase, a free download or something for related sites to link to, but get your name out there in print to build search engine ranking.

Winning Strategy Number Three: Get a Blog
Another way to build interest in your company online is to publish a blog. Talk about topics that interest your ideal market. Add content frequently and link your blog to your websites and others. Use reader comments to keep the conversation going while building more search engine interest.

Winning Strategy Number Four: Grow Your Website
Remember the days of the “calling card website?” Psst…they’re over! Relevant content is king online, so beef up your one-page website with additional pages.

Add a directory page with links to your podcasts (you’re doing them, right?) Split product description pages out by category. Upload .pdf versions of your articles and link to them from your landing page. Don’t start using useless filler, but definitely find ways to bring more value to site visitors.

The lottery known as “search engine ranking” is how we live and die right now on the Internet. Use our tips to increase your chances of winning that lottery worth more than a million dollars.

For a long time, Internet marketers used outbound marketing techniques to reach a broad audience and, hopefully, snag a few clients. Whether buying email lists or creating endless autoresponders, that’s definitely the old school way to look at marketing. Today’s successful online business employs inbound marketing techniques, and there are some real advantages to making the switch.

What’s the Difference?
As we mentioned, outbound marketing reaches out to lots of clients, hoping to snag a few. It borrows from the offline sales industry, where cold calling, direct mail and trade shows are still the norm.

The online version might include buying huge email lists, writing autoresponders that touch email lists every few days, and offering free teleseminars. Those can certainly reach large numbers of people, but seldom have a high conversion rate.

Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is attraction based. Today’s consumer is sick of spam and doesn’t have time for a two-hour teleseminar. They know how to search the Internet for the products they need, so why not set your firm up as the “go-to” place in those areas?

This goes way beyond knowing all there is to know, however. It’s more about setting up an “empire” of well-connected marketing channels that revolve around your products and industry. Here’s an example: if you sell shoes, don’t just buy ads on directories and send email ads to your list.

Set up a blog about finding great shoes. Build a following by keeping content fresh and fascinating. Then, write a witty email newsletter about shoes, sales and fashions.

Create a fascinating website filled with photos, vignettes and, of course, great marketing copy that sells your shoes. Include on your website calls to action to sign up for your newsletter, read your blog or follow you on Twitter.

Go out and tweet on Twitter about new shoes for the season. Set up a Facebook page for your store and post updates about sales, trends and specials. Reference those two channels to each other and keep the discussion going with friends and followers.

Pull all these together by linking and attracting inbound links from other great sites. Are you starting to get the picture? No longer a simple online shoe seller, your company has become the place to go for information about shoes on the Internet.

That’s the essence of inbound marketing. It doesn’t go out and grab customers from the millions. It creates an attractive presence on the Web so prospects come around naturally. Through linking, word-of-tweet and faithful fans, your empire grows organically.

No spamming, no list renting and no more teleseminars. Outbound Internet marketing could soon well go the way of the cold call. It’s time for your company to learn the advantages that inbound marketing can bring.

Inbound Internet marketing is all about offering interesting content and connecting with your customers. One of the easiest ways to engage with your audience and serve your customers well is with a Facebook presence. Whether you’re a Facebook novice, or already have a personal page, you can get started with Facebook marketing today.

Why Bother with Facebook?
With over one hundred million active Facebook users, you can’t afford not to be there. Of all the websites on the Internet, Facebook is fourth in traffic volume. That’s an amazing pool of potential customers!

Having a 24/7 networking forum available that doesn’t require you to attend conferences or hand out business cards should also be attractive to you. The rules of social networking are different, of course, because the primary goal is bringing value to your social networks.

But think about the possibilities. Once you post information on Facebook, it’s available to interested parties until you take it down. There are no geographic boundaries, either. With all those “pluses” in its corner, Facebook is the perfect place to start your social media marketing strategy.

Getting Started
Here’s something to remember as you get started: your presence on Facebook is social, not corporate. It means developing a “face” for your company that engages authentically with your audience. It means finding networks where your target audience, and likeminded businesses, go to find and share information.

To build your Facebook presence, first create a profile through the easy-to-use wizards on Facebook. There’s a business page wizard that allows you to identify your brand or product, upload your logo and add company information. You can also add applications that help you communicate outside Facebook to other social media.

Once you’ve created your Facebook profile, you publish it and become searchable on Facebook and search engines. If someone finds your page and wants to become a fan, there’s a widget that appears that allows them to do that easily. They then begin receiving updates whenever you post new content.

Promoting Your Facebook Page
It’s not enough to set up a page and hope others find it. Avoid doing these things if you hope to attract inbound traffic:
1.    Don’t make your Facebook page an advertisement. If you want to place ads on Facebook, subscribe to their advertising service.
2.    Don’t use heavy-handed marketing language. Remember, social networking equals helpful content, not advertising.

Here are some things you definitely want to do for a successful Facebook page:
1.    Engage with your networks by offering useful information. Some examples:
a.    YouTube Videos
b.    Link to Your Related Blog Posts (add your blog’s RSS feed)
c.    Link to Other Interesting Blogs
d.    Host Discussion on Topics Relevant to Your Audience
2.    Leverage your activities through your News Feed, a record of what you’ve done lately on Facebook. Here’s the cool thing—that News Feed is also published on your fans’ Facebook pages! This is one way business pages “go viral” or get lots and lots of Internet word-of-mouth. Having great content also has fans linking to it from their pages so others can see.
3.    Connect your page to your other marketing channels. Put links to it on your webpages and blog, and vice-versa. Blog about your Facebook activities.

When you add together the boost in search engine ranking to the ease of setting up a free Facebook page, there’s really no reason not to use this valuable marketing channel. Set up your business page soon on Facebook and start exploring a whole new world of marketing.

Creating a website that lists your products and services may not be enough to attract new business. To keep your business growing online, it must past the test with search engines and Web users. Keep reading to learn how to gauge whether your website is making the grade.

Here are some of the factors that raise or lower your grade with search engines and potential clients:

•    Number of images without ALT text—a high number of these means that text is located within images on your website and search engine spiders can’t read it.
•    Readability level—can a person with a high school education understand your website, or is the language extremely technical? Unless you are targeting a very narrow niche audience, using easily understandable language improves website results.
•    Metadata—your grade might go down as far as search engines are concerned if your website’s content and formatting are jumbled together with lots of metadata tags.
•    Use of headings—your readers will become confused if there are too few headings to break up content, or new headings every two or three lines. Try to use one or two main headings per page to keep content easy to read.
•    Search engine data—there are also external factors that determine whether your website’s making the grade. You may have a great looking site that isn’t attracting much attention by search engines because of problems like the ones mentioned above.
•    Do you have a blog and does it draw traffic and links? This one’s self-explanatory; it’s good to have the additional online presence of a blog, if it contains meaningful content that others like to link to.

One way to test your website’s performance in these areas is with tools like Website Grader. This free SEO tool measures your website’s marketing effectiveness by comparing things like website structure and search engine data.

Once you’ve learned how your website rates, it’s time to take action. Use this useful feedback as the basis of your website improvement plan. Red flags like difficult readability and too many headings are easily corrected.

Keep in mind that the purpose of this type of analysis is to make your website more interesting and useful to your target audience, which, in turn, results in more conversions. Any time you spend revamping your site to raise its overall grade will probably translate into increased traffic and sales. And that can move your business to the head of the class!