11 YouTube Video Marketing Tips For Maximum Results

Were you aware that 70% of all the traffic on the Internet today comes from videos? That is a pretty unbelievable number when you consider it.

Here are 11 tips on how you can create and market your YouTube video to get better results.

1. Post your videos on other social media sites besides just YouTube. These could include Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, and Digg. Post it on your blog as well. Send a mailing out to your e-mail list and invite them to visit your blog and watch the video and leave comments.

2. Make your videos professional. Do not cut corners on sound and edit them so they are presentable. This should include lighting and color that is easy on the eyes.

3. Keep your videos short and on message, especially if you are doing a verbal presentation. I am not going to sit through a 10 minute video and neither are most of your viewers. Get to the point and then wrap it up. You can say a lot in a 2-3 minute video.

4. Just as in blogging, find ways to make your videos unique. This should include humour, controversy and really useful information that is not recycled from other people's videos.

5. Use your YouTube video to brand yourself and your business. Include your website logo, and your website URL in the beginning, in the text, and at the end. Videos really give you a great chance to come across as an expert on what your video is about.

6. Before you tape it 'live', practice it a few times. This will give you confidence because you know exactly what you are going to say. Never create a video on the fly.

7. Think about creating a series of videos on one theme. This can bring people back to watch more of what you have to say. It also will help you break your video into smaller portions so you can really stay on message for each one.

8. Get search engine benefits by incorporating targeted keyword phrases into the title of your video. You should build a keyword list and know what you are trying to rank highly for. Search engines love to rank videos on their search results for fresh and unique content.

9. Ask your viewers to leave comments. This helps get them involved and let you know what they are thinking.

10. Track your hits by using YouTube Insights to see who is watching your video and where they are coming from. Just as analytics are helpful on your blog or website, they can give you a lot of good information about your video.

11. Have fun. Do not swear or use inappropriate actions in any way. Do not offend people when you are having fun with off color jokes or comments.

These are 11 ways the experts create YouTube videos and market them to build their business. If you are not applying video marketing, you need to start today!

A Bird's Eye Summary Of 10 Traffic Generation Methods

The one common purpose of every website is to attract visitors. Without visitors a website does not have any effect or influence. In this article we will be looking at 10 traffic generation techniques that can be implemented to attract more visitors to your website.

Nothing is for free and without hard work and dedication these techniques will not guarantee success. For the best results it is advisable to use a combination of the 10 techniques as part of your traffic generation strategy.

1. Article Marketing

Consumers use the Internet to get information on the topics that they are interested in. More information will be available on popular topics (celebrities, news, and more) than on niche topics. In order for article marketing to work you have to find a niche market to write about. Not all niche markets will generate traffic and you need to experiment a bit. The best part of article marketing is the fact that the costs are very low. There is however an investment in time. Articles need to be original, unique and well written in order to attract visitors through your text links within the article or resource box. Readers who find your article informative will point other users to your article through blogs, forums and bookmarks.

2. Video Marketing

The use of video as a marketing tool has increased dramatically over the last couple of years. Video can be used in various different ways to market your website or products. Videos can go viral easily and can attract a lot of customers to your website. Youtube is still the best site to post videos to but there are a number of high quality video sites available.

3. Social Sites

Facebook and Twitter are 2 examples of social media sites that have grown rapidly in a short period of time. The benefit of social media is the instant interaction with your consumer base. Google also lists Tweets in the search result pages and this can lead to additional exposure. You can integrate most of the social media sites with your website to allow visitor interaction. If you are serious about generating traffic to your website, you need to make use of social media to market your site.

4. Forums

Partaking in relevant forums or discussion groups through comments, questions or posts is still a very good traffic generation technique. You need to research related forums and join the high ranking trusted ones. With forums the key is your signature link. Use a signature link that entices the reader and that results in visits to your site.

5. Blogging

It is very easy to start a blog and the costs are very low. Look at creating a blog linked to your website and post relevant information on the blog daily. Ping your blog to ensure that it is picked up. You can also link your blog posts to your Twitter profile. If you post high-quality and informative content, visitors will follow!

6. Social Bookmarking

Bookmarking your site on websites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit will results in one-way links back to your site. It is also a great way to gain more exposure for your website. Use the bookmarking sites for your own use by bookmarking sites that you like. Make sure that these bookmarking sites are integrated with your website to allow visitors to bookmark your site.

7. Podcasts

Podcasts can be a great traffic generation tool. You can either publish a podcast or be a guest on an established podcast. Find podcasts or Internet radio shows that focus on a relevant subject and find out how you can become a guest speaker. Good podcasts are normally referred to friends and can go viral resulting in traffic to your website.

8. Banner Advertising

Look at using low-cost banner ads on large ad networks. Banners can attract attention in some websites and can be a great traffic generator. There is no need to spend thousands in the beginning and a banner with a simple sales message is just as effective.

9. Press Releases

Submitting a press release about your site whenever there is something to announce will generate traffic. Search for free press release templates if you want to write your own press release. Unlike article writing, do not overdo it; only submit a press release if you have something to announce.

10. Pay-Per-Click

Pay-Per-Click campaigns can be profitable or cost you a lot of money. What makes this form of advertising ideal is that you reach your identified target market directly and should therefore achieve a higher conversion rate. The key to a successful Pay-Per-Click campaign is great ads with perfectly targeted keywords. You might have to experiment a bit in the beginning with your ads and it is advisable to set a limit on the cost.

Generating traffic to your website is not as easy as it looks. If you are not familiar with any of the above techniques, please research them further before implementing them. Remember that the above techniques will also generate backlinks to your site and should therefore improve the position of your keywords on the search results pages and improve organic traffic to your site.

Video Marketing: 10 Tips For Using Videos To Market Your Business

You want to use as many media as your business allows you to market since you're reaching a wider audience than you would with text alone.

Some prospects respond better to video than they do to text, so here are 10 tips and tricks for using video to market your business:

1. Keep 'em short

Whether you're loading videos on YouTube or you're using them to pre-sell products on your blog, keep them short (around 5 minutes or so)…especially if your audience includes people who don't know you.

If needed, break a long video into multiple smaller videos. From experience, I found that if people knew beforehand how short they can expect a video to be, they will be more willing to sit through it.

2. Post videos on your sales pages

You can use video salesletters to highlight the main points of your regular salesletter. You can also use videos to demonstrate what the product is and how easy it is to use.

You may also get your satisfied customers to give you video testimonials.

3. Choose your keywords carefully

If you're loading your videos onto YouTube, choose keywords that your market is currently using to find information in your niche.

You may also choose keywords that match those being used alongside other popular videos in your niche.

4. Know your purpose before you start

Before you film, choose one purpose for your video. Is it to get subscribers? Send traffic to your blog? Pre-sell a product?

Whatever the reason, base your entire video around that singular goal.

Don't confuse your viewer by giving more than one option.

5. Create a call-to-action

You should create at least one call-to-action in your video, where you tell people exactly what you want them to do and why (e.g. "Go to yourdomain.com to grab Part 2 of this video, but hurry, you can only get it free for a limited time!").

6. Encourage comments

If you're posting your video on YouTube, on your blog or other social sites, encourage comments (even controversial ones). The more people talk about your video, the more your visitors will return to your page to see what's new in the discussion.

7. Use other social sites to jumpstart the viral effect

If you want your video to go viral, you need to promote it. One way to do that is to link to or embed your video on your social media pages.

8. Blog about your video

Another way to promote your video is to blog about it. If you embed your video on your blog, then encourage your visitors to social-bookmark it.

9. Ask your JV partners to share your video with their prospects and customers

Yet another away to advertise your video is by asking your JV partners to mention it in their newsletters, blog about it and share it with their social media contacts.

10. Put a video on a CD/DVD and give it away for free

You can build a physical mailing list by putting your video on a CD or DVD and giving it away for free to those who give you a mailing address. Be sure to include an upsell at the end of your video.
In summary: You can use videos to pre-sell products, demonstrate products, teach your prospects, drive traffic to your sites and grow your mailing list. Start applying these tips today and you'll be amazed at what video marketing can do for you.

9 Tips For A Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing is still an indispensable marketing channel. How do you get your emails to stand out from the others in your readers' inbox? Here are 9 tips for you:

1) Appeal to your buyer persona: Any marketer can write a generic email to his/her prospects, but it takes a real conversion expert to nail down the precise content that addresses your customers' needs, lifestyles and even apprehensions. When you can define the likely customer profile that buys your product or service, you will have the capacity to think of a ready answer to address your customers' challenges. By placing ourselves in the shoes of our prospects, we can better pre-empt their purchasing decision.

2) Focus on the beef of the message: Each email should have one clear message. I know this practice goes against those who publish regular ezines or newsletters with multiple articles or sections, but the benefits are:

a. You take less time and effort to complete an email
b. You can space out your content into an email series
c. Your readers are more likely to act on a strong call-to-action

So the point here is to avoid excessive content. Create the specific message using brevity and conciseness. Your customers will respond more positively to a message that is easily understood and goes straight to the point.

3) Exclusive specials to email subscribers: Offer special promotions and discounts that are only available for those on your mailing list. Or provide valuable information that is not included on your website. Another way is to use gated content to 'force' website visitors to subscribe to read the full content. Sending holiday messages or birthday greetings (plus birthday-only promos) to enhance the business relationship.

4) Branding: Whatever distinctive design elements and styles your company already uses, such as logos, fonts, and color schemes, should be incorporated into the emails you send out too. This will cause your readers to instantly recognize your company.

5) Strong call-to-action: It's best to begin with the end in mind. Tell your readers exactly what they have to do. Make your links or graphical buttons stand out.

6) Take advantage of preheaders and make email previews work to your advantage: A preheader displays the initial line of the email body, with the text highlighted. Gmail and many other email platforms show this first line right after the subject line, so that is one easy way to get the attention of a subscriber.

7) Always proofread any correspondence that you send: This may seem obvious, but it is easy to get caught up in the informality of emailing. It's just email, right? Actually, that couldn't be farther from the truth! Every e-mail you send is a direct reflection of your business.

8) Whitelisting: Remind your readers to whitelist your email address so that your emails will not land in their spam folder.

9) Mobile-responsive design: With emails being read on a gamut of devices, it becomes necessary to design them for readability across the board.

Following these 9 tips will go a long way to ensure you can run a successful email marketing campaign. Are there other tips I have not covered. Feel free to comment below. Have a great day!

Lead Generation: 10 Tips For Getting More Subscribers

More subscribers are almost as good as money in the bank, so here you go...

1. Include a call-to-action at the end of your blog posts.

Let your visitors know that if they like your blog posts, they'll love your newsletter content.

That's because you save some of your best niche tips, tricks and secrets for subscribers.

To get more subscribers, include a link to your landing page at the bottom of your posts, along with a reason to click on that link.

Example: Discover 101 more weight loss tricks for free—click here!

2. Encourage a viral effect.

You can get more subscribers simply by including a note at the bottom of every newsletter where you encourage your existing subscribers to forward your email to their friends, family and colleagues who could benefit from the information.

Example: "Do you know someone else who could benefit from these dog training secrets? Please forward this e-mail to them—they'll thank you for it!"

3. Use your forum signature file to get new subscribers.

If you're visiting busy niche forums, include an ad and a call-to-action in your forum signature.

Example: "Free report reveals the health secrets your doctor doesn't want you to know! Click here to claim your copy now..."

4. Point your social followers to a free report.

Make full use of social media sites—Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest—to grow your list.

Simply point your fans and followers towards your squeeze page to pick up a free report. Include this link on your profile page as well as in some of your posts.

5. Embed your links in your products.

Include links in your free reports too and encourage your readers to share what they have read with their friends.

6. Drive traffic to your landing page using videos.

You can create YouTube.com videos for the sole purpose of driving traffic to your newsletter sign-up page.

To get the best results, include a call-to-action at the end of your video where you promise viewers they can get the second part of the video—for free—when they join your list.

7. Tap into Hubpages to get new subscribers.

Create Hubpages.com pages around niche topics with the purpose of driving visitors and point as many links as possible to your landing page.

8. Co-promote with others in your niche.

Here you can swap endorsements with your partners. You can post your endorsements on your respective blogs as well as in your newsletters. I've also very successfully done ad swaps where I swap ads with other marketers.

9. Unleash the power of content marketing.

First create a multi-part article series around a niche topic.

Then upload Part 1 to the article directories (such as: EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com and IdeaMarketers.com) and upload the rest of the series to your autoresponder.

Use your article byline to encourage people to get the rest of the series (starting with Part 2) by clicking through to your squeeze page.

10. Form a newsletter co-op.

Do a co-registration deal with one or more people in your niche, that is, when a prospect joins your partners newsletter, they also get the option of joining your newsletter at the same time (simply by checking a checkbox).

Summary...

You can use each of these 10 lead generation methods to get dozens, hundreds or even thousands of new subscribers. Test them out, track performance and do it over and over again. Just imagine how big your list will be once you apply all these methods.

eBook Writing: Simple 6-Step Process To Writing Your Own eBook

One of the simplest paths to gain standing, leads, credibility and trust from your clients is to write your own ebook.

Many people are intimidated by the idea of ebook writing but the truth is, the process is really straight-forward and it can be terrifically profitable. If you're already involved in activities such as blogging, article marketing and making relations with newsletters, an ebook is just one step beyond in the entire process but can truly give your credibility rating an additional boost.

Bear in mind that for an ebook to work the way in which you need it to, it must truly look at the issues, concerns, or needs of your market. The content must be top-notch. Here are 6 steps to writing your own ebook:

1. Select a subject for your target market. Don't make this into a huge product. Pick something relatively narrow within a major topic. For example, if the main topic is Inbound Marketing, select something that fits within that category like SEO, or you might go even farther and simplify it down to "SEO for landing page design".

2. Brainstorm. Write down each idea you have, walk away and come back and write more. Put down everything and anything for now.

3. Organize your concepts into an outline. Divide your ideas into headers, subheaders, chapters and write descriptions of each point you include. Make sure to keep an eye on your references and write those down too.

4. Research. Hopefully you have picked a topic that you are acquainted with already but whether you have or haven't you'll need to do research to make your content as valuable as possible. Take notes, mark references and use quotes as you write your own ebook.

5. Put all of your organized ideas and research into a particularly long article of at least thirty pages. This is your ebook! As you write, you will instinctively know where your content has fallen short. Go back to brainstorming and researching for expanding on new or current ideas.

6. Get a second opinion. Probabilities are you'll spend rather a lot of time on this enterprise. Make sure that you step back every once in a while to give yourself a break. And when you're near the end, ask somebody else to read it for a more objective opinion. Whether it's your mate, better half or a fellow marketer, ensure you get a good, honest critique and, if possible, an edit of your work.
Once you are finished, you can either sell your ebook from your blog or site or you can offer it free of charge for people who sign up, the goal of which is to build your list.

If you decide on the first option, you'll have to line up a payment system. You don't have to charge a lot for your ebook to earn income (unless it has something real good) and as it doesn't cost anything to make the book (if you do not count the time you spend on it) so anything you sell will be a profit.

So now are you ready to draft your own ebook?

6 Types Of Email Content For Your Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Insofar where lead nurturing is concerned, we learned that the process is conducted via an automated email series. For sure, the emails are written in a specific manner, not filled with sales pitches (these can be included but more sparsely and tactically, to be elaborated in point 2 below), but useful, low-commitment information that culminates in a middle-of-the-funnel call-to-action that appeals to the concerns of the sales leads at the next level.

So what type of email content can you write? We present 6 types for your consideration:

1) Educational email content: At least, being educational is fundamental to getting your leads become familiarized with your business. You could start with some general educational emails that feature content demonstrating the value your company can offer. These emails shouldn’t be sales-driven. for example, the messages could offer people links to more whitepapers, blog articles, and videos that you genuinely believe will be helpful to the recipients’ needs and goals.

If you're a sporting goods manufacturer, for instance, don't just send emails that sell your equipment. Instead, try to teach people new techniques related to working out.

2) Promotional email content: Why not? You can mix in some promotional emails along with the educational ones. There is something called the "loss leader" strategy in which you price a simple product at entry-level price in the hope of building a customer base and securing future recurring revenue.

Just as the purpose of lead nurturing is to cultivate warm leads who are likely to say 'yes', the "loss leader" strategy identifies early-stage buyers who already feel invested in your business so you can target them as a priority in later sales campaigns.
3) Best practices email: A variation of the educational content email. Create a theme around best practices that your readers can apply. For instance, if someone expressed interest in learning about nutritional foods, you can send them an email with best practices to maintain a healthy and nutritional diet.

This not only keeps them engaged and anticipating your next piece of communication, by seeing for themselves the result of applying your tips, they will increase their trust and inclination towards purchasing your products or services when you propose to them.

4) Product/service-related emails: Again, this is not going straight into sales pitches. This email series may be considered second-stage, and is accessible only by leads who have signaled their intent to learn more details about your solution.

The emails may contain:

a) description of solution features and benefits
b) description of problems and scenarios the solution aims to solve
c) case studies of solution being applied/results description
d) testimonials for users
e) a call-to-action for solution demo, free trial or face-to-face meeting

5) Personal email: If a lead has gone through the content map, down the sales funnel, and is getting closer to the bottom, it may be a good idea to send a more personal and targeted email, perhaps from a sales team member. That way, they get a more personal touch, have a chance to ask specific questions, and get to talk to a real person rather than being a part of an email group. Humanizing the brand and giving some extra attention can sometimes be just the ticket to converting a potential customer to an actual customer.

6) A list of resources: Lists are always a good way to attract someone's attention because they are easy to read. Some of the best blog articles are, in fact, lists of useful content. You should try out this same approach when setting up your lead nurturing emails. Recipients will most likely engage with your content and check out the suggested resources you have curated for them.