Webinar Marketing – I’m Loving It

I’m really loving Webinar Marketing.  

It’s bringing me so much business that I’m in an enviable place of being able to choose who and what to work on.  It’s working so well, I’m thinking of specializing more on webinar marketing for businesses.

Is it a “silver bullett”?  Heck no.  It’s still a lot of work — Planning, preparing, promoting, practicing, presenting, recording…the process is still as demanding as any other marketing approach.  But it’s so much more…well, efficient.

Webinar Marketing – How’s It Working For Me?

Here’s whats happening.  I’m using Google keyword tool and business forums to discover what people are truly interested in.  The keyword tool tells me how many people are looking for a particular search term and the forums tell me what people are talking about.

I then create a brief (less than one hour) presentation to offer a solution to one (or several) of the problems that people are talking about.  The focus is on education (with a little promotion mixed in).

I promote this presentation as a semi-weekly webinar…and people sign up, attend and then contact me after for more in-depth discussion.

Webinar Marketing – The Results

Three things have happened

1. I’ve help a bunch of people with new ideas and possible solutions
2. I’ve developed relationships as a trusted authority with people who can potentially become my clients (at an extremely low cost)
3. Since I record the webinar, I have high quality marketing materials that I can re-purpose in a variety of ways

And did I mention the low cost?

No other marketing (although email marketing comes close) is providing me with as many benefits.  Yes, I’m going to keep doing webinar marketing.  I’m probably going to start concentrating on webinar marketing for my clients.

Yes, I’m falling in love with webinar marketing.

Webinar Marketing Resources

Here’s a couple a great resources to get you thinking about webinar marketing.

First the wonderful folks at Hubspot.  They use webinar marketing extensively, they’re a great company and it’s well worth your time to steal…um…model what they do with webinar marketing.

The Science of Webinars

HubSpot and Citrix have teamed up and created a webinar app that makes it much easier to use webinars for lead generation.  Now that you are on your way to mastering webinars for lead generation, ensure that they are integrated with the rest of your marketing. 

Webinar Marketing presentation playback and slidedeck - http://www.hubspot.com/the-science-of-webinars/watch

And another article on planning and presenting your own webinars fro an excellent webinar company, webattract (great name isn’t it?):

7 Tips for Success Marketing With Webinars

Webinars – also called web conferences – are a highly effective content marketing tactic. In fact, a recent B2B Content Marketing study gave them an extremely high effectiveness rating, second only to in-person events.

webattract.com3/11/12

Want to find out more about how a webinar marketing program can generate business for your company?   Give us a call..or attend one of our webinars!

More and more of my clients are questioning me about web video marketing.  

Can I get a video on my site?  

What should my video say?

 How much does it cost?

It’s interesting that I get these questions, but very few ask me, “What will web video marketing actually do for me?”.

Web Video Marketing Answers

Although I answer with that web video marketing will

• improve understanding of your products or services
• provide visual and audio experience for the watcher
• enhance your credibility and trust
• make you an authority
• differentiate you from you competition
• make you rich and famous (ok maybe not…but is has done that for some)

These are certainly benefits, but I make the mistake of describing how specifically web video marketing is making a difference to my clients.

In the article below, Fox Small Business Center describes how several businesses are using and benefiting from web video marketing.

Small Businesses Weigh In: Are You Using Video Marketing?
smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com

For many small businesses, video marketing is uncharted territory. Blame it on lack of resources, intimidation or even just too little time, small businesses are often late to the game when it comes to web marketing and social media branding.

If you’re not already using web video marketing, have a look at it.  There’s many types of video that  can be made for your business and the cost is no longer prohibitive.

One of the biggest concerns that I manage with my webinar marketing clients is the fear of nobody showing up.  “But Ed, what if we put time, money and effort into this webinar marketing thing and nobody registers?  I’ll have to answer to (boss, colleagues, directors, board, wife, etc.)” 

Even though I assure them that that won’t happen, until they see the registrations come in, the tension is there.

Webinar Marketing Promotional Channels

One of the biggest benefits of using social media to promote webinars is that there are so many different channels for promotion.

In this article by Studio1C, a creative design firm in Las Vegas, seven different media are listed to find an audience for your webinar. 

Using Internet Marketing to Promote Your Webinar
www.studio1c.com11/11/11
Promoting Your Webinar, Ideas to promote your webinar.

Don’t worry, people will show up.  Generally not as many as you would like (sometimes to your surprise many more show up than expected).  For effective webinar marketing, always record the webinar and re-use it and please, for heavens sake, follow-up with the attendees.

I’ve been playing around lately with different types of visuals to get complex ideas across.

I learned many years ago during my training delivery years that audiences respond more positively when they can see a visual. Usually the visual would need to be a graphically appealing (no screen beans please), well defined, relevant picture that related to the concept being delivered. And if the picture had humorous overtones, the better.

Content Visualization – Visual.ly

I’ve discovered an excellent source of really compelling visuals. The site is visual.ly, a site devoted to infographics.

One of the infographics I’ve listed below speaks to an important element of businesses marketing, creating compelling content for your business blog.
I could write a long article on the importance of business blogging (actually I’ve written several) why you need to do it, what is involved, how to do it, etc.
Fortunately, the infographic does it better.

Enjoy

Content Life Cycle Infographic

via

…but they don’t pay me because they like me, they pay me because they want results. Nothing gets consistent traffic (and ultimately sales) like business blogging. So I’m gonna keep telling them, “you want results? Start business blogging.”

And what’s ironic is that, once they start blogging, many of them actually enjoy it

They get a chance to express themselves. They get good feedback. They get to share their expertise. Yes, they enjoy it.

So here’s a wonderful resource from our friends at Hubspot, an excellent article and an invitation to download a free e-book (much better written than anything I can come up with

Download a copy and start blogging for your business for heaven’s sake!

7 Things Business Blogging Does – Plus a Free EBook

According to HubSpot research companies that have a business blog attract 55 more website visitors than non-blogging companies. HubSpot has partnered with Jeff Ente of Who’s Blogging What to create a a new 24 page ebook that provides business blogging expertise from some of the best bloggers on the web.

Although many businesses want to generate “buzz” about their products and services, few know how and those that try usually experience less that satisfactory results.

Buzz is attainable, but as with any profitable pursuit…you need a plan.

Here’s a detailed post from Fox Small Business Center that identifies some of the steps needed to create “buzz” for your business...

Creating Buzz About Your Brand

How a small business creating a buzz could is important: it could mean the difference between getting new investors and the company fizzling out. “Small businesses really have to take a holistic approach” to creating buzz, says Paul Morin, …

Although having a plan won’t guarantee you get the “buzz” you want…but you learn what works and what doesn’t so future “buzz” efforts will prove more and more successful.

Now that they have some blogging success under their belt, they are ready for their next site and they’re conducting their own keyword/competitive research (Yay for empowered clients!).

The question that comes up often is, “I know that having an exact match domain for my keyword helps make my site more SEO friendly. I’m looking for an exact match domain for X keyword and they are all taken. 

What should I do?”

Next steps for finding and alternative to an exact match domain

Here are my thoughts on next steps what to do if you can’t find an exact match.

I know there are MANY different opinions on these suggestions (please don’t hate – these are my opinions from general observation and overly obsessive conversations)

The general strategy that  I have seen successful marketers follow is to either hyphenate or add a prefix or suffix to the keyword domain (hyphenate – dog-training.com – prefix, mydogtraining.com – suffix, dogtrainingpro.com)

Preferences for selecting an alternate to exact match domains

The general strategy for selecting a keyword domain in order of preference is:

1.         Keyword or keyword phrase .com (nice if you can get it, but this is becoming much harder)
2.         Keyword or keyword phrase .net (I see many .net domains in top organic positions)
3.         Keyword or keyword phrase .org (I don’t see as many .org as .com or .net, but quite a few are there)
4.         Keyword or keyword phrase .com hyphenated, e.g. dog-training.com (use for a two keyword phrase – don’t use on a multiple keyword phrase, e.g. start-a-business.com)
5.         Keyword or keyword phrase .com with prefix e.g. dogtrainingpro.com
6.         Keyword or keyword phrase .com with suffix e.g. mydogtraining.com

In the case of local business, the strategy is slightly different.  A business should try to obtain an keyword exact match domain on what they do (NOT their company name) with a geographic locator, e.g. dogtrainingnj.com, dogtrainingprinceton.com.

To save some time (and it’s fun too) try using www.domize.com.  This is a tool that tells you immediately if a domain is available.  It’s pretty intuitive and lets you play around with different domain variations.

BTW – having an exact match domain is enormously helpful, but a site still needs relevant keyword rich content published regularly and decent backlinks to rank well.

Finally, click here for a list of domain prefixes and suffixes (go with suffix first).  Have fun.

To retain customers and solicit new clients, businesses need proven ways to make their products and services stand out.

From subject lines that grab attention to detailed ways of calculating return on investment, every aspect of e-mail advertising is detailed in Permission Based E-Mail That Works.

In a clear, lively tone, author and e-mail marketing expert, Kim MacPherson covers the specifics of a new breed in advertising. MacPherson draws from a large … More >>

Permission Based E-mail Marketing

Perhaps you want a blog for your own enjoyment or business and profit.

Here are four steps to get you started on the right foot:

1 – Select the right domain for your blog

The domain name is the address of your blog. Imagine that you have a large sign and you’ve placed it in a location where nobody sees it, no one will visit this shop and therefore, there will be no traffic and no sales. It’s the same case for a blog. Your domain name should be what people type into Google to find your products and services (not your company name or some clever slogan). Choose a name that is as short as it can be (but no shorter) and is as close to the main service or product that is available for registration.

2 – The design of the blog.

Consider the overall design of the blog. Start with a clearly defined purpose and some general ideas for content. For example, you can create a recreational site that lets you share photos, videos and audio of specific recreational activities, events or pursuits. You can also create the blog for e-business. Then clearly define your specific field. Ask these questions

• What is your specific niche?
• What are the problems you can solve for your readers?
• What passions can you share with your site?
• What bargains or discounts can you offer?

In addition, specify a contact page that allows readers to request additional information. Also, include an “about” page. This page is a brief introduction to you or your company, a photo, a phone number and a contact form that automatically forwards an inquiry to your email. Finally, think about the design and overall presentation of the site.  If you’re using WordPress (and we recommend that you do), there a literally thousands of exciting (and free) themes that will give the look of your site some “pizazz”.

3 – The SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The are two main elements to SEO for your blog- onsite and offsite: Onsite is SEO that is built into the code used to build the blog. This is information withing the HTML or PHP code, that allows search engines to read and index your site. When you set up your onsite SEO properly, the search engines send users to your website. Some of the most important site information is:

• the title called meta “title”,
• description or meta “description”,
• keywords or “meta keywords”.

The second element is “offsite” SEO – Search engine optimization by created by professionals or by software (or both). This is a very effective form, but adds additional expense to your marketing budget. If you have some money to spend on offsite SEO, you can get a rapid influx of traffic to your blog.

4 – Hosting your blog

If you are looking to monetize or grow the site professionally, you need a professional web hosting company. These companies provide servers that allow you to host all your website files, including the blog pages & posts, audio files, video files, software etc. Generally, most hosting companies offer a variety of software and scripts to help you achieve your goals with a blog. Follow these four steps and your on your way to a solid, professional (and possibly profitable) web presence.

Want to host a webinar but aren’t sure on the steps?

Webinars can have a dramatic effect on your business whether you are selling to the online community or brick and mortar businesses. So, getting your presentation right requires planning.

It is not just a case of just promoting it to your target market and spending an hour online with a sales pitch at the end. Preparation is the key!

With a well planned webinar, anyone can successfully do this. It is not as hard as you may think. The fact remains that if it is well planned, it will produce a higher conversion rate than email marketing, even if it is your first time!

Here are some simple steps that will help you on your way.

1. Keep it simple stupid – First of all, it is important to keep your PowerPoint presentation as simple as possible. Of course, you may be tempted to use various flashy colours to make the presentation look cool, but this can have an adverse effect.

Just using black and white converts really well even if it looks boring. Oh yes, don’t forget a few illustrations to keep your audience interested!

2. Over deliver on content – Focus on the quality of your content and not the sale. When you do your presentation the trick is to focus on giving massive value away for free. The more you give away the better; after all, the sale will take care of itself.

Just think about the attendee, and what they are getting out of it. After all, your audience have given up their time to listen to you.

If it sounds more of a sales pitch you haven’t done yourself any favours.

3. Practice makes perfect – The first time you host a webinar, you are going to be nervous and there will be a tendency to procrastinate. So, it is a good idea to practice with family and friends who will give you honest feedback.

Once you have gathered enough confidence it is time to take some action.

4. Timing – Who are your attendees? You need to find out whether your attendees are corporate or people working from home. Plus, will they be in your locality or global?

All of these factors determine when it is best to schedule your webinar. You may find that you need to schedule several webinars at different times especially if your target audience is global.

What if you don’t know how to generate sales with webinars? Steven Essa would like to invite you to grab his “7 Secrets to Making Money with Webinars” that has generated him $25,000 in a single hour! You will learn the exact webinar marketing secrets that he uses just by clicking here now: http://www.x10effect.com

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