*Branded* Content is King

According to a recent study by the Custom Content Council and ContentWise, 78% of U.S. marketers plan to shift investments from traditional marketing to branded content marketing. More specifically, 62% are “moderately” making the shift, while 16% are pursuing it “aggressively.”

The study found that branded content marketing spending reached its highest level ever in 2011, just shy of $2 million per company. This accounted for 26% of overall marketing, advertising, and communications budgets for the year, and 30% of marketers expect their content budgets to increase in 2012.

Why content?

The top-ranked reasons are:

1. To educate customers (49%)
2. To retain customers (26%)
3. To increase brand loyalty (14%)

Similarly, marketers believe content marketing is more effective than:

1. Magazine ads (72%)
2. Public relations (69%)
3. Direct mail (69%)
4. Television ads (62%)

Is your brand pursuing a branded content marketing strategy?

PHANTOM POWER

Marketing by Design

www.phantompower.co

How to Monetize Social Media

As someone who provides Social Media Marketing solutions, both on behalf of employing organizations and clients, I am often asked... "OK, I am onboard, but how do you make money from all of this?"

I am a disciple of Inbound Marketing.  I believe in this day and age this is a philosophy that works.  It's simple in theory; create great content, promote that content via social media, attract qualified leads and convert those leads into customers.  Many Marketers out there work in conjunction with sales.  I personally have been in positions where the Marketers job ends at garnering qualified leads and passing those leads off to sales to close.  But Marketers are often tested by sales... what am I supposed to do with this information.  Marketers are often frustrated by sales when they don't jump on such qualified lead data... this is an age old quandry between the two departments and why I contend there must be a happy marriage between the two departments... but that is a story for another day.

Today's story... How Marketers can help themselves by helping sales monetize their social media efforts.

Companies are not only getting the word out about their brands using social media such as Facebook and Twitter but are also making money.

Many businesses have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube useful in making money. Building genuine online relationships that are also good for the bottom line is not so easy. There is a lot of trial and error. But while monetizing social media is difficult it is not impossible. There are companies that are getting the word out about their brands using social media and are turning a profit.

Take The New York Jets. The NFL team launched their Ultimate Fan social game in September 2010, which was the first revenue generating Facebook app to be backed by a pro sports team. The application lets football fans do online what they would normally do at home and in stadiums—root for their favorite teams and players, predict game scores, and hold a virtual tailgate party with other fans from across the globe. Ultimate Fan has since lured four major sponsors integrating their brands: MetLife, Motorola, SNY and HotelPlanner.com.

The Jets also communicate regularly on Twitter. They even advertised a Twitter-based contest to win tickets to their 2011 AFC playoff championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Jets are able to engage with their fans and make them feel like they are part of the team. They are leveraging social medial to capitalize on their fans' passion for the team and their willingness to share that fervor.

Like many companies, your social media efforts have started small and grew organically. To capitalize on those efforts to generate sales and revenues you need to have a team of people dedicated to your social media presence. You also will need a deep understanding of your audience, a creative vision, and a way to measure results in order to execute a successful strategy.

Here are some ways your social media can be monetized…

How to Monetize Social Media: Build Brand Awareness

The first step is to use traditional media or word-of-mouth advertising to drive awareness and traffic to your Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages. Unless you already have a recognizable brand like Nike or Apple, your brand needs to develop social media magnetism before you can look to make any money. You also need to create circular momentum across many platforms when designing your social media campaign. By providing multiple channels for users to talk with you, you let customers choose the channel that they are most comfortable with, by doing this you increase the likelihood that they'll connect with your brand in any number of ways.

How to Monetize Social Media: Engage Your Audience

Social media is about having a dialogue. When you have a dialogue with a customer or prospect, the communication is much more fulfilling and much more profitable. The PETCO brand has developed a strong presence in social media. The pet store chain has a YouTube channel, its Facebook page generates a lot of discussions among pet owners, and there's lots of activity on its PETCO Scoop Blog, which has received hundreds of “Likes” and Comments. PETCO's customers are true pet lovers and treat their pets as part of the family. The company tries to keep conversation going by aiming Facebook and Twitter posts so that there's an explicit question to answer, or at least a specific piece of information to which people can react. You have to know your community and know how to take part within that community and through that create great content or conversation that will raise awareness and increase sales.

How to Monetize Social Media: Offer Special Promotions

Dell Computers exemplifies a company that is selling products using social media. Its Twitter page, @DellOutlet, offers discounts exclusively to followers. Dell might tweet 15 percent off any Dell Outlet laptop or desktop with a special coupon code entered at checkout so they'll know which tweet you are seeing. @DellOutlet also points you to a specific web page. There is some interaction in terms of chats with tweeters. @DellOutlet has garnered more than 1.6 million followers and generated more than $2 million in incremental revenues for Dell. Traditionally, Dell would have spent a lot of money running print ads. Today, they can write a 140-character promotion to reach customers.

PETCO is yet another example. The company provided a promo code to their customers for $40 in free shipping. The person who shared their code with the most people won a $500 PETCO gift card. About 40% of the sales that resulted from this promotional push came from new consumers. The desire to save a few bucks drove loyal PETCO customers to connect with the larger pet owner community and spread the word about the store via social media.

How to Monetize Social Media: Use Media Advertising

Many companies have used display advertising (banners) and contextual advertising such as Google AdWords. Many bloggers use Google Adsense to make money. There are plugins to help; you make money from clicks. There are also ad networks that you can join that pool several advertisers. You get a code and banner ads rotate from their network. This is an item that you will want to include in your advertising rate sheet. Major advertisers who buy display ads are finally beginning to figure out how to reach audiences through social networks, and have begun to shift significant dollars into Facebook.

Instead of a typical banner ad, consider offering a microsite, which would be equivalent to a paid supplement. For example, you could devote one page (a link on your website) specifically to an advertiser's products and services. Or you can become an affiliate. With affiliate marketing you get paid to refer people to another business.

Consider combining rich media advertising with display advertising. Video advertising and promotional material can be quickly and easily streamed to your social community. Another consideration is charging for sponsorship on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Of course, attention needs to be paid between balancing the delivery of the rich media advertising against the comfort level of your customer base.

How to Monetize Social Media: Brand Within Applications

The best way to use apps is to create something that is functional such as a calculator, entertaining such as a game, or provides some sort of social connection such as an app just for your community. Your app can be fee based or you can give it away to build a relationship with customers. A number of well-known company brands use mobile apps to interact with their loyal customers, including Target, Coca-Cola, Nike and Gucci.

The fashion designer touts a luxury lifestyle application that is a quintessential example of branded mobile marketing. Through "Gucci Connect" users were able use their mobile devices, such as iPhone or iPad, for virtual access of a Milan fashion show, watch live runway and behind the scenes video coupled with live chat between virtual guests through Facebook and Twitter. Exclusive also to iPhone app subscribers are interactive games. The "Gucci Live" section features a music channel. Subscribers stay "in the know" with a calendar of upcoming brand events and feature articles. The Gucci "Little Black Book" provides recommendations to the hottest restaurants, nightclubs, and hotels in various cities throughout the world.

How to Monetize Social Media: Set Up Shop on Facebook

Facebook fan pages are another way to generate sales and enthusiasm especially if you have loyal fans that follow your updates. You can list your products on your Facebook page for fans to easily share with their own friends and essentially allow your product offerings to go viral.

Businesses are increasingly selling their goods on Facebook. There are various e-commerce solutions available. One is 8thBridge which is helping companies like 1-800-Flowers and HuateLook sell from Facebook. A special deal 8thBridge ran for the designer brands retailer HauteLook along with fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg generated more than $100,000 in sales in one day, 40 percent of which came from new customers. Users were given a $10 coupon for every new member that they brought in. Using 8thBridge, 1-800-Flowers is drawing people into buying flowers and other gifts for friends and family while they are already thinking about them on Facebook.

Payvment is another storefront option that provides online stores for companies to sell on Facebook. It has a network of more than 60,000 merchants using its self-serve technology. Payvment generally serves smaller clients while 8thBridge caters to small- and medium-sized businesses. According to a study released by Forrester Research, Facebook is more suitable for small retailers, niche products, or steeply discounted items. Most of the benefit that big retailers get from Facebook is branding their company but not actual purchases, Forrester further reports. Moreover, some products are inherently social such as books, DVDs, and event tickets, which have been successful because they are easy to buy and sell online.

How to Monetize Social Media: Use as a Retention Tool

Companies don't always need to use social media as a sales tool or to acquire news customers, they can use it as a customer retention tool. If someone likes or follows your business, it's because they're interested in hearing from you on some regular basis. It's important that you have a routine schedule for your blogs, tweets, and postings. Keeping your fans and followers up to date on what's new and happening with your business or industry will keep them engaged with you and keep your brand top-of-mind. 

What have you done to monetize your social media marketing efforts? 

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

Is the Secret to Twitter Success Link Sharing?

When it comes to using Facebook to promote your business or blog, it seems pretty straightforward as to how exactly to use it. Sure, there are always things we can learn to help boost our Facebook fan numbers and interaction with them, but as far as structure goes, it’s pretty simple.

But what about Twitter? What’s the secret to Twitter success? According to this article, it’s link sharing. The article is rather long, but basically what it’s saying is that we have the same basic tool – 140 characters – but it’s exactly how you use those that counts.

A few interesting studies have been published lately that
all seem to point to the same conclusion –
the secret to Twitter success is driving links.

This infographic from Get Satisfaction shows the top reasons why people follow brands. For Twitter, it shows the third reason is interesting or entertaining content – so link sharing.

The article sums up Twitter success as seeing what works best for you. Do you get better results when you do one link a day, link to a video, say something before the link that grabs your followers’ attention?

What do you use Twitter for the most? Getting information, entertainment, interacting with your followers and do you think link sharing is the key to Twitter success?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

6 Reasons Businesses Need to Blog

A business blog is central to a successful inbound marketing strategy that will help you get found and generate more inbound leads online. Why? Here are 6 reasons your business needs to blog:

1. Build thought leadership by showing your expertise and becoming a go-to resource for prospects and media.

2. Get SEO value for each blog article. More content = more opportunities to get found online.

3. Engage in a dialogue with customers and prospects through blog comments. Host conversations and respond to issues or questions.

4. Attract social media followers. Businesses that blog enjoy more social media reach because they have content to share.

5. Generate more leads online. A HubSpot study found that businesses that blog generate more than 67% more leads online compared to businesses that don't blog.

6. Humanize your brand by giving your company a voice of the people behind your brand.

What benefits is your business seeing by blogging?


PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

RIP Cold CallingSurvived by Social Networking

Cold calling has been served notice, a new era beckons and with it an altogether different way of working. Social networking has arrived and will soon replace cold calling as the predominant method of prospecting in business.

I know many people will think that there is no replacement for activity, specifically picking up the phone. Yet, no matter how intelligent you are about cold calling, it is what it is – speculative, scatter gun selling, not to mention costly and increasingly ineffective.

Consider the following data I found online...

In a test which spent an equal amount of time cold calling and using social media (9 AM - 5:30 PM; M - F).

Cold Calling Results

• Outbound calls made 325
• Meaningful conversations (pitches) and brand touches 80
• Meetings made 4
• Sales made (as a direct result of cold calling) 0

These are average conversion ratios for time spent but it comes with much overhead.

Social Media Results

• Inbound calls generated 8
• Meetings as result of inbound calls 3
• Sales as a result of inbound calls 2
• Brand touches (from site statistics unique views of content) 422
• Visitors to sales associate's blog Subscribers (RSS) to sales associate's content 27
• People following sales associate's Twitter 12
• New contacts 71 (on LinkedIn, Facebook, WeCanDo.BIZ, etc)
• Listeners to sales associate's Podcast 83
• Opportunities to sell found 21
• Online conversations had 39
• Warm call list (names generated expecting a call) 11

The cost of the social networking blitz to find new business opportunities, other than time and internet connection are small, if anything at all. Most importantly 2 sales were closed, covering any cost associated with the activity and generating a very healthy return.

The central question, however, is do modern-day sales people have the level of skill required to conduct a social media campaign individually? The simple answer is no. Not all salespeople will have the necessary skills, but having a skills gap is nothing new on the sales floor otherwise we wouldn’t have the multi-million pound training industry!

Can the skills be taught quickly and cost effectively? Yes. I have always taught people that sales is a process: follow steps one through five to achieve your aims. Social media networking can be processed as well, giving salespeople clear guidelines on the ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’. We spend millions every year teaching salespeople to cold call better, use the latest CRM (customer relationship management) system, be better team players and so on; and so it must come to pass that companies will need to train all staff to be ‘social media savvy’ as it extends far beyond just sales – marketing and service need to be in on the picture as well. 

Naysayers?... Agreed, updating your Facebook page with pictures of the weekend, playing silly games, nudging or poking other people is not the best use of your company’s time. But creating engaging, thought-provoking, discussion-opening content, centred around your products or services is. 

Social media networking will reduce dependence on cold calling. I am not saying it will eradicate the need for the telephone – that perhaps is to bold an idea. But I am certain it will become the first step in prospecting for new business.

What kind of results are you seeing when you pin Cold Calling vs. Social Networking?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Online Audience Development for Content Owners

It is true when they say content is king. But "relevant" content is key to success. All publishers need to make sure they have the right content for the right people in their audience.

How is the online content consumed?

A pull strategy (bringing people to your online content) requires SEO/SEM or display advertising to acquire the audience. This can be expensive.

A push strategy (delivering content to the people) is likely going to be key in getting cost-effective results and ROI. The best way to do this is delivering relevant content in a timely manner via email. In this case content is targeted to individuals based on their preferences and behavior.

Here are some more on some /pull techniques:

• Search engine optimization and search engine marketing Seems obvious, but how many publishers do this? If you publish media in a given space, the huge number of topics that your publication or Web site covers makes SEO/SEM a totally different challenge.
• Co-registration This is easier said than done for publishers that sell advertising, but basically the idea is that anytime someone signs up for an e-newsletter subscription on another Web site that's topically related to your Web site, you negotiate a relationship whereby your newsletter subscription is offered as another checkbox on that other Web site's e-newsletter sign-up form. Not surprisingly, Marketing Sherpa uses this tactic on a lot of marketing vendor sites. One advantage: They have a paid content model, so there's no conflict of interest. I'd like to see an example of an ad-supported publisher doing this with suppliers in their space.
• Landing page optimization I know most publishers aren't using this technique. The idea is that the very design and layout of the sign-up page (for our purposes, called the landing page, the place where the moment of truth occurs, when readers decide whether or not to opt in to your site, newsletter, magazine, advertiser white paper, etc.) greatly influences the number of readers who "convert" or complete the form. By testing different versions of the page, you can increase conversion by up to several hundred percent.
• Tracking/Analytics This is the adroit use of Web analytics programs to give you feedback on metrics that are meaningful to publishers. How many people subscribed to which e-newsletter products, and which were the most effective sources of traffic, both internally and externally? If you're doing paid search, which keyword groups yielded the best ROI? Which should be scrapped? Anyone doing paid search without tying it to some ROI metric is throwing their money down the drain.

Do you have a system for determining the relevancy of your content?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

Twitter... Are You Missing The Boat?

If you tuned into The Apprentice Sunday, March 8, you would have watched the "boys and girls" come up with a new slogan for Zappos. The CEO of www.zappos.com was the judge and selected the "gals" proposal. 

What stunned me, while watching the show, I happened to Tweet @zappos, and got a reply within 3 minutes. What I didn't realize at the time, that it was the CEO Tony Hsieh, sending me a message. 

Whats remarkable, here is a CEO of a $1B company, watching with the rest of us, probably his biggest marketing exposure (and expense) on national TV and he is on Twitter, tweeting to anyone that sends a message. 

How many CEO's of $1B companies do you know, that even know what a Tweet is, actually use it and are using it to their corporate advantage?

So are you missing the boat?

I became a fan of The Apprentice early on in the series. As a marketer I found it interesting to see so many promising young professional spread their marketing wings at the many tasks surrounding such high-end brands.

I saw the Zappos.com Celebrity Apprentice episode. I am struggling as a fan of the show with the Celebrity episodes as these individuals are not marketers and it is so painful to watch them fumble through fundamental marketing challenges.

I’ve seen Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, featured many times before and find his business plan completely refreshing. It is no doubt that his emphasis on customer service and corporate culture is responsible for his huge success as a brand and, ultimately, their sales growth of 1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008. I did find, however, that the show was either edited poorly or the part he played in the “RFP” process was below par. He did not discuss the target consumer at all, rather, broad stroking it; and, although he did mention customer service, I do not feel he placed appropriate emphasis on this core competency given its direct relationship to their success. (Note: I am a loyal Zappos consumer because of their customer service.)

Many companies are looking for guidance with branding on Twitter. To begin with, they need to know how to use Twitter, what it’s all about, who should handle Twitter (marketing sales, PR,) who to follow, etc.

Then to the question: Should the CEO or business owner also have a Twitter profile? This is a great question and one that takes some time and thought. Good social media consultants will tell you that social media marketing requires a strategy – and it’s not necessarily the type of “boiler plate” marketing strategy companies may be used to.

This key question – should the CEO (and other key management) have a Twitter profile to be part of the social media strategy?

Tony Hsieh is a highly visible CEO on Twitter right now (his profile is Zappos.com CEO.) This strategy blends the brand. This is definitely a trend we’ll be seeing more of. Tony even posted a Beginner’s Guide that can be helpful to business owners and entrepreneurs:

http://twitter.zappos.com/start 

It is important to know that while good personal branding involves self-promotion, there’s more to it. The social media world is all about “Give to Get” and engaging in two-way conversations. The value comes from not what you are doing; rather it comes from what you are thinking and sharing. It is about conversations and building relationships; not hard sell marketing, broadcasting or ego-driven tweets.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

What is The Social Funnel?...

And Why You Need to Build One.

Social media channels increasing the venues of choice for consumers to collect information and connect with brands, presents a strategic opportunity for companies to create a “Social Funnel” above the traditional marketing and sales funnel – where consumers take the lead in finding information and content that ultimately drives brand preference and sales.
 
In Winning the Consumer Decision Journey, McKinsey & Company’s David Court shares that, in the new social and digital age, “the path to purchase and loyalty is now complex, iterative, and dynamic.” In this new environment, creating a Social Funnel allows brands to identify and have access to buyers long before the buying process begins.

The Social Funnel Defined

The Social Funnel is a dynamic collection of consumer activity across social media channels, which sits on top of the traditional marketing and sales funnel. Developing a Social Funnel requires a systematic process of identifying and capturing consumer interactions across a variety of social media channels, aggregating this activity in a social customer relationship management (SCRM) infrastructure, and continually mining this insight to deliver relevant content to the right social profile at the right time. The chart below describes the Social Funnel and its tie to the traditional marketing and sales funnel:

To be effective, Social Funnels need to be tightly integrated with traditional customer relationship management (CRM) systems to create a 360-degree view of a prospect to allow marketers to nurture this relationship over time using a combination of social and traditional, experts agree that this integration holds a lot of potential. “Integrating social deeper into existing CRMs is going to be very popular in 2011 – we expect to see a growing number of brands tying customer records to public social profiles and bread crumbs”, says Nathaniel Perez, head of social experience at SapientNitro.

The integration of social media with the traditional funnel is one of the key priorities for brands in 2011. Although only 6% of companies today report that they fully integrate social with traditional marketing funnels

David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation for digital marketing agency 360i, agrees but tempers things by saying that “we are still early in the process but tying social profiles to CRM systems will be big.”

We see a growing number of companies starting to tie social profiles to their CRM systems. As this process continues to evolve, we expect to see social media becoming more of a critical component throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Systems that support the integration of social with CRM will increase in adoption over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, giving organizations the ability to seamlessly combine data from multiple systems easily and efficiently.

 

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/


Source: MarketingSherpa Benchmark Report: 2011 Social Media Marketing

Achieving The Coveted:Viral Marketing

Viral campaigns yield the highest ROI... Information about your product spreads naturally, like a contagious disease... only a good one...

I once read up on the 5 C’s of viral marketing:Community, Compelling, Comedy, Charity, and Contest

Let's talk Community...

We all know that viral marketing in the social media space is all about communities. In fact, I would argue that communities play a larger role than most people think, both online and offline. They can build a brand, kill a brand, make a career, break a career, influence elections, etc. Think about it; from an offline perspective, life is community driven through PTA organizations, church groups, sports leagues, stay-at-home mommy groups, and various school organizations (sororities, fraternities) to name a few. And of course online, you have Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Stumbledupon and hundreds of other social media sites jumping in the scene daily.

Within each of these online/offline communities consumers are talking and having conversations with each other. And, they are sharing opinions, experiences, advice, recommendations and commentary about products, services and companies usually based on real personal experience.

THIS IS VIRAL MARKETING.

The challenge with viral marketing is that it’s not always viral, if that makes any sense... Often, marketers plan for and label their marketing plans as “viral” but 9 times out of 10, it never catches on. It’s the things that just happen by accident that become viral. Remember the Diet Coke and Mentos video? At first, Coca-Cola distanced themselves from the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos viral video phenomenon, fearing it would damage their reputation and brand; however, just recently that have fully embraced the concept and now there are over 7,000 consumer generated videos on YouTube, millions of pageviews, hundreds of comments, and favored by thousands of fans. The community here is not only the millions of YouTube enthusiasts, but also the micro-communities of people and their offline conversations about these videos.

So, while I do believe it is impossible to craft a viral campaign, you can certainly try to influence one:

• Formulate your marketing message.  Think about the product or service you are advertising and create a message that communicates the benefits and uses of what you are selling.  A website is nonnegotiable.  
• Make the content on your website sharable. For example, you can allow readers to embed a funny video from your website onto their own blogs. An "email this article to your friend" link is another way information spreads from one person to another.
• Use email as a viral marketing tool. Include a marketing message about your product or service in the tag lines of your emails and also include your advertising message in auto responder emails you send to those who email you.
• Post your content on other Internet sites such as message boards and blogs. However, do this carefully; many forum managers are now aware of this practice and may delete your messages if they think it's spam.
• Incorporate your marketing message into rich media. Video clips and Flash games are very popular on the Internet, so if you have a great idea for this medium your message will spread like wildfire.
• Spread your message off line as well. Tell your friends and colleagues about your product or service and hand them business cards with the URL on them along with a catchy tag line, perhaps the same one you use in your emails.

What are you doing to boost your buzz factor?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co  

Enourmous Benefits of Blogging

I am already on record as pointing out that if you want to raise your visibility and get in touch with your audience, it’s a good idea to blog.  It does take a little chunk of time out of your agenda, but it’s probably no more than you should spend on marketing, anyway.  Also, I’ve seen many outstanding blogs….most notably by Guy Kawasaki… that are all photos and captions.  But then Kawasaki goes to really interesting places like a battle ship or Red Square.  And if he photographs something ordinary like a tech company office, you can rest assured it is no ordinary office but an incredibly creative, way out there, in a class of its own, office.

My point is, blogging can take as much or…almost… as little time as you want it to.  And if you aren’t doing it yet, perhaps you should take a look at the following:

1) Blogs initiate dialog with web visitors

Blogs start a two-way traffic with web visitors. When you write about your products and services and write with authority, as though you are the master of your business and with in-depth knowledge about your products and services, you not only create awareness of the benefits and disadvantages about the product and service you deal in, you engage people’s attention. Your blog should also have a call to action, to make the readers of the blog interact with your website.

A call to action can mean asking them to leave comments, encouraging them to speak out. Comments left by the readers of blogs might include inquiries and leads that could lead to sales.

Blogs generate a prospective about your company. It silently speaks about the culture and vision of your company and even helps in building a brand image.

2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Benefit of blogging

Blogs peppered with targeted keywords, keyword phrases and search terms related to your business puts blogs in plain sight whenever web visitors use related search terms. Instead of using long-tail keyword phrases, targeting niche keywords will help in attracting more qualified web traffic.

3) Blogs attract more links

Blog are meant to be informative and not advertisements. Informative quality, industry related articles that provide insight or a critical analysis of product and services you deal in helps you to get more links.

Links will get better search engine rankings for your website and will help in generating more traffic.

4) Fresh, original content for blogs

Fresh and original web content is the feed for search engine spiders. Websites that are updated frequently get crawled by the search engine spiders more often. Your website gets more authority and better search engine ranking.

By now, you should have enough reasons to be seriously considering blogging. For your interest and for the interest of getting more visitors to your website, blogging is the way to go. You can get started now by viewing the following tutorial videos:

How to Create a Blog on Blogger

How to Create a Blog on Wordpress

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

The Importance of Long-Tail Keywords

Those of you who have tried in vain for years to rank high for your head keyword of choice know what I am talking about. To those of you who are newly introduced to this wondrous world of SEO, I’ll say this: roll up your sleeves and prepare to wait. Or you can do the smart thing and just target long-tail keywords. You won’t have to deal with all that fierce competition for popular head keywords, and you will be a few steps closer to getting your site rank high.

It comes with one warning: the traffic volumes will be considerably lower than that from a head keyword. But then, the probability of your ranking high for a head keyword is less than unlikely, so the traffic from that keyword will amount to, basically, nothing.

It’s a quantity vs. quality argument. And when you do the math, you will find, the long-tailed keyword is the bird in the hand.

Last month, Google introduced an algorithm update and many webmasters saw a drop in traffic from Google for keyword phrases that are three or more keywords long. However, Google is now able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. It seems that Google guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases until recently based on other signals and keywords on the indexed pages. The new Google patent indicates that Google now has the computing power to index longer keyword phrases on web pages instead of guessing them.

What does this mean to you? It means that those who have taken the time to anticipate the need of their customers and Google’s customers will be rewarded.

Still not convinced? Consider this:

• Ease When you try to rank for a head keyword, you essentially go into competition with millions of websites. And the odds of your ranking high for that term are very low. For example, if you try to rank for the head keyword “online learning” you’ll have to beat at least 36 million other sites to rank high. Instead, if you use a long-tail with niche terms relevant to your site, like, “online learning in South Carolina” the competition drastically drops to under three hundred thousand. And your odds of ranking high will improve too.
• Speed Thanks to the diminished competition, you don’t have to spend nearly half your life optimizing your site and building links before you can see your site ranking high for long-tail keywords.
• Relevance Since long-tail keywords are more often than not, specific strings of keywords with a niche term; the chances of then meeting the exact search needs of users are very high. This aids the target marketing methods of your overall mix and ultimately drives…
• Conversion The fact that search users will find sites targeting long-tail keywords more relevant contribute another point to chalk up in its favor. Reports attest to the fact that users with specific search queries know exactly what they are looking for and are more likely to turn into customers.
• Exposure This is perhaps the least known advantage of targeting long-tail keywords. Using long tail keywords over a period of time will eventually help you rank higher for your head keywords as well. As your site gains authority and builds its trust quotient, the long-tail keywords will help provide enough targeted traffic and also enough ‘exposure’ to your head keywords that your attempt to target them alone won’t prove to be all that disastrous.

A great thing about targeting long-tail keywords is that you can play around with all the niche terms relevant to your site and try and rank for a series of long-tails. You don’t always have to target “online learning in South Carolina,” “online high school in South Carolina” can help send an entirely different set people swinging to your site. However, targeting keywords on your site alone won’t help you achieve all this, and I doubt if I have to reiterate the importance of building credible links with the right anchor test. Try to have your targeted keywords in as many incoming links (internal as well as external) as possible, combined with your on page optimization efforts, it will do wonders for your ranking.

What are some of your long-tail keyword success stories?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

The Most Effective Viral Marketing Methods

I struggled with the title of this blog post.  I wanted something kitchy, something to subconsciously imply this is indeterminable... because anybody who tries to sell you a viral marketing campaign should set up shop with an SEO expert who tries to sell you the #1 SER.  It is just not possible to guarantee.  Doesn't mean you can't try...

By far I find narrowcasting activities have proven the most effective for me in terms of generating a viral campaign.  Below are 3 such activities I've implemented over the past year that generated lots of sharing.

Writing 'Special Reports'

• Special Reports work great because they allow you to go into more depth about the Topic or Problem in question where you'll then be able to lead them to how your Product or Service (or Affiliate product) can fix there current problem.
• They give you Instant Credibility, which builds trust in your customer that you are knowlegdable in your industry.
• Website owners are always looking for quality "Free Stuff" to give away or offer to there Visitors and/or Subscribers.
• And your Contact Information will always be inside, no matter what. Meaning, as your report is being passed around the Internet you'll always be able to lead your potential customer back to your website where they could sign-up for your newsletter and/or read up more about your Products or Services you offer.

Putting Together A 'Free eBook'

• Free eBooks work great as well and have the same benefits as I outlined through the special report. The only difference using this approach is, you can put together a free ebook in less time then it would take to produce your special report simply because it doesn't even have to be your own material inside, it can be someone else's.
• And they also allow you to target more then one Product or Service inside because free ebooks are usually a compilation of related articles targetting a particular problem leaving you room to diversify.

Writing 'Articles'

• Writing Articles is probably ONE of the Best and Most Effective Ways to produce a wave of Viral Traffic to your website because every website owner needs FRESH content to feed to there visitors and/or subscribers.
• They also allow you to Target your audience's problem specifically that they're dealing with.
• And at the end of the article you have a spot called the 'Resource Box' to insert your personal Bio and/or Website information. Just imagine if your article were to be picked up by some Newsletter Editor with a large list or High Traffic website and they use it as a 'Featured Article' in there publication, you could see an INSTANT surge of targeted traffic to your website overnight. That's where your 'Resource Box' comes in.

Package a 'Kit' on a Landing Page

• Just using the word 'Kit' sends a message that your prospect is getting something of value. 
• If you package your content of value into a downloadable package that you can store on a Landing Page, you've just exchanged a potentially viral offerings in exchange for lead data.

Perhaps you've noticed what these 3 'viral' methods all have in common...

They're in HIGH demand by website owners.

They're HIGHLY Targeted.

They give You INSTANT Credibility in your industry.

They are all INBOUND MARKETING tactics.

They have YOUR Contact Details leading to Your website.

...they're all FREE!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

4 Ways to Overcome Marketing Challenges Forever

For most small business owners, marketing is an overwhelming concept. They need marketing solutions that ensure a smooth-running, profitable business yet most don't know where to begin or how to focus their efforts.

90% of small businesses don't even have a marketing plan. It's difficult to reach your destination if you don't know where you're going!

If you're a small business owner looking for ease, focus and marketing success, we recommend that you focus on just 4 tactics:

1.   Establish a memorable and unmistakeable brand identity:

The secret to business success is determined by your ability to powerfully communicate your business with laser precision and your ability to deliver a clearly-defined and consistent experience.

In a nutshell... it's called branding, and, when done right, it ensures a thriving business with all the customers and profits you need. The secret is to establish a powerful brand identity that sings distinction. And establish that identity before you launch any marketing activities.

2.   Create a deep connection with your core target audience - your potential raving fans!

Who wants and needs what you have to offer? The only wrong answer is "everyone." If you're a pediatrician, you may see infants and children. Are they your target audience? No! They are your patients, but it's the parents you need to connect with to get the kids in your door. And it's not just any parents - it's a definite group of parents.

In marketing, you get a lot more "bang for your buck" if you focus your spending on a well-defined group of people that you enjoy working with. The better you define this group, the more effective your marketing can be.

3.   Design compelling offerings that pull customers in like a magnet.

80% of all purchase decisions are based on emotion. It's your job as a marketer to know how your customers want to feel and to get them to visualize how your services can meet their needs. People want to know, "What's in it for me?" Tap into the emotion and create offerings that touch your customers.

4.   Craft A Personal, Workable Marketing Plan

Marketing is everything you do to make your product or service more visible, more desirable and more profitable. Your marketing plan will clearly define the big picture and provide focus and direction based on the 4 'P's of Marketing - product, price, place/distribution and promotion.

Since 90% of small business owners do not have a plan, you'll have a leg up on your competition by crafting your personal, workable marketing plan to ensure that you reach your business goals.

Following these 4 criteria will transform any small business into a money-making machine guaranteed to grow your client list, sales and profits. The upfront work is the secret to a million-dollar business, literally and figuratively.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/