Monthly Archives: October 2014

The #1 Marketing Tool For Business You Need To Start Using Right Now

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Today I want to share with you the Number one most effective and free digital marketing tool that you can use as a small business owner or do it yourself marketer.

You may not be surprised to learn it is Video marketing! Just like this video here:

It is an incredibly powerful tool that is free to use, I actually filmed this on my smart phone!

3 Reasons Video Marketing is so effective.

Number 1 – Video is the next best thing to meeting someone in person.

A lot of our communication is non-verbal so watching a video of someone is a really great way to get to know them and get a sense of who they are, its very similar to meeting someone in person.

Secondly, people are much more prone to watch video or look at photos than they are to read text or a long bio about you. It is a very easy way to communicate information and have people consume it in this day in age when people have increasingly short attention spans.

Thirdly, videos are much more likely to be shared and have a much higher conversion rate in terms of people who watch the video are much more likely to act and take the next step in the buying cycle.

Lastly, not many people know this, but Youtube is owned by Google and is the second biggest search engine in the world!

So by posting videos to Youtube, you increase your exposure across the search engines and generate more traffic back to your website!

Those are all the reasons I recommend you start video marketing right now.

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The 3 Keys to Succeeding on Google Adwords

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There are so many different layers to Google AdWords that at times it can be overwhelming. That is why today I come bearing good news! The key to Google AdWords is not actually within Google AdWords, but is a combination of 3 elements that you can brainstorm even before you log in to the advertising platform.

The 3 keys that I have promised work very closely together. Like any team, on their own they can only do so much, but by working together they are able to form a cohesive unit that brings success to your online campaign.

Let’s break these 3 keys down:

1) Know What Your Customers Are Looking For

An internet search can be entered in many different ways. It can be a full question (Where do I find a red widget?). It can be a partial phrase or question (red widget Calgary). Or it can be an audio question (Hey Suri, where can I find a red widget in Calgary?).

Whatever form these queries come in, you have to know what people are looking for and the keywords they are using to find it. Only then can you start to build your Ads and Keywords to take advantage of this search traffic.

Action – Take a piece of paper and a pen and brainstorm what product or service you a trying to sell and all of the different ways people may search for you online.

2) Create an Ad That Grabs Their Attention

You have a limited amount of characters on a search ad to grab people’s attention and entice them to click on your ad. That’s why you need to come up with a compelling headline that first makes people notice (Max: 25 characters), then follow that up with ad text that let’s people know that you can help them with their question or problem (Line 1: 35 characters. Line 2: 35 characters). Doing this is no small task, but once you get the hang of it you will be able to model other ads off this first one.

Action: Without logging into AdWords, sit down with another piece of paper and brainstorm eye-catching headlines and supporting text that will entice people to click on your ads.

3) Create a Landing Page That Solves a Problem

A lot of people create ads on AdWords that direct traffic back to their homepage. The fact of the matter is that the homepage is the last place you should be directing traffic.

People use Google Search to find answers to their questions or problems. Your ad should first tell people that you have the answer, and your landing page should then give them the answer.

Take the above example. If someone is searching for ‘red widget Calgary’ and they click on your ad, they should be taken to a landing page on your website that is specific to red widgets. If they are taken to a general widget page, or a page for yellow widgets, it’s more than likely that they will hit the back button and be counted as a ‘bounce’ in your analytics.

Action: Once your products & services are identified, work with your web development team to create eye-popping landing pages that will let visitors know that they have come to the right place.

Now Go Ahead and Log In to Google AdWords

Now that you have put some thought and action into these 3 elements of creating your ad you can now log in to Google AdWords. While you still have to learn to navigate through the tool, having the pre-work done will now make the process much clearer and easier to apply.

Products & Services = Campaigns & Ad Groups
Headlines & Ad Text = Ads
Landing Page = Ad URL
Search Terms = Keywords

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

How to Create An Automated Sales Lead Nurture (Drip) Campaign

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I want to talk to you about how to automate your sales conversion process by using the internet!

There are 3 steps to creating what is called a “drip campaign” or a “lead nurture campaign”.

The first step is to capture, the second is nurture and the third is convert!

All of this is going to help you automatically nurture leads as you are busy doing other things!

First, you want to start capturing lead’s email addresses from your website, social media, from search engines, you may have a specific landing page set up to capture perspective buyers information.

Once you have a prospect’s information don’t just leave it! Nurture those leads by regularly corresponding with them via email.

I recommend Mailchimp.com as an easy to use, free email marketing software.

Consider what concerns or questions your prospects might have as they go through the buying journey as well as questions you are commonly asked by your existing customers and start feeding them information at regular intervals to their email account.

You can even set up automated responses to start going out from the minute they submit their email address!

 

Whether that is every couple of days or couple weeks depends on your particular industry and business.

Next you can go into your Google Analytics and see how often these people are opening and clicking on these e-mails and get a really good idea on how qualified this lead is becoming.

Third, you want to convert them from a qualified lead to a sale.

So as they going through this nurturing process, at some point you want to start asking them repeatedly for the sale.

Give them special offers and make them time sensitive —> remember to continue to ask for the sale and that will help convert your lead into a sale!

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CNN Interview: Social Proof & How it Affects Consumer Buying Decisions

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Let’s talk about how to leverage social proof to influence your customer’s buying decisions.

What is the psychology of decision making?  How does that fit into the new world of communication and how people research decisions?

Check out Laurel’s interview on CNN where she answers these questions and more:

A transcript of the interview is below:

There has been a powerful shift in consumer behaviour in the last 10 or so years.

Previously consumers didn’t have that much power when they were making a buying decision, they would have to go into a showroom and talk to a salesperson to get information.

With the advent and extremely huge adoption of web usage, consumers now have most of the power and are doing most of the pre-buying research before they even contact the business in question.

So, one of the things customers are looking for as they go through the buying process is social proof.

Social proof essentially provides trust that the business has done good work before and can be trusted to do so again.

The way that that is conveyed typically is social proof: testimonials, recommendations, credibility of having up to date website, presence on social media etc. More importantly that other people have interacted with the business and had a positive result.

In this transparent internet world, customers have the ability to submit reviews and testimonials and reviews basically anywhere on the web.

Consumers can review your business on google, Yelp, Facebook.  What this does is affect your search rankings as a business owner on the internet.

The more positive reviews you have for example, on google the higher your business will rank over and above those that don’t have as many positive reviews.

It is one of the top ways people are able to vet your business and see if they will have a good experience. Its certainly recommended to get as many positive reviews as possible.

Also acknowledge any negative reviews you get. Let’s face it, you cant please everyone but by ignoring negative reviews it actually does more damage than simply addressing those concerns people have. it is tremendously affective in convincing your customers you do provide great service.

Q. How do product and service endorsements fit into the modern world?

Product and service endorsements are one of the most powerful ways to sell a new client or customer.

You can tell them all you want how great you are but having words come from someone you have done business with already, using their experience, will most precisely mirror the experience of your future customer.

To have older clients and customers positively reviewing you and going through the experience that they had will tick all the boxes in terms of addressing the concerns your future customers will have.

Q. There is an idea of a difference between implied and explicit endorsements. What is the difference between the two?

Implicit endorsement is something that is occurring a lot through social media.

For example, If you have a Facebook business page and you have 7 people like your photo, they are implicitly endorsing you as someone they do and would do business with and that they know, like and trust.

That is the power of social media and why it works so well. It could also be how many fans you have and followers on your youtube channel. It builds credibility.

Explicit endorsement are things like reviews and testimonials from past clients as well as any reviews you may have or items that would position you as a thought leader.

Any PR or being featured in magazines, interviews on TV stations like CBC, CNN etc, that is also very credible social proof that gets a bigger spread and impact.

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Rockstar Tips to Getting More Exposure On Adwords For Less Money

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Today we are talking about how to rock Adwords like a prostar!

Google Adwords is where you can pay to have your business show up on Google by advertising with them.

Once you create an account, there are a couple tips I want to give you today that will help you get better results for less money!

First thing you want to do is sync your Google Adwords page with your Google+ local page.

In your Google Adwords account, click on extensions and synch up your Google+ local page. What this does is makes your ad stand out from all of your competition because it shows the pin which links directly to your location on Google maps – so you get more exposure for very little effort.

Secondly, is make sure your settings are changed from “broad match” to “exact match”.

What that does is prevent Google from making your ad show up for keywords that they are randomly adding to your account- you may not want to show up for those keywords or pay for them either!

By setting them to exact match you are taking more control over your account.

Lastly, is make sure your ad is only displaying during the times of day people are actually only searching for what you sell.

What this does is takes a bunch of your budget that could possibly wasted around the 2am mark and allocates it towards times of the day your prospective audience is searching for what you sell. That means you get more exposure for the same mount of money you are paying and you get a broader exposure to your target market.

Those are your three tips for rocking Google Adwords like a prostar!

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