Video Marketing: The Future Of Content Marketing

Video is the future of content marketing, find out how video marketing can help boost your business.

How to Write a Great Newsletter

Communicating with your customers and potential customers is important. Email newsletters are a great way to do just that. But more often than not, people will open those newsletters and not actually read them.

This means that all of that content that you worked hard to create is ignored and doesn’t help further your business goals. Getting people to read the newsletter is the missing link. Newsletters help people stay connected to your brand and give your brand a platform to speak from.

There are a few tips and tricks to creating a newsletter that people will open and read. Here’s how to ensure that people not only open your newsletter but actually read it.

Curate it to the extreme

People like it when newsletters find their niche and stick to it. Too often, people are inundated with content and they get overwhelmed. This leads to them not reading anything and your newsletter falling to the wayside.

Chose the topic of your newsletter carefully. For instance, if you are a brand that sells house inspection services, choose one house inspection service to highlight in your newsletter. Then, add maybe one other relevant piece of information that dovetails that that service.

People want to read your content, they just don’t have time to read a lot of it. When you are creating your newsletter, remember that less is more.

Put your personality on display

It’s tempting to slide into the carefully curated brand voice that you have developed. When it comes to newsletters, the more personal and personality-filled, the better. Your customers want to feel the personality of your brand shine through. Don’t bury it under jargon and sterile marketing-speak.

Be a little quirky in your newsletter. Write it from unique perspectives. Don’t be afraid to let the unique parts of what makes your business special come to life in your newsletter. Your readers will thank you (and be more apt to read your newsletter in its entirety).

Make your newsletter valuable

People don’t want a lot of clutter in the newsletters they read. They also want to get something valuable out of the newsletters they choose to actually open. Make the time your readers spend on your newsletter worth it.

In your newsletter, tell people a story, tell them why it’s important, and tell them why they should care. It’s that last part that is the most important. People want to know the “so, what?” of your content. Give it to them.

Always do something new, but keep it focused

Don’t be boring or highly predictable with your newsletters. People who open your newsletters want to get something new each time they open it. Make that open worth their while.

Keep your content and perspective fresh, but make sure you are staying focused on your niche. Going back to the home inspection example: you want people to know that they are getting a newsletter about home inspection, but deliver new things each time. Some examples: a checklist for spring cleaning, a guide to cleaning your pool, how to tell if your windows are losing heat.

Keeping your content fresh will keep your current readers invested. Keeping that fresh content focused on your niche will ensure that they keep opening and see your brand as an authority.

Keep the writing pure

Web writing has gotten a little convoluted lately. What with SEO, keywords, and click-bait headlines, the actual writing can get pushed to the back burner and the point of the content can be obscured.

Your newsletter audience is a captive audience. They opened the newsletter so they want to read it. This is your chance to communicate with them openly and honestly without all the keywords and click-bait.

Keep your newsletter writing straightforward and to the point. No SEO here. Just good and solid content worth reading and sharing.

If you want to learn more about how to write great newsletter content, check out my done-for-you system today!

What is Brand strategy? Types of Brand & Marketing Strategies

Developing your brand is the most important thing you should do. It will create and strengthen your profession service.

Marketing Your Own Personality to Drive Branding for Your Online Business

When you run an affiliate marketing business, long-term relationships are far more profitable than short-term revenues. In only a very limited number of cases is there high value to jumping into a hot market, making a big splash, then getting out as fast as you can.

In most cases, building long-term relationships with your customers in the end is the most rewarding strategy, both financially and in terms of your company’s reputation and brand.

If you consider your customers to be your friends, rather than simply your customers, you can improve the effectiveness of any marketing program.

Any time you contact your customers – whether via email, social media, in forums or anywhere else – you should try to personalize the experience as much as possible. Share details about your personal history and family life.

Give your customers the opportunity to develop a genuine emotional bond with you and offer them a vested interest in your success. This will result in a long, prosperous business relationship with a larger group of customers and it will help build your reputation online. Remember, that and you can continually grow your business for many years to come.

Putting Your Personality on the Squeeze Page

For example, how much is an email opt-in worth to you? In other words, when you get somebody to act on your squeeze page — they give you their email address in exchange for whatever high value, niche related content you are giving away for free — what does that mean in terms of cash business? A ballpark estimate is that each opt-in is worth about 50 cents to one dollar per month. And I would say that’s pretty conservative.

So if you have 1,000 opt-ins on a particular squeeze page per month, you can expect that to bring you at least $500 to $1,000 per month.

Every email opt-in you get, you put that person into your sales funnel. That means you are going to be sending them offers and affiliate product promotions interspersed with other high value content and personal information.

The Value of Customers

According to the industry average, each person on your list is worth about 75 cents per month to you.

Obviously, you can increase this average by promoting products people really want and by doing a great job nurturing interpersonal relationships with the people on your list.

Once people opt-in to your subscriptions list, ideally, you want to push your subscribers up your value ladder. This means that regardless of your niche, the purpose of the sales funnel is to push your customers so that they buy offers with bigger and bigger price tags.

You can promote these products using the multiple marketing platforms you have created, including your email subscriber list, social media, squeeze pages, article and forum marketing, and even paid marketing like CPC ads and Google Adwords. How prospects find your sales funnel is less important than what they do once they arrive there.

Gateway Offers

The gateway offer is the first product that you are going to ask your prospects to pay for. Your gateway offer promotion comes after any giveaway product from your squeeze page or elsewhere. The important aspect of the gateway offer is that it should have enormous perceived value for your prospects. In other words, you should over-deliver for what they are paying.

With digital products, it’s hard to lose money in distribution because you can re-sell the same product repeatedly without any additional production costs. Still, it should seem to your customers as if what they are getting with their gateway product is worth far, far more than what they are paying. One way to do this is to provide the highest quality products possible.

Offering your customers value and using your own personality and personal history to build relationships is vital to your success. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

6 Tips to Help You Increase Your Instagram Followers

Instagram is currently the fastest growing social media site. This provides a great opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to grow their brand. With Instagram, you get access to over 600 million active monthly users.

Not only does Instagram have the numbers to help you expand your brand, Instagram followers are also more likely to engage. This means you’ll have better chances of getting followers to follow your links. But, first, you need to gain these followers.

Use these 6 tips to start increasing the number of followers you have on Instagram.

Research Your Competition and Take Notes

The first step is to begin researching your competition. You should see what they’re doing to attract followers. Look at the type of content that they post, which posts receive the most likes and shares, and how frequently they post.

By researching your competition, you gain valuable insight into the needs and wants of your target audience. You eliminate the need to perform detailed consumer research.

Make notes on what you find. Write down the frequency of their posts and other details. Use this as a base for your posting strategy.

Announce Your New Instagram Account

You can also take advantage of your existing follower base on other social media accounts. This can give you a quick boost of new followers to your Instagram account.

Post an announcement on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites encouraging your followers to check out your Instagram page.

Create an Instagram Posting Schedule

The next step is to create a posting schedule. While it’s easy to say that you’ll post a few times per week, it’s hard to stick this routine without setting concrete goals and plans.

Generally, you’ll want to post at least once per day. You don’t want to bombard your followers with posts. But, you also don’t want them to forget about you.

Along with the frequency of your posts, you’ll want to consider the timing of your posts. The time of the day can directly impact post engagement. The best time of the day to post depends on your followers.

Pay attention to what time of the day users engage with your posts. Typically, the afternoon is the best time, as people are out of work.

Take High-Quality Photos for Your Posts

Instagram is highly visual. Each post will contain a photo or a video. Make sure that you use high-quality photos. You should consider investing in a decent camera unless your smartphone has a camera capable of taking quality shots.

If your images appear grainy or out of focus, your Instagram feed won’t be as appealing to potential followers.

Include a Clear Message in Every Post

Along with a photo or video, you’ll need to include a message. This message should be short, concise, and clear. Make sure that people understand the point of your post, especially when promoting your products or services.

Remember to Use Hashtags in Your Posts

After your message, you should add several hashtags. Don’t try to include the hashtags in your message. It makes your message difficult to read.

At the bottom of your message, include several relevant hashtags. This helps people discover your posts when using the Instagram search feature.

Combine these tips to get the most out of your Instagram account. In addition to these suggestions, the use of sponsored posts can help you attract more followers.

Instagram is growing quickly. Get involved while interest is still high. If you’d like to gain even more effective marketing tips and suggestions, along with a way to generate conversion-ready internet marketing prospects, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Increase Your Online Exposure Without Increasing Your Budget

When you’re first starting out, every dollar that you spend on online marketing matters. You likely have multiple goals. You want to gain website traffic, increase your social media followers, and build your online reputation.

All these goals can be achieved with good marketing strategies. But, you might be able to speed up the process by increasing your online exposure. With brand recognition, it becomes easier to gain traction and get your foot through the door of your target market.

I’ll give you a few simple tips that you can use to increase your online exposure without having to increase your marketing budget. 

Use Consistent Branding

If you want people to recognize your brand, you need to be consistent with your branding. This means using the same logo on your website and social media profiles. Anywhere that your logo or business branding appears, you should use the exact same image.

You want to ensure that people realize that your website and your social media profiles are one and the same. They aren’t two separate individuals or businesses.

So, your YouTube profile, Facebook profile, Twitter, and other platforms should all use the same profile image and it should include the same branding that appears on your website.

Gain More Social Media Followers

Once your branding is in place, you should focus on gaining more social media followers. It doesn’t cost a dime to share content on social media. Monday through Friday, you should post at least twice per day on each of your social media accounts.

This means that you’ll be posting at least 10 times per week. But, you don’t need to worry about creating 10 original posts. 8 of these posts will come from other sources, such as industry-leading blogs and news sites.

Also, become active on social media. Interact with your followers. Share personal stories. Engage your audience and join communities. This all helps you gain followers without having to pay for marketing.

Start Creating High-Quality Blog Posts

Sharing content on social media should help you gain followers. It’s difficult at first, but once you pass 100 followers, it’ll become easier. Then, start creating high-quality blog posts.

You’ll already have a schedule in place for sharing 8 pieces of curated content on social media. For the remaining 2 posts, share links to your original content. The followers that you’ve gained will share these posts, increasing your online exposure without requiring any additional spending. 

Write Guest Blog Posts for Other Sites

After you get the hang of writing quality blog posts for your own website, start submitting guest blog posts to other sites. Look for websites that get a lot of traffic. Getting a guest blog posted on one of these sites will increase your online presence and help you establish yourself as a voice of authority.

Share Your Opinion with Everyone

The final step for increasing your online exposure without increasing your budget is to share your opinion with everyone. What I mean by this is that you need to comment on blog posts, comment on social media posts, answer questions on Q&A websites, and become active on relevant forums.

Blog and forum commenting can help you earn backlinks, increasing your search engine rankings. Commenting on social media or answering questions on Q&A websites can help you get noticed. These steps build backlinks, increase recognition, and could help you gain more followers.

You can increase your online exposure without spending additional money. It all starts with consistent branding. Then, focus on social media. Once you gain followers, start generating quality content and sharing it.

Use these tips to start increasing your online exposure. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

The Launch: Do You Know What Your Marketing Is Doing? | Adobe Marketing ...

A must watch.. amusing but makes an incredibly valid point.



What do you think?

What is Marketing & Brand Strategy?

See in this video how branding has evolved over the years and how it has now become relevant to YOU!

Have you found your brand?  Let me know in the comments below.

9 Ways to Use Social Media to Build Your Personal Brand

Brands often work tirelessly to leverage social media in order to boost online visibility and revenue. They want more clicks, more likes, and they want to create a positive user experience.

But what happens when a brand is a person instead of a company? When it’s just you, you need to take a different approach to growing your brand through social media. Since over 90% of customers trust information from people they know when making a purchase decision, building personal connections might be the most effective way to develop trust and authority with your audience.

There are nine ways you can use social media to make that happen.

1. Find the Right Groups

Facebook and LinkedIn both offer great opportunities to join groups focused on specific topics or industries. If you can find groups that line up with your area of expertise, then you’ll be able to share that experience and build authority around your personal brand.

Industry groups are good bets, but they might already be overcrowded with your competitors. Instead, think outside the box and find other groups where you’re likely to find your audience.

2. Keep the Image Consistent

Across all of your social profiles, you have to maintain a certain consistency with your brand. When people want to learn more about you, they may search for you on a number of social outlets. Presenting yourself in a consistent manner helps you control their perception of your personal brand. You can damage an otherwise impeccable reputation if one of your profiles shows up with content or images that don’t represent you well.

3. Engage Regularly

Building a brand takes a lot of effort, and it should be treated like a job. Every day, you should be sharing and producing content. Adjust the frequency and types of content based on the audience presence.

We already post a lot on the social accounts for Web Profits, but I still make time to post on each of my personal social profiles.

“A once-weekly Twitter post or monthly Instagram photo are not going to accomplish much, if anything,” writes Michael Noice, founder of Entrepreneur Coach. “For this reason, it’s best to focus on two or three carefully chosen social networks and try to be active on them, rather than posting sporadically to a half-dozen.”

4. Diversify Your Content

I recommend crafting a communications strategy for your personal brand that includes an editorial calendar and a diverse content plan so that you won’t resort to publishing the same types of articles every single day.

Be sure to include images, videos, articles, and even questions. I see a lot more reciprocal engagement when I change up the type of content that I post daily.

Another benefit is that this diversity prevents you from oversharing your own content. Even if your own content is fantastic, your followers will appreciate when you source and share authoritative content from other people.

5. Study Influencers

Connecting with and even collaborating with influencers is a smart way to build your personal brand and get yourself seen, but it takes time. You have to develop a relationship with influencers before they’ll want to work with you.

When you’re first getting started, locate and automatically engage with influencers you want to partner with by using Narrow.io. Once you’ve found the top influencers in your niche, analyze their networks. Note the types of content they share and how their followers respond. Try to build your own following by using their strategy for inspiration.

6. Give as Much as You Can

If you want to create a memorable brand, you need to give people a reason to remember you. While I’ve grown my personal brand considerably in recent years, I still like to reach out to contacts directly and ask them what I can do for them.

Matt Sweetwood, CEO of beBee, believes this is a fundamental way to grow a brand.

“This personal connection makes the customers feel that you care about them, and that they are more than just revenue to you,” he says.

You’re not trying to sell or pitch anything. You’re legitimately asking if there is anything you can do to help them. Give away some of your time, your advice, and any other resources you have available to help your connections.

When you first start out, make it a habit to contact at least one person every day with an offer to help.

7. Ask Questions

Questions are a great way to spark engagement and improve the visibility for your brand while others chime in. Engagement will happen slowly at first, but be persistent. Keep your eyes open for potential opportunities. A response from one follower could lead to a burning question from another that could fuel great conversation.

8. Jump into Discussions

Don’t be afraid to add your voice and make yourself visible in a discussion. This is especially true if you have unique insights and value to add. You won’t have much luck when it comes to building your brand if you remain a wishful lurker.

Being responsive will keep you on track to grow your personal brand and your network of connections.

“Showing that you’re responsive, engaging, and human will do wonders for your brand,” writes Tiffany Hsu, community manager for Salesforce.

9. Monitor Your Name

Businesses set up all kinds of alerts for branded terms and product/service-related search phrases. Those alerts notify them when someone creates a post that includes their name or other branded terms.

Do the same for your personal brand and don’t forget to include alerts for common keywords involving your area of expertise. Between your alert systems and manual searches in social media, you won’t miss out on opportunities to respond or join discussions.

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