Learn more about video marketing

What do you want your video to achieve?

• Increase brand exposure and awareness
• Increase product or service awareness
• Increase viewer’s knowledge about a topic or product
• Increase website traffic
• Increase website authority through external links

Video Best practices:

• Highlight Your Brand in the Video

Include your brand in the background of the video and in the video introduction.  Use your brand logo as part of the video so it can’t be edited out.  Think of the video sharing sites and social networks sharing your video and the brand awareness gains.

• Include Clear Calls to Action in the Video

Give your audience clear instructions on how you want them to proceed after watching your video. Guide them to your website, and ask them to submit a contact form, “Like” you on Facebook, or leave a comment on your YouTube channel.

• Video Content and Duration

Include your most important points at the beginning of the video to gain the user’s attention and interest. Consider the length of your video and your audience’s time. Many video sharing sites, like YouTube, limit the video length to 10 minutes. Limit your videos to 5 minutes or less, depending on the subject, to keep people engaged in your video message.

• Use Keywords in Your Video File Name

Using a file name like “video123” will not yield good search engine rankings for your key terms. Use keywords relevant to your video in your file names.

• Include a Video Title and Description

Video titles and descriptions are important not only for search engine ranking, but also to appeal to the searchers to click on your video listings rather than other videos on the search results page. Use keywords relevant to your video and your brand/product in the title, and provide a brief description of the video in the video description.

• Create a Video Transcript

Video transcripts allow the search engines to “see” or crawl your video content. It provides an additional area to search engine optimize the video.

• Create a Video Sitemap

Although Google doesn’t guarantee that a video will rank in their result pages, they do recommend submitting the video sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.

Here is an example sitemap provided by Google:

• Choose a Good Thumbnail

Just like creating a good video description, a good video thumbnail will increase the chances of your video being watched.

Video Distribution:

• The following is a list of video sharing sites and their share of audience provided by comScore. It is important to create unique videos for each site; otherwise, it might be considered duplicate content and will not benefit your audience when they find your video on more than one site.

Content is key with a successful video. Create videos with interesting content that have personality. Allow your viewers to relate to you and your brand through your video; increase their trust, and improve your conversion rate. Remember to keep your message short and sweet with no more than 5 minutes per video. Optimize your videos with keywords in title and description. Take advantage of this fast growing digital media to gain brand awareness, increase site traffic and conversions.

Sources:

Creating an Online Video Strategy by Kate Matsudaira

Fundamentals of Video Marketing: A Complete Guide to Harness the Power of Online Video to Generate and Convert Leads by Garen Arnold

Google Webmaster tools

Facebook is MySpace, Yahoo Messenger and YouTube – all in one. For the person who wants to stay virtually connected to family and friends, Facebook is the hook-up. Although, certain companies try to incorporate Facebook into the marketing stratosphere it is one which requires the end user to remain engaged all the time, featuring:

•    Instant messaging
•    Video sharing
•    Photo exchanging
•    Emailing

When it comes to profiling the target market mesmerized by the allure of Facebook, the demographics range from college students to Baby Boomers. Facebook solves all social networking needs in one, alleviating the need for other interactive applications.

Twitter is instantaneous, succinct, imparting information in byte-sized chunks. Prime for posting deals, promoting upcoming events, Twitter serves as immediate communication gratification.

Since Twitter is an exchange of random thoughts, and ideas, it’s the perfect catalyst for disseminating brands. Additionally, it works as an appropriate medium to interact with prospects. For the business with various market segments, Twitter allows companies to segment the target audience into different contact pages. More importantly, in terms of Internet marketing, Twitter allows linking, which fortifies your company’s search engine exposure.

For more social media networking uses and strategies, contact the experts, The Net Impact.

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Take the guesswork out of filling in numbers. Enable visitors to input anything requiring numerical entry fuss-free. For instance, instead of chunking the field for phone numbers and credit cards, create separate spaces so that the end user can enter the information as they please. Set the form interface so that it deletes extra spaces, dashes and parentheses.

Enforce minimal requirements. Excessive field requirements motivate form abandonment. Make your fields optional with two to three required questions. Delete questions that are redundant in or unnecessary.  For example, salutations such as Mrs. Ms. Mrs. and Miss are irrelevant. Although, how did you hear about us is important for understanding where your traffic or referral is coming from, it is a pointless to the prospect.  This question can be posed when you follow up with the prospect.

Ready, set – go. Configure the keyboard to the first field of your form. It will heighten your conversion rate and save your prospect just one more click.

Keep it real. Would you provide personal information to someone disguised in a Halloween costume? The same concept is applicable to your Web site – especially if you are trying to get your visitor to “buy now” or “learn more.”  No physical address about the real location of your company devalues the credibility of your organization.

Seek professional assistance from a St. Louis premier web design company.

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Ashton, Brad, and Paris are the American prototypes of style. Highly visible in the public’s eye, their style is not based on good looks alone. These “celebrities,” dress impeccably. For the company Website, style serves a similar purpose for business.

Here’s how:

In order for a target market to find a business on the Internet, the Website must be search engine optimized for exposure.

Exposure is gleaned from an assortment of style features:

•    Is the site’s layout clean and appealing?
•    How long does it take a Website to load?
•    Is the navigation clean?
•    Are key words, describing the business bolded, underlined and/or italicized?
•    Is the site properly linked?

Linked, bold and italicized content enable exposure or search engine traffic. Meanwhile, layout, navigation and page load punctuate a site’s style and Web design.  These style characteristics are the difference between repelling and retaining new business opportunities.

So in the end, although, your site may not command the same popularity as Brad, Ashton and Paris– style does matter.

Get your Website tested for style, click here.

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Inform and entertain. Consider your blog to be an All-American personality that appeals to most of your prospective clients. The best strategy for evaluating content appropriateness is to evaluate whether the information influences or improves the consumer experience. If the information does not offer overall value to the reader,  “kill the story.”

Don’t tout your causes. While personal interests and political agendas work on celebrity, entertainment sites, in the realm of cultivating client relationships, the best company blog is focused on providing information of interest to the target audience, only. Blogs are not a forum for an organization to push their political beliefs. In fact, such information can hinder business or deter potential opportunities.

Obviously, there is an exception to the aforementioned rule. For instance, if your company builds eco-friendly solar panels, and the government is considering a potential ban on production, then a feature story regarding controversy would be apposite.

Be consistent. Establish a regular and realistic publication schedule. Once a week is an ideal and manageable target.

Don’t bash the competition. On the Internet, libel suits are an emerging happenstance. Corporations are suing individuals and organizations for publishing information, they deem slanderous or detrimental to the productivity of their company.  The best way to distinguish and highlight your company’s offerings to the competition is a testimonial or creating a factual chart of services to other companies, without actually mentioning the contending corporation’s brand.

Incorporate news. Depending on the marketplace, current events may impact a company’s offerings. For example, Information pertinent to your clientele

Delegate it. Maintaining a company blog necessitates a commitment to publish information on a regular basis. When all else fails, outsource your blog to an SEO company you can trust.

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What do President Obama, Angelina Jolie and the St. Louis Cardinals have in common? They all use Twitter to promote and expose their agenda. In the business world, not many executives have the time to Twitter. Nevertheless, Twitter is the latest social network platform for connecting with the target market, establishing new business affiliations and assuring online exposure.

In the previous installment, we detailed a few tips for getting started with Twitter. This week, we’re exploring four other methods for marketing your business via Twitter.

Announce it.

Twitter is the ultimate stage for rolling out a new product. Entities of all sizes use Twitter to engage and interact with their followers. Mr. Obama is using Twitter to tout the benefits of his proposed health reform plan. A similar method works in the marketing department. Use Twitter, to announce the launch of a new product and to obtain feedback.

Be insightful.
Irrelevant commentary won’t do much for the marketing campaign. Insightful or humorous commentary stimulates the exchange of information. Instead of making the conversation centered on your company’s marketing objectives, initiate conversations around the interests and information value of your followers. It fortifies the consumer following.  Offer free advice, inside tips and giveaways. The more value you offer, the better the likelihood others are to leverage your viral marketing campaign. Remember to contribute to other tweets–too.

Host a contest.
The marketing concept, “what’s in it for the prospect,” is applicable on Twitter. Contests, drawings and sweepstakes are the easiest tools for enticing Twitter engagement. Give your followers an incentive with freebies and gifts.

Mind your matters.

Twitter is about sending out a brief announcement in 140 characters or less. As a result, it is inappropriate to send out a continuation of tweets. Besides, excessive Twittering can be considered spam.  Compose concise, relevant tweets. Anytime someone submits a tweet, be sure to respond within 24-hours or less.

Learn more about using Twitter to your company’s advantage, Contact St. Louis’ SEO specialists.

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Twitter is a hot search engine marketing topic, these days. From Oprah, Gwyneth Paltrow to politicians, everyone’s talking about Twitter. For savvy marketers, it has become merely a high-powered marketing engine.

But while many end users gloat about their Twitter utilization, many of us are scratching our heads trying to figure out what is Twitter and how to capitalize, using the marketing vehicle? Here are four online strategic marketing tactics to use Twitter to expose your brand to the world:

The Twitter Cheat Sheet

Avoid the snappy alias.
Unlike other social networks, where catchy alias are the protocol, Twitter works like a mini press agent. As a result, using one’s real name, brand and company assures exposure and consumer awareness.

Fulfill the profile
Without being too outrageous, create an enticing profile, emphasizing you or your company. Try to avoid visually overwhelming designs that upstage your profile.

Architect your network
Locate current clients, strategic partners and other contacts on Twitter. Send them a “Twitter.” Link your blog to your Twitter profile and vice versa. Tweet the company blog so that it goes to the Twitter profile.

Delegate it.
Many business proprietors, celebrities and politicians do not have the time to manage their own blog, let alone a Twitter profile. Delegate the responsibility of managing your social networking needs to a SEO company.

In the next, installment, we’ll explore four other methods for marketing your business via Twitter.

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This week we’re evaluating how these marketing vehicles drive new sales and account opportunities for the small to medium-sized business.

Strategic partnerships with organizations that complement an entity’s products and services offer two advantages: lead generation and links. As previously reviewed, links are valuable “votes of endorsements, raising a site’s popularity and page rank on Google.

Substituting the direct mailer, for the email marketing is a highly affordable and results-driven promotional tool. Email marketing cultivates relationships with the prospects. Given the technology of email marketing, businesses can measure the efficacy of a campaign based on the target audience’s behavior (opened emails, volume of responses and site visits).
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A strategic press release campaign establishes an organization as a credible entity or resource. Since press releases have the capacity to reach an expansive audience and include a direct link with key words correlating a business, these search engine marketing tools not only matter for afford potent outcomes.

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