Here is viral marketing explained for those of you unfamiliar with it. Viral marketing is a fairly simple concept that can be much harder to execute. It is a form of social media that encourages people to pass your marketing message to others. Why would people do that? Because the message is in some way interesting, entertaining, clever or otherwise engaging enough for people to want to share it with friends. One of the biggest appeals of viral marketing is its low cost. It’s simply word-of-mouth marketing that passes information quickly from one person to the next. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to launch a viral marketing campaign. But to achieve success, you have to do it right. Exponential GrowthIf you want viral marketing explained in terms of how it works, you can sum it up in two words — exponential growth. One person passes the message along to two others. Those two pass it along to two more, and so on. In a short period of time, a viral message can quickly circle the globe via the World Wide Web. To initiate this rapid spread takes careful planning and a message that the people you are trying to reach can’t ignore. That’s when viral marketing shines as a remarkably inexpensive way to get the word out about your product or service. Viral marketing explained through the many forms it takes is yet another way to understand it. It may be a simple as an email that you send to a small number of email addresses and that includes a free offer. The email further encourages the recipients to forward the email on to others who would be interested. Web videos are also commonly used in viral campaigns. Popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be fertile breeding grounds for a viral campaign. Once you determine your marketing objective, you can employ many techniques to get a campaign up and running. How Online Video Can Help Your BusinessA good quality video; clearly put together by someone who has invested in both editorial skills (as you’d expect from a P.R. professional) and a reasonable level of skilled technical assistance… This IS one thing though, and a home movie is something else completely… It’s vital to realize that! Just because ‘it’s on YouTube’ rather than badly scrawled over a homemade sandwich board DOESN’T make it effective… Sandwich board aficionados will tell you that their beloved boards need to be well designed, well made, well presented and in the right place at the right time to have an effect. Think top-quality graphics and a board carried down the street by a smiling leggy Brunette (or Chippendale candidate if that’s what floats your boat). The same is true for almost ANY promotional platform. To get a return on investment you actually have to make an investment! AND at an appropriate level, There’s no point just playing at it! Craig shows us here a basic technical and editorial standard that must be met by anyone seriously expecting to use video effectively. And it CAN be met, quite economically… Companies exist that can get your video message online professionally and effectively for less than the price of posting out a few thousand leaflets… In ConclusionFinally, viral marketing explained through the eyes of your customers is where you see the greatest impact. When you use viral online video marketing to reach out to a group of customers who are big fans of your product, they can become evangelists for your company who will tell your story over and over. Treat them well and you can ultimately receive some very positive exposure on the web and in the mainstream press. Remember, however, that the opposite can happen just as easily. Turn a cold shoulder to your supporters, and a negative viral campaign you never intended could damage your company’s good name. But with the right plan, your viral marketing efforts can give your company a tremendous boost.
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Today's networked world is here to stay! What are you doing to profit from it? We can help you leverage this unprecedented online opportunity, better, stronger faster! The scope of talent and solutions we can bring to an organization (or individual) is vast. Our team of Resident Experts are seasoned professionals with at least 15 years of experience in their fields and chosen because of their credentials and value-based leadership. Blogging and Internet Web 2.0 MarketingCustomized monthly packages to take you and your business to the next level via the next frontier - the Blogosphere, Web 2.0 and Social Networking. We can help you with web marketing, web design, web PR, organic search engine placement, sales optimization through LinkedIn and other online networks. We can help you with publishing books, e-books and design. The Web 2.0 is the next big frontier and you want to be out there in it before your competition-The time to have a blog and/or strong web presence for your business is right now! More than 80% of small businesses now have their own website, but when it comes to using the Internet Web 2.0 and specifically blogs, to reach out to customers faster, the percentage is far smaller. Do you fit this statistic?Learn how you can take your business to the next level using the Blogosphere and other cutting-edge Internet Web 2.0 marketing tools. Strengthen your customer base and bring new prospects to you! Below is a sampling of the scope of services we may assist with: IDEATION
We are coaches and consultants who can help with all of your internet marketing and business development needs. At present, we're focused on Web 2.0 strategies for clients utilizing new technologies (blogs, podcast, video and photo production) and other social media networks to drive their web traffic, facilitate online communities and conversations and build a "business celebrity" web presence.
We coach clients on understanding the impact of these new technologies on their business and the importance of first-mover advantage and SEO discovery over their competitors. The YELLOW PAGES just aren't what they used to be. In most regions, a full-page ad can run $20,000 per year! And now they are trying to convince people to advertise with them online. A friend of mine owns a tree service. He works back and forth between 2 different states. The YELLOW PAGES quoted him $2,000 PER MONTH, to list him on their site and help him come up in searches! THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS. But people pay for it. I have had clients ask me, "Can the Internet really help me if I just have a local business with local customers?" - The answer is ABSOLUTELY! Local search is fast becoming the most exciting search vertical on the web. Recent research by the Kelsey Group reported that 70% of Americans consult the web before making local buying decisions, while 36% of search engine queries now request local results. I have a client in Chicago who provides a very specialized service, locally. She had NO Web presence whatsoever. We helped her launch a blog, got her into some free directories and she is now coming up on Google page one organically (non-paid link references) in searches around her top keywords. She only gets 5-10 hits a day - but in 4 months, has attracted 10 new clients! You can PULL people to a blog. It can attract readers organically. 60-90% (usually) of all blog traffic, usually comes in organically via keywords people type in to search relative to what your blogging about. They find YOU and are often ready to buy if you have what they are searching for. That's a HUGE difference. That's the beauty of blogs. It's because they are written in a simpler code, it's because Google and robots can read them faster and easier, it's because search algorithms have gotten smarter! However, you have to understand how they work, the strategy behind a good publisher's efforts, and what the search engines are looking for to win in the game of organic keyword search! And you have to provide information people are searching for. Daniel Bower posted a great article at Wordtracker, Five Tips To Maximise The Long Tail Of Local Search. He says," Local search presents huge long-tail opportunities; the range of keywords and the variations of those keywords that can land someone on your page are vast. Take for example our site welovelocal.com. In the short term after our launch, 96% of non-paid keywords had just a single visit." He also points out the benefits of review sites," It goes without saying that a business owner/marketer should ensure they have maximum visibility in the various review sites and local business directories.
In the US these sites include Yelp, Insider Pages and Angie's Lists, but also the much smaller sites such as the excellent Lawrence.com. These sites provide an invaluable source of local data that can help you research fresh keywords. Spend time examining the way they are structured, the terminology they use and, where possible, the language used in the reviews. Research from Hitwise earlier this month reported that small businesses rely on search engines now more than ever before - it’s a trend that is only going to increase as SMEs see the leadership potential of local search. It’s yet another reason to hone your local keyword research skills." With the right tools and getting started on the right foot, it's EASY to attract new eyes and potential new customers to your business via Social Media! If someone gave you $3,000 to buy a billboard, and you could place it anywhere you wanted to, where would you put it? On a busy freeway? Out in a cornfield, off a dirt road, in Tim Buck Too? The freeway, of course! We have said before, having a website is like putting up a billboard in a cornfield off a dirt road. Having a blog is like putting up your billboard on a busy freeway, viewable to hundreds of people in a day! Why? Two Reasons: Blogs are written in a simple HTML code. The search engines can easily scan and index your words from the blog. Websites are written in more complicated java codes, they usually use lots of graphics, and sometimes flash - all of which IS NOT search engine friendly - but it looks really nice! Search engines get to the website and usually get confused, hit roadblocks and will shut down, before reading all of your information. Therefore the blog is much, much more search engine friendly. Blogs are dynamic - blogs are usually updated all the time. Search engines LOVE fresh content. Plus, they can be interactive. A Website is static and not updated very often. The website is where you actually describe your products and/or services. You can update a website as often as you like, but this is usually only done if your products change, you have a Sale or something of that nature. It’s easy to start a blog. But it is also important to know how to optimize it. Great content needs to be seen – not just published. Anyone can publish content on a blog – we work with clients on not only getting started on the right foot but helping to optimize their search results on Google, Yahoo, MSN and other searches. We will help you avoid all the common mistakes everyone makes. We’ve already been there and done that! We know what works and what doesn’t. Let us put our Internet experience to work for you!
Business blogging is on the rise for both Fortune 500 companies and small businesses/entrepreneurs. IT'S HUGE! And every day, more and more people are discovering the power that blogs offer a company and/or product. Blogs offer new ways for you to market your products and ideas and PULL you a wider audience! SETH GODINS NEW BOOK Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? is a must for people still not convinced about the power of the Internet? And Rachelle Money from WORDTRACKER did an interview with him. A couple of key things Seth pointed out were: "Newspapers are going to go out of business in the next ten years all around the world. There are two problems in the United States newspaper industry. One is that you make a living by cutting down lots of trees, making the paper and hiring trucks to deliver the newspapers to stores. That’s not how information travels anymore."The second problem is that newspapers make their money from classified ads. Now those ads work better and cost less online so I think there’s no question that there will be organizations like newspapers, but they’re not going to be in paper form. The sooner that people who make newspapers realize that and get into a different business the happier they’re going to be. They need to concentrate all their efforts online." We tell clients this all the time. MOST print advertising, including the YELLOW PAGES, is a waste of money these days. Would you rather spend $1000 on an ad that is gone in a month? Or spend $1000 online, where that ad can live on indefinitely?
Seth also comments on the speed of SEO "My position is that the clients are the problem, not the consultants. That's because they want shortcuts, not hard work. The best SEO is great content. Don't do that and you don't get much." Web 2.0 has powerful tools to help someone be found online. But it takes time. It does not happen overnight, usually. You have to build the temple....and then they will come! It's like planting seeds in the garden. It takes time for the seeds to fully grow and develop. Meatball Sundae is the definitive guide to the fourteen trends no marketer can afford to ignore. It explains what to do about the increasing power of stories, not facts; about shorter and shorter attention spans; and about the new math that says five thousand people who want to hear your message are more valuable than five million who don’t. Derrick Sales and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You! Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists |
About UsCan be your website a glorified company card? Are you currently even being "found" by Search Engines? We focus on strategic planning and execution around leveraging the endless possibilities to take your organization to another level via Blogging platforms. Archives
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