Archive | July, 2018

You’ve heard how important video is in your marketing. You’ve heard that having videos on YouTube can lead to traffic, new customers and more sales.

You’ve heard that nothing can connect you with your audience as fast as video. And you’ve no doubt also heard endless advice on how to make those videos. I watched one video on how to make videos geared towards newbies that suggested they invest the “paltry” sum of $1,500 just on lighting equipment!

Come on now… Don’t let bad advice like that keep you from getting started. Here’s all you need to know to get started making your own marketing videos – just DO IT. Just make your first video. Don’t worry about getting the lighting just right, the sound just right, the words just right. Decide what you want to talk about, show some passion for your topic, and speak into the camera.

Now here’s something you might not know – amateur videos can reap just as many new viewers and customers as professionally created ones. Why? Because viewers know it’s the real you, not some Hollywood make-believe commercial. They see you as a real person speaking from the heart about a topic you have great feeling for, and they are actually rooting you on to succeed.

So if you have yet to make your first marketing video, wait no more. Resolve to create your first video before the week is out, and post it to YouTube. Then tell your list, your blog readers and everyone you know to go take a look.

And after that? As long as you have something interesting to say, keep creating videos. You’ll naturally get better at it with practice, but it’s those first videos you’ll look back on with fondness. Where else but the Internet can you make a totally amateurish video that actually gets watched by more than a handful of people, and potentially brings new customers your way.

Remember, money gravitates towards the action takers. Let me know when you post your first video – I’d love to see it. And I may even share it with my own list and website visitors. Once you become a content creator, you’ll open new doors and possibilities for your business to grow!

More and more I’m seeing that there is a “trick” to social media, and it’s not to bombard people with a plethora of content. Rather, it’s to use specially crafted content designed to lure a customer in and get them at least one step closer to becoming your customer.

Have you ever gone fishing? What’s the secret to becoming a great fisherman or fisherwoman? It’s not blanketing the water with bait. Sure the fish will consume it, but if it’s got no hook, how are you going to reel them into the boat?

Instead, the secret lies in using the right bait on the right hook AND knowing what to do when you get the nibble – that is, setting the hook before the fish gets away.

So what’s your bait in social media? It’s helping the person to solve a problem. Think about this – you’ve got a problem and it’s causing you stress, perhaps making you lose money, lose sleep, or just plain irritates you. You don’t know what to do.

You begin searching the Internet for answers, but nothing seems to fit until you run across a person on Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter, etc. who claims to know something about your challenge. You provide a few details and ask him or her what to do and BOOM! They give you a solution that HOT-DIGGITY-DOG actually WORKS!

How do you feel about that person? More to the point, are you open to doing business with that person? If you’re like the vast majority, the answer is a resounding “YES!”

So what happens next? If this person is smart, they’re going to get you to take another step. It might be to opt into a list, get on a skype call or make a small purchase. They are setting the hook and you are HAPPY to be joining them.

Contrast this scenario with one of throwing out a ton of content here, there and everywhere and hoping upon hope that somebody somewhere notices and raises their hand and says, “SELL ME SOMETHING, please!” Sure it happens, but it’s not a system – it’s a crap shoot.

So here is what I propose – become the helpful go-to person in your niche, whatever it might be. Demonstrate that you WANT to answer questions and help people. In fact, use your social media time specifically for this one purpose – answering questions in your niche. On days when no one asks a question, give the answer to a common problem – guaranteed someone out there is searching for a solution to that exact problem the moment you are posting.

By focusing on offering real solutions instead of simply spewing content, you’ll find you spend LESS time in social media and get far better results, in terms of sales for your business and earnings on your bank balance.

We’ve all seen the mega launches of super expensive products that boast about how heavy the packing box is.

As marketers we suspect that bigger is better, even when it’s not. After all, more of anything seems like a better deal to the customer than less of something, right?

But thanks to a new study, we now know that “more” of a product not only sounds better – it can also be a status symbol for the customer.

Take for example the Big Gulp drink – 30 oz of sticky sweet carbonated beverage. Does anyone on the planet NEED 30 oz of sticky sweet carbonated beverage? While some might say they do, the fact is it’s a flood of empty calories with a bevy of negative health effects, yet they sell like gangbusters.

And believe it or not, they can actually make the purchasers feel BETTER about themselves.

No, I am NOT advocating you run out and buy one of these things – rather, I’m suggesting you SELL these things, in digital form.

Follow closely – This is from the Journal of Consumer Research and it concerns a series of experiments carried out by Derek Rucker of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

In the first experiment, volunteers looked at photos of people holding different sized drinks and then were asked to rate the STATUS of the people they saw in the photos. Tabulated results showed that the bigger the drink, the higher the status score each photo rated. No, I’m not kidding, and it gets weirder.

In the second experiment, half of the volunteers were asked to remember a time when they were bossed around. The other half were asked to remember a time when they were in a position to boss others around. No surprise here – the volunteers who remember being bossed around felt the least powerful. (Yet another example of how the thoughts you choose determine how you feel.)

Okay, here comes the surprise – next those same volunteers were offered a drink in 3 different sizes. There was no choice on what KIND of drink, only of what SIZE drink they could have.

Those who felt the least powerful CHOSE THE BIGGEST DRINK. In other words, even in something as ordinary as choosing a drink, the decision is not based solely on how thirsty the person is, but rather on how much power they feel they have.

And in the worldwide economy, it’s a reasonable conclusion that as people feel powerless to control what’s happening, more and more super sizing will be taking place, and not just in food.

Now then, here’s how to use this in your marketing…

First, when you can make your product appear larger, do so. For example, you might take each chapter of an ebook and separate it into a report – 12 reports look like more than one ebook. If you are shipping audios or videos, place them on 12 discs rather than 4. And so forth.

Second, offer a super size version of your product. That is, you might have your regular product and a second version that offers more information, more promises, more benefits, etc.

Third, offer them power and prestige. For example, if you’re creating a membership, don’t make it just any old membership. Give it a name like The Exclusive Gold Club for Star Class Members or something that conveys the power and prestige so many people are lacking in these uncertain times.

Fourth, don’t forget to add an OTO to your offer. OTO’s are like supersizing the fries – they’ve already decided to order, now it’s just a matter of offering them more, and many times they will jump at the chance to upgrade to that virtual Big Gulp.

One more thing… Don’t feel guilty about up-selling your customers. People want to feel they are in control, that they have power, that they do matter. And if it’s a choice between buying a few Big Gulps that are going to rot their bones and pack on the fat, or your new product that can actually HELP them, you’ve got a duty to offer them that product and let them decide for themselves.