Using Video Marketing to Build Your Site Traffic: Part 2

Posted on October 29, 2011 by admin

If you follow our blog, you know we’re in the middle of a series on using video to build traffic for your website. If you missed the first post, catch it here.
Different Web Video Options for You to Consider
Depending on what your goal is with your web video, there are different types of web video to consider before making a change. Screencasts is a motion video picture that is seen from a computer. Vodcasts are a simpler version of Screencasts and are usually taken without much production thought. Some Vodcasts can be streamed live, which is a great option once you have gained popularity.

Animation is a stop-motion created by piecing together a smaller series of images/frames. Finally, Produced Web Video can contain a balance of live content with special effects. If your company is in the technical industry, you should consider putting together a series of “how-to” video’s in order to capture your audience. These would fall under the Screencasts category. You always have the option of monitoring the video creation efforts of your competition, just make sure you take it to the next level.
Creating a Web Video isn’t as Difficult as it may Seem
There are many different software options to utilize when creating your web video. Here are the top nine:

  1.  iMovie – this option (in most cases) comes already loaded on Mac computers for your convenience.
  2. MovieMaker –in most cases, this option is preloaded on Windows PCs for your benefit.
  3. Free Trials – these are available from Sony Vegas Pro, Adobe Premiere and others. Most are in the $1,000 price bracket when purchased.
  4. Camcorder – you can purchase a camcorder if it is easier and closer to your price range.
  5. DV Capture Card – some DV cams have a memory card slot but if you are using a tape you will need a DV Capture Card; these can be found through Pinnacle.
  6. Lighting – good lighting is a necessity when making a web video. It is easier to start with the proper lighting than to try and fix bad lighting in an already made web video.
  7. Green Screen – very helpful in animation, but also a good tool to use in any web video. They can add depth and action to your videos easily.
  8. Tripod – this is a necessity if you are shooting a web video. This will keep your camera from shaking and causing motion sickness for those watching your web video.
  9. Storyboarding – this is the blueprint you will work with when making your web video so that you will have minimal re-shooting to do which can lead to extra expenses.

Don’t forget to check back with us as we continue to explore the power of video.

Need help exploring your marketing opportunities and expanding your content to make it work for you? Contact Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions LLC for a free consultation today.

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Using Video Marketing to Build Your Site Traffic: Part 1

Posted on October 24, 2011 by admin

Web video is the hottest new thing; so hot, more people watch web videos than TV in some instances. Instead of rebuking the idea of video marketing, embrace it so you can gain the site traffic that others have already taken advantage of to grow your online presence.
Web Video has Many Great Benefits
Taking the idea of web video and making it work for your company may sound like a far-fetched idea; the reality of it is that it’s really quite simple. Look at the benefits you can acquire with just a few easy steps:
• If you already have a blog site, turn it into a web video site. You will gain visual benefits for your blog so that people can grasp the idea of the product you are trying to sell a little bit easier.
• To increase the traffic to your site, use multiple video sharing sites.
• Traffic from other video web sites can be embedded into your video so that you can share traffic with others to gain more visibility.
• Social media sites can support web video which means you can reach the entire Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn crowd.
• Return users will revisit if your web video is fun and interesting.
All of these are good reasons to consider web video for your company. Any time you can take simple, small steps to increase your online traffic, you’re moving in the right direction.

Check back with us next time as we explore different web video options that make it easier to dominate your online market.

Want to know how you can easily drive traffic to your site with quality content? Contact Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions today for a free consultation.

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What Does Your Brand Say?

Posted on October 13, 2011 by admin

What kind of power does your brand have in the market? Everything associated with your company contributes to your brand, for better or worse. It’s critical you control those associates so you can consistently build value in your brand, not focus on damage control.

Whether it is the décor in your store, the address at which your company resides, the employees that work for you or the product that you sell, everything associated with your company says something to the consumer.

Think about what you want your brand to say about your company. Do you want it to stand for high end products and great customer service? Regardless of your answer, you must be committed to consistent performance on any level associated with your brand or consumers could receive a very different message. This could mean spending money on marketing to ensure consistency in that message, ensure that it is heard and properly managing your campaigns to meet the changing dynamics in the market.

Staying consistent is one key to ensuring your brand never changes. Don’t try to change your brand mid-stream unless you find that it’s no longer working for you. Customers can be confused by too much change; give them time to adapt to what you have and then you can get a feel for how it is working, or not working

There are six basic steps to managing your company brand.
• Define and decide exactly why you are in business
• What do you want people to know about your company
• What do you want people to say about your company when they hear your company name
• Define any advantages people will have by using your company
• Define your brand
• Build your brand through all impressions that people have about your company
If you can follow these six simple steps you are sure to have a successful company brand that people will not only recognize, but also invest in.

Do you need a little help defining any of these steps to better identify your brand? SJC Copywriting Solutions can help. Contact us today at susan@susanjcampbell.comor 816-617-3065,

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5 Ideas for Making the Most of Your Site’s Content

Posted on October 10, 2011 by admin

Did you know that WordPress is now behind almost 22 percent of new active websites in the U.S.? According to an article by TechCrunch, now is the time to take advantage of the possibilities this content management system (CMS) has to offer and make the most of the information included on your own website.

Begin by analyzing the behavior of the people who visit your site, and make critical decisions based on the following information:

  • What have your site visitors been doing (or not doing)?
  • Why are your visitors making the choices they have been making?

Once this data is organized, there are various WordPress plugins or tools available to help you make the most of the information on your site. Here are a few tips to follow to get more mileage out of your online presence.

  1. Use Navigation Menus to Display Popular Categories
    It’s a smart move to find out what categories visitors find interesting on your site.
  2. Use Smart Internal Links
    Know what keywords people are using to find your site in the first place.  Once they arrive at your site, what keywords are they using to browse around your site? When you identify accurate keywords you can incorporate pertinent links that are not only helpful to your visitors, but also build search results for your site.
  3. Expose Buried Content
    Bring attention to pertinent information because it could contain a different perspective than what is available on your latest posts widget.  Review the information that you analyzed from your site to better understand what items to highlight in your posts.  You’ll have a better understanding of what visitors want to see.
  4. Call to Action
    What are the best tactics for turning a visitor into a customer?  One option is to encourage them to subscribe to your RSS feed.  Remember to include a call to action or you lose the full value of the post.
  5. Build a Social Knowledge
    Pay special attention to how many of your visitors are using social networks to find your site.  Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon are the five major social sites that you should be keeping a close eye on.

While these five tips just scratch the surface of what you can do to optimize your website, paying attention to these few details will allow you to immediately begin to build value.

Want to know more about how to optimize your site and deliver quality content on a consistent basis? Contact SJC Copywriting Solutions for a free evaluation today!

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Use Strategic Content Make Your Sales Leads Work

Posted on October 4, 2011 by admin

Marketing Sherpa has designed a system that will help you to make your sales leads work. They implemented their five step program in early 2010 and saw amazing results.

  • Each quarter their revenue increased by as much as 40%
  • The average annual revenue on each of their accounts almost doubled
  • Their inbound leads were increased by 70%
  • Website traffic was increased by 20%
  • The traffic on their website was increased by 3 – 4 times

If you are willing to follow their simple five step program, these same results may be achievable for your company as well.

Simply creating guidelines for all of your messaging on every channel is the first step in the process. The second step takes that a step further by creating architecture for your messaging. This may deal with things such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin. When working on step three you will want to add value to the content of your current website. This will help you to gain new leads for potential sales in the future.

Step four consists of setting up automated marketing, making sure that you respond quickly but not in a fashion as to annoy a potential client. Finally, step five is to prioritize and adjust things to ensure that you can track the number of leads you captured, the ratio of leads to sales you generated, the average value of your sales and the return-on-investment your company received.

The nice thing about this five step program is that it is virtually free. There is no software, hardware or other hidden costs to worry about. Spending some time strategizing and collaborating with your current employees will be the only cost you should incur. Content marketing can definitely help to increase revenue for your company but don’t work at it blindly. Follow the five steps recommended here so that you can achieve the best possible outcome.

Want to know more? SJC Copywriting can help. Contact us today for a free evaluation.

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A Better Site in a Week: Simple Things You Can Do Now to Drive Your Website Traffic Part II

Posted on August 24, 2011 by admin

Last week, we gave you a few tips you could implement right away to drive more traffic to your website. Here, we continue with our pointers:

Know Who’s Visiting, and What They’re Reading

In less than an hour you can install an analytics program to your site, which will allow you to easily track how many people are visiting, find out if they’re new visitors, and which pages they’re clicking on. This means you’ll know if promotions or new content you’ve added to certain pages are working, and how many new site visitors you may have if you’re revving up your social media campaigns to drive website traffic. If you have a page users never visit, this may be an indicator that the information needs perked up or changed. Google Analytics is a free one many organizations are using to capture this valuable data.

Don’t Force Movement or Videos Upon Your Viewers

Allow your viewer to find your site quickly and then browse around at their own pace. Videos that open automatically with loud sounds or other sound effects are distracting and can cause a viewer to exit immediately. Set up videos or sound bites so that users can choose to click and play, so that they feel more in control of their site visit.

Make it Mobile

Use images that are formatted to be correct and have the right sizing when your customers open them on their smartphones or on your Facebook page. This prevents an ugly hole where an image should be, or an image that’s not sized right to even be readable. The tag to assign to the image is “image_src,” and you can see easy online examples of how it’s placed into your image website code. It’s a simple fix that makes your page look good in other formats, especially when visitors send links to your site to friends from their Facebook page.

Clean House

Try opening your website from a couple of different machines outside of your office. Do boxes or messages pop up that are unnecessary, such as messages about old JavaScript? If you haven’t checked your site in a while, there may also be other areas that slow down your page with old and cluttered information that’s no longer relevant. Speed is king online, so make sure your site is running fast.

With a focus on clear, welcoming wording and simple tools to invite readers to get involved, your organization’s website will pop up faster when visitors look for you from search engines. You’ll also provide the kind of quality experience that leads them to take action, whether it’s buying, joining you on social media or recommending your site to a friend.

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A Better Site in a Week: Simple Things You Can Do Now to Drive Your Website Traffic Part I

Posted on August 19, 2011 by admin

It’s Friday afternoon, and reviewing your website still didn’t make it off of your to-do list. It’s a common scenario many organizations face, but unfortunately, it could be costing you precious customers and preventing you from capturing valuable new leads and opportunities.

If visitors aren’t taking action when they land on your site, but you’re too busy already doing what you have to do each day to make big changes, have no fear. A recent TechRepublic article gives some basic changes you can implement to your Web presence to truly boost business and build a noticeably stronger online community for your brand.

How Does it Read? Content is Everything

Every second a visitor spends on your site is giving them a precious imprint of your brand and the quality of your products or services. If the wording is awkward, boring or seems meant for employees, modify it. Each section should serve as an invitation and make users feel welcome and appreciated. Things to look for and change include acronyms, industry-specific jargon and other phrases that customers can’t resonate with. Also make sure the key words and phrases that make you searchable online are used as frequently as possible. This can significantly boost the ability for customers to find you from major search engines.

Can They Find Your Contact Information?

It sounds simple, but many organizations don’t have their contact information listed in an accessible and consistent location on their site. You don’t have to reserve this information only for a Contact Us page. You can improve your site by listing at least your phone and email address on every page. Don’t forget to put options for finding you on Facebook, LinkedIn or signing up for your enewsletter in easy-to-find, consistent places across several of your site pages.

Want to know the rest? Check back in a couple days and we’ll finish the list – you’ll be well on your way to an improved site!

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Social Media Matters for the Small Business

Posted on August 18, 2011 by admin

There is a common misconception among small business owners that SEO (search engine optimization) is not important. Likewise, the focus on social media is either lacking or nonexistent as these same individuals believe that face-to-face meetings and word of mouth are more powerful in terms of creating new revenue opportunities.

While face time and word of mouth are still important for any small business, what these owners are failing to understand is that word of mouth is now found in social media. Consumers everywhere are using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to gather information on specific brands, share their own experiences and even become advocates for their favorite companies or products.

In the St. Joseph community – the same in which SJC operates – the misconception surrounding social media and SEO is alive and strong. Business owners are still lagging behind in the social media realm, inviting their competitors to gather more attention and greater search rankings simply because they don’t fully understand the power of social media, even in the smaller community.

This is not to suggest that social media should completely replace your current marketing strategy, but instead should hold a place of prominence in that strategy. Even if you are targeting the client or consumer that only lives three blocks away, that person is likely using social media and search engines to find information. Do you want them to do business with the national company that appeared first in the search ranking or Facebook search? Or, do you want to be their first choice? You have the power to make it happen – how will you use it?

Contact Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions LLC and we’ll show you how social media can make a difference and why it will drive SEO for you. If you’re ready to take the leap; we’ll provide the lift.

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Stuck in Stuckville With Your Nonprofit’s Social Media? You Could Be Making Some of These Common Errors

Posted on August 4, 2011 by admin

It’s like this: You put your quarters into the snack vending machine. You carefully select the exact numbers and letters of your precise selection. The arm starts to move with promising deliberateness … and then … nothing happens. Your product is stuck, dangling helplessly, while you watch in futile anticipation.

If you’re using social media for your nonprofit organization, including Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, but you haven’t zeroed in on the precise strategies that make these tools return serious value to you, you may be stuck watching the promised rewards of social media from a state of frustrating stillness. Here’s a look at some of the errors nonprofit organizations make with social media tools, as highlighted from an article in Fundraising Success Magazine.

Using a Weird, Abstract Version of Your Logo

Are you using your nonprofit’s logo image in a space that’s too small on your Facebook profile? Can viewers only see the middle few letters of your organization’s name? This is damaging to your brand. Fix it. Provide instead a captivating image of your mission in action, and don’t be afraid to involve a current volunteer or enthusiastic client in your profile picture.

Overdoing It is Still Overdoing It

You certainly don’t want to get unfriended, not when it comes to valuable donors and decision-makers. Keep your loyal friends and encourage new ones by only posting to social media sites once daily, if you plan to post every day. We recommend posting twice per week as you begin a social media campaign. On another overdoing it note, don’t use your social media outlets only to make endless requests of your fans. They’ll tire of this quickly. Instead, use your social media resources to portray yourself as the “expert” on topics related to your mission. Comment on recent news related to who you help.

Don’t Bypass LinkedIn

Which social media page is easy to set up a page on, simple to update and has more than 100 million users? LinkedIn. Every organization is likely to have a page slot on LinkedIn. If yours is blank, so shall be your donors’ reactions to you.

Tweet and Be Tweeted

Twitter remains a powerful tool for spreading the word about your organization’s successes and portraying your stance on key issues related to your mission. However, the majority of nonprofit organizations don’t actually follow the people who are following them on Twitter. Get a follower? Follow them, if they have a Twitter account. Organize the Twitter accounts you follow into groups or lists for faster management. The benefit of this reciprocal tweeting is worth it.

Blogging. You Need It. You Really Need It.

If you’re involved in several social media outlets, you need blogging to knit your story into a cohesive, powerful brand. If you are involved in only one social media outlet, you need blogging to knit your story into a cohesive, powerful brand. Blogging gives your viewers and readers new material to comment on and share with friends. It’s also the portal through which your donors and followers can share their opinions and comments with you and their fellow fans. Want to have a huge e-newsletter subscription list and a giant group of fans on Facebook? Blogging is your ticket, and it can produce these results faster than you can update your status.

Learn more about how to fit social media tools into a targeted, effective marketing strategy from Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions.

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Social Media: Survey Says … Yes, It Works!

Posted on July 25, 2011 by admin

It’s the million dollar question:  If I invest time and talent into my social media strategies, will it pay off?

Yes, according to results from a recent study conducted by Dell with Forrester Research. The payoff is especially strong for organizations that employ social media “listening” and response strategies, say study results posted on Social Media Today.

In fact, 73 percent of the companies participating in the study, representing a gamut of industries from technology to finance, said they were going to bring on new employees in the next twelve months whose job will be focused on engaging their social media fans and followers, and responding to their comments (a.k.a., they’re adding employees for social media listening).

We couldn’t agree more. In every marketing strategy or brand rebirth initiative from Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions, you’ll find special attention placed on the careful creation of social media pages and their consistent, dynamic upkeep.

Social media truly engages customers in your brand. Social media is unique because it allows you to provide your own personalized listening ear for your audience. And you already know that engaged customers are happy customers who keep coming back. The Forrester study demonstrates this philosophy, noting that areas of strong business return for the social media “listeners” included customer of satisfaction, levels of customer loyalty and overall brand success.

Organizations seeing the highest payoff from social media listening strategies are using that information across divisions, just as they’re using social media tools across divisions. Every time a customer interacts with your organization, at any level, it is a connection; and these connections become more frequent and more personalized in popular arenas like Facebook.

It’s working. Nearly one-third of the companies in the study using social media listening strategies are seeing growth in sales due to tools like special promotions to their online community of customers. More than 60 percent are using direct information from their social media conversations to improve or modify their offerings.

The study says social media tasks have bypassed more traditional brand recognition efforts. Half of the companies in the study say they consider social media a serious marketing initiative, and these numbers are expected to climb.  One out of five companies in the study are implementing social media strategies into their actual marketing plan.

Today, choose to stand out as one organization that includes focused, social media listening as a core marketing strategy. Your payoff will be a closer connection to your customers, greater satisfaction levels and stronger brand loyalty – which could be a million dollar answer to the million dollar question.

Want to know how to launch an effective social media strategy? Contact us today!
 

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