Sales & Marketing Consultant, Bestselling Author & Sales Conference Speaker

Are you experiencing the massive benefits of using video in your marketing campaign strategy? If you haven’t, it is time to stop being shy and get in front of that camera!! Video marketing has many benefits. One of those benefits is quickly turning your cold and warm leads into buying customers. How can you start using video marketing today to see those massive results as soon as possible? What are some of the benefits of video marketing? Here are 3 things that video marketing can start doing for you today.

Trust Factor
We all know that customers do business with people they know, like and trust. Short videos will transform your business from just a name into a personality. Customers want to see your face. They want to know what you stand for and they want to know how you can fix their problems. A great way to start the ball rolling is by shooting short videos that run around three minutes long.

Video marketing can easily be integrated with your other marketing campaigns. Are you using email marketing to contact your list of cold leads? Embedding a short video into that email, or directing the lead to your YouTube Channel is a great way of breaking the ice. Send them a short video and be sure to follow up with a phone call or an in-person meeting.

Videos can also be incorporated into your social media marketing efforts. They are versatile and flexible enough to be used across the board for maximum exposure and optimal results. Once your potential customers realize that you are the authority in your niche market, they will be coming back for more.

SEO
Videos can be optimised to increase your visibility. By using the correct key words and labeling your video, you will make it easy for those that are outside of your target demographic to find you. Keep your tags and keywords simple and extremely specific. The more videos you upload and properly tag will result in a boost to your ranking.

Sharability & Visibility
Most people have an extremely short attention span. They want answers to their questions and they want them five minutes ago. Videos allow for you to answer specific questions that pertain to your average customers problems. Your customer will be thankful that they are able to spend only three minutes watching a quick video as opposed to spending five minutes to read a blog or article.

Keep your videos short and to the point and focus on one topic at a time. Videos can be shared easily via social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. They can also be sent quickly via email. Videos are innately ‘sharable’. This allows your message and your business to be seen by more people than the amount of customers who would take the time to find your blog and read about you.

Happy Marketing!
Sean
(Image by Ukberri.net)
Sean McPheat

http://www.seanmcpheat.com

Networking is the heart and soul of basically every business. Networking is how we generate leads; build our reputation as being an expert in our field and how we stay on top of our people skills. One may think that the days of face-to-face networking are long gone, but this is not true. How can you master the art of networking and truly succeed?

Prepare
You can never have too much information. Going to a networking event without any type of preparation is a formula for disaster. The other people that are attending the networking event have already taken the time to research you and your business. It is your job to do your homework. Research who will be attending the event (if possible) and visit their website, blog and where they hang out via social media.

Doing your homework will save you time. You will already know who is a potential customer and who may be ideal for a joint venture. Another great tip is to brush up your elevator pitch. This is one element of your skill set that you do not want to ignore.

Social Media
Many networking events also have a social media presence. This allows you to start the conversation prior to the actual event. Take the time to see if the event has a Facebook page or Twitter account. Some networking events are sponsored by organizations, it is in your best interest to see if they are active online. Sometimes there are social media ‘events’ before the actual networking event. These can include forum conversations and Twitter chats.

Follow Up
Following up with the individuals you have connected with is crucial. If you do not stay in contact, you basically wasted your time at the networking event. Keep track of who you talked to and make sure you put their information in your contact list. Give them a call or send them an email within a week of the event, this will help build the foundation of a great relationship.

The most important part of networking is combining your social media efforts with your in-person efforts. Your face-to-face networking efforts begin the conversation while your follow-up and social media strategy continues the conversation. Keeping the conversation alive and interesting will always result in making more sales. You should always have a 360 approach to your networking efforts.

When you have a networking strategy that includes preparation, use of social media and great follow-up, you will find that networking events can be exceedingly useful. Just make sure you spend your time wisely, find the best networking events that fit with you and your business.

Happy Marketing!
Sean
(Image Creative Commons)
Sean McPheat

http://www.seanmcpheat.com

YouTube has celebrated its 5^th birthday this week, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to pay homage to the video sharing site which has revolutionised the way people interact online.

Here are some interesting facts and figures about the rise of YouTube:

• YouTube gets over 2 billion views a day – YouTube Press Statistics
• A whole 24 hours’ worth of video is uploaded to the site every minute – YouTube Press Statistics
• The first video on YouTube was only 19 seconds long – YouTube Press Statistics
• The founders of YouTube all originally worked for PayPal – YouTube Press Statistics
• Google bought the site for $1.65 billion in November 2006 – YouTube Press Statistics

Over the last 5 years, YouTube has seen off some stiff competition from other video sharing sites such as Vimeo and Viddler to claim the number one spot, and the site has now become so engrained in our day to day lives that it’s hard to believe there was a time in the last decade when it didn’t exist.

Not only has YouTube allowed the masses access to all manner of video content across the world, but it has also made it possible for the public to reach a vast audience they would normally not have been able to connect with – which makes it a very powerful business tool in the right hands.

Through YouTube you can literally promote yourself and your company to the world, without having to spend a single penny on expensive advertising campaigns. Many big organisations have used the site to create viral video advertisements and build their brand globally.

The Cadbury’s Eyebrows advert, in which two young children do a fantastic eyebrow dance to “Don’t Stop The Rock”, became an overnight sensation and has now had nearly 9 million views.  A great example of video marketing if ever I saw one!

So, I’d like to wish YouTube a happy 5^th birthday and look forward to seeing where the next 5 years video sharing will take us.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

(Image by www_ukberri_net)

http://www.seanmcpheat.com

In a recent post entitled “The QR Code Decode – What are they and how do they work?”, I explained the basics of what QR codes are and how to use them from a customer perspective. In this post I will be discussing how business should use QR codes as in their marketing activities.

First, we need to consider what exactly we are asking of our intended audience when we use QR codes as part of our marketing plans. Firstly, they require a smartphone to download a QR code reader to read the code in the first place. Then we are expecting them to have the phone nearby whenever they encounter a QR code, and on top of that we have to give them the motivation to actually scan the QR code for its information.

This is quite a big ask really, so the way you approach the use of QR codes really does matter. Many companies are tempted to simply use a QR code in place of a standard web address on their advertisements and marketing materials, but to be quite honest this is a waste of the user’s time, and a waste of a perfectly good marketing opportunity.

Simply directing your intended audience to your website and hoping that they’ll be intrigued enough to browse the site is a futile effort. The key to getting the most of QR code marketing is to use them as a way for the end user to unlock information, rather than just sending them to a web destination and leaving them to find the rest.

So instead of just sending the user to your homepage, why not send them to a lead generation page where they can sign up for a free report or download your latest audio/video content? Or send them to a live forum where they can interact with both your company and other users to help generate discussion around yourself and the business.

Give them a reason to want to access the code in the first place, and give them exclusive access to valuable information they would otherwise not be able to have. Not only does this give the end user an incentive for accessing your code, but it also provides you with opportunities to capture new leads – which is such a better use of a QR code than simply sending them to your homepage and leaving them there!

The beauty of QR codes mean that you can put one on just about any kind of marketing material, and you can even update the information which is stored in a specific QR code so that you don’t have to keep reprinting them every time you want to create something new.

This gives you the opportunity to be really creative with the information you choose to store within your codes, and how you choose to distribute them – so consider what information is going to be most beneficial to both your intended audience and to your business in order to make the most of QR code marketing.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

(Image by Stuart Miles)

http://www.seanmcpheat.com