How to use inexpensive YouTube marketing videos to get more web traffic, more customers, and promote your brand

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Undeniably, Google is the largest search engine in the world… but what you may not know, is based on the number of searches and queries, the second largest search engine isn’t Yahoo or Bing… it’s YouTube.

You know – the video site – and it’s owned by Google … which is pretty convenient.

Dunno about you, but it sounds like a 1…2 winning punch winner to me if you want to get better online results.

Today I want to give you a few ways you can use YouTube videos to promote your business.

The best part… it’s simple and inexpensive, maybe even free if you can do the video yourself.

Plus… online videos have been proven to improve your website’s traffic and boost your search engine results.
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Right from the video expert’s mouth…

I was recently talking with Tim Benoit from Timeless Images & Memories, a video production company about businesses using video, and he gave me some great ideas for me and my clients.

His business is to create short videos for business owners that engage prospects and customers, increase web traffic, and improve online business presence, so he knows his stuff.

And Tim assures me the cost for videos is affordable for any small business owner, and the tiny investment will pay for itself many times over.

You can put ‘em on YouTube, share then on Twitter or Facebook, embed them in your website or blog, and link to them from your e-mail marketing campaigns.
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So – What type of videos can you make?

There are many ways you can use video to market your business, so I’m only going to name a few.

• Create a video testimonial from one of your happy clients, maybe even showing them using your product – People feel much better about doing business with you if they see and hear about other happy customers
• Answer a common question – People crave valuable information about specific topics, and answers to questions from a guru on the subject matter
• Tell your existing customers about a new product or service – a property & casualty insurance rep could make one about adding snowmobile or boat insurance to your insurance policy
• Explain the latest news headlines – A local hearing aid company could create a video explaining: “How the new law forces insurance companies to pay for hearing aids”
• Create a short tutorial – Show how to use your products in a common situation… For example: A computer store could make a video called “How to replace your toner cartridge”, or a personal fitness trainer could create one called: “How to do the perfect crunch”

It’s almost endless how many ways you can use online video to promote your business. The only limitation is you.

And like anything… if you don’t try it or do it… it ain’t likely to work at all.

What are your thoughts?

If you need help with website design, writing SEO optimized web copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies, I can help!

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Join my discussion by leaving a comment below…

Let’s say you put an ad in your local newspaper, send out a direct mail campaign or postcard…

What will you use to measure how successful it was?

Actually, there are three common answers you’ll get, depending on who you talk to, so I’m going to talk briefly about each one.

The first answer may be:

“How many eyeballs saw your marketing piece?”

You notice I didn’t say “read it”, or “respond to it”, but saw it. In other words, SUPPOSEDLY, if it was seen by thousands of people, the branding efforts were well worth the money spent. This type of advertising typically doesn’t include any response incentive, or give you any way to track the real success on any level.

Advertising agencies are well known for passing this crap on to their clients. Personally, I think branding style advertising for the sole purpose of getting your name out there, is a waste of money.

I won’t argue the point that your image and your brand is important. I just don’t think it should be your primary marketing goal. (Though I’m sure many graphic designers will disagree).

The second common answer:

Success is often measured by the response rate percentage. What percentage of the people who saw your ad or received your mailing responded to your call-to-action?

This is a more accurate indicator of success for a particular postcard or direct mail campaign, because you can track the response for a particular campaign using a tracking code, or a special phone number. And knowing the percentage is important, and useful in other ways, too.

For example, many studies show the average response rate using direct mail is ½ to 1% response. There are many factors that can sway those numbers though. Things like your mailing list, sales copy, and your irresistible offer can influence results tremendously.

But… it’s not necessarily the best measure of your promo’s success…

The third answer is:

“How much money did you put in your pocket?” You know – your ROI (return on investment).

After you add up all your costs… Copywriting fees, printing, postage, and anything else… what was your profit?

To me, this is the most important measure of a promo’s success because you’re looking a real dollars and cents.

Depending on the price/profit of your product or service – even if your response percentage rate is lower than you’d like, it might take only 1 response that turns into a sale to make an overall profit.

And making a profit is what advertising and marketing is all about.

Think about it… wouldn’t you like to have more profit with lower response rates… than to have higher response rates, but fewer profits?

If you’re like most businesses… yes!

So… every time you want to advertise or send out a direct mail promo or postcard, or whatever, think about “ROI” first, then response rates second.

Once your ROI is positive, then you can tweak and test your sales copy and ads to improve the response percentage, creating even higher ROI.

Talk to me – What are your thoughts?

If you need help with website design, writing SEO optimized web copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies, I can help!

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Join my discussion by leaving a comment below…

Should you optimize your website
for your company name?

This is a great SEO question that people ask me about at least once a week.

And like the answer to many other questions about website strategy, the answer is:

“It depends.”

But what does it depend on?

Here’s my take on using your company name as a search phrase.

Generally, you want to optimize (or SEO) your website for keywords and phrases that people are typing into Google and Bing’s search boxes, not company names.

Usually, the right keywords will be for products, services, or specific questions about a problem the searcher has.

Then, if your web pages are optimized properly for those words, those pages will be displayed in the search results page.

For most businesses, those words usually aren’t your company name. Think about it… web searchers usually don’t know your company name… yet.

That’s why most people search on words
that relate to their problem

But… (there always seems to be a but)… there are two exceptions to this.

First exception… If your company name includes the keywords people are searching for in the actual business name – then yes, by all means – optimize it by including it in your title tag, headlines, subheads, and body copy.

Here’s a quick example: People searching Google for “seacoast nh coin dealer”.

Who comes up at the top of the search engine results page, but Seacoast Coin & Jewelry? The home page is optimized for those keywords, and his company name just happens to fit like a glove.

The second exception is this:

If your business has been around since the cavemen times, and has built a solid brand and reputation. People already know about your business, what it does, and what you do. In this case, they’ll search on the business name, and maybe a town or zip code. And you want to be found when they look for your name.

The brand recognition is already huge, and people just want to find specific information on your website – because they already know about you and know who you are.

And if you don’t optimize at least some of your pages for your company name, these particular people will give up looking for you.

This is particularly important for businesses in smaller towns and cities.

What I’m saying is: Unless your company name contains keywords you want to be found for, or is already well known with a long-standing reputation…

Optimize your website and web pages with the keywords and phrases you want searchers to find you with.

Talk to me – What are your thoughts?

If you need help with website design, writing SEO optimized web copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies, I can help!

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Join my discussion by leaving a comment below…

What’s that? You’re a business owner and don’t have a marketing plan?

Woaa…Why not?

A marketing plan to generate more qualified leads and sales, or at the very least, an outline of different techniques you should be using to promote your business, is a “must do”.

And even though the 2011 ball dropped almost a month ago, and you’ve been putting it off…

There’s still eleven more months to go in the year for your business to make profits… So chop chop.

Assuming you provide a great product or service, then you’re doing a disservice to possible customers, your employees, and yourself by not planning.

You may have heard this quote, which I like: “Failing to plan is planning to fail” (Source – nobody seems to know for sure).

Yeah… I know. Planning today takes a lot of time and energy, but it’s the guide and roadmap to your future success.

There are so many things you can do, and putting them down in a simple-to-follow plan sure makes it much easier.

You can even create a marketing calendar to help you schedule blog posts, direct mail or advertising campaigns.

Set some marketing goals, then develop and implement the techniques you need to reach them cost-effectively.

But at least get your plan down on paper, no matter how simple or complex it is. Then follow it as close as possible, making any necessary changes as you progress.

If you want me to help you come up with a customized marketing plan for your business, I can do that. I’ve done marketing plans for many types of local businesses including attorneys, CPAs, jewelry stores, restaurants, and others.

My client’s plans aren’t the corporate style  – just easy-to-read and follow recommendations based on your input, past results and tactics, and your own business goals.

You’ll be able to follow it in a step-by-step way, with recommendations and techniques listed in order of highest priority to lowest.

Usually including tactics like a lead-generating website, e-mail marketing, postcards, space ads, social media, and more.

Talk to me – What are your thoughts?

Don’t procrastinate any longer. Give me a call or shoot me an e-mail to get an estimate on your marketing plan, and let’s work together to explode your business profits.

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If you need help with website design, writing SEO optimized web copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies, I can help!

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Join my discussion by leaving a comment below…

If your business only tries direct mail one time…

Your response may suck. You see, by mailing one poorly written letter or postcard, sent to a low quality list of uninterested people, it’s entirely possible you won’t get the results you want.

And if you’re like many business owners, you’ll blame direct mail for your lousy results, saying that direct mail just doesn’t work.

But don’t! Direct mail does work. I’ve said it before, and it’s been proven time and time again since well…. almost the beginning of time.

99.9% of the time, the real reason it didn’t work is because:

• Your sales copy doesn’t engage and persuade your readers
• You sent it to the wrong or a low quality list
• Or your offer isn’t strong enough to get people to act

It’s not the fault of direct mail.

That being said – if you’re a mind reader and know exactly what to say, how to convey it in words, know the perfect people to say it to, and offer them the perfect reason to respond, you’ll get some action…

But frankly it doesn’t often work that way. (Unless you’re one of those lucky types who always win on your scratch tickets)

Get better odds when using direct mail

So how can increase your chance of a successful direct mail promo?

Simple. By testing and mailing consistently.

Test your headlines, your copy, and your offer, and send them to people who are perfect prospects.

And mail them something at least 3 times over a short period of time.

You never know which headline or offer will be the “one” that kicks butt, when all the other ones don’t work. Chances are – you’ll have to try several versions before you experience the winner.

Plus, your odds of success will increase significantly if you hire an experienced direct response copywriter to write your copy.

Joe Sugar man, known by many as the greatest mail order advertiser and ad copywriter of all times (remember the Blub locker sunglasses which sold who knows how many millions of pair), commented that he would often test 3 or 4 ads for one product, and sometimes as many as 10 ads, before coming up with a winner.

And Joe’s on of the world’s top copywriters, who charges thousands of dollars to write ads for his clients.

So even though it’s more work, the extra cost and work to come up with a winner will more than offset the cost of ads that didn’t perform well.

That’s the truth. And anyone who tells you otherwise or guarantees one specific ad will be successful isn’t being truthful. There’s just no way to know for sure without testing. And that’s guaranteed!

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If you need help with website design, writing SEO optimized web copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies, I can help!

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Join my discussion by leaving a comment below…

One direct mail technique that can improve your marketing results

Historically, direct mail has been proven over and over to be a great way to generate leads, sales, and profits for business owners.

Especially when your direct mail campaigns:

• Target the “right” people – the perfect prospect
• Capture your reader’s attention with a powerful headline
• Are so interesting and emotional that your reader just has to read it
• And you make an offer that your prospect can’t refuse

Many business owners send direct mail to generate leads and sales – and chances are, you’ve even tried using direct mail yourself.

You come up with a great idea, write up a quick letter describing how great it is, send out your letter to everyone you know… and wait for the cash to start rolling in.

Unfortunately, this is rarely successful, mostly because most business owners (especially small businesses) only mail the letter one time.

And the reason it’s a problem (for you anyway) is that most people won’t buy from the first letter they get.

Assuming they are interested in your offer, people will only buy from people they like and trust And you’re probably not going to build up a lot of trust in only one letter.

Another issue is the timing. People have hectic lives, and maybe they put your first letter in a pile, then forget about it. When they get another letter a few days later, they may take the time to take your action then.
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So what’s the secret to direct mail then?

Direct mail will usually get the best response when you mail a multi-step sequence of letters.

At the very least – three letters sent 4-6 days apart. Depending on your product or service, there is no upper limit to how many letters you could send.

There have been companies that get profitable response from the sixth or seventh letter in a direct mail campaign.
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3-step direct mail

Step 1:
Write a letter that gets attention, gets read, and compels your reader to take action now. Make sure it goes to a laser-targeted group of people, and mail it using a live stamp.

Step 2:
If they don’t respond within 4-6 days, send out a second letter. Only this time, change the letter a little bit (e.g. put “Second Notice” at the top), make sure they know the big benefit, and add another bonus or incentive for responding.

Step 3:
For the non-responders, wait another 4-6 days and send out a third letter (again making some minor changes to the copy), and maybe add a payment plan, or something else that can push them over the edge.

If the letter and offer is targeted, this sequence has a much better chance of increasing your results than just sending out one lonely letter and praying for the best.
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My final thought…

Some of my clients have seen great results with this direct mail technique, simply by mailing the 3 letters. With the second and third letters, I just changed the headline and the first paragraph or two from the first letter.
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If you need help with website design, writing SEO optimized web copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies, I can help!

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Join my discussion by leaving a comment below…

As you now know – writing effective SEO web copy is a process, not a single event, that attracts readers to your website, then compels them to take a specific action.

• You need a primary target market
• You need to know which keywords and phrases to use
• You need to know what they want…
• You have to use a headline that gets their attention, so they’ll read your web copy further
• Then… your copy has to suck ‘em in like a vacuum cleaner

In this final Part 7 of How to Write Optimized Web Content…

I’m gonna wrap it all up for you, and you’ll realize just how much work and expertise is really involved to write good web copy that gets results.

Let’s assume your shiny new web copy is now live on the Internet.

That’s great — but now you need to see how effective it is.

To do that, you need to be tracking the analytics of the page. A great and free tool is Google Analytics.

Once you install the short snippet of code in your web page, you’ll be able to track things like:

• How many visitors find the page
• How long they stay on it
• What  keywords they typed to get there
• Where they are physically located
• What other pages they go to next
• And a ton of other great and valuable information

After a while, you can develop a baseline of key statistics that you can use to track results of any tests and changes you make.

For example, some easy and important things to test would be the headline, your offer, and your call to action.

These typically get you the biggest bang for the buck… But you have to do it.

In conclusion … you always get what you pay for. I know it’s cliche, but it’s true. If someone who says they’re a web or SEO copywriter is only going to charge you a ridiculously low fee – like a hundred bucks per page to write copy for your website…

Then you’re probably not gonna get very good results, because they just cant spend the necessary time to research and do a good job for you.

If you’re serious about getting results from your website – hire a copywriter to do the job right – the first time! And dont skimp on quality “words that sell”.

Hope these tips help … and if you want to get the best results that you can, consider hiring a professional web copywriter. That would be me. : – )

In case you missed the other parts of this series, here are the links.

• Click for Part 1 of Optimized Web Copy That Sells
• Click for Part 2 of How to Write Optimized Web Copy
• Click for Part 3 of How to Write Optimized Web Copy
• Click for Part 4 of How to Write Optimized Web Copy
• Click for Part 5 of How to Write Optimized Web Copy
• Click for Part 6 of How to Write Optimized Web Copy

Till next week then…

What are your thoughts?

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

You’ve finally gone and hired a web designer to redesign your small business website.

But what’s the real reason why?

Is it because you are bored with your current site?

Because your web site is old and hasn’t been touched or added to since it was new?

Or maybe you just want to re-brand yourself, the look, and change the colors?

Oh… I see… you also want to get more traffic to your website.

Now we’re on to something most business owners want – more visitors.
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But you said you wanted a shiny new web site

Unfortunately, many of you think making your website flashy and pretty, with cool new colors will get more people to visit the site.

But in my humble opinion, you’d be dead wrong.

What you’d end up with is a nice looking website that nobody sees – kinda like having a great looking billboard in the middle of the desert.

It’s beautiful, but nobody will ever see it.
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Relevant, keyword-rich content is still king

Instead of a redesign, what you should be doing is concentrating on the words people will be searching for, and developing new content, blog posts, and pages so search engines will find your site more often.

There’s no doubt that a good image is important, but Google doesn’t rank your website based on your image and good looks. The only thing it can tell what your site is about is by reading the content (words) on your web pages.

So… if your primary reason for redesigning your company’s website is to get more visitors and convert more of them to paying customers…

Then visually redesigning your site to make this happen usually won’t work.

You’ll get better search results with a decent looking site with lots of great content about your products and services, than a stunningly beautiful site with little content.

In other words, you’ll probably be better off hiring a copywriter to write quality content for your readers than blowing your wad on a graphic designer.

What do you think?

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

It’s true! If you own or manage a business, there is a way you can get more qualified leads and more paying business, and you can do it without using traditional selling and marketing tactics.

I know…because I’ve personally used this technique to grow my own business.

Before you start screaming at me, because you think it’s some sleazy link exchanges, or underhand method of buying leads, give me a second.

Because it’s not. It’s a proven way that many successful business people have used to grow their own businesses.

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Successful business professionals use this technique

For example, maybe you’ve heard of Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the best-selling Guerrilla Marketing series of books, now chief of the world-famous Guerrilla Marketing Association…

Or Richard Bolles, author of best-selling job-hunting book What Color is Your Parachute, now considered by many as America’s top career expert …

Or David Meerman Scott, best-selling author of Real Time Marketing & PR, and highly respected marketing expert…

These guys are well known as experts in their fields, and they also used this technique to bring in more profits than all the other marketing techniques they’d used.

So what did I do, that they also did?

I wrote a non-fiction business book titled How Your Small Local Business Can Get More Customers on the Internet. It’s not just any book, but a book that shares my professional knowledge, and how it can help my clients.

Now I’m a bona-fide published author!

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The easy path to instant credibility and expert status

And it gives me instant credibility, and readers perceive me to be the local “expert” on the subject of online marketing. Think about it…how many other local business owners have written and published a book?

Writing your own business book is certainly a great way to build your business, and with some commitment on your part, you can do it pretty quickly and inexpensively.

With help from professional book coach Roger C. Parker of www.publishedandprofitable.com, it took me less than six months from initial concept to holding the printed book in my hands.

Plus, because it is self-published, my total cash investment was less than a Yellow Pages ad was.

Now, as business professionals read it, and realize I know what I’m talking about, they’re hiring me for speaking engagements, and also to advise them on their own online marketing strategies.

The cost per copy is so low, I’ve even sent free copies of my book (instead of a brochure) to potential prospects and with my proposals.

No doubt about it… sending a printed book instead of a traditional brochure sure gets people’s attention and say “Wow, he knows his stuff, because he wrote a book!”

You’ll surely stand head and shoulders over your competition, since I’d almost guarantee… none of them have a book to offer.

So what are you waiting for?

Start writing today, and if you have any questions or comments, contact me or Roger Parker, and we’ll get you on the track to successfully and profitable writing your very own book!

What do you think?

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Dear Mr. or Ms. Business Owner:

Let me ask you a question…

Does your laundry list of services and features look just like your competitor’s lists?

If it does – don’t feel bad, because you’re in the majority.

But just so you know – this can be a big problem for your business – but one that can be solved by using a little brain power.

Let’s assume you’re in this group and see why it’s not a good thing…

Because you offer the same business products and services as everyone else – your prospects don’t have even one compelling reason to choose YOUR business over the others. In other words, you don’t offer them any advantage over your competition.

Then, the only way to differentiate yourself is with price. And I’m sure you’ll agree that price cutting just to get a sale doesn’t make good business sense in the long run.

That’s because people will buy from you just because of the deal, and we all know a successful business is built from long-term customer relationships.

Not to mention the fact that discounting severely cuts into your profits, especially when it’s a one-time customer.

Fortunately, it’s not too difficult to solve this, and start converting more of your prospects to paying customers.

All you gotta do is add some extra value to your services... something unique … or something your competitors don’t or can’t offer.

Many marketing types call the a Unique Selling Proposition, or USP for short.

Here’s a perfect example of adding value:

I was researching local auto body shops in the Portsmouth, N.H. area because I needed to get some body work done.

Now there’s a ton of body shops around here, (lots of really bad drivers, I guess), but I finally chose Jason Batistelli of Mirror Image Automotive in Greenland New Hampshire to do the work.

Why? Many of the prices were similar, which made it a tough choice, if I was making my decision based entirely on price. But Jason offered something the other shops didn’t (several things actually).

He was personable, was very detailed in his quote, and up front in his recommendations. You could say – he made me feel comfortable.

He provided a lifetime warranty on his auto body work.

He gave me rides back and forth to drop off and pick my vehicle up when it was done.

Plus… he completely cleaned and vacuumed the interior, and washed the vehicle when it was done, so the dust and dirt was gone!

These “extras” sealed the deal for me. Convenience for me and the fact he cared enough about the final results made me a customer for life. (though I hope to not get into any accidents soon).

None of the body shops I talked with even came close to the value Jason offered.

Once you add value, you give your prospects a “smoking gun” reason to choose your business instead of the “others”.

And the value you add doesn’t have to cost you a ton of money, maybe none at all, but your prospect needs to perceive it as different and valuable to them.

So start thinking what you can do to add value to your business, and see how it affects your profits.

Dare to be different! If you don’t know what you can do, look at marketing materials and ads from other industries. Find something and adapt it to your business.

Oh… if you already offer something different, make sure you promote the heck out if it any time you can!

What do you think?

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter