Tag Archives: Business

Live Streaming Video: Why Use It In Your Business?

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Live Streaming VideoLive Streaming Video: Why Does This Make Sense for Your Business?

What are your marketing goals? What are you trying to achieve right now, today, with your marketing? Think about your blog posts, your email messages, your webinars, social media and any other form of marketing that you are currently engaged in? Chances are your goals are one or more of the following:

  • Build your email list
  • Drive traffic to a page/website
  • Build/strengthen your brand
  • Increase awareness
  • Brand loyalty
  • Establish yourself/your company as a thought leader
  • Make additional sales
  • Increase engagement

Live streaming video is a relatively new tactic that is now available to marketers. Two very popular applications were launched earlier in the year and show great signs of success and growth. A third, owned by Facebook, was released in a sort of beta release or trial release and is expected to expand and there are more options expected to be released over the next year.

New marketing tactics can be extremely powerful if they’re used strategically and if they help you achieve your overall marketing goals. You don’t want to jump on the bandwagon without making sure that there’s something in it for you. So what do you have to gain from live streaming?

Stronger Personal Connection – Because your audience and prospects can engage with you while you’re talking, you’re able to essentially talk to a large group of people in a very personal way. We buy from people that we like and live streaming provides the opportunity to tap into that trigger and forge an emotional connection.

Wider/Different Audience – The people who find and follow you on a live streaming video network may be quite different from the prospects you’ve already connected with. You’re able to reach and connect with a whole new group of people thus enabling you to widen your audience.

Different Form of Content – Being able to reach your audience, to educate, and inform is a powerful tactic. Each time you’re able to leverage a different content format, you’re strengthening your position in the market place. You’re not only giving your audience a choice on how to receive your information, you’re connecting with them multiple times which strengthens your brand and awareness.

There are more benefits as well. In fact, researchers are finding that live streaming is more engaging than other forms of content and can lead to a longer view time than some on demand content. You can also leverage real time statistics and analytics to see how your content is performing.

Finally, while live streaming isn’t easier to create than any other form of content, you may find that it suits your needs and goals. You may also find that your audience responds quite positively to it. Do you have experience with live streaming videos you would like to share with us here?

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Live Streaming Videos to Boost Your Business

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Live StreamingBoost Your Business with Live Streaming Videos

There are a multitude of different tools and tactics that you can use to market your business. For example, you might use video, blogging, and webinars to drive traffic, build your email list or sell products. Each of these tools leverages content as a foundation. Content is the core element of your marketing and content is also the foundation of live streaming.

What is Live Streaming?

Live streaming is a brand new tool that has quickly taken hold. Essentially it’s another type of social media and social networking. It’s a cross between YouTube and Facebook or Twitter. As a creator, you simply turn on your phone’s camera and start recording.

Whatever you’re doing in front of the camera is being shown live to anyone that choses to watch. As a member of a live stream network you can tune in to watch live stream “shows” on just about any topic imaginable.

It’s Still About Creating Great Content

It’s fair to say that some live streamers are simply going about their business of the day in front of the camera. This isn’t really a way to grow a business and people won’t watch that for long. To capitalize on live streaming it’s important to create the same type of plan that you would for any other marketing tactic.

That is you want to create a content plan. Your content needs to be consistently valuable. It needs to provide some sort of benefit for your audience and it needs to help you achieve a business goal.

For example, you might live stream a show every week to offer tips on how to perform specific strengthen building exercises. At the end of each show you might invite viewers to visit you on your blog, to sign up for your email list, or to hire you as a personal coach.

Think About Live Streaming Like Live Television

There will be interactions with your audience. As you live stream, viewers can post comments. You can read those comments in real time and respond, or not. You can answer questions that they post as well. This makes it a very interactive way to share content and connect with your prospects.

Also like live television, there are opportunities to make mistakes. You can say the wrong thing. You can forget what you were going to say. You might get flustered, angry, or the dog might start barking in the background. There are any number of possibilities. It’s live!

However, live doesn’t have to mean unscripted nor does it mean unscheduled. With the live streaming applications that are available today you have the ability to schedule your shows. This is highly recommended because it will give you an opportunity to promote your show and to grow your viewership.

What other questions may I answer for you on this topic?

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Content Marketing Tips for Your Business

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Content Marketing TipsEffective Content Marketing Tips

In the spring of 2006 I launched what was to become my online business. I was completely new to entrepreneurship and finding my way on a daily basis. Determined to forge ahead, I spent time each day creating content around the topics I wanted to become known for. Even without any formal content marketing tips, this strategy was effective. Within months, Google and the other search engines of the day (remember Alta Vista and Lycos?) were picking up my articles and blog posts and sending me targeted traffic, all at no cost to me.

Fast forward to 2016 and content marketing continues to be one of the most effective strategies when it comes to getting all the clients and customers you want to your online or offline business. In fact, over the past several months I have attended two events on this topic, the Content Delivery Summit in New York City in May and the Content and Commerce Summit in Orlando during September. Finally I understand more fully how employing this strategy can make a huge difference in the bottom line of businesses large and small.

No longer are short articles (less than three hundred words in length) and blog posts enough to drive your business online. These days you want to create content that is relevant, substantial, and irresistible. And think multi-media (written, audio, and video) for even better results. I’ll share some examples of how I do this on a regular basis for my own business.

It all begins with your original idea. Once I have something in my head I think of this as the starting place for my next series of content pieces that will be shared far and wide with my target audience. I then write a blog post to flesh out my idea more fully and then publish it online. This means that my very best writing will first appear on my site, one that I own and control. This is an important part of the process.

Next, I’m ready to begin the process of marketing this content I have created. I stop by a site called “Just Retweet” and offer up a short blurb that will be tweeted out by others to their followers. Then I go over to LinkedIn to share an update with my connections there. While at LinkedIn, I go to their “Pulse” page to share my entire blog post, along with links and images.

Facebook is next on my list, and I will post this to my personal page and my group pages before going to “Notes” to once again share the entire blog post. Keep in mind that I haven’t even reached out to my own permission based database of prospects and clients at this stage of the content marketing process.

And content is not just in written form. I have a YouTube Channel for my business, and post videos with some regularity there. Keep them well under five minutes for best results. And audio works well when you want to share something people can listen to from almost anywhere. Here is an audio link I shared recently, where I was asked to give the Invocation at my Rotary Club: http://iTeleseminar.com/90223149. It comes in at two minutes and thirty-one seconds and as of this writing more than five thousand people have listened to what I said.

Are these content marketing tips starting to make sense for your business?

Content marketing allows you to share more about who you are, what you stand for, and how you can help others through your knowledge, experience, and expertise. I can almost guarantee that your competition is not doing any of this, or at least not in a way that will make a difference. What other questions do you have on this topic of creating content to market yourself and your business?

Check Out My Content Training Program at Really Simple Content Marketing

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Utilizing the Concept of Sweat Equity for Your Business

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Sweat Equity for BusinessSweat Equity to Build a Lucrative Business

When I began investing in real estate back in the late 1980s someone told me about the concept of “sweat equity”. The definition of this term, according to the Internet is an interest or increased value in a property earned from labor toward upkeep or restoration. This proved to be true as I spent endless hours engaged in painting, landscaping, and a host of other activities to get the homes I was purchasing ready to be rented or to be sold.

The goal was to make a profit in the process, and this sweat equity saved money I did not have in order to increase the market value of the property. This also served to make me feel more connected to the project and much more likely to want to spend the time and make the effort to do the things in a manner that would expedite the return on my investment.

Sweat equity does not apply only to real estate; any business can prosper when the owner takes a more hands-on approach to building it up.

Then if sweat equity is the non-monetary contribution made by individuals on a project, doesn’t it stand to reason that most everyone would take advantage of this concept and become more successful in their business ventures? You would think so, but it’s actually not such a commonly acceptable and utilized practice

During the 1970s a family from Vietnam purchased the doughnut shop in my neighborhood. This was the first time I was aware of an entire family taking daily responsibility for a business, rather than only the owner and perhaps a spouse or other business partner. The mother and father were there every day at the crack of dawn, sweeping the sidewalk in front of the store and washing the windows, before they got to work preparing the dough and other items for that day’s doughnuts and pastries.

By eight o’clock the oldest daughter would arrive to begin working alongside them. She was probably eighteen or so and very serious about what she was doing. I was in college at this time and would stop in a couple of times a week to pick up a few chocolate old fashioned’s and a glazed twist. She always had the counter tops sparkling clean and organized, and the glass fronts on the cases was so shiny you could see your reflection clearly while making your selections.

Around three in the afternoon the younger children, a boy and a girl who appeared to be around ten years old showed up, and they would take turns serving the customers while doing their homework at a small table in between the front of the store and the area where the baking was done. It wasn’t until they had been in business for a year or so that I saw the youngest family member, a child of about three who was either the little sister or the oldest daughter’s child.

In my neighborhood the discussion of this family and their business was an ongoing and interesting one. The conclusion reached by many was that these practices were common for people from other countries, but that Americans would never put their children to work in this way. Looking back, I see that they missed the point entirely on how the “sweat equity” each family member was putting in would pay off handsomely in the future. What I would have given to have been a fly on the wall during their family discussions of this venture and the hopes and dreams they shared for their children, and perhaps even for family members still living in Vietnam.

Entrepreneur Mark Cuban says that “sweat equity is the most valuable equity there is”. What do you think? I believe this is an excellent topic for further discussion among small business owners and entrepreneurs. Do we do things differently in the United States when it comes to business? Are immigrants more likely to succeed because they are more willing to do what others will not when it comes to building up a business over a period of time? Have you ever put sweat equity into a business venture of any type?

 

 

 

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On Page SEO Checklist for Your Business Sites

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On Page SEO ChecklistYour On Page SEO Checklist

Another on page SEO factor is the architecture of your website. If your page doesn’t load fast, then even if people do click through to read due to your headlines and content, they’ll lose patients and quit. Ensure that all of the following is optimized. Here is an on page SEO checklist:

On Page SEO Checklist: Architecture

  • Site Maps – Search engines need to crawl or ‘see’ your pages in order to index them. If the search engines can’t do that, your info won’t be listed on search pages. The best thing to do is create a site map so that the search engines can easily crawl and index your website.
  • Avoid Duplicate Content – You’ve heard it before and it’s true. To be sure, check any content you put on your website with Copyscape.com or Grammarly.com or another plagiarism checker. Even if you didn’t purposely plagiarize, you want everything to be unique on your site.
  • Responsive – Your site must be mobile right now. There is no time to wait until later. If your site is not mobile, Google is not going to keep listing it. Plus most people use mobile devices to interact with the net these days.
  • Load Speeds – Having a website that loads slow is bad for you and bad for users and due to that, it’s bad for SEO. You can test your website speed here. You want it to be less than 10 seconds, if not about 3 seconds.
  • Meaningful Page URLs – This goes back to using keywords in titles. You want the URL to say what’s on that page. Rather than saying page 1 or page 2, make sure it says “about your business” or “take a course” so that people and search engines know what will be on the page.
  • Security – If you sell anything on your website, having secure HTTPS with an SSL certificate is important not just to people using the site but Google ranks secure sites higher than the others do. Ask your webhost for information about this.

How your site is arranged and whether or not your audience can find what they want on your page is imperative for good SEO.

On Page SEO Checklist: HTML

The other aspect of your on page SEO that you need to concern yourself with is all the HTML code. If you use a good builder like self-hosted WordPress this will be take care of for you for the most part, or it’ll be easy to do it.

  • Titles with Keywords – All your titles for every page and blog post should include a keyword, say what’s on that page, and what’s in that blog post. This will help that page rank higher due to it being clear what’s on it.
  • Meta Descriptions – Within the website, behind the scenes are meta codes. These bits of code tell search engines what’s inside. You’ll be given an opportunity to fill out the meta descriptions if you use a good plugin like Yoast SEO to help you. Don’t skip this as you create your website, it’s important.
  • Is Your Navigation Well Structured? – Also, you want to be sure that your audience can take one look at your home page or landing page and know exactly what to do and how to get around your site. A great thing to do is create a “start here” guide to help them know what to do first and how to get around if your site is large.
  • Using Headers – Headlines, subheads, and proper H1/H2 tags are super important to use not only for your audience, because it’s easier to read chunky content online, but for the search engines because these clues to the content on your site help them send the right audience.

If you hire a web designer, ensure that they’ll help you with these things because they’re super important for your success. If you are doing it yourself, learn all you can, and use a great website builder like self-hosted WordPress. What other questions or comments do you have regarding on page SEO?

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Secrets to Mastering Online Business

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Mastering online business is not as difficult as it may seem to you when you are just starting out. IMastering Online Business can remember spending time in a small group setting with motivational speaker and trainer Brian Tracy when I was in my first year of entrepreneurship. He told us that everything in business is a learnable skill. That concept surprised me and gave me a feeling of peace and confidence that helped propel me toward success very quickly. By understanding that I did not have to have a business degree or MBA, or even years of business experience in order to build the business I was interested in growing, I knew that if I would simply be willing to spend the time and make the effort I could be successful.

Recently I was reading an email message from Kindling founder Geoff Shaw and it brought me back to that time in my life where I was concerned about having enough talent and education to make mastering online business a reality. In it he says:

“There is nothing in this business of publishing that can’t be mastered by anyone.

All of the skills needed to be successful are easy to learn.

Some might take a little longer to master than others, but EVERYTHING is doable, so when someone tells me they can’t do something, I know it’s just because they haven’t done it, or haven’t done it for long enough.”

The key here is to be willing to take the time to hone your skills and practice what you are learning.

Geoff adds:

“Feed yourself with knowledge, do stuff, and learn from what happens – that will be your best recipe for anything in life.

Just because you can’t do something now, doesn’t mean you can’t do that thing later.

As knowledge grows so does confidence to do more.

Success drives more success.”

This is such excellent advice for anyone who is working to achieve goals in a business. It’s a boost of confidence that will get you through the hard times and propel you to success more quickly than if you took the slow road filled with doubt and apprehension.

And Geoff’s final words will ring true if you have ever postponed or procrastinated activities and tasks at which you were not adept:

“Continue to do what you’re doing well but make sure you spend time on the hard stuff.
The stuff you don’t like doing because you feel you’re not good at it.

That’s the stuff you need to give some love… so you get good at it and it gives back to you what you need – what you deserve.”

When I came online I realized almost immediately that I needed to become a writer, but that was the “hard stuff” for me. Instead of backing away from this part of the business, I took it as a challenge and started writing every single day. At first it was simple two hundred fifty word articles and blog posts. Soon it became short reports and finally I wrote my first book. To date I have written fourteen books filled with more than a million words. Now I honestly feel like I deserve to call myself a writer.

And if writing is something you would like to add to your business model, be sure to check out Geoff Shaw’s Kindling training course. It’s excellent for mastering online business as a writer, marketer, and entrepreneur.

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Online Marketing Tricks to Build Your Business

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Online Marketing TricksOnline Marketing Tricks

When it comes to online marketing, tricks are always a temptation. But if you’re thinking that by tricks I am referring to something questionable, I am not. Think of these more as tips than as something that we shouldn’t be using to help our businesses grow.

One of my Finnish friends, direct response copywriter and online marketer Juho Tunkelo is a master of online marketing tips to build your business on the Internet. He wrote two excellent posts on this topic, 3 Old, Tiny Tricks Still Working Amazingly Well in Online Marketing and 3 More Tiny Tricks Working Amazingly Well In Online Marketing where I was reminded of strategies from years past that may be even more effective today than they were originally.

One of these is the use of a countdown timer to let people know when an offer expires or goes up in price. Juho says that even if this seems so “early 2000s” it still works because scarcity is a powerful trigger, when used properly. Another of these tricks is to do something referred to as “pattern interrupt” through the use of slow motion videos on Instagram. You can then superimpose your marketing message over the video with a call to action just beneath it.

The last of Juho’s “tricks” I will share with you here is one that he shared with me personally when we met for an impromptu mastermind near Helsinki a year or so ago. It has to do with remarketing to your LinkedIn contact base. You export all of your contacts into a CSV file and then you simply upload that file with your contacts to a Facebook custom audience for ads and/or retargeting. Juho explains just how to do this in great detail in the post I have referenced above. He says that if you have something to promote to that professional audience that already knows you and are half warm anyway… the conversion rates can be astounding.

I recommend that you read both of Juho Tunkelo’s posts and join his list to receive his copywriting information, tips, and ideas to put to use in your own online business.

Do you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share with others? If so, leave a comment below so we can all benefit from your expertise. Online marketing tricks can be fun, as well as profitable.

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Metaphors for Your Online Business

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Metaphors for Your Online BusinessUsing Metaphors for Your Online Business Story

A metaphor is a figure of speech that refers to something as being the same as another thing for rhetorical effect. Examples include “those two friends are peas in a pod” and “the park was a lake after the big rain”. Using metaphors for your online business can be an effective way to incorporate storytelling into everything you share with your community.

My favorite type of metaphor is a parable, which is simply an extended metaphor that is narrated as an anecdote. An example of this is the illustrating and teaching done in works such as Aesop’s fables. In my own business I regularly use the metaphor “time is money” to teach the importance of time management.

Recently I was watching a broadcast over on YouTube where visibility expert Denise Wakeman interviewed Michael Kass and Tea Silvestre Godfrey on the topic of How to Use Metaphors to Tell Your Story. This conversation was brilliantly crafted to explain exactly how and why these are so crucial to our businesses.

I can remember attending an online marketing conference years ago when I was just getting started with my own Internet business. As I approached the large conference room there were groups of people gathered in circles, talking about a variety of topics related to themselves and their businesses. I didn’t know anyone there so I just stood by myself for a few minutes, listening to bits and pieces of conversations. One circle of people to my left was talking about a woman who used to be a school teacher and was now becoming successful as a marketer on the Internet. I leaned in a little bit closer to see if I could hear them mention her name. Imagine my surprise when one of them said “Connie Ragen Green”!

At that point I went over and introduced myself to the group. This was an important lesson for me. I learned on that day that my story would precede me and that it was completely up to me to share a story about myself that would portray me in the light in which I wished to shine. Ever since that time I’ve used metaphors and storytelling as a regular part of my marketing strategy.

Stories also make everything easier for people to remember. When you think about Abraham “Honest Abe” Lincoln, can’t you just picture him walking several miles to return someone’s change when he worked at the general store? And as Tea Silvestre Godfrey reminds us during the broadcast:

“If you’re attempting to teach anything, it’s more effective to teach with a story than with presentation of data.”

What’s your story? How are you sharing it with your audience? I recommend that you spend an hour watching Denise Wakeman’s broadcast I referenced above and learn how your stories will enhance everything you do and how to use metaphors for your online business story, while also taking advantage of how this will set you apart from others in your niche.

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Podcast: Blogging for Your Business

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Doing What It Takes Blogging for Your Business for Online Entrepreneurs

This most recent podcast is a discussion of the importance and relevance of blogging for your business as an online entrepreneur. Here are some of the points I explain in great detail:

The question is…are you blogging for your business on a regular basis?

  1. Your blog is your “home on the Internet”.
  2. A hosted WordPress site is your best option.
  3. Post twice a week during your first year and once a week thereafter.
  4. Use keyword phrases in your permalinks.
  5. Always ask yourself if what you are doing is moving you closer to or further away from your dreams and goals and then adjust your behavior, thoughts, and actions accordingly.

Think about each of these points, listen to the podcast, and then comment below. I would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas and concepts in regards to how blogging for your business will enable you to be a more successful entrepreneur.

I also discuss how blogging for your business will help you to find your voice, how you can “blog your book”, and the four types of content for your blog – original writing, guest posts, curated content, and PLR (private label rights) content.

Are you ready to be surprised? Recently, I have introduced a new feature during these podcast training calls. I will always have the latest course or program, either one of my own or one offered by someone I highly recommend, at my Surprise! link. Check it out today and see what I am recommending this week. If it’s not my own program, product, course, or live event then it’s always from someone I know, trust, and highly recommend as a great value to you as an online entrepreneur.

My most recent book is now available. It’s entitled Doing What It Takes: The Online Entrepreneur’s Playbook and I’d love to hear your Doing What It Takesthoughts on it by way of a review on Amazon.

Are you already a part my list community and receiving my daily email updates and training? If not, please give me your first name and primary email address in the form on the right-hand side of this site. If you are brand new to my podcasts, you will be interested to know that this specific training call, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact methods, techniques, Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. People on six continents have now discovered that starting an Internet business is the very fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in all areas of your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

You will see that each podcast session is first recorded live as a teleseminar, and then repurposed into a podcast to extend my reach to the world. Please join my list (opt in on the right) to be included on these calls, and be sure to introduce yourself and share your site for optimal exposure for years to come! Also, check out my Podcast Show Notes site to see how you can subscribe at no cost to both of my podcasts, and please leave me a review on one or both of them if you are so inclined.

If you would like to get started earning income online right away then I recommend affiliate marketing as the stream of income that will allow you to “earn while you learn” You may now pick up my popular training on winning affiliate contests and other online marketing tips for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets. This training regularly sells for $27. Use the discount code CONTEST to bring the price down to $7. This training has been completely updated for 2016 with the latest information, strategies, and Case Studies for you to use in your own business.

Please be sure to leave your comments below so that I may get to know you better and to serve you as you continue your journey as an online entrepreneur. Getting started with an online business will change your life forever and my reward is your massive success!

Subscribe To My Online Marketing Tips Podcast Today!

 

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