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A Free eZine for Business Owners & Professionals by MediaPower & Mediastreams.ca May 2009 issue If You Could Triple Your Website's Conversion Rate - Would You? There are 3 critical aspects to a profitable Internet presence... Better Web Traffic, The Engagement Factor and Good Content - and you need to have ALL 3 in place before you'll see any returns on your investment. This is the key principles behind the science of 'Conversion' - more commonly referred to as... "Turning Visitors into Customers!" This month's issue explores how you can harness the King of Conversion... ONLINE WEB VIDEO! We hate spam as much as you do. If you have received this newsletter by mistake, please click here to be removed from our free information mailing list. |
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Thought for the Month If you thought online video was just a nice way of whiling away an hour or two on YouTube, think again... Serious businesses are putting online video to work, using it for everything from marketing to recruiting. On the marketing front, the viral effect of the Internet makes it possible for even a small home-based company to post a low-budget video on the Web and reach millions of viewers in a short time. The playing field is now level - at last! Static websites are a thing of the past & your business deserves to be right up there with the leaders, utilizing every available New Media advantage to be able to communicate your value in a way that boosts your bottom line. |
in this issue...
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Feature Article If You Could More Than Triple Your Website's Conversion Rate... Would You? |
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It's a no-brainer...
You've worked hard to put copy and graphic content on
your web site, so what's stopping you from using the
most powerful promotional tool of all time - STREAMING
ONLINE VIDEO? A study conducted recently by DoubleClick found that visitors are five times more likely to click on an online video ad than an ad without video. This is why major players like Cisco and GM have invested heavily into this technology. In fact, the amount of money spent for online video is expected to triple in the next three years. How ready are you to be a part of this new wave? You don't need a huge
budget to create online video content - the neat thing
about web video is its low entry cost. So many digital
devices today already have the technology you need to
display it, and it costs virtually nothing to post a
video on your own website. Here are some secrets to attention-grabbing videos that viewers remember and act upon... 1. For any video to be successful the same principles apply as in writing good copy... This starts with a good
title or headline to make sure people actually open your
video.
For example, "Improve
Your Health" has self interest but is neither specific
nor curious. However, if you call your video "Improve
your health while losing weight" you've now added
specifics to make it stronger. Changing the title even
further to "How a simple exercise improves your health
while making you lose weight" now inspires curiosity as
well, and will attract even more viewers. ...even if it's just a
talking head explaining your product. Make it clear what
your viewer will gain by using your service, etc.
A Few More Tips on Using Online Web Video Know your audience, and plan carefully for the image you want to project. Do you need to be casual or professional? Funny or serious? Online video will also have a positive effect on your Search Engine Marketing, so make sure you optimize its use with the help of a professional. Make sure there is a "Call to Action" on every video - e.g. applying for a free offer, reading a more detailed article, or even calling for an appointment. Then measure video views, viewers, and its success in moving people to the intended next action. Finally, stay on the lookout for new ideas and directions. With its
exceptionally high return on your investment, in today's
business world, online video is one of the most
important tools in your marketing arsenal and one that
you ignore at your own peril! |
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Internet Marketing Bump Up Your Website Traffic Notwithstanding the rant in the previous article, website traffic certainly is essential. If no one walks by your storefront, no one is going to walk in either! Traffic is one of the key components of a successful website and is available in these 3 forms. 1. You can Buy It: You can buy traffic using what is known as Pay Per Click Advertising. The big names in this area are Google and their AdWords program and Yahoo Network Sponsored Search. There are many smaller ones around too, but they all follow the same system. You create an account (usually free), grab a bunch of keywords and create your ads. You can limit the amount you want to spend per click or per month, what geographical areas you want your Ads to display in and sometimes even at what times they should appear. Now when a searcher types one of your keywords into say Google, your Ad will show down the right hand side of the natural search results. If the searcher then chooses to click on your advert and gets forwarded to your website you will be charged for that click. The price you pay for each individual click depends on a variety of conditions such as how many other people are competing for that keyword. The more the competition, the higher the cost to be placed higher up in the ranks. Pay Per Click advertising can be very useful but it is essential that you do research into your chosen Pay Per Click vender and in the niche you are in. 2. You can Borrow It. This option is not for everyone, but in certain areas it can be very effective. The first method of borrowing traffic is what is called link exchange. This is where you put links to another website on your site and they put links back to you on theirs. This can be beneficial as you can get traffic from a more successful website reasonably quickly. However you want to be careful to limit these exchanges to legitimate business sites with relevant and related areas of interest, or you could even end up being blacklisted! Option #2 in the affiliate marketing world is called a joint venture or a JP. This is essentially where you would contact another marketer or company who had products that complements yours. If they are interested they may send a mailing out to their list or put an entry in their blog alerting their visitors about you and your relevant products. The key things to remember about borrowing traffic is that you have to give something in return. This can make it tricky when targeting very successful websites. 3. Or You can Create It... Creating your own traffic is one of the best ways to start bringing people into your website. There are literally hundreds of ways to start creating your traffic but I'm just going to tell you about two of the most popular. Articles are a great way of generating traffic. You can write your articles about your chosen niche, offering advice, definitions, explanations, news, reviews just to name a few. Once you have created your articles you can put them on your website or blog as content. You can also upload them to article directories or even assemble a few of them into a white paper or ebook to give away to visitors. Video is currently the big thing on the internet world. Everywhere you look there are videos for everything. 50% of all web traffic is video and YouTube alone receives 12.5% of all the traffic out there. YouTube has made it possible for anyone to upload their videos for the whole world to see. Just as you can create an article about anything you can do the same thing with video. The best option is to do both: Create it in print and create it in video.
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Watch a fascinating interview with a leading expert on Conversions Dr. Karl Blanks Video courtesy of WebPro News |
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New Media Advertising Do You Really Need a Reason to Put Streaming Video on Your Website? How about Three? If you are reasonably aware of what competitors in your industry are doing, you will have noticed that there's been a real explosion of streaming video on their websites over the last year or so. Some site prefer to keep it quite simple and use the video to deliver supplemental information, while others prefer to make it a main feature of their site and use streaming video to get their point across to the audience more powerfully. Putting video on a website is getting easier and easier and any business not already using this powerful medium is losing out in the race to snag market share. So take some time to check out these three main reasons why you should be harnessing the power of Streaming Video. 1. Make the connection If you know anything about marketing whether offline or online, you know that its imperative to make a connection with the visitor and you have to do it fast! There is a lot of information out there on presenting your text in the best possible light and in making your pictures really count. However, with video, you have the best of both worlds. You immediately grab the eye of the person that is looking at your material, and you, yourself can start talking to them directly. This is a great way to ensure that you make that vital personal connection instead of yet another mess of words on the screen! 2. Quick & Concise Information Transfer If you beat around the bush, your visitor or prospect will inevitably lose interest and drift away. Video is the best way to make sure you are giving them all the information they want, when they want it and in the shortest possible time. Its something that every visitor will appreciate and while not all of them will buy - the ones that want to make a purchase will not be driven away. There is evidence that attention spans of the Internet generation (and that includes old fogies like myself) are getting shorter and shorter, especially when it comes to looking at something new and unfamiliar and streaming video has been proven to overcome this obstacle to selling in the 21st. century.. 3. Its easy! Displaying video on a website is nowhere near as difficult as some might think. At the end of the day, it is a relatively minor investment in time, money or effort for something that provides a huge Return on Investment (ROI). You can display it in a player format that is pleasing to your audience and also gives them control over how they choose to watch it. Any business looking to do any serious business online needs to think about putting video on their website. These days its a tool one cannot afford to do without. |
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Tip of the Month Online Video Tips |
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Video is a new medium for many companies, and there is plenty of room for error. For example, customer testimonials require proper lighting and sound. A good marketing campaign can live on almost indefinitely and a well produced video is a communication tool one should never ignore. Here's a brief guide to help get you started and avoid some of the pitfalls... Tell a story - From viral-marketing videos to customer testimonials, good corporate videos tell a story to keep viewers engaged. Keep it brief - anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. If you've got an hour's worth of content, break it up into small chunks so that viewers can easily find the topics most interesting to them. Do your homework There is no guarantee that a video-marketing campaign will become a viral success. Still, you can improve your chances by doing research on what customers want, just as you would with traditional marketing. Test & Measure - While some viral videos become extremely popular, it doesn't mean those viewers are your target audience. Don't Fake it even if you make it - Big corporate marketers who pretend to be gritty bloggers really risk alienating consumers if the truth comes to light. Experts say it's best to be honest about who you are, since authenticity is highly valued on the Web. Don't Script it too much - The best testimonial videos let customers tell their own stories somewhat in their own words. Don't forget about your brand - Marketing videos that are edgy and funny work well but if the video doesn't reinforce your product or service, you'll wind up with lots of viewers, few buyers, and confused consumers. Have a Call to Action at the End - if you don't ask, you'll never receive. |
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Did You Know... The Difference between Hits & Visitors |
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Ever hear someone say "We got 50,000 hits last month on our web site"? Is this information useful to gauging your marketing effectiveness? What is the difference between a hit and a visitor? A "hit" is not a visitor to the web site, but a hit on the web server. A hit on the web server can be someone accessing a graphic, a java applet, an html file, etc., but does not mean that someone has read a word of what's on your page. What this means is that if a site has 50 small clip art graphics on a page, every visitor to the site registers as 51 hits on the server (50 graphics plus 1 html page). So in the above claim, 50,000 hits translates to just 1,000 visitors! Web owners should not be concerned with hits to their site - they should be more concerned about the number of visitors. And we don't want to know about just the total number of visitors - we need to know about the number of unique visitors. After all, its important to know how many new visitors found our site, if we are to gauge the success of our SEO efforts. So if we can't count hits, can we use a "hit-counter"? Not really... The problem with using counters to track our visitors is they are set up to measure page views, not unique visitors. Every time someone views your page, whether it's the first time or the twentieth, that visitor is counted. And if the page times out for some reason and they "Reload," it counts them again. And if someone just wants to have fun with your counter, they can exit and enter the site several times and are counted as a visitor each time--even if they never looked at your product. So if you shouldn't just be counting hits and using a counter is totally inaccurate, how do we track traffic coming to our site? With a web traffic analysis program. These programs, typically supplied free with our hosting accounts, give vital information about traffic flowing to the site, including where visitors are coming from, which pages they view the most and which pages they typically exit from. So the next time someone brags about the number of 'Hits' they got on their site, remember to ask - "and how many of those were actual visitors?"
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Featured Service |
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LIVE EVENT VIDEOCASTING ON THE WEB with WebcastLive.Mediastreams.ca Extend Your Reach Allow audiences anywhere the chance to participate in your Event in Real Time & share your event "Live!" with anyone, anytime, anywhere...
While Webcasting your Event Live is often used to broadcast sports or music events to the world, it is also a very powerful tool for companies who may wish, for example, to reach shareholders or maybe to have more of their workforce involved in a meeting - but without wasted time, effort or travel costs. Live Event Streaming can send video and audio of any event being held Live - events like a company Annual General Meeting (AGM), weddings or just about any other event to viewers around the world, allowing them to watch it from the comfort of their own homes or offices. Anywhere you want to be, Streaming Media will help you broadcast successfully. You can now reach a much wider audience over a much larger geographic area anywhere in the world - an all this using a regular internet connection. Read All about it... |
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Get $100 OFF on any "Walk-on Video" for Your Website (Offer expires on June 10th. 2009)
Distinguish yourself from your competitors while providing information to your audience just the way they like - briefly, concisely and powerfully!
Watch a Walk-on Video in action and see how your business will convert more visitors into customers using this powerful & affordable New Media tool.
Call: 604.926.5805 for more information |
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Humour with Video The German Coast Guard
Click here to see how Berlitz used a Viral Video to great effect... |
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Helping People by Helping The Earth Let's all of us take some corporate responsibility to keep our world clean and help the underprivileged at the same time
Click here and donate your old electronics to a worthy cause |
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Contact Us |
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Mediastreams.ca is the Streaming Media division of MediaPower New Media Communications Call 604.926.5805 or Toll Free 877.936.8377 visit us at: www.mediastreams.ca Thank you for your interest in MediaStreams. We appreciate any feedback you can give us. Please do let us know how we can serve you better and if there are any specific areas of interest you would like us to cover, do give us the heads up - we will do our best to accommodate your requests. If you enjoy receiving this eNewsletter compliments of MediaPower, please feel free to forward it on to your friends and colleagues. Or if you have been sent this eNewsletter by a friend and would like to subscribe to it yourself, please click here. You have received this newsletter because you are on our email list of subscribers, an association member or a client. If for any reason you do not wish to receive it in future, you may Click here to unsubscribe |
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Special Promotional Discount
on a
Streaming
"Walk-on Video" 