Marketing

How to get more customers with YouTube

Published

1 year ago

July 28, 2022

Bryan Caplan

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Maximize those micro-moments

As a small business owner, ever ask yourself why you’re investing so much time and energy on your YouTube content when you’re already spread thin by all of the things you have to do in running your business? Simple: small business creators get more customers with YouTube!

Why is video important for my business?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what’s a video worth to your business? The potential to dramatically increase your chances of getting more customers, according to recent YouTube statistics from Google:

68% of YouTube users watch videos to make purchasing decisions.
More than 46% of shoppers will potentially buy from a new brand they discovered through YouTube.
70% of YouTube viewers bought something from a brand they saw on YouTube.

Those staggering numbers show that YouTube videos greatly influence consumers’ buying decisions. And since only 9% of small businesses are on YouTube, if you take the time to create and upload videos, you’ll essentially stand out from 9 out of 10 of your competitors.

Why do I need a YouTube channel?

More than 90% of consumers say they’ve discovered new products and brands on YouTube. Having a YouTube channel allows your business to capture the interest of those consumers when they’re actively exploring their options.

As the second-largest search engine behind Google, YouTube is brilliant in that it realizes the power of giving people options. When viewers are empowered to choose what they want to watch, they pay attention to the content because it matters to them. If you create educational, entertaining or thought-provoking videos, you have a better chance of viewers actively engaging with your brand. Those engaged viewers, in turn, enable you to make more sales with YouTube.

4 things to include to get more customers on YouTube

When building a YouTube channel, there are a few important elements that deserve your attention:

Channel banner.
Important links.
Welcome video and description.
Channel sections and playlists.

1. Channel banner

Think of the channel banner like your billboard on YouTube. This sits atop your channel and can be used to welcome viewers, set expectations for the types of videos you upload, and even drive clicks to a specific page. On Bigger Better Biz, we use the channel banner to drive downloads of our free marketing resources.

2. Important links

When customizing your YouTube channel, you can add important links to your other digital properties. Be sure to use them because they show on your channel banner as well as in your About tab. On Bigger Better Biz, we link to our free download, marketing community signup, LinkedIn and Facebook.

3. Welcome video and description

The welcome video (also known as the channel trailer) gives new (yet to subscribe) visitors to your channel a brief idea of the type of content you’re posting. Use both your video and its accompanying description to instruct viewers to watch your other videos and subscribe to the channel. This is a great way to get more followers on YouTube.

On Bigger Better Biz, we use the welcome video and description to welcome new viewers, outline our video topics, and prompt them to subscribe to the channel.

4. Channel sections and playlists

Your YouTube channel homepage allows for up to 12 sections. Each of these sections can contain live stream content, video playlists, or other channels with which you collaborate. On Bigger Better Biz, our sections include:

Starting your small business
How to Google My Business
YouTube Shorts
Popular uploads
Free marketing strategy coaching clips
Digital marketing tools
Small business questions

You don’t need to use all 12 sections, but having three or more sections makes your channel look established and robust to new viewers.

How YouTube can help you gain more customers

To understand the opportunity you have with YouTube, we first have to dive into consumer psychology and take a look at micro-moments.

What are micro-moments?

Google coined the term “micro-moments” back in 2015. Think with Google puts it best when it describes micro-moments:

Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device — increasingly a smartphone — to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped. In these moments, consumers’ expectations are higher than ever. The powerful computers we carry in our pockets have trained us to expect brands to immediately deliver exactly what we are looking for when we are looking. We want things right, and we want things right away.

Simply put, a micro-moment is a moment in time when your potential customers need to:

Know something.
Go somewhere.
Do something.
Buy something.

In these impactful moments, consumers are both exploring and evaluating their options (known as the Messy Middle) and they turn to search engines like YouTube to make more educated decisions. Recent research from Google shows that:

75% of shoppers used a Google product like YouTube in the past week to help with their shopping.
70% of shoppers are open to learning about products on YouTube from brands.
More than 90% of people say they’ve discovered new products and brands via YouTube.
Over 50% of shoppers say they used online video while shopping in-store.

How to leverage micro-moments to get more customers with YouTube

Watching videos in their micro-moment helps consumers compare their options and make better-informed buying decisions. That’s not to say that all of your videos should only focus on pushing your products or services, though. Because consumers in micro-moments are both exploring and evaluating, you want to consider the role video will play in your overall marketing strategy.

What role will video play in your marketing strategy?

Before I create a video for Bigger Better Biz, I like to jot down my objective for the video on a sticky note and make sure it’s in clear view as I record. Of course, you’re using video in your marketing to get more customers with YouTube, but each video can have a different objective or goal that ultimately leads to making more sales with YouTube.

Building brand awareness with YouTube

To attract customers, you need to show them your products and services. In the case of building brand awareness, you’re making videos with a goal that consumers will recognize or recall your brand or offerings. To build brand awareness, you might create the following types of videos:

Growing loyalty with YouTube

Once potential customers know about your brand, you want to bolster their loyalty so they are more likely to recommend your business to others. To grow loyalty, you might create videos including:

Customer testimonials
Case studies
Thought leadership and advice

Driving sales with YouTube

Last, but not least, you can use YouTube to drive online or offline sales. This is where you turn on the boosters and promote your offerings. It might feel a little shameless, but if 90% of consumers are discovering things to buy on YouTube, it’s in your best interest to sell with video.

Here’s an example of a recent video promoting a new marketing program we developed for small business owners:

Note in the video how I speak to the viewers’ pain points of feeling overwhelmed with endless marketing options and provide them with a solution: our monthly marketing success plan.

If you’re not ready for a direct sales video, then you might consider uploading:

Origin story videos
Product highlight videos
DIY videos
Unboxing videos

Don’t let the lists above overwhelm you, but use them as inspiration. It’s easy to get sidetracked with fresh ideas when recording videos, so I suggest you start by choosing one objective. Write your objective on a notepad and add two to three bullet points on what you want to cover in your video. As you make your video, consult your note and make sure you’re staying true to your objective.

Where do I share my YouTube videos?

Once you publish your video on your YouTube channel, spread the word right away because the more views and watch time you gain with your new release, the more YouTube rewards you by suggesting your video to viewers outside of your network. With that in mind, here are some simple strategies to get more eyes on your YouTube videos.

Embed your video in a blog post

If blogging is a part of your content marketing strategy, you will want to write a blog post to showcase every video you upload to YouTube. Why? Because by writing a blog post and embedding your new video in the body of your blog, you’re marrying YouTube and Google for an SEO boost.

Pro tip: Consider embedding a playlist link in your blog posts, so your viewers continue watching your other videos.

Share your video in your email marketing campaigns

When you release a new video that provides value to your email subscribers, send out an email marketing campaign to let them know. If you time it right, you can schedule your video to publish when your email campaign hits the inbox to demonstrate a strong initial demand for your video content.

Share your video on social media

I’m sure you’re always on the prowl for new content to share on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. By promoting your YouTube videos via social media platforms, you’re spreading the word to social media users who might have never known your YouTube channel existed. If your video content is engaging enough, you have a good chance of winning new subscribers.

Pro tip: Be sure to add short, informative descriptions that motivate social media users to click the video links.

Start leveraging YouTube to get more customers

We’ve established that YouTube is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal because it influences consumer buying decisions. When potential customers find themselves in micro-moments, they turn to search engines like YouTube to explore and evaluate their options, and the stats show that more than 90%t of people say they’ve discovered new products and brands via YouTube.

Be deliberate with your objectives before recording your videos, and consider modeling some of the examples I listed above. Once you publish your video to YouTube, be sure to share it as soon as you can to get as many views as possible right when it’s live for the world to see.

I’ve given you the inspiration, now put in the perspiration!

This post was originally published on this site

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Growing a Business

Let the Urgency of Your Customers’ Needs Guide Your Sales Strategy

Published

3 months ago

July 6, 2023

smallbizincorp

When companies are creating profiles of possible target customers, there is a dimension they often overlook: the urgency of the need for the offering. This article provides a process for segmenting prospective customers in this fashion and creating a sales strategy.

Many business leaders believe that they fully understand their best target customers. They’ve developed clear profiles (a.k.a. personas) that are richly detailed with well-researched parameters, such as standard characteristics (e.g., age, education level, years at the company, role) or firmographic (e.g., annual revenues, number of employees, industry, geography, years in business). While such characteristics are important, they ignore another crucial characteristic: urgency of need.

A company that offers a software-as-a-service billing solution for small and mid-sized private dental practices may focus on classic demographics, such as the size of the practice (number of employees or number of dentists), the age of the practice (since older practices may more likely have outdated systems), or the amount of insurance billing the practice does each year.

These variables are useful in helping to produce a list of prospects, but they don’t determine which of these dental practices the sales team should call on first. If, however, the company added data that reflects which of these practices’ needs is most urgent — say, those that have advertised for billing and claims administration help more than twice in the past year (suggesting that they are struggling to keep up with billing) — salespeople would be able to prioritize their attention on these prospects.

The Four Segments

This needs-based approach entails segmenting potential customers into four segments:

Urgent. The customer recognizes that it has an immediate need. (We just had another billing person quit!)
Non-urgent. The customer recognizes the need, but it isn’t a high priority at this time. (We realize that our billing needs are changing and our current system will need to be revamped. We plan to start looking into this in the next year.)
Currently met. The customer believes it already has an adequate solution to address the need at this time but recognizes it may not be a long-term solution. (We have an older billing system in place that still does the trick for now.)
None. The customer simply has no need nor expects such need anytime soon. (Our small practice has a limited number of patients who pay out of pocket. Since all payments are made at the time of service, we simply don’t need a complex new billing system.)

This focus on the urgency of target customers’ needs may sound like common sense, but we have found in our work with B2B companies — from mid-sized firms to Fortune 50 giants in an array of industries such as financial services, enterprise information technology, utilities, industrial solutions, and health care technology — that they often fail to consider this dimension. Here is a process a firm can employ to apply this approach.

Identify new customers.

To identify prospects outside of your existing customer base, you can use available information. One is a source we mentioned: help-wanted ads that reflect a particular need.

But there are plenty of others. For instance, if a company sells inventory management solutions, a source of valuable data might be manufacturing industry merger-and-acquisition data, which could reveal companies with an urgent need to change or merge systems such as those for managing inventories. If a company sells quality-management solutions, a source of valuable data could be companies that are getting hammered for poor quality on social media.

Gather the necessary information.

Identifying your customers’ true urgency of needs requires looking beyond your typical demographic and firmographic profiling. This starts with an outreach initiative to talk to customers and prospects. The purpose is to ask questions to identify new target customer parameters that may be impacting the customer’s urgency of needs:

Frustrations. How urgent is the need to resolve these frustrations? Which frustration would best accelerate success if resolved?
Goals. Are your goals clear, consistent, reasonable, and measurable? Have your goals shifted recently?
Roadblocks. What keeps you from reaching your goals? (i.e., What keeps you up at night?) What is the magnitude of the impact of these roadblocks?
Environmental and situational factors. Are you experiencing any industry consolidation, organizational or executive management changes or instability, competitive changes, regulatory changes, and so on? What is the magnitude of the impact of these factors?
Technology factors. Are there new or changing technologies that will impact your ability to achieve your goals? Are you at risk due to technology end-of-life issues or incompatibility?

Assess your firm’s ability to serve lower-level segments.

Once a company has performed its needs-based segmentation effort, it should seek to answer the following questions about each of the four levels. The findings will dictate the sales and marketing strategy, level of investment and resource allocations.

Level 1. Urgent need

How quickly can we meet their need? How can we best serve them? Is the market opportunity large enough to focus only on these prospective customers? Given the customer’s urgency, how do we price our products to optimize margins without damaging relationships by appearing exploitive?

Level 2. Non-urgent need

Can we convince them that their need is more urgent than they currently believe? How do we effectively stay in touch with them so we remain top of mind when they perceive that their need has become urgent?

Level 3. Need currently met

Should we walk away from these prospects? If so, when and how do we touch base with them to see if their needs have changed? Or is there an opportunity to continue to work to convince them that their need is either more significant than they realize or could be much better addressed? If so, what’s the best approach to get them to reconsider their current situation and recognize their true need and its urgency?

Level 4. No need

Should we completely remove these contacts as any potential prospect? Is there some other need we may be able to address for them — perhaps with another product? Should we be in contact on a planned basis to see if their situation has changed? How do we best do that?

The ideal customers are those who clearly understand and recognize they have an urgent need for your offering. However, if that opportunity is not enough to meet the company’s sales volume target, it may be necessary to extend efforts beyond Level 1. Gaining the attention of these additional target customers, challenging their perceptions of their needs, and educating them on how your offering could benefit them will require resources. Consequently, a critical assessment is required to determine whether the opportunity outweighs the investment necessary to address customers in these other levels.

Test your new targets.

Before committing to a complete revamp of how your salespeople are prioritizing opportunities, select one or two experienced salespeople to help you test your new target customer parameters. Identify a few prospects that align to your revamped target profiles, and see how the selected salespeople are able to penetrate them.

Revamp your sales messaging and training.

Include prospective customers’ level of need in your sales messaging — the language that the sales team uses in its interactions with customers. Revamp your sales tools (materials such as brochures, technical papers, and customer testimonials used in the selling process) to include the urgency of need. And teach salespeople how to read and react to the prospective customer’s level of need and adapt their language appropriately.

By adding urgency of need to target customers’ profiles, companies can do more than differentiate their offerings more effectively. They can also identify new growth opportunities and successfully pivot away from slowing or tightening markets. They can accelerate the sales of new products. Last but not least, they can turn underachieving sales teams into strong performers.

This post was originally published on this site

Growing a Business

Buy Targeted Website Traffic and Targeted Traffic to Website

Published

3 months ago

June 25, 2023

Ivan Widjaya

In today’s digital world, where competition is fierce and attention spans are short, driving targeted traffic to your website is crucial for success. One effective way to achieve this is through geo-targeted ads. By harnessing the power of geo-targeting, businesses can reach their desired audience in specific locations, increasing the chances of conversions and maximizing their return on investment.

In this article, we will explore the concept of geo-targeting, its benefits, and how to set up geo-targeted ads in Google Ad Words.

Why Geo-Targeted Ads?

In the vast expanse of the internet, not all website visitors are created equal. While a large volume of traffic may seem appealing, it’s the quality of that traffic that truly matters. Geo-targeted ads enable businesses to narrow down their audience to a specific geographic location, ensuring that the website visitors they attract are more likely to be interested in their products or services. By reaching the right people in the right place, businesses can improve their conversion rates and generate higher revenue.

What Is Geo-Targeting?

Geo-targeting refers to the practice of delivering content, advertisements, or promotions to individuals based on their geographic location. It involves tailoring marketing efforts to specific regions, countries, states, cities, or even neighborhoods, depending on the targeting requirements of the business.

What Is Geo-Targeted Marketing?

Geo-targeted marketing is a strategic approach that focuses on tailoring marketing messages and campaigns to specific geographic areas. It allows businesses to create personalized experiences for customers based on their location, cultural preferences, language, and other factors relevant to the target audience in a particular region.

How Does Geo-Targeting Work?

Geo-targeting leverages various technologies to determine a user’s location. Some common methods include IP address tracking, GPS data, Wi-Fi signals, and user-provided information such as postal codes. Once the user’s location is identified, marketers can serve targeted advertisements or content based on the predefined criteria associated with that location.

Why Does Geo-Targeting Matter?

Geo-targeting matters because it allows businesses to optimize their marketing efforts and resources. By focusing on specific regions or locations, businesses can avoid wasting resources on audiences that are unlikely to convert. Instead, they can direct their marketing budget towards attracting visitors who are more likely to become customers, thereby increasing their chances of success.

Geo-Targeting vs. Geofencing

While geo-targeting and geofencing are related concepts, they differ in their approach. Geo-targeting aims to reach specific individuals based on their location, while geofencing involves creating a virtual boundary around a physical location and delivering content or ads to users within that boundary. Geo-targeting is broader in scope and can cover larger areas, whereas geofencing is more precise and focused on a specific physical area.

Google AdWords

What Are The Three Major Types of Geo-Targeting?

1. Location Targeting

This type of geo-targeting focuses on reaching users in specific geographic locations, such as countries, states, cities, or zip codes. It allows businesses to target regions where their products or services are available or to tailor their marketing messages to local customs and preferences.

2. Audience Targeting

Audience targeting involves reaching users based on demographic factors such as age, gender, language, or interests. By combining demographic information with geographic data, businesses can create highly targeted campaigns that resonate with specific audience segments in different locations.

3. Weather Targeting

Weather targeting takes into account the local weather conditions of a particular location to deliver relevant ads or promotions. This type of targeting is especially useful for businesses that offer weather-dependent products or services, such as outdoor equipment, travel agencies, or seasonal clothing retailers.

Analyzing marketing analytics — photo credit: Carlos Muza / Unsplash.

How to Set Up Geo-Targeting Ads in Google Ad Words

Google Ad Words, now known as Google Ads, offers powerful tools and features to implement geo-targeted ads effectively. Here’s a step-by-step guide to setting up geo-targeting ads in Google Ads:

1. Define your target locations

Determine the specific regions or areas you want to target with your ads. This could be a country, state, city, or even a radius around a specific location.

2. Set up location targeting in Google Ads

Sign in to your Google Ads account and navigate to the campaign you want to edit. Under the campaign settings, go to the “Locations” tab and click on the “+ Location” button. Enter the desired locations and select the targeting options that best suit your campaign objectives.

3. Refine your targeting

Google Ads offers additional options to further refine your geo-targeting. You can exclude certain locations, target specific languages spoken in a region, or adjust your targeting based on factors like income level or user interest.

4. Create ad copy and extensions

Craft compelling ad copy that resonates with your target audience in each specific location. Consider tailoring the messaging to address local preferences, cultural nuances, or regional events. Additionally, utilize ad extensions like location extensions to provide more information and encourage visits to your physical store.

5. Monitor and optimize

Regularly review the performance of your geo-targeted campaigns. Analyze key metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI) for different locations. Use this data to make informed decisions and optimize your ads for better results.

Geo-Targeting Tips and Best Practices

Here are some tips and best practices to maximize the effectiveness of your geo-targeting efforts:

1. Prioritize Certain Locations

Identify regions that align with your business objectives and allocate a higher portion of your budget to those areas. By focusing your resources on high-potential regions, you can generate more targeted traffic and improve conversion rates.

2. Target Local Keywords

Incorporate location-specific keywords into your ad copy and website content. This helps search engines understand the relevance of your offerings to users in a particular location and increases the chances of your ads appearing in local search results.

3. Avoid Creating Competing Campaigns

If you target overlapping locations with multiple campaigns, there is a risk of competing against yourself and wasting resources. Instead, consolidate your efforts into a single campaign with well-defined targeting parameters to ensure efficiency and avoid unnecessary competition.

Google AdWords

Conclusion

In conclusion, the decision to buy targeted website traffic and implement targeted traffic strategies is a strategic move that can significantly impact the success of your online business. By harnessing the power of geo-targeted ads, businesses can precisely reach their desired audience in specific locations, leveraging the benefits of location targeting, audience targeting, and even weather targeting. This focused approach allows businesses to optimize their marketing efforts, prioritize certain locations, and tailor their messaging to resonate with local preferences.

Through platforms like Google Ads, setting up geo-targeted ads has become more accessible and effective, enabling businesses to reach the right people in the right place at the right time. By following best practices and continuously refining their campaigns based on data-driven insights, businesses can maximize their return on investment, drive targeted traffic to websites, and increase the chances of conversions and revenue generation.

Embracing geo-targeting and leveraging targeted traffic strategies is an essential component of a successful digital marketing strategy in today’s competitive landscape.

This post was originally published on this site

Growing a Business

Maximising the Impact of Blogger Outreach Campaigns for Increased Brand Visibility

Published

3 months ago

June 11, 2023

smallbizincorp

In today’s digital landscape, blogger outreach has emerged as a powerful strategy for businesses to enhance brand visibility and connect with their target audience. By collaborating with influential bloggers, brands can tap into their established online presence and engage with a wider audience.

Partnering with a reputable blogger outreach agency like Ocere can further amplify the impact of these campaigns. An experienced agency brings expertise, established relationships with bloggers, and a deep understanding of the industry, allowing businesses to navigate the complex world of blogger outreach more effectively.

photo credit: Yan Krukau / Pexels

Identifying The Right Bloggers

The success of a blogger outreach campaign starts with identifying the right bloggers to collaborate with. First, look for bloggers who align with your brand’s values, target audience, and industry. Then, conduct thorough research to assess the blogger’s reach, engagement, and credibility to ensure they have an active and engaged following.

Building Genuine Relationships

Building genuine relationships with bloggers is crucial for long-term success. Instead of approaching bloggers with a purely transactional mindset, invest time understanding their content, engaging with their posts, and establishing a personal connection. Engage in meaningful conversations, provide feedback, and share their content to foster a mutually beneficial relationship.

Tailoring Personalised Outreach Messages

Personalisation is key to capturing the attention of bloggers. Avoid generic outreach messages, craft tailored pitches that demonstrate your familiarity with their content, and highlight how your collaboration can benefit their audience. Address them by name, reference their recent work, and explain why you believe their platform is an ideal fit for your brand.

Collaborating on Valuable Content

When collaborating with bloggers, focus on creating valuable, engaging content that resonates with their audience. Discuss ideas and explore content formats, such as sponsored posts, product reviews, guest blogging, or creative collaborations. Encourage bloggers to inject their unique voice and perspective into the content while aligning it with your brand messaging.

Providing Exclusive Offers and Benefits

Consider providing exclusive offers and benefits to incentivise bloggers and encourage their active participation. This could include providing them early access to new products, exclusive discounts for their audience, or inviting them to industry events and brand experiences. By offering unique perks, you strengthen the relationship and create a win-win situation for both parties.

Encouraging Authentic Storytelling

Authenticity is paramount in blogger outreach. Allow bloggers the creative freedom to share their genuine experiences with your brand or product. Encourage them to tell their unique stories and provide honest feedback. Authenticity resonates with audiences and helps build trust in your brand.

Business blogger blogging

Leveraging Social Media Amplification

Amplify the reach of your blogger outreach campaigns by leveraging social media. Encourage bloggers to share their collaborations on social media platforms and create a buzz around the content. Additionally, utilise your social media channels to promote the collaboration, tag the bloggers, and encourage your audience to engage with the content.

Tracking and Measuring Success

To evaluate the impact of your blogger outreach campaigns, establish clear metrics and track key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, monitor metrics such as website traffic, engagement levels, social media reach, and conversions resulting from the collaboration. Use this data to refine your strategies and identify areas for improvement.

Building Long-term Partnerships

Blogger outreach should not be a one-off endeavour. Building long-term partnerships with bloggers allows for sustained brand visibility and continued engagement with their audience. Nurture these relationships by staying in touch, offering ongoing collaboration opportunities, and supporting their growth.

Staying Abreast of Industry Trends

Finally, staying informed about evolving industry trends and changes in the blogging landscape is essential. Keep an eye on emerging bloggers, new platforms, and shifts in consumer behaviour. Then, adapt your outreach strategies to stay relevant and maintain a competitive edge.

By following these tactics and strategies, businesses can maximise the impact of their blogger outreach campaigns and achieve increased brand visibility. Authenticity, genuine relationships, valuable content, and ongoing engagement are the cornerstones of successful blogger collaborations. Embrace the power of blogger outreach to strengthen your brand’s online presence and connect with your target audience meaningfully.

This post was originally published on this site