| LED Digest 2548: Should You Be Marketing On YouTube? |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.WillMaster.com/Master : the LED's Key Sponsor Master Series Software - Get Connected with Your WebSite www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. December 5, 2007 Issue no. 2548 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== <Moderator Comment> ~ At Pubcon in Las Vegas --== Should Your Company Be On YouTube? ==-- ~ Rod Aries "It even works for super niches." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Improving Conversions ==-- ~ Tom Aman "...I would suggest dropping the third person stuff..." ~ Antony Lelkes "...I just don't know how successfull I'll be. I am a novice." --== Social Media - What's the Point? ==-- ~ Barb Sybal "Just because competitor X is doing it, doesn't mean I'll jump in to follow..." --== Charging Shipping ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "...the more useful business-building principle is "Caveat Merchant"." ~ Shel Horowitz "...I think it's illegal to charge for a notary fee." ========== NEW =================================== <Moderator Comment> I'll be a little quiet this week. I'm attending the Pubcon SEO and marketing conference ( http://www.pubcon.com ). So far it's been extremely productive and fun -- and I get to meet a bunch of people in person that I've only known online. If you're at Pubcon (or in Vegas) let me know off-list and we can get together. I'll update the list late in the week (or early next) with a re-cap of the sessions. -Adam ------------------ From: Rod Aries Subject: Should Your Company Be on YouTube.com? I know what you're thinking... "My customers don't hang out at YouTube.com. That place is for dogs with frisbees and skateboarders and lip-synchers and girls with big tattoo's." I just looked up and found a wide range of firms with company created video. Everything from eLoan.com, LendingTree.com, Countyrwide.com to truck driving schools in Punjabi and in Atlanta to jewelry stores showing how to buy a diamond ring. Also for those of us (like me) that have pooh-poohed YouTube, we should have perked up in November 2006, when YouTube.com was purchased by Google. Then there was last years Super Bowl. Marketers spent about $87,000 a second to reach the expected 90 million viewers of this year's Super Bowl. As you are aware Super Bowl ads are among the most watched commercials each year. Doritos had two spots created by consumers. Yep, by the same type of people that upload videos to YouTube.com. The two videos are: "Live the Flavor" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNxgxF-7SfA and "Check Out Girl" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH7qE7mFoMU In addition to being watched via the Super Bowl, they have been viewed at YouTube.com over 1.4 million and 400,000 times respectively. That is almost 2 million free views for just those two commercials. Are you interested in people WANTING to watch your commercial AND you don't pay for bandwidth? Heinz "invited America" to make the company's "next great ketchup commercial," with a grand prize of $57,000 (hmm, "57," a bit subliminal). Dove, the cosmetics company has a video called, "Dove Evolution Self Esteem" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U which has been viewed over 4.4M times. How much would they have had to spend on TV to reach that many visitors who "wanted to watch" their commercial versus just reaching that many viewers. Smirnoff, those purveyors of alcoholic beverages have two videos up. The first was called "Tea Partay" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0 and had 3.5M views and then they created a second video called, "West Coast Response" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWzNiUXTh7E which already has 3.2M views. Another company, BlendTec is a bit of a cult legend on YouTube.com. They have a series of videos called "Will It Blend?" There most famous one includes blending an iPhone. They say, "Everybody knows that the iPhone can make phone calls, play movies & music, surf the web, and a lot more. But, Will It Blend?" Apparently over 1.9M people have wondered and watched the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI In case you think this is an anomaly, this company now has over 50 videos up http://www.youtube.com/user/Blendtec By the way, the iPhone was pulverized by their blender. Remember, this is FREE, customers come to the video and want to watch the video. It goes on - the presidential debates and movie previews. It even works for super niches. I made a college volleyball recruiting site for my daughter Kenzilla.com. Instead of uploading the video to her site I uploaded to YouTube.com and fed it to her site. Here are the stats for her video - one video has been watched over 38,000 times. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kenzie+aries I am sure some of those were coaches, because she received quite a few inquiries and just has completed enrolling in college to play next year. So, Should You Be On YouTube.com? Umm, well -- yep. Do you sell tea? Make a video of how to brew the perfect cup ( I just found 38 video's and the top count was over 5,000) Do you repair surfboards? Show your work with before and after boards. Do you sell long term life insurance for nursing homes? Show what people should know and consider when purchasing this product. Be sure to put the video on YouTube.com even if you have a clean video feed on your site. Be sure to spend time with the meta tags at YouTube because that is where you will get your visitors. The old way that used to work in doing meta tags for web pages, works great with YouTube. In example for the perfect cup of tea try these keywords: earl gray green english japanese chinese how to make tea perfect cup cups oolong bags herbal white mug black. And be sure to either end or begin (or both) your video with a graphic giving your URL. Rod Aries ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Tom Aman Subject: Conversions > I'm averaging 10 sales per week, or 2/100, > which is of course, search related traffic... > I read that it can be as low as 0.2%, so I > guess I should be pleased. - Phil Chave, LED Digest 2547 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1962/190/ I visited the site and came away with 2 impressions: 1. I assume the site is *you* and is not for some company or clinic, so I would suggest dropping the third person stuff - keep it personal. Instead of "Phil is a Spiritual Healer...", try "I am a Spiritual Healer...", instead of "He is qualified in...", try "I am qualified in...". I would also be inclined to put this info on a separate page "About Phil" or "About me" since it pushes the other info too far down the page (see point 2). 2. Regarding the CDs, they first appear well "below the fold". On my system, I have to click the scroll bar twice to get to the first mention or, using my scroll wheel, I have to roll it 2 1/2 times to get to the first mention of them. If you want to sell more, they should be more "front and centre". Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Antony Lelkes Subject: Conversions Dear Phil, My name is Antony and I live in Canada. I wish to say "Hi Phil listen to me etc...." But I can't because I am building my website now and I just don't know how successfull I'll be. I am a novice. My topic is insomnia. What little I know about website building I am pleased to pass on to you. On the plus side, I am an astute businessman for the last 45 years. No I am not a spring chicken. So let's see what can I tell you reading your website. Let's assume that I have a constant headache. Now I am looking for help and you are the professional whom I looking for help. Now I am looking at your first page. Phil Chave, Freelance Web and Logo Design for Companies and Individuals in the UK What has it to do with your healing. You lost me here. I am gone. I am off your site. Second page. suggest Alison Dobbins. This is not a great site but better than yours. Good by Phil. I shall try Alison. www.distanthealer.co.uk I assume that this your home page. Is it? I can get on only when I click on you website above. From the other pages I couldn't get back to it. Is it linked with any other pages? If it is linked where do you hide the link? This first page is Looooong. Very loooong. At this moment I want to know what are you able to give me within the perimeters of my need. I don't care about the fillings. So I read, Phil is a Spiritual Healer... fine, now I know what you are doing and you could help me because I am looking for a spiritual healer. Next He is qualified in Reflexology Who? HE. Phil this is you. Don't use third person identity. I Phil am a qualified etc... Next Although it is a mouthfull of information ending Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I'll read it because I am looking for help. Stop right here. The page is to long. I can't find my way around. Good by. I don't have either the time or inclination to read on. I shall end my comments here. (I am building my website and I do need my time) Before I spend the next three hours going through the pages and give you my view, I'll tell you what I am doing. As I said at the start I am not an expert and I don't know how successful I'll be. I am using SBI to help me build my website. So far they didn't disappointed me. Good luck Antony Lelkes -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Barb Sybal Subject: Social media > We also work with many B2B clients and are > familiar with their resistance to social > media methods. We just show them what their > competitors are doing in the social media > space and that usually does the trick. - Ron Spinner, LED Digest 2543 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1958/190/ The above method can't be your only trick to get businesses to sign up for social media, can it? I love seeing my competitors try things that I'm doing and what they don't know, based on just looking at the site, is whether or not it's successful ... I would say the same thing about social media. Just because competitor X is doing it, doesn't mean I'll jump in to follow ... that's far too naive a response and it usually means a company is throwing good money after bad. If they are a big enough company to have lots of cash for R&D (which is really what many of these marketing methods are), good for them and I wish them luck ... but more than likely, I'll be doing business with the customers they lost. Having a web presence in a killer competitive industry after 14 years should say much, I say proudly ... and happily surviving without social media ... except for the customers who write about us ... unsolicited I should add. Barb Sybal GFX Printing Services http://www.gfxinc.com ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= Meet The Bontrager Team A decade of web site software, and service to back it up. Here's a new web site, prepared just for you. Get to know us and what we offer for your web site. http://www.FlowTo.us/LED It's a "get acquainted catalog". ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Shipping > The term Caveat Emptor truly applies > on the Internet. - Lee Roberts Yes, it does. But for a company, the more useful business-building principle is "Caveat Merchant". I.e. be proactive; anticipate problems and friction points; make sure they don't happen. > There is no legal requirement for a store > to provide a refund or exchange of merchandise. But there is the requirement of being sensible. Even if they're "right" (because it's buried somewhere in a policy), do they want to be right and have $2.20, or do they want a happy client. Come on, flag folks!!! > It's up to the consumer to understand > the business policies and abide by them > once s/he makes a purchase. Yes and no. It's much more up to the company to make sure such problems don't happen. In today's hyper-competitive marketplace, a company can't (or shouldn't) get away with saying, "Well, it's in the policies." I'm with Kris --- "...they have learned a fairly inexpensive lesson fix it, fast!" It's far more the responsibility of the company to make policies incredibly simple and clear, and to do everything possible to make clients happy. Dinging someone separately for $2.20 is just foolish. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Shel Horowitz Subject: Shipping fraud Time to put on my consumer advocate hat. Tell the company that you want a prepaid shipping label with the carrier of their choice. Also tell them you expect the refund credited to your cc account within five days, and if it's not there, you'll initiate a chargeback. The chargeback should be *with your cc company*, not your bank. I have never heard of a cc provider that charged for chargebacks or required a notarized complaint. Also, here in Massachusetts I think it's illegal to charge for a notary fee. Even where it is, many banks will notarize for their customers at no cost. That's how I used to deal with it when I lived in New York. But really, if you're happy with the merchandise and the issue is the $2.20 shipping fee, just tell them you want to keep the flags but you want to be credited for the hidden shipping cost. I'm guessing you've spent $200 of your valuable time on this. For the price of a cup of coffee, I'd simply ask once for the shipping reimbursement and then let it go. If they don't refund, don't buy from them ever again. Even a frugalist like me knows when to say, don't sweat the small stuff. Shel Horowitz http://www.frugalmarketing.com/shop.html (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The artist, a traveller on this earth, leaves behind imperishable traces of his being." - Francois Delsarte |
