We’re in the process of completing work for a number of national brands. Here is a sneak peek at what’s going on.
From May 13th thru May 22, 2009 321Punch made an open request for people to send in their online marketing questions. We reached into our own email database, the socials as well as Craigs List to get the word out. We received 167 questions in response. Below are some of the questions and our answers…we’ll be adding more as time permits.
Question #167
Q: Being part of a law firm specializing in loan mods and litigation, how would we beat out all the “non legal, regular loan mod” companies out there?
A: When we are looking to “beat out” those that may be crowding our space we have to ask this question from the standpoint of the end user—aka your audience—aka your customer. What does your customer need you to do in order to beat out other companies? Well, for one, what makes them choose one one firm over another? I do believe the answer is expertise. So then it follows, if you can demonstrate your expertise to your audience, then they will choose you. How do you do this? The answer is you must show them not just tell them. How do you show your audience your expertise? This is accomplished in 3 ways:
- Produce a short series of online videos that answer, specifically answer, one or more questions that you are commonly asked about your firm. You can start with one video, or two or 10, but the point is, create the videos inexpensively, professionally and directly answer the question for the viewer…”what’s in it for me?” (my shameless pitch here is that we’re really good at this).
- Unchain your video series from your website. Your website has a fraction of the traffic that Youtube, Revver and the like have…so get your videos uploaded and indexed by those sites using keywords that help you OWN your category for searchers. What happens next is Google indexes those uploaded videos and they become part of the Google inventory. What’s more is that Google sees video with greater relevance than just text. So it’s possible (and we’ve proven it) that you can leapfrog over sites that have been online longer, simply by getting your video distributed to many different websites. I’m not talking here about just shooting a video in your living room and uploading that to Youtube…we’ve tried that. It doesn’t work. It’s a little more involved than that…but it’s worth every single step.
- Create a landing page, separate from your website…and use that to build your mailing list by making compelling offers to people so they opt-in and thereby give you their email addresses. People find out about your landing page because you splash the URL for this landing page along the bottom of your video. They can’t help it. If your video is compelling enough, they will go to your landing page. Why a landing page and NOT your website? Because websites are distracting from the one thing you need prospects to become…customers. Make them an offer they have to opt-in to get… For example one of our customers does a coupon. You opt-in, a coupon gets emailed to you. Another customers gives away books, free audio downloads and the like. What works in your market? What’s compelling? Use that.
By Scott Allen & Terry Knealing
How can we make such a blanket statement about everyone’s website video? Simple, we know one fact about most of your websites. The video you have on your website assumes too much.
All too often we see video on websites that assumes the visitor is there for one reason: to buy. But in many cases that’s simply not true.
Most people recognize that the process of purchasing a good or service takes place in 5 stages. (the evil Fry’s Electronics checkout line is excluded). Here they are:
1. Awareness of need (hmm…maybe I need a new lawnmower.)
2. Information search (what’s out there?)
3. Options comparison (what’s out there that’s good?)
4. Purchase (Yay it’s mine!)
5. Buyer’s mire (did I buy the right one?)
At what stage of the purchasing cycle are visitors hitting your website?
Most people arriving at your website are probably there during phase 2, information search. They might be back (if you’re lucky) for phase 3, options comparison. This is when they will be trying to make up their minds about which product to purchase; maybe yours? If that’s the headspace your visitor is in when they arrive and return, then why does your website video start by assuming your visitor knows the value of your product? The book “Made to Stick” would call this “the curse of knowledge.”
If, like we said, people are coming to your website who generally don’t know enough about your product to make a value judgment, then it would hold that people begin making their value judgments about your company in places other than your website. And where do most people start their research online? Why, Google of course.
At this point, you might feel like we’ve created a paradox. If I have to reach a prospect in search before he or she visits my website, and my website is where I’m optimized for search, then what exactly am I reaching this prospect with? This leads us to the real question: how does your message show up in search w/out it being from your website?
The answer is video search engine marketing. Yes, video is one of your best lead generation tools. The irony is, however; that the video we’re talking about, typically, isn’t the one you shot for your homepage. In fact, it might not be on your site at all.
We’re exploring a paradigm shift, here. To get video to work for you as a lead generation tool, you need to un-tether it from your website and follow these 10 guidelines:
1. The videos can be found on Google on MANY different websites.
2. The videos make no assumptions about the viewer’s understanding.
3. The message of the videos stand on their own.
4. The message is singular enough to understand.
5. The message is free of jargon.
6. The videos drive viewers to take a specific action.
7. The videos are not boring.
8. The message answers “what’s in it for me” for the viewer immediately.
9. The video and audio quality is good.
10. The impact of the videos can be directly measured.
So how does this get you customers?
The objectives of your videos are to be found and to get someone to take action. If someone has found your video somewhere “out there” and takes action (opt-in or call), they are a qualified lead.
The most important thing to remember about this idea is that you have to test it. If you attempt to deploy a video campaign without the proper tools to test its effectiveness, then you are really not doing the program justice. The rule of thumb for online marketing is: nothing unmeasured gets done.
321Punch, a Phoenix-based online marketing agency, is leading the way in video search engine marketing. The 321Punch company employs advanced lead generation tactics and innovative tools to get companies exposed to users of Google search. Companies turn to 321Punch when looking to do something online that matters: get customers.
The 4 Reasons Why Your Social Strategy will Fail.
By Scott Allen & Terry Knealing, 321Punch
Remember that scene at the beginning of The Patriot where Mel Gibson and his two young sons are attacking a line of British soldiers? Up on the ridge, Mel is hopping here and there; behind a tree. Then a rock. Then a bush. All the while loading, shooting, picking off Red Coats. In the scene following, a wounded British trooper, bleeding on a litter, recounts the experience. “It was one man. But he was upon us, everywhere at the same time. Like…a ghost!”
Some of you reading this article might respond to our dismissal of most Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin strategy with the same level of incredulity that the British commander had when he heard the soldier say that a ghost had wiped out his cohorts. Poppycock!
However, there are some of you reading this that may be secretly harboring such unpopular doubts about the importance of social networks for your business. You have this sneaking feeling that what the media (and everyone else) is telling you is somehow flawed. No need to reveal your identity, we’ll take the hit for you on this one…but only because we’re right.
Social networking is a largely ineffective means by which to stimulate sales.
Don’t we wish we could be more like Mel? Where our marketing is effectively everywhere at once; guerilla in the bush, picking off customers left-and-right? This is probably why so many companies are looking, incorrectly, for customers in social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They want to engage customers everywhere the customers are.
Surely the hope is that if you’re a successful social maven online, your business will thrive. We all know that hundreds of thousands of people are using those networks every day. Finding customers in such a target-rich environment is as easy as hiding among the green ferns picking off guys wearing bright red coats. It’s just a numbers game right?
Don’t be fooled. The people that are selling you on social networks are the same jokers who join network meetings to take part in the inane ritual of “sharing leads” over food-served-on-a-tray at La Madeline. After the second meeting you’ve exhausted your opportunities within the group. Now what are you supposed to do, hope that someone “brings a friend” to the next meeting?
Quality content is more important than Friends.
You might think social networks are the heart of guerilla marketing, the tip of the spear in your lead generation process. They’re not. Going social is more akin to hanging out at the water cooler pretending to be busy. Oh sure, someone new drops by here and there, and you get to chat them up. But are these people at the water cooler really your customers? The answer to that question is…no.
If location, location, location is a montra for physical-world success, then content, content, content is the analogous watchword online.
What’s nice about content online is that it can be written once and then disseminated and consumed in a number of different ways. Let’s take this article as an example.
When we’re done writing it we’re going to post it to our blog. But that’s not all. We’re also going to record it in audio so it can be downloaded and listened to as a podcast. Following that we’re going to make a video out of it and upload it all over the place. The last thing we are going to do (and yes we’ll do it) is we’re going to Share it to our Facebook and Linkedin ‘friends’ and post a trackable link back to our blog to it from Twitter. Heck, we might go crazy and Digg it.
Now, ask yourself which one of these activities is going to get us the most customer leads? Hint: it’s not the socials.
Social Success Does not a Customer Make.
We’re running into too many companies that think that if they can get a bunch of Twitter followers, they will sell more stuff.
The painful truth about Social Networking is that adding your traffic to a social feed is like throwing a rock at a waterfall. Oh sure you see the hole it creates in the sheet of water, but a nanosecond later that hole is gone; swooshed down into the pool like it was never there.
One of the last things that Mel says to his frightened boys before taking his own hiding position in the scrub is “aim small, miss small.” This is exactly the opposite of what most people think their online marketing should do. They think, “aim big, score big!” They hear about these online gurus that have hundreds, even thousands of followers and/or friends online and dollar signs dance in their eyes.
Here is a hint about social gurus. Yes, some of them, very few of them, are making money. But just because you have a huge social following doesn’t mean anyone cares about your business. By and large the people who are actually making money with the socials are those that ALREADY had large networks of dedicated followers in other media. Tech TV personality Leo Laporte, for instance, had a loyal following before he created his online network TWIT.TV. They did not create his network because he woke up one day and decided to “go social.” Instead, he moved his pre-existing network over to the new tools so he could engage it in a fresh way.
The great misunderstanding that most companies seem to be having is that they think if they get social, then they will be able to cultivate a huge network of dedicated buyers. In reality, it’s the other way around. A huge network of dedicated buyers can definitely benefit from being moved to your social network, and engaged in new ways. But, creating that database of devotees—in the first place—starts with more fundamental marketing activities that don’t include Twitter or Facebook.
A company that has not covered its marketing fundamentals first, that wakes up one morning and decides to “go social,” we guarantee failure 90% of the time. No doubt about it.
Customers don’t Friend you. They Google you!
Now, so far we’ve made the case that for most businesses looking to the social networks as a way to generate new customers (in any meaningful way) isn’t a lost strategy, so much as it’s a misplaced strategy. Where are the customers? We think the chart from Pew/Internet answers this question perfectly. Search is where your customer’s at.
In Conclusion…
During a recession, time is not your friend. But the degree to which you can get time on your side, by engaging low-overhead, high-yield, measurable, self-replicating projects will determine how well you emerge when the recession ends.
Social networks will fail to support your lead generation process simply because you don’t have the time it will take to make them successful. The requirement for your ongoing live presence, plus the temporary nature of your message coupled with the fact that your buyers don’t turn to social networks to find products, means that while social networks have their place, that place is behind the horse, not in front of it.
If you would put more time into a search strategy than you might a social strategy, you’d be seeing mega dividends for your effort. AKA more customers. Why? Because customers are not Friending you, they are Googling you. The key point here is to be found when a prospect needs you.
Yes, when you step into the world of search engine marketing you are jumping into a battle where the big guns roam the countryside. This is the quiet war. Why? Because people “in the know” recognize that search is the #1 generator of new customers.
There is no denying that search is complex, it’s intimidating and it can be expensive. But If you want a shot at amazing numbers of new customers, socializing with your “followers” isn’t enough. You must have a search strategy, designed to target your opportunities and pull them in. Search is where the volume is. Search is where the customers are. Search is where the money’s at.
It’s all about time and our use of the minutes and second that tick away at our days. In the end “time well spent” is the currency of healthy companies and the wellspring of profits. What a company needs to do when the economic environment turns murky is preserve time, invest in learning new ways to create time, extend time, even slow time. Nowhere will you find the social environment a friend of time. So the choice is up to you. You can either go out with guns blazing, or you can wait till you see the whites of their eyes.
Following up on our article about the benefits of Google and Local Business we’ve produced this short video. Click to view the full article.
By Scott Allen & Terry Knealing, 321Punch
This is not intended to be a computer-tech article. But you have to be aware of the fact that every day over 90% of people online use some sort of search tool to find services and information. That includes searches for local businesses. Whether you run a restaurant, dry cleaner, bakery or plumbing company if you don’t show up on Google’s first page, someone else is getting your customers.
However, the average time a person spends on search results is 6.4 seconds. If you believe being top of search is a winning strategy for getting new customers, and you should, then this 6.4 second window should be cause for concern.
Even if you manage to get on the front page of Google, how do you differentiate yourself in a list of close to 25 or so other results in less time than it took you to read this sentence? A new marketing company, located in Scottsdale Arizona, thinks it has the answer: Blended Search Engine Marketing. (Blended SEM for short).
“The nature of search has changed,” says 321Punch co-founder Terry Knealing. “Web text has been replaced by video as the content of choice for people searching for information online. Think about it. Would you rather read a bunch of text or watch a video? Given the deplorable state of website copywriting today, I’ll take video. That’s why search engine marketing (SEM) has to use a blend of formats to work.”
321Punch recognizes that the thing most on everyone’s minds is customers. They also recognize that a lot of people are jaded when it comes to the so-called promise of the Internet.
“If we called up a local business today and tried to sell them an online video, we wouldn’t get past the first sentence,” adds Mr. Knealing. “But if we called them up and said we knew of a way for them to be perceived as experts online, that’s when the conversation gets interesting. Local business doesn’t need a website. It needs customers.”
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, your kitchen sink is overflowing again. There is no WAY in the world you are going to stick your hand back down in the muck to fix it. You need a plumber. If you haven’t been in need of a plumber for a while, your first question is where to start your search? Well, if you are like most people today, you turn to your computer. Remember, every day, 90% of people online are searching for something.
So you sit down, sip your coffee, and try to ignore the funk coming from your kitchen as you type into Google. “I need a plumber.” Maybe “Fast plumber” or better yet “Fast plumbers in the North Valley.” The results come back. Suddenly you are faced with a new dilemma. Making a decision from a list. Now what?
That’s where the people over at 321Punch come in. They have developed a marketing program that takes advantage of Google’s recent fondness for video. Their proprietary system involves creating and uploading a series of videos to a number of high-traffic websites so that they can be found there and on Google.
By distributing the videos out across the Internet, instead of just leaving them attached to your website, the chances they will be found are increased many times over.
Ultimately the chain leads back to Google, where most search is happening. If people are Googling, chances are your 321Punch video will come up not just in one position, but many positions on the same page, and your phone will ring.
“What matters in your selection of a plumber is not whether his logo spun on his website or if he even has a website,” says co-founder Scott Allen. “What matters is do you trust the guy to fix your sink? With 321Punch video messages we demonstrate what makes our customer an expert, not tell you he’s an expert. Plus our proprietary video distribution system means that our video messages hit the Internet in a big way. On the other side, the 321Punch program is comprehensive. This is not just about uploading your video to Youtube and expecting results.”
Lets return to our north valley plumber for a moment. Let’s say two plumbers are found on Google. One of the plumbers is powered by 321Punch video. Which one will you pick? The link that says “video” or the link that says “Joe’s plumbing has been in business for blah blah blah…”? The writers at 321Punch pride themselves on creating unique video concepts designed to work for small and large businesses. It’s all about getting you customers.
What’s in the video? Perhaps free information for those seeking advice. Need to know how to unclog a sink yourself? Need to tighten that dripping faucet? Here is how to do that. What’s happening here is that the local plumber is providing useful information in order to demonstrate how competent he is at fixing your pipes. He’s also being a good neighbor by sharing his knowledge. Competence = customers.
The good thing about a bad economy is that it forces companies to innovate. It is in just such a crucible that 321Punch has found its methods particularly useful for local companies looking to solve their biggest problem… how to get more customers (and not get stuck with a clogged sink).