Generate Traffic, Leads and Sales With Video
When I first began creating videos to market my business I could have reduced the learning curve if I had known what mistakes to avoid. By reading about the top 10 mistakes I made during my first year of video marketing you’ll get a better understanding how to create better videos. Keep in mind your videos will only get better as you practice.
Top 10 Video Marketing Mistakes How To Correct Them
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One of the most important factors web site owners leave out at the end of their articles, blog posts or sales pages is the “call to action.”
Why spend time crafting your content that places your visitor in the buying mood only to leave them hanging? The call to action invites them to take the next step. It helps build a relationship with them so you can offer them ongoing information or future products.
7 ways to get visitors to take action:
1. Opt-in box
Create an opt-in box on your web site asking them to fill out their name and email in exchange for a free giveaway. A double opt-in is best. This is where the visitor fills out the form first then they receive an email asking them to confirm their subscription.
2. Free or paid reports
People love to receive free information particularly if it contains valuable nuggets of information they can act on. Your report doesn’t have to be long. 10-20 pages will be sufficient. The beauty of this method is that you are first giving something to your visitor before you receive something from them ie email address.
You don’t always have to offer something for free. Often a short report priced at $7.00 will generate more visitors than a free one because it is perceived as being more valuable. You can upsell your visitor after she has read the report by offering something even more substantial ie a series of instructional videos.
3. Free software download
You could offer a free trial download of your software. By actually using the software themselves your visitors will see how useful it is to them. For example after the 7 day trial they may decide to purchase the full version of the software.
4. Free web site evaluation
This is something web designers can use to attract potential clients. Suggest ways to improve their design, optimization and web copy so they can increase traffic and sales. After sending the report offer a more comprehensive analysis or send a proposal for doing all the improvements for them.
5. Free articles
Articles are great because they prepare your visitors mind ahead of your offer. At the end of your article place your call to action. This includes any one of the free offers mentioned above, a link to your web site (or offer) and who you are as an author. You may even link to related articles where you offer the same or similar product.
6. Free contest
Most people love contests if there is a chance they can win something they want or desire. For example offer a free ipod to the person that writes the most helpful comments on your blog to increase traffic to it.
7. Autoresponder course
Not many people purchase something after one contact. Often it takes 7 or more contacts before they make the decision to purchase. With a sequential autoresponder you can create a series of messages sent over several days. This helps build a relationship with your visitor plus you’re able to market your product to them with each message you send.
Your call to action should be included in all aspects of your marketing material as there’s not just one way to get a response from your visitors. If you employ any of the call to action methods mentioned above, you’ll increase your conversion rates and make more sales.
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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Maryland Web Design
5. Quality content
There’s a lot of junk content on the Net.
How is your article going to stand out from others?
Begin writing in a natural style like you are sitting across from your customer and talking to them. The quality of your content will determine how many readers you attract. Seek out popular ezines in your target market then ask them if they would be open to receiving your articles.
A thoroughly researched and well-written article will attract many more readers than one that was been hastily put together.
6. Call to action
So you’ve written a great article but no one is clicking on the link in your resource box. This means you need to take a hard look at your call to action. Try to make a natural transition from your content to your CTA.
For example you’ve just explained the benefits of writing articles to gain traffic. Your CTA could say something like:
“To learn the secret strategies of how to write and submit articles to gain lots of traffic please visit: www.yourdomain.com.”
This CTA emphasizes you’ve got to know these secrets if you are going to do this correctly. It appeals the reader to take action to find them.
7. Testing
The key to successfully marketing your ebook or product is to continually test your marketing strategies until you find one that works then stick to it. I’ve discovered article marketing is a very effective way to generate long term traffic but it needs to be done correctly. This means you need to try different headlines, resource boxes, vary the style of your content and submit your article to the top article directories and niche web sites.
Use Google Analytics or your hosting stats to track the visitors to your web site. If you write and submit articles consistently you will notice a steady increase in page views, rankings and sales.
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a dime on advertising.
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to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO
If you write a lot of articles you want them to be read and acted upon so you will have a high conversion rate. Many folks are very good at writing articles but fail to provide a “call to action” in their resource box. They either leave it out or promote themselves at the beginning of the resource box then follow it with a CTA.
Why this not the way to do it?
After reading a well written article the person is prepared to take action. Your call to action (CTA) should immediately follow your article body while the article content is fresh is their minds.
Don’t follow your article with a pitch about yourself and all your wonderful accomplishments.
Examples of effective CTAs in the resource box:
1. Receive a Free Report on 10 Effective Ways to get your articles read by visiting http://www.domainname.com
2. Sign up for a Free Bi-Weekly Newsletter to receive more marketing secrets at http://www.domainname.com
3. Visit my web site at: http://www.domainname.com to discover how to lose weight in 7 days.
When writing your CTA place yourself in your customers shoes and think of the benefits they’ll receive. Make the customer feel they can’t do without the knowledge they’ll get when they click through.
Test different CTAs
Every article doesn’t need to have the same CTA. Write out several CTAs to test which one gets the higher conversion rate. CTAs with high conversion rates mean you will make more sales, and get more subscribers. You also won’t have to write as many articles thus giving you more time to spend building your business.
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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Development, SEO, Hosting
