Category Archives: Marketing

Marketing

Marketing, Promotion And Video

14 Comments

A couple of days ago one of my YouTube friends shared the link of someone new with me & some other folks. He calls his YouTube page Daym Drops, and he talks about food. Well, that’s not quite accurate; he emotes about food, mainly fast food and different items, though he’ll occasionally break into commentary about other foods such as desserts and comfort food.

typexnick via Compfight

There are a few things that are pretty amazing about this guy. First, he’s got over 100,000 subscribers, and I’m a new one. Second, some of his videos have garnered millions of viewers. Third, he’s funny; that never hurts. Fourth, by doing something he loves and promoting it in his own way, he not only makes a pretty good living via YouTube but was able to turn what he does into a TV show for The Travel Channel; what the hey?

I was thinking once again about this once again, this thing about marketing and promotion. In a way, they’re different as well as being somewhat the same. Marketing is where you find ways to market your business to get people to buy from you. Promotion is where you find ways to market yourself and your competencies so that people will buy from you or hire you.

Daym (short for Daymond) actually stated something that I’ve been doing over the past year. In one of his videos, he said that if you have something you want to say that you should create videos and put them out, and even if you only have a few viewers that you should continue doing it; find something you love to talk about and go for it.

I’m now up to 90 videos on this particular channel, the 90th being below, and many of them haven’t cracked double digits. My other channel does much better because I fill a void that no one else can touch, but I don’t do a lot of those and I need to start doing way more.

Why? Because it’s a niche that I can claim as my own and one where there’s actually the possibility that I could make money off it via people hiring me for my services. That might be a lot easier than trying to get hired because of my personality, that’s for sure. lol

Someone like our buddy Adrienne’s got it right. She promotes herself by also promoting others, is pretty much everywhere, and is now starting to show up on lots of lists regarding bloggers that people should know about. It takes a lot of work and consistency, but that’s really what promotions is all about.

I’m bad at it; what about you? No matter; check out the video or comment based on what I’ve said above. The question you’re addressing… are you promoting yourself enough, are you marketing your business enough, and are you using video in any way to help you along? Here we go:
 


 

Marketing

The Secret To Success Is…

26 Comments

This is one of those posts where I get to see if you ever really watch the videos I put here or not. You won’t even have to watch it all; just enough of it so you get the answer. However, I think if you’re astute, and of course you are because you come here, you’re going to be really smart and possibly figure it out without watching the entire video. If I see someone guess though, it means they didn’t watch the video and I’ll be deleting those comments because, for this one time, I want you to check out the video.

selling cake

All of us get to define what success is in our own minds. All of us want to be successful; no one goes into a life or business and says “I want to be mediocre”. Even if you want to be the best you can be in what you do that’s a goal that’s better than “I just want to survive”. Yeah, I know some people will say that but I’m going to say I doubt that anyone really believes that.

If you do, this isn’t the post for you and I’m already depressed for you. 🙂

Is there a major secret to success? You bet there is. I can tell you what the secret isn’t though.

It’s not knowledge. Some of the smartest people in the world never become successful. Supposedly 80% of Mensa level people never make much money or have much happiness in their lives.

It’s not perseverance. That would be nice wouldn’t it, saying that if I put my time in and do the best I can that I’ll be successful. Many people who try to make a living online work upwards of 16 to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not all that many of them are successful. Ask a lawyer who makes $300,000 a year but puts in that many hours if they feel successful; you’ll be amazed at how many of them will say no.

It’s not talent. That one’s depressing because there are a lot of talented people in the world who only have a few people that know about it. There are some great people online who write some amazing things, but an overwhelming majority of them, which includes me here, aren’t successful.

What is the ultimate secret to success? Watch the video below; I promise it’s painless. 😉


 

Blogging, Marketing

The Trouble With Getting Your Friends, Family & Local People To View Your Blogs

26 Comments

A few days ago, myself and the rest of the Live Google Hangout Crew decided to discuss the topic of blogging for local folks and businesses and the issues we all seem to have in getting those people to even take a look at what we write. This isn’t a new topic for me actually, as I talked about it first in 2009 when I wrote a post leading with If You Can’t Get Your Family And Friends To Subscribe… and again in 2011 when I asked Why Aren’t You Well Known Where You Live?

This one is a little different and yet the overall theme is the same. I always make the recommendation to businesses that if they want to increase their SEO and the potential for doing more business online that having a blog can do wonders for each. Just being a player gives you a great boost in local search, which is a great thing, but do those people read your stuff, and if not why not?

I tend to want to look at my own sites, and I’m going to share statistics on two of them. And of course there’s the video at the end of this post where we talked about it all, and the other site I’m going to talk about is mentioned in the video.

For I’m Just Sharing, the last month’s stats show that there were 32 visits from what I’d call the local area, which includes Rochester, which is about 75 miles away. If I only include the Syracuse area I have to remove 11 visits. That’s pretty poor if you ask me. New York state is my highest volume state, and the majority of visitors come from New York City, but that’s not quite local. I consider this my flagship blog, even if it’s not my highest ranked blog anymore (that now goes to my finance blog; how about that?). Now, I have to admit that I’m not sure how many local people might be subscribing to the feed, and via the feed this is my most read blog, so it’s possible the number is much higher. But since I can’t confirm that I’ll stick with Google Analytics for now.

My other blog is called Syracuse Wiki, and it’s my local blog. It’s not a highly visited blog, but I don’t write a lot of posts on it because I only write when I do or see something where I can capture pictures regarding local events. In a way I can’t gripe all that much because the visitors on that blog are 54% local, but I have thought that blog would attract way more people because it talks about local topics. And I do market it on Twitter, but I have to admit not many other places.

This brings us back to the original issue and why it’s a problem. If you’re running a local business and you’re trying to get local people interested in what you do, what can you do to advertise yourself and get local business? On the video I offer suggestions to companies that sell products, which includes coupons and lots of pictures, and even advertising the blogs in their stores so people can keep up with new things they offer.

But what about those of us who offer services, who don’t have offices outside of our homes or even if we do, we don’t own the space and thus are more limited with some of our banner advertising, if you will? Is there a way we can target our blogs so that it attracts local traffic and thus local business?

And what about our friends and family members? One’s best advocates are always those close to us, but if we can’t get them engaged then can we legitimately hope to engage our community, no matter what we do?

I’d like to know what you think. I’d also like you to check out the video where Sheryl Lock of Fuzzy Wuzzy Anipals (yeah, that’s right! lol) offered a lot of good stuff last Sunday, and maybe it can help me and some of you. At the very least it’ll get you thinking; there’s never anything wrong with that.


 

Affiliates, Marketing

Would You Recommend Something Unethical For Money?

56 Comments

Before I forget, I want to let you know that I wrote a guest post on a blog called Marcie Writes, which works well since the owner is Marcie Hill. It’s titled 5 Steps Towards Blogging Integrity and I think it’s a very good post, not necessarily because I wrote it but because I wrote a guest post for someone who asked for it and I wanted to make sure it would be really good. That’s how guest posting is supposed to work when you ask people if you can write a guest post for them or if they ask you; always give your best. In its own way it segues into today’s topic.

A Man Without His Word Means Nothing
Catherine Rankovic via Compfight

How many of you have heard of something called “payday loans“? If you haven’t, the concept is that if you need money and know you’re getting paid on Friday, if you will, but it’s Wednesday, you can go to an establishment, take out money now, then pay it back on Friday at a “nominal” interest rate.

To some people it sounds like a great way to get an advance on their pay, but the way I see it, and if you follow the link above you’ll see more reasoning, it’s a scam perpetrated against those without a lot of financial acumen and can lead to both untold debt and dangers people aren’t ready for. It’s people allowing themselves to be taken advantage of, with interest rates that can skyrocket at a moment’s notice and, in some cases, being charged daily, and eventually leave a person not being able to keep up and, well, leaving bankruptcy as a final decision to make if they’re not able to pay off the entire amount immediately.

Yes, I think this is unethical, and I’m not the only one. The Federal government is now investigating mainstream banks that are participating in this, including many that were bailed out by the government back in 2009. Eventually they may get to everyone, but this shows that they’re concerned enough to worry about it.

It’s under this belief in ethics that I was dismayed when I came across a post some weeks ago by someone I usually think is pretty cool, Zac Johnson, who wrote a post titled Is It Time You Started Looking At Promoting Pay Day Loans? In the article, he talks about how it’s one of the fastest growing programs in the world and how some affiliate marketers might want to think about hopping on the bandwagon financially, even though there’s a “slight” disclaimer near the end of the article: “No matter what your personal opinions are on pay days loans and whether they are ethical or not, you need to think of the situation from an advertising stand point.”

I’m sorry, but I personally disagree. The statement alone proves that even Zac knew there was an ethical standard being crossed when he wrote it, and he talked about it in a positive way anyway. There are a lot of people going to dog fighting matches or watching videos of the clubbing of baby seals; would you promote that in positive ways if they were making lots of money?

Along the lines of when I asked the question What Will You Do For More Followers, I ask just what will you do for money? If you truly believed payday loans were the greatest thing on planet Earth and decided to promote it, that’s one thing; if you know up front that there’s an unethical component to it, are you going to do it just because it might pay well? If racism paid well would you promote it if it didn’t fit in with your morality? What about child porn, videos of death, cruelty to animals, etc?

There may be things you find unethical that you’ll complain to someone else about that doesn’t find it unethical. In that case it’s more on you than on the other person. But if you know it’s unethical and you promote it anyway, or the other person knows or believes its unethical and promotes it anyway, what does that say about your commitment to principles? Is making a buck, no matter how much it is, really worth your self respect, let alone the respect of others?

I know what I think; what say you?
 

Marketing, Social Media

Social Media Marketing Has Its Limits

31 Comments

This past weekend I went to a local seminar on motivation. I don’t get to things like this all that often, but every once in a while it’s a good thing to go hear someone else talk on a subject that you also talk about because, when all is said and done, even those who motivate others sometimes need a bit of motivation as well.

It wasn’t a bad turnout, but the group was very diverse, to the point that I’m not exactly sure the presenters got who they hoped to get to come. Still, it was an interesting day, and I got out of it what I think I needed to get out of it. I knew one of the presenters, and had seen enough pictures of the other presenter that I felt I knew her as well.

During the seminar, when it was my turn to speak the lady that I knew threw out a statement saying that maybe I hide behind my social media activities when it comes to doing business. I agreed with her on that, although in my mind I was thinking how I have so many more connections through social media than I do live. But she continued by saying that we should talk after the seminar and I quickly agreed.

When it was over she and I walked across the street to a park and sat down on one of the stone benches. She then told me that out of all the people that had shown up, I was the only one that had come because of social media. She had put out the event on Facebook, and out of the nine people that said they were coming, I was the only one that actually did. Everybody else who was in the room was the result of either a book signing that she did or came because of a couple presentations she had put on locally and mentioned it.

In one way I was shocked, but in another way I wasn’t. I ran into the same thing last year when I tried to promote a local four hour seminar that I was going to put on. I reached out to all of my social media contacts, and I reached out to an overwhelming majority of other people through e-mail. In the end, I had to cancel because I only had one person who had signed up for.

At the same time, there was another event last Friday I found out about that was being held at a hotel about 10 minutes away from me. The guy who worked at the hotel had put it up on Facebook, but really hadn’t invited anybody. So I went through the process of inviting a great number of people who I knew lived in the area, many of whom I knew wouldn’t be able to come but I wanted to give them the opportunity. Just by doing that at least 9 or 10 people showed up that wouldn’t have if I hadn’t reached out to them on Facebook.

Still, her point was valid. Even though social media is the fastest growing medium for people to connect with each other, there’s still something about face-to-face communications that seems to help to encourage people to interact more with you. It might be because, though social media is easy to say something to make someone feel good, just as it’s easy for people to say bad things because they’re hidden, they can say something and not have to follow through. In being truthful, I hadn’t decided I was going to the seminar until the Monday before, even though I had known about it for three weeks. I had put a “maybe”, which is mainly a noncommittal way of saying no, before changing my mind.

Social media marketing is definitely an important thing that all of us need to get used to. But at this point in the decade it’s still not strong enough to really get people juiced up to do anything. You might be able to get people to come to your website, or to read an article or blog post you’ve written, but getting them to take action is still going to be really tough to do. We all need to acknowledge that in order to figure out ways of getting people’s attention, especially if we have as an intention the hopes that we will possibly generate some kind of income from our actions.

How do you see your social media marketing initiatives going?