Are you using PLR in your business now? Join Sharyn Sheldon of BusinessContentPLR.com as she shares the right and wrong ways to use PLR in your business. Where to find trusted sources and several ninja tricks to make extremely valuable content that will lead to more revenue for your business.
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If you haven’t seen this carp hunters video that went viral out of Peoria, IL – then you’re missing out. While it doesn’t have the giggling associated with the talking babies video – it’s got a whole lot more that makes it an instant video hit!
Watch the video, then let’s talk about what makes it great – or not so great:
So what are negative elements of this video to start with? I’d say the intro is the one thing that will have slowed its viral growth. When you can get directly to the meat of the action within seconds of pressing play, you’ve got a much better chance at someone passing it on.
While the lead-up pics of the costumes drag for a couple more seconds, they do lend to the wonder and mystique as to whether these boys are going to impale themselves or not. Without that wonder, I think most wouldn’t get to the final frame of the video.
Imagine all the angles this video features that has people recommending it to others: kids, music, speed boats, boating, danger, “holy mackeral moments”, swords, fighting, the medieval angle, water-skiing, carp fishing, jumping fish, home made costumes, spikes. . . .etc. . . This has everything you’d ever want in a viral video . . .except babies and dogs.
What do you think? As of the publishing of this post, the video has 101,231 hits (May 4, 2011). What does it have now? Take a look and leave the viewcount in the comments below.
I’ve sent out e-mails with different links to the video and will share with you what happens as some people forward it and others do not.
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I spoke about moving your e-mail database on CinchCast this morning. I thought it might be fun to marry what I do here with what I do there. Take a listen!
I recently read an article over at Alejandro Reyes’s website (which you can see here) where he published the results of a survey his readers took. I thought what he learned from his readers would be quite germane to your business.
He asked his audience three questions:
If you can’t identify with those questions because it sounds like a website owner asked them, have you ever had a customer request something? If you’re a hair dresser, has anyone ever asked you what kinds of foods promote shiny hair? If you’re a hardware store owner, has anyone ever asked you if you do workshops? Why not ask them by e-mail what kinds of things you can do to make their experience better – and how they’d like you to do it. I’m sure you can think of three questions.
What Alejandro learned will certainly make his business better over the course of 2011. His readers said they’d be interested in hearing how other successful entrepreneurs became successful. That was great for Alejandro because he loves doing success interviews. I bet your customers, if you’re a hardware store owner, would love to see what other successful “birding” folks are doing to attract bluebirds or cardinals to their feeders. Ask your customers what you can provide.
Alejandro also learned that his customer prefer blog posts and video over podcasts. Wouldn’t that be nice to know? Would it be great to know that your real estate clients would much rather attend open houses on Thursday evening from 5 – 7 than Sunday from 2 – 4? How would that change your business?
Your customers have already researched what they need to know about your products. They’ve decided your place of business serves their needs, and many of them are repeat buyers (meaning they’ve overcome any buyer’s remorse). Your job now is to become a more staple expert in their mind and expand the services you can provide to them.
The only ways you can make more money is to get customers to buy more or get more customers. In the case of the survey, you have a prime opportunity to provide more value in exchange for money.
Surveying your customers is extremely easy on-line. There are many, many free polling and survey services you can use. To get people to take a survey, put the link in the footer of your e-mail signature. Send a postcard with a link to the survey. Add the survey to your website home page. E-mail your customers and ask them to take it. Or even ask them in-store.
Surveys will not only make your relationship with your customers tighter and give you opportunities to meet their needs, but will also start a conversation with your customers that you can continue by e-mail all year long. So don’t forget to ask for their name and e-mail – then you can really serve their needs.
What are your thoughts on surveys? Why haven’t you done them yet? Some people are afraid it will annoy their customers. Do you feel that way and why? I’m interested in your thoughts so leave a comment below.
One of the classic marketing mistakes you’ll see over and over is the inability of marketers to see the world from their customers’ point of view.
I was driving home from Myrtle Beach today when I noticed a few dozen telephone poles were adorned with the same sign. One after another the poles had the same sign stapled to them. The sign was yellow, had big black letters and was posted about 6 feet off the ground. It was the perfect color to see during the day, the perfect size letters and on the major thoroughfare of the town. 
The problem was they couldn’t be seen. The advertiser got just about everything right EXCEPT. . .
They failed to understand anything more about their target market other than where would be the best place in town to find them. .
BUT. . .
. . . what they ignored was the best way to interact with their audience. Other than knowing who the audience is, it’s best to take the time to see how they think. For instance, would it make sense to set-up an interactive elliptical machine demonstration in the drive-through lane at the bank? No, it wouldn’t.
The norm and expected behaviour at a drive-through is that you pull up, stay in line, stay in your car, do your business and leave. How effective would an advertiser be if he found that 98% of his target market used a bank drive-through. Despite his target market being there, how successful would he be in trying to get drive-through customers to get out of their cars and onto an elliptical machine?
Well, that’s precisely what the telephone pole advertiser did. The mistake they made was facing their signs directly at the street and not toward the oncoming drivers. By facing them directly at the street, I had to slow down to 5 mph and look through the passenger side window in order to read them. Slowing down in traffic to read a telephone pole sign?
That’s just not what people do. And that kind of thinking is what makes this one of many classic marketing mistakes.
So don’t stop at knowing your market is females, 45 and older, making $119,000 per year, with 2 kids and a Master’s Degree. . . That just tells you who you have to study. In fact target market demographics is the starting point. . . figuring out how to market to that group will determine your success.
Ever run across an ad that was well done except for one glaring mistake? I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment and share!
It’s true I’m an internet marketing guy who loves and values the proximity Facebook creates – but I’m telling you now, do not “get a page”. Stay away from it like the plague, like the green fuzz on old bread, like the highway during a construction project. 
I know you’ve wanted to get a page for a long time and you’re thinking it will be a great place to post your real estate listings, or the status of your most recent client meetings. I know how valuable you think it will be to post photos of the new clothes you just got in stock – and you’re sure if you just do that people will flock to the door.
So if you’re thinking that getting a Facebook page would be a great addition to your company, you’re not even in the ballpark. In fact if “let’s get a Facebook page” is something your company has said, you’re missing the boat.
The biggest challenge I see small companies have with Facebook is they don’t completely understand the utility of it. “Build it and they will come” just isn’t a sound philosophy. In fact, it should probably be reworded to say “Build value and they may come once. Build a valuable community and they’ll be back.”
Facebook is not radio or billboards. It’s not a site to just post stuff. However, it is a great answer when you’re determining your company’s marketing strategy and you’ve reached the “how do we communicate with our customers better” section. Or perhaps answering the question, “how do we engage our cheerleaders and have them work for us?”.
There is a huge difference between “getting a page” and deciding to better communicate with your customers. Facebook pages can be great tools in your efforts to create a client community. However, you’ll hear crickets if you decide to “get a page” just so you can post your stuff for sale.
Once you decide you’re going to build a Facebook community, the challenge becomes content. How do you allocate the time? What content do you post? How do you stay engaged on a daily basis? And how do you determine what your customers really want to hear that keeps them coming back?
That’s a challenge you must undertake internally as a company. To some degree you’ll have to test what works and what doesn’t. As long as you’re treating your customer the way they want to be treated, your testing will come off just fine. Don’t get discouraged if the feedback doesn’t come right away. Engage. Engage. Engage.
To get back to the topic at hand. . . Don’t get a Facebook Page, UNLESS what you really meant to say was “Let’s create a customer community, and utlize the power of Facebook”.
I’ve been dabbling with the new “social media” app called Foursquare. It seemed, from the very beginning to be a great app to help small businesses reach new customers.
So I decided I’d not only try it out, I’d jump in and do everything you could do with it so I could really see how small businesses are using it, and perhaps be amongst the first to know of any changes or monetization ideas.
To some degree Foursquare is a game. For small businesses, that may make it hard to conceptualize as a revenue generator. But the game involves GPS in mobile phones, which means people must find you in order to play.
If you’re small business goal is to increase exposure, then Foursquare might be a small part of that strategy. From the game perspective, that only works if checking into your business contributes to the player achieving a Foursquare goal like attaining a new Foursquare Badge.
(By the way, it’s really a mobile phone scavenger hunt where “badges” are the prize and “check-ins” are the requirements.)
So far some big companies have been able to get their own badges, like Lucky Mag, Explore Chicago, Mountain Dew and Zagat’s. For the small business, that hasn’t been an option.
But the other side of Foursquare is where small businesses have made some headway. The person who checks in the most times at an establishment gets labeled as the “Mayor” of that location. Places like Starbucks are honoring Mayors with 15% off at the register. Get your customers competing to be the Mayor – and perhaps you’ll increase the number of times your regulars show up.
For some businesses (like this one), Foursquare has been a tremendous asset to their bottom line. But the ease of “check-ins” make me wonder.
In my quest to get all the badges being offered by companies and Foursquare, I’ve noticed a few things.
There’s little downside to listing your business on Foursquare. Probably the very best thing is knowing that anytime someone checks in within a 1,000 meters, they have a chance to see that you’re a nearby business – which they may have never known before.
If you’re “playing” foursquare and have some ideas for small businesses – leave them here and let’s chat about them!
