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How Video and SEO are Finally Coming Of Age

March 12, 2010
Though publishing videos on the web has been child’s play for years now, the process of getting them to rank high in search remains enigmatic at best, frustrating at worst. The pace of video publication is accelerating faster than ever, and though video SEO seems to have been left behind the rest of the industry, it’s finally starting to catch up through some exciting developments that will hopefully provide more incentives for publishers to produce great video content.

 As we start a new year and a new decade, here’s a look at the state of web video SEO right now.

The State of Web Video

 

When you produce a video now, there’s no dearth of places to publish it. Though YouTube remains the dominant player in the industry, Vimeo , Blip.tv, Viddler, Metacafe, and a host of other sites (most of them free) have fragmented the market. There’s no need to build or host your own video player, and you can leave the heavy bandwidth duties to them rather than your own server.

Just as there’s lots of competition in the platform arena, competition among videos themselves is growing wildly. YouTube spokesman Aaron Zamost said over 20 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute, and about 120 decades of video are uploaded each year.

Hundreds of little tweaks and tricks exist in optimizing a webpage for search, yet the entire realm of video SEO right now consists of only a few to-dos and a lot of finger-crossing. Zamost summed up the basics for ranking high in a YouTube search:

“Have a clear, descriptive title, and include as many accurate tags as you can. For example, if you’ve created a video that shows how to tie a bow tie, your title should be ‘How to tie a bow tie.’ That’s really important, because that’s [what] your target viewer probably wanted to learn. So think visually — ties, dress, how to dress nice, how to tie a tie, how to tie a bow tie, etc.

It’s also important to note that many users who are searching for video just want to be entertained, and may not be looking for something that precise. So if you’ve created compelling content, think about how a user would likely find it. Tags like ‘funny video,’ while generic, can be very useful.”

Many publishers, however, are concerned with getting links and traffic to their site, not just their YouTube page. Rand Fishkin, CEO and co-founder of the multi-million dollar SEO agency SEOmoz, emphasizes the importance of placing videos on your own site and submitting a video sitemap to search engines.

“Video results are often far easier to ‘rank,’ than standard web results, but there are some hoops you’ll need to jump through,” Fishkin said in an e-mail.

However, users sharing videos by embedding or linking to them in their own sites often leads to traffic and link juice being sent to the third party site (like YouTube or Metacafe) that actually hosts the video, rather than a publisher’s own. A vital part of SEO strategy is getting other websites to link to your site. If people are linking to your content on YouTube, your site doesn’t build much (if any) link equity or page rank at all, which can be discouraging for web publishers.

New Developments

 

Because search engine robots only understand actual text, they can’t determine the quality of a video by the content inside it — only by the links to it and the content around it, like the title or tags. People have muddled over this problem for a long time, and a couple of realistic solutions have recently emerged.

First, YouTube now has the ability to place captions on its videos. The transcript of a video can be attached to its timeline, allowing users seek to specific portions of YouTube videos by phrase. This transcript can be searched and indexed by the engines, meaning your video content itself can count toward ranking now. Whereas originally you had to provide your own captions to attach, YouTube can now do captions automatically. As with any robotic transcription however, human intervention may be required to fix computer-generated mistakes in the text.

Placing a video’s transcript in its description has been a somewhat common SEO practice in the past, but the marriage of the transcript to the video timeline itself is a definite advancement.

Another company to recently stumble on a similar solution for web video SEO is the New York-based SpeakerText. SpeakerText helps you perform the same transcript-to-video matrimony as YouTube captions, but further puts SEO power in publishers’ hands through a concept it calls “QuoteLinks.”

Basically, once your video has been “speakertexted,” you can embed it on your own website with the transcript attached. Visitors can select a chunk of the transcript, copy it, and paste it in their own blog or website as a link to the exact moment in the video where the quote appears. The link goes to the publisher’s site, not YouTube’s. Right now SpeakerText only works with YouTube, but the company says it plans to provide the service for other platforms in the future.

“Anytime somebody quotes, it will link back to the original source, which is good for the end user because they can actually see it in context,” said CEO Matt Mireles, “… and the publisher gets rewarded because it not only sends viral traffic directly, but then the link creates huge SEO.”

SpeakerText is free if you provide your own transcript, and you can order transcription through the site at what it claims is roughly half the cost of traditional transcription services. SpeakerText utilizes an army of “Turkees” at Mechanical Turk to do the transcribing.

The Future

So what’s next for video SEO?

Fishkin believes that new platforms like the iPad and the Android Marketplace have big implications for the future. “I suspect this divergence of video from the open web to closed platforms (a curious shift indeed) may have some substantive impact in the future,” he said.

Zamost said that “social elements are playing an increasingly important role in the development of new features on YouTube, especially related to search and discovery.” The incorporation of social trends in search algorithms could spell big changes indeed for the SEO industry.

Whatever happens next, it’s clear that video SEO is finally starting to catch up to the rest of the web. With services like SpeakerText and YouTube captions emerging to help eliminate unsearchable content issues, the future likely holds more automated and accurate video-text mapping and perhaps eventually video editing in the cloud.

What changes are you hoping for? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Why Big Brands Struggle With Social Media – And Why You Do Not Have To

March 9, 2010

Social media continues to grow globally in terms of adoption, usage, interest and impact in a massive way. It’s undeniably changing the way that content and information work particularly in terms of the publishing of consumer opinion.

This has transformed the way that consumers relate to brands and the way that brands should operate, driving direct interaction, transparency and a more consultative approach. However, we still operate in a system defined by the old media world and consequently big brand involvement is still in the main tentative and sporadic.

From my experience of trying to get big brands to embrace the social revolution, there are a number of reasons why they have yet to embrace the real opportunities that involvement can deliver:

1. Social Media is often viewed as just another marketing channel: It is of course so much more; it is a completely different approach to interacting with consumers and customers.

Of course, you can advertise in a social media environment, but the true return on investment comes from developing communities, creating content to be shared, and talking and listening directly with consumers.

2. It does not fit into current structures:  True social media falls somewhere between marketing, PR, communications, content production and web development. No one is quite sure whose responsibility it is and who should ultimately deliver their organisation’s social media strategy.

3. Communities and content are global: Users of social media connect, consume, and share content globally with little care for international borders.

Marketing and PR departments and objectives are set up nationally or regionally. Very few organisations have a truly international structure and perspective.

 4. Social media needs a long term approach: To build community, distribute content, or get people actively involved in an application takes time. Marketing and PR work on short time frames and are wedded to sets of individual campaigns or short term objectives. Social media is not a campaign, it’s a permanent approach.

5. No guaranteed results: You book advertising and it’s guaranteed to work. For, example you book a web campaign on page views and you keep going until you reach your goal. This is what advertisers call a push medium, i.e. you choose when people see it. Social media is a pull medium; usage and interaction is totally dependent on the user choosing to do so. If it’s not relevant or lacks creative brilliance it will not work. This makes it hard.

 6. The metrics are new: Companies are used to the big numbers of advertising, but these numbers are different. Advertising is measured in booked exposures, i.e. page views, while social media is measured in direct interactions, i.e. number of friends, number of views or number of users. These numbers will always be smaller, but not necessarily any less measure of success.

How do big brands take the proper approach to social media?

Fundamentally, it is about putting in place the right organisational structure with a social media department, which is responsible for a company’s long term approach to open their companies up to consumers and have a permanent social media presence. They should also work with marketing and PR to make sure that advertising, product development, research and communications all fit into the social media picture and all aspects of the company and the product are socially optimised.

Certain forward thinking organisations, such as Intel and Ford, have already done this and this is the approach that should be followed. There is also need for more and deeper research, to understand and quantify the value of engaging with consumers in social media versus traditional advertising. This is an emerging area that will see a lot more investment over the next year or so as is needed to show the financial case.

Lastly, companies need to look long term and understand the value that social media can bring to cultivate lifetime advocates of their brand. This is not about campaigns, but a permanent positioning. Hopefully, the current economy can help companies take this long-term perspective that has been lacking in the boom years.

Your Thoughts?

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Did Google Waste 3 Million Dollars on That Superbowl Ad?

February 9, 2010

How ’bout them Saints? :) Nothing like a great comeback story – and if any town deserves - it is New Orleans

As if it wasn’t exciting enough to watch an underdog upset, there was a moment during Sunday’s broadcast where I actually got tears in my eyes like a big baby.

It wasn’t the game.

It was at Google’s Super Bowl ad. 

If you have not seen it – check it out below.

Like MILLIONS of other viewers, I got choked up. In less than 60 seconds, I was moved and the extremely short spot just leaves you saying:

“Awwwwww!”

SPOILER ALERT: Did you notice that there were NO actors on camera in the ad? NO voiceover? Heck, there was only ONE PICTURE.  Just words on a computer screen, right?

FACT: YOU could have made this commercial.  There was nothing expensive or technically difficult in there at all.

FYI – CBS charged THREE MILLION dollars for a 30-second ad during the game.  This ad was 52 seconds long.

One of the biggest companies on earth, running one of the most expensive ad spots possible, and you REALLY COULD do this yourself!

Okay, Okay. There are a few missing components that I haven’t covered YET. Let’s talk about a couple of them right now…

First I want to show you EXACTLY where the magic happens in this video. It’s not on the screen at all (Which is why simple videos can be so effective).

It’s in YOUR HEAD.

That’s right. If you thought of love, romance, family, the Eiffel Tower, artworks in the Louvre, a steaming espresso at a cafe, the taste of chocolate…

All of these things were images CONJURED UP in your head by simple words on a screen. What MOVES you is what YOUR OWN IMAGINATION brings to the viewing (Remember falling in love?)…

  • Feature: Google’s search is simple to use.
  • Advantage: Google search has the best results.
  • Benefit: You can even use Google to find LOVE! (Awwww!)

Now, tricking people’s minds into filling in the “gap” in films and videos is one of the most powerful tools you can use.  

Obviously, we are nowhere near the size of Google (and never will be), but I was left feeling inspired by this simple video that did a brilliant job of implying benefits (and flavor and experience and even love) without cramming it down your throat or trying too hard to be funny or relevant.

Take Away:  When you are creating presentations, web copy or videos remember this one as an excellent way to say so much, so effectively with so little.

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Is your marketing missing the cookie factor?

January 8, 2010

Is your marketing pouring some serious money down the drain, because you don’t have a cookie factor? What is a cookie factor anyway? And, how can you apply this simple marketing strategy and psychological principle to improve your bottom line?

You Buy $30 Takeout, You Get Free Coke and Wontons

My smile was bigger than the Great Wall of China the first time this happened. We were regulars at this Chinese food takeout, but this time there was something unusual. When we paid our bill, out popped a 2-litre bottle of Coke and 6 wontons.

Confusion reigned and dollar signs kicked in. Was I paying for something I hadn’t ordered? Was there some communication gap here? My knitted eyebrows must have revealed my bewilderment quite clearly. Before I could go blah, the little Chinese lady behind the counter held up her hand, smiled and said the words that entranced me forever.

“You buy $30 takeaway, you get free Coke and wontons”

She Had Us Trained Like Lab Rats…

Before that day, we’d never bought Chinese takeaways for more than $25. Yet magically as we crossed the $30 mark, this entrepreneurial woman made sure we knew the value of instant gratification. Every time we hit the $30 mark, out came the goodies. Every time we didn’t, we got our order and big smiles, but little else.

Now we had a choice. We could have our usual, or order just a little more and be rewarded with all the extra goodies that came with it.

What do you think we did?

Yes, just like you and every one else, we like something for nothing and our purchases hit the $30 mark like sunshine hits the Caribbean.

Say Hello To The Cookie Factor!

This in short is the cookie factor. You create a demand for the product with something so alluring that the customer forgets the product itself and concentrates mainly on the cookies. Psychologists call this the psychology of second interest. This effectively means that people shift focus onto the goodies and end up buying the main product based on this tiny inducement.

How Far Can You Take $5?

Pretty far, I’d say judging from Marie’s success. Marie, a friend of ours, is a freelancer and gets called in when there are specific jobs to be done at various design firms. Like clockwork, she lands at the job with a box of yummy, scrumptious chocolate chip cookies. (Makes my mouth water, just writing this out!)

It’s bizarre I know, but clients earning in excess of a hundred grand a year, drool like little puppies over the prospect of free cookies. $5 worth of cookies was getting Marie a red carpet treatment and more work than she could imagine. Without doubt, her work was exceptional, but then so was the work of her competition. The only tipping point in the game was the cookie factor.

You may not believe that grown, sensible people would be so stupid to fall for what seems to be a quite obvious bait. Yet look around you, the cookie factor is well and alive and bouncing off the walls!

Lookie Mom, There Are Cookies Everywhere!

Look at airline milage points and points that you collect every time you fill gas. Why on earth would you fly the same airline, despite those crazy timetables? Why get gas at that crappy gas station? Or buy pizza from the same pizza place every time?

It’s all thanks to the cookie factor. It’s greed kicking in and wanting something for nothing.

You can see the cookie factor in different dimensions. Here are three main avatars.

1) As An Inducement: Get That Vacuum Cleaner Moving!People buy because of the added factor. They always have and always will. As long as they perceive themselves as getting something for nothing, they will be drawn to it like flies to honey. The cookie factor makes firm believers out of hesitant buyers. Deep in the human psyche is the need for justification. The bonus that they receive fills that space and gets the credit card heated up once more.

2) As a Retention Tool: Stuck Like Glue! The cookie factor is magical for retention. Imagine you had a law firm and you had these free educational training sessions for your clients on a regular basis. What you’re doing is giving away something for nothing. You’re drawing them back like that pizza place does every time. This is a powerful retention tool to get customers back in your airspace. The inducement and the retention factor might look and feel the same, but there is a tiny difference. Inducement is instant gratification, where as with retention, it’s a slow moving process that shows results in loyal customers.

3) As a DeterrentThis is the dark side of the cookie factor– The Darth Vader! 5-year rentals and leases come under this category. The cookie factor is used to get the client in at a low rate, but keeps them hooked into the product or service over a long period of time. When you buy a fridge or a computer, you can get an additional 5 Year Peace of mind by buying into additional guarantees. There is very little real benefit for the user here, but it exists, if only in the dark alleys of your marketing strategy.

Are You Mixing Up The Cookie Factor With The Hot Spot?

If you are, it’s okay. A hotspot in selling, is finding out what is of most interest to the buyer and then going after that interest, often basing the entire sale on that one factor. The cookie factor is a tiny shift away from this thought process.

Let Me Give You An Example

If you were selling a house, a hotspot would be the proverbial cherry tree. The buyer loves the cherry tree, has always wanted a cherry tree and the sale of the home is based on this hotspot. The cookie factor is slightly different. It is a deliberate act of placing cookies to entice the potential buyer to dip into their pockets for a brand new mortgage. I’ve known people who’ve bought houses based on the premise that they get the sofas, work desk or the artwork on the mantelpiece. I’ve known smart real estate agents that have placed this cookie factor as part of the deal and creating interest where boredom exists.

This is the bait, the cookie factor! It draws the customer in and tips them over in your favour. In effect, the cookie factor becomes the hot spot and you’re on your way to a definite sale.

Where’s Your Cookie Factor?

If you look into your business and your marketing strategy, you will certainly find one. When tested online, it was found that sales went up by over 30% by introducing a bonus to the product. If you’re in services, you can offer two or three add-ons at the time of purchase. If you’re selling product, tag on a duvet to a bed sale or a box of stamps with a pen.

Relevance of your cookie factor is extremely important. A recent chain of restaurants offered a free dessert with an order of dessert. Does that really entice you? If you’re going to have a cookie factor, dispense with the stupidity. Make it relevant and valuable and your customers will respond to it in hordes. If your cookies are stale or crumbly, find a garbage can they can call home.

And finally, remember it’s not hard to find a cookie factor in your business. It provides you with additional ammo to make the customer happy. And guess what happens when customers get happy?

Yeah, they buy!

Go out and find your cookie factor.

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Magnify Your Effectiveness W/Tony Robbins and Frank Kern

October 26, 2009

This is a GREAT interview I came accross today. 

Tony Robbins meets with two guys I happen to like a lot, Frank Kern & John Reese.

Both of these guys are self-made multi millionaires who made their fortunes by selling products on the Internet.

AND they still continue to thrive in today’s economy.

 So the purpose of this interview is to uncover the traits that successful people have in common. Specifically, the traits that cause them to take action and follow through.

 As you’ll see, the solution is really quite simple and available to us all.

He even has a cool little exercise you can do in about 3 minutes.

Check it out right here

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Simple SEO Tips for Small Business Owners

September 1, 2009

 

Simple SEO Tips For Small Business

Think about what people search for! What are people are going to type to find your site.

Title tags matter. It’s what the user first sees on Google results.

Use the meta description tag. It is often shown to web users when they search on Google.

Start a blog! Participate in the conversation. Doesn’t have to be complex or fancy. Things that are interesting to you are probably interesting to your users/customers.Examples: What made you decide to start a small business? What were your weirdest customer experiences?

Find conversations using social media. Try digg and StumbleUpon.

You do NOT have to pay Google to get traffic from Google. Google crawls your website for free. Just make sure it can find your website.
Advertising on Google doesn’t influence rankings. Buying advertising on Google does not influence search results.

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When Do You Stop Marketing To Customers?

August 26, 2009

Are you afraid of alienating your customer with your marketing? Do you always feel like a stranger in their inbox? Do you have marketing strategies specifically designed to tell you when to keep marketing, and when to stop? Well, stop looking so puzzled. In the marketing article below, I’m going to bring home to you exactly how to join the dots. You will learn just how much to market, and when to stop. Yes, it is a science and marketing strategy, and it applies to online as well as offline marketing. So, pay close attention.

Why Dennis Was Fuming

Dennis McConnell was going nuts, literally. He sailed merrily into the office this morning only to find seven unsubscribe messages in his inbox. This was in response to an email he sent out marketing his upcoming Power Photoshop workshops. His merriness took instant flight. His mood transmogrified into the color of winter, and the sunshine outside didn’t seem to count for much. (Yes, it’s still toasty summer in New Zealand!)

From Angry To Stupid In Twelve Minutes Flat

Like most marketers, Dennis spun around 180 degrees. He pulled the plug on his marketing and decided to send even fewer emails to his subscribers. Why anger them, he thought? The longer he thought about it, the deeper he swam into his turgid pool of fear.

That Is, Was, And Will Be His Big Mistake — And Yours Too!

Why? Let me paint an alternate scenario for you. Imagine you had to give a speech to a hundred people. Say the speech was at the end of the day, and the participants were now tired. Let’s suppose about thirty of them left. Would you give the speech or start crying for mommy, because those thirty walked out?

Without question, you’d still give a stupendous speech, wouldn’t you? Your job is not to focus on the people who are leaving, but on those who have stayed to listen to you.

Dennis was like every one of us. He paid attention to the exit, forgetting there were hundreds of people who were quite happy to receive the information. Are you doing the same? Are you focusing on the goodbyes, when in reality you should focus on those who are sitting tight? Do you even understand the psychology of how people react, when they don’t want to do business with you?

The Psychological Difference Between Unsubscribers And Complainers

Why do people complain? Have you even thought about it? The only time people complain is when they DON’T want to leave. Complaining is their way of communicating to you to spruce up your act.

Unsubscribers, on the other hand are mostly either freeloaders (they came on because you offered something free), or they recognized themselves not to be your target audience. You are never, ever, not in a million years, going to sell them anything. They are just keeping you from wasting your time with them. Understand this concept and you are on first base, but wait…we still have to get to second base.

Second Base Comes Before First Base

Look at mum. When she told you to take the garbage out, you complained. But did you ever unsubscribe? You didn’t unsubscribe from mum because she was putting food on your plate. If you knew what was good for that bottomless pit you called your stomach, you’d stick close to home. It’s exactly the same with your customers. If you consistently give them information that is useful to them, they will stick with you through all the marketing messages you send them. Heck, they’ll even buy!

Don’t Be A Bloomin’ Miser With Your Information

You see this article. It’s not a couple of scraps that fell off the table. It is the full story. Every plot, every twist and turn. That’s what has kept you reading so long. If you send out information that’s half-baked, you get half-baked subscribers. You’ve heard the saying, ‘Pay peanuts and you get monkeys.’

Most advertising is fluff. Most marketing tells an incomplete story. And most articles on the internet actually edit for space. If you were selling a product, where would you stop your sales pitch? Would you count the words and say, stop at 300 words? Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? So why is it different when you’re selling a concept? (At this point, you’ve read 718 words and are still reading. Doesn’t that prove the point?)

So How Much Do You Give?

Lots and then when you’re done, heap some more on the top. Would you be happy if I left half the questions unanswered in this article? As an expert in your field, you’re way ahead of your customer. Knowledge grows in leaps and bounds. Why not give it away? Give away tons of the stuff, and you will find within yourself, an unending reservoir of information. If you give away loads, it means you have a lot more. Inevitably, customers will see that and actually pay to learn more from you.

To market to your customer, you must be a brand in their heads. And to be a brand, you must earn their respect. The only way you can do that is to give them the full dope.

Ask mum. How many recipes did she give away? Would you live long enough to see the end of the recipe list, even if you lived to be a hundred? Is she the goddess of recipes, or what?

The Curse Of The Unsubscribe

Sales is a transfer of enthusiasm from one person to another. Say that out loud. Most marketing doesn’t have enough What’s- in- it- for-me factor. Most of it has no enthusiasm, and looks like it was written by someone who speaks Greek as a first language.

If your marketing, advertising or sales pitch is boring, your customer yawns. Several yawns later they leave, unsubscribe or make you a permanent resident on their delete list. If you cannot be enthusiastic in the medium you choose to market, get a professional to do your marketing. This is your bread and butter, don’t muck around with it.

It’s Mindless Marketing Without Technology

Some customers jump ship because you aren’t smart enough to use technology. Too many times, right after a client has attended a workshop, you sell them the same workshop again. How dumb is that? And dumber still is the fact that most people will try to work their lists by physically removing the names.

You cannot afford to make mistakes here. Invest in software that filters through the mess and does it flawlessly, instead of you picking at names one by one on your list. This eliminates mistakes and gives you a clean list to market to. Ergo, customers aren’t mad, and your bank account is jingling away.

Customers Are Waiting To Be Led

Don’t let the unsubscribers worry you. Customers want to improve their lives, their businesses and their careers. If you believe you can do that, tread the intelligent road by educating them in great detail.

Put in all the goodies to make your customers stay. If they’re sick and tired of you, they’ll complain. They’ll say NO. Till then, you keep on marketing to them.

It’s that simple.

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Why Are Customers So Indecisive?

August 17, 2009

Do you know why your customer won’t buy?
You’ve given her the best price, possibly even the best options. Yet she fidgets. Maybe, maybe not, she ponders.

You stand by the wayside and sweat, praying the sale will go through. Then almost inexplicably, it slips out of your hands, and you don’t even know why. You curse, rant and rave silently at her indecisive nature. Yet ironically, the fault is all yours.

Don’t agree? Hold your horses and you’ll learn a simple, fundamental psychological factor you’ve been missing in your marketing strategy, and how you can rectify it in a flash.

Why The Trees In Our Front Yard Are Still Looking For a Barber

Let me tell you a story about our front garden. Any time now, I’m expecting Tarzan and a couple of chimps to swing merrily by. Like something out of a horror movie, the foliage has spread its tentacles, and now hangs menacingly over several parts of the house.

Yes I know we need an arborist to lop off those branches. And yes, we have called in at least half a dozen. Incredibly, we haven’t made up our minds on whom we should choose. Like deer caught in the headlights, we’ve been frozen in indecision. One itty-bitty factor would have made it easy to decide, but it has eluded us completely.

I Know What You’re Thinking, And It’s Not Price…

Oh boy! We have estimates up to our ears. One quote is as high as $800 (aaargggh!), while the other one blushes at $250, and all the rest do a merry dance in between. You’d think the cheaper quote would get the thumbs up right away, wouldn’t you? Well it didn’t.

In fact, it has added to the confusion because we can’t understand why there would be such a huge difference for what is essentially the same job.

And Here Is The Reason Why We Can’t Decide…

It’s a factor called the Full Story. While every single one of those arborists provided us with quotes, not one of them gave us a single reason to choose them. Any reason would have been better than none. Ten reasons would have clinched the deal, even with a higher price.

This is one of the main reasons why most deals seem to disintegrate before the eyes of most business owners and sales people. We fail (and fail miserably) to educate our customers about the unique advantages of working with us.

It’s An Impossible Puzzle If It Doesn’t Have The Pieces

People need to be gratified psychologically. Our brains are dying to know more about the companies that bid and all we get are terms and prices. The arborists should have educated me about the quality of their cutting, their comprehensive insurance policies, their warranties, their skills, and their service guarantees in detail. I needed to know anything and everything that would help me decide in someone’s favor. Not one of those bids included that kind of information.

Look at yourself. Let’s say you hire someone for your firm. How little would you like to know about him? Or say you go out on a date. How little do you want to know about your partner? Every piece of the puzzle is absolutely necessary. Don’t forget to give your customers a reason to buy from YOU. Tell them about yourself. Provide all the juicy details, and you will leave your competitors crying in their beer.

What Is The Psychological Reasoning Behind The Whole Story?

The strong, silent type is the one our mamas told us to watch out for. We instinctively trust people less who tell us less. Even if we do like the person, we want them to open up. If you want people to trust you, you have to tell them about yourself.

This instinct of distrust is hardwired in our brains, and you’d do well to pay attention to it. A lack of adequate detail doesn’t help to build trust, which is why customers go from hello to sayonara very quickly. Once you have their attention, stop saying stupid things like, “Buy from me,” and start giving them all the reasons WHY they should buy from you .

Add spices to your marketing strategy curry, and your customer will be captivated by the aroma. Churn the gastric juices in their brains. Make them salivate. Get them to drool. And when they’re ready to eat, feed them well.

Ta-Ta Risk

Telling the Whole Story eliminates a big hurdle called risk. The less your customers knows about you, the more they are frozen in indecision. When faced with this scenario, they resort to the only thing they know—price. Just like you, they make a decision on the cheapest, trashiest option available… because that’s all you gave them!

Abolish the hazard of your customer choosing to buy solely on price. Give her a first class education about why she needs to buy from you.

The worst thing you can do is leave her hanging without sufficient info…..

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Why Problem Based Positioning Is A Magnet

July 9, 2009

Are you struggling to create a memorable positioning statement or USP (Unique Selling Proposition) for your marketing? Do you want to stand out from your competition, but the uniqueness of your business seems to elude you? Here’s a sneaky, vital secret that turns conventional marketing psychology on its head. By changing your positioning statement, find out how to transform your weakest link, into your strongest marketing strategy ever!

Avis Is Only Number 2. So Why Go With Them?

Years ago, in the rental car market, Hertz was chugging along merrily, with Avis a distant second. With one Problem-Based USP, Avis closed the gap. Their catch phrase, We’re No.2, We Try Harder, ignited the minds of the target audience like a rampaging bush fire. They turned a liability into an asset.

Southwest Airlines took to the skies with a similar message. We’re Smaller Than Everyone Else, they told us, while gently explaining why their service was dramatically better, as a direct consequence of their size. They also turned a liability into an asset.

In 2001, Harley Davidson proudly boasted how their CEO was 38th on the waiting list for the company’s then, new V-Rod motorcycle. And they took pains to describe how each Harley was lovingly rolled off the plant. The waiting period, which normally would be perceived to be a negative, was turned into a publicity coup that burned a stamp of quality and a uniqueness into the brains of every prospective Harley owner.

All of these companies took a cold, hard-nosed look at reality. The superlatives in their business had been taken. Instead they unearthed their USP, in what most people would consider a disadvantage of sorts.

Are You Doing What Sally Did?

Sally is one heck of a real estate agent. Barely six months into real estate, and she’s already forging a red-hot path into the top ten salespeople in the country. While her talents and persuasive powers are formidable, there’s a little something that puts her head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd.

That Little Something Is A USP On Steroids!

If she chose to be unimaginative, Sally’s USP or tagline could have ended up as pretty run-of-the-mill. It could have ranged from a tacky, Residential Properties for every budget, to utterly boring, Getting Top Prices for Your Home. All of which would see her struggling to stand out, in a dog-eat-dog me-too marketplace.

A goody-gum-drop USP would get her nowhere in a hurry. She needed a USP with rocket fuel in its tanks. Something that would reach out and demand your attention without hesitation.

If You Sold Your Home In A Week or less, You Probably Got Too Little

That’s the USP that Sally created. Can you see what I mean? Doesn’t that USP go for your jugular? Sally’s target audience is sellers, not buyers. If you just sold a house, wouldn’t you feel a twinge of regret? What if you were about to sell a house?

Wouldn’t you be curious to find out just a little bit about what Sally does to lasso in a higher return? And wouldn’t you be just a little bit wary if the next real estate agent you met told you that she could sell your house in next to no time?

You’ve just witnessed the psychological power of the Problem-Based USP.

How To Create A Knockout USP For Your Business

Let’s assume you’re in the wine selling business. To own real estate in a customer’s brain, you’d have to do battle with about a zillion other wines. Yet decades ago, Paul Masson cut through the clutter with a simple statement. We sell no wines before their time. With charming simplicity, they turned a negative waiting period into an exploitable advantage.

You too can turn your liabilities into assets. Stop screaming about how magnificent you are, and look for the apparent glitches in your business.

The Biggest Reason Why You Should Search For The Hiccup In Your Business Strategy

Finding what makes you beneficially different is a notoriously difficult task. However, just about any client or potential buyer will very quickly identify your weaknesses and liabilities. If it’s a technical problem, you can fix it. If it’s a conceptual problem such as speed or price, it is much harder to fix.

This, however, is the key to your success. The more you try to keep your weaknesses and liabilities under wraps, the more customers will uncover them. On the other hand, take a liability and turn it into an asset. Expose a problem to the harsh glare of the spotlight and transform your frog into a prince.

This brave act will gain the instant admiration and support of your clients, while giving you a USP that others simply won’t have the guts to match.

Can You Make The Leap?

Creating a negative USP is a tricky, dangerous tactic, and one not to be taken lightly. “We’re slow and proud of it!” is hardly a selling point, yet fulfills the requirements laid out in the article. However, if you’ve been struggling with your USP, as many companies do, this is a tactic that may work well for you—as it has with some of the companies above.

It’s time you tickled your customer’s brain with some sharply focused psychological marketing jujitsu. Find the weaknesses and liabilities in your business, carve them into a dynamic USP, and the attention your business has been craving for, will be yours forever more!

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Who Is Your REAL Competition?

June 26, 2009

If you design kitchens, is another kitchen designer your competition? Most likely not. And the sooner you can position and modify your marketing strategy against your real competition, the sooner you will start to see more business come through the door.

So Who Really Is Your Competition?
The answer to that is always–Never the most obvious. So let’s take the example of the kitchen designer. Having decided that another kitchen designer isn’t his competition, he now has to decide who is his real competition.

His Real Competition Could Be A Car Salesman
Is this for real? How can a car salesman be a kitchen designer’s competition? Let’s analyse this more carefully. A kitchen and a car are both fighting for the same thing– The householder’s limited budget.

If the kitchen designer, were able to convince a couple that a kitchen is more important than a new car (which he could easily do if there was a foodie around), he now has a better chance of them dropping the car in favour of the kitchen.

The Advantage Of This Method Of Positioning
The most obvious advantage is that you’re not losing any current customers. All your past advertising is bringing in the customers that are looking for kitchens anyway.

What it does do however, is bring in a new lot of customers that would never have thought about kitchens, if you hadn’t implanted it in their minds. Effectively, you have both, customers who are looking for kitchens as well as customers who are forfeiting their new cars in favour of new kitchens.

How Your Re-Positioning Can Help You Focus
We had a client who ran a laundromat. Her current customers were people who did not have washing machines. Obviously, her business went up and down based on the season and on her customers limited budget. We got her to refocus her marketing strategy on a new target– Customers who had washing machines.

These customers had the money, but no time. By deciding that her real competition was time she decided to target people who had limited time instead.

As a result, she was now targeting busy people while other laundromats were targeting people with washing. This positioning actually helped the laundromat stand out from the rest of the competition.

How The Laundromat Did A Full 180
This re-positioning did a couple of things for them. One, it helped them focus on their target audience. Consequently, they changed their name from just XYZ Laundromat to Bizzie Buggers.

It was catchy and bang on target. It also now meant that busy customers (with the money), were more likely to stop over and drop their washing. Plus they had the regular customers walking through the door anyway.

What You Need To Do
Sit down and write who your immediate competition could be. Then write down what your business is really up against. Here are some examples.

These aren’t necessarily your right targets but they help you see things in a different light and help you determine who your real competition could possibly be.

Cartoonist= Photographer
Computer Salesman= Filing Cabinet
Car Dealer= Expensive Restaurant Meals

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