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Monday, 27 April 2015
The 4-Step Slam Dunk Process That Generated 140,000 FREE Leads From YouTube
January 20th, 2015 by Adam Linkenauger
How cool would it be to gain 140,000 leads (email subscribers) to fuel your business?
How much cooler would it be if you could do it for free?
I’m about to reveal the EXACT 4 step process I’ve used to do exactly that to build a business in the basketball training niche.
The opportunity is HUGE on YouTube as it’s a fairly underutilized and untapped platform.
Organic traffic on YouTube is different than other platforms like Facebook, it LASTS for months and years.
This channel is in the basketball training niche and it’s growing daily.
Leads turn into sales, and there isn’t anything healthier for your business than making the cash register ring… (especially if the leads are FREE)!
The strategy of generating organic traffic (and free leads) from YouTube took me 3 years to perfect and I’ve documented it step-by-step.
This system can be used in any market where content can be created…
If you follow these steps, you will see a significant spike in traffic from YouTube in 30-60 days, you just have to stick with it and be consistent.
1. Game Planning: YouTube Keyword Research
As marketers, our job is to provide a solution to a pain point for a market.
For example, athletes may search “How to jump higher” or “How to dunk”.
These potential customers are searching for answers to their problems, and it’s our job as marketers not to rely on them to come to us, but instead, meet them at their problem and provide a solution.
First, write down the broad subject of what your business is all about.
For example, in our business, which teaches athletes how to become better basketball players, I’d write:
Basketball Training
Next, I want you to write down this question:
If you surveyed 100 ideal customers and asked:
“What would you type into Google or YouTube to improve at [PROBLEM YOUR BUSINESS SOLVES]?”
What would the 5 most likely answers be?
Here’s mine…
Subject: Basketball Training
- Basketball Training
- How to get better at basketball
- How to dribble a basketball
- How to shoot a basketball
- How do I jump higher
What would your target market type into Google/YouTube when looking for the solution to their pain point?
Write out the top 5 answers (or as many as you can come up with).
Next, I want you to remove “How to” or any added words that aren’t associated with the “keyword” that describes what your customer needs help with.
- Basketball Training
- How to get better at basketball
- How to dribble a basketball
- How to shoot a basketball
- How do I jump higher
So the new list would look like:
1. Basketball Training
2. Get Better at Basketball
3. Dribble a Basketball
4. Shoot a Basketball
5. Jump higher
2. Get Better at Basketball
3. Dribble a Basketball
4. Shoot a Basketball
5. Jump higher
These 5 keywords from your list are called your “Bracelet Keywords”.
Next, take your first bracelet keyword, and go directly to YouTube.
Begin to type in your first bracelet keyword, leaving the last 2 letters off the end of the spelling like so:
As you type, you’ll notice an automated list of “recommendations” below the search bar.
This is called the “Google Autocomplete” function. This function offers a prediction of what you are searching for based on the popularity of previous user searches.
Pretty cool, right?
Next, make a list of all of the Autocomplete recommendations that your market is searching for:
Go through your 5 Bracelet Words, and make a list of all of the recommended autocomplete keywords you were given. You can expect between 35-45 solid keywords that your market is clearly searching for.
Each of the keywords are essentially DONE FOR YOU titles for videos. You’ll want to do a video for every single term you find.
Once you shoot a video, and begin the upload process, be sure to include the keyword in…
- The headline
- description
- tags of the video
… to zero in and target people searching for this exact term.
Here’s one of our videos…
2. Rule Change: Great YouTube Content is Worth 3 Points
In early 2014, YouTube made an algorithm switch that based video suggestion on watch time and no longer on videos that received the most clicks early.
With this massive algorithm shift, YouTube leveled the playing ground for people like us to compete with larger channels, businesses, and brands.
The old algorithm awarded channels who sent large amounts of traffic to a new video, giving it a higher ranking in their search engines.
But now, it’s no longer a “traffic competition”, but a content competition.
Simply put, if you provide quality content on a consistent basis, you WILL get traffic because your “Watch Time” will out-perform your competitors!
But how do you provide quality content that you know your market will enjoy?
First: Focus on ONE specific need in each video.
For example, if I was making a video from my list of charm keywords for “Basketball training for beginners”, I’d speak directly on the subject of basketball training for beginners. That way, when people searched “basketball training for beginners” and clicked my video, the content will be completely congruent to what they are searching for, therefore, increasing their watch time.
Second: Video length plays a massive role. Your videos should be just long enough to provide value but short enough to keep the viewers attention for the length of the video.
Videos around 3 minutes in length are long enough to provide value and content, but short enough to not lose viewer interest. I recommend each video targets a specific tip, trick, or technique.
In terms of video editing, don’t over complicate it. Some of our best videos that continue to bring us thousands of leads a month were shot on an iPhone.
The keys are consistency and congruency.
If you can only post once a week, stick to that, if you can post three videos a week, even better. Determine the days of the week that you’re going to post your videos (ex. Monday, Wednesday, Friday) and stick to it.
(You’ll be hearing a ton about this from me next month at Traffic & Conversion Summit 2015 in San Diego. Hope to see you there!)
Digital Marketer Lab Member Extra
Access your ‘YouTube Guide to In-Stream Ads’ Execution Plan in Digital Marketer Lab.
Follow this guide to generate leads using YouTube In-Stream ads.
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3. Scoreboard: How To Turn YouTube Views Into Leads
If you aren’t familiar with the term “Annotation”, they are described by YouTube as:
“Clickable text overlays on YouTube videos. Annotations are used to boost engagement, give more information, and aid in navigation.”
I refer to them as “Clickable Billboards” in your videos to direct viewers to take a specific action.
Annotations are what make YouTube marketing so effective. With clickable annotations you can ask your viewers to take a number of actions to help your channel and business grow.
Some of my favorite annotations are:
- Click here to receive a free gift. (This is how we grow our mailing list.)
- Click here to subscribe to our channel for free training.
- Like or comment on this video and tell us what videos you’d like us to make in the future.
To set up an annotation, simply visit the video page once uploaded, and click on the “Annotation” button under the video!
Inside the Annotations Dashboard you will be able to pick what type of annotation you’d like to use, the text on the annotation, when you’d like to show your annotation inside of the video, and even choose the color and font size.
Annotation “Links” include the ability to send viewers to other videos, playlists, have them subscribe to your channel, and most importantly, visit an associated website. This means if people click your annotation, they will actually leave YouTube and visit your website or landing page.
If you are new to YouTube, or have not yet set up an “Associated Website”, you will need to do so in order to allow “clickable annotations” to your website.
Visit your “Creator Studio” under your profile picture in the top right:
Then select “Channel” from the dashboard on the left. Scroll down, and you’ll find a Feature entitled “External Annotations”, if the “Status” light isn’t green, then click “Learn More” for step-by-step instructions on setting up external annotations to your associated website!
You only need to connect your main domain to YouTube, as all pages under that domain will be accepted as an associated website.
Two tips for optimizing your annotations to generate the most:
- “10 in and 10 out rule”: You only show annotations in the first 10% of the video, and the last 10% of the video. So if a video is 2 minutes, or 120 seconds long, we’d show an annotation during the first 12 seconds, and the last 12 seconds. As the video lengthens or shortens, so do our annotations. This allows the viewer plenty of time to take action if they choose, but our annotations take us only 20% of the entire video, allowing the viewer to still enjoy the content.
- “Rule of ONE”: Only one annotation is displayed at a time. Don’t make the mistake of asking the viewer to do more than one action at a time. I recommend that you offer a reason for your viewer to click your annotation and visit your website (like a free gift or consultation) during every video, as well as the ability to subscribe to your channel. This will drive traffic to your website and leads into your business, but also allow for channel growth, which will increase your organic traffic reach.
4. 4th Quarter: Give a Strong Call To Action
At the end of each video, we provide verbal calls to action that instruct the viewer to take specific actions.
Verbal CTAs are extremely powerful in regards to the growth of your channel, and turning views into leads.
If you tell viewers to complete an action, they are much more likely to do so.
I recommend during the last 10% of the video, you provide a verbal CTA to subscribe to the channel by clicking the “Subscribe” button on your video.
I recommend during the last 10% of the video, you provide a verbal CTA to subscribe to the channel by clicking the “Subscribe” button on your video.
Then, tell them to “like” and comment on your video, and ask the question: “What else would you like me to show you how to do?”
By asking the viewer what else they’d like to learn from you, you’ll discover their true pain points, and ideal videos to create, while increasing your video engagement. This is a powerful market research technique.
Your last CTA in every video, should be to click your lead generation annotation. By combining a visual annotation offering something free with a verbal command, you will see a massive increase in clicks per viewers.
Now that I’ve explained our 4-step process for generating FREE leads from YouTube, it’s time for you take action!
Remember, it takes consistency to implement this process but is well worth the high quality leads you’ll generate for your business.
The opportunity on YouTube is incredible, don’t miss out on your chance to add another high quality traffic source to your business.
http://www.digitalmarketer.com/free-leads-from-youtube/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ContentDistribution
Monday, 20 April 2015
3 Metrics Smart Marketers Use To Dominate a Market
February 12th, 2015 by Dave Lavinsky
“He who can spend the most to acquire a customer, wins.”
Each of the high-impact metrics I’m going to share with you today do just that. They allow you to measure how much you can spend to acquire customers.
These are the kind of metrics that, if you track them and improve upon them, allow you to dominate a market.
And none is more critical than the first…
Metric 1 – Lead Conversion Rate (LCR)
Sure — you’re tracking NUMBER OF NEW LEADS.
But are you tracking the more important metric? The Lead Conversion Rate, or the rate at which leads convert into paying customers.
Why Should You Care?
Let’s say you get 100 leads per day and your lead conversion rate is 10%. Thus, you’re getting 10 new customers per day. Conversely, your competitor is getting half the leads (50 per day), but has a 30% Lead Conversion Rate.
In this case, your competitor is getting 15 new sales/day to your 10 (and the competitor will likely have less advertising cost because they only needed to acquire half the leads to get more customers).
By increasing your lead to sale conversion rates, your profits grow dramatically since revenue rises sharply while your advertising costs stay the same.
In other words, you can now spend more to acquire MORE customers.
What Does It Look Like?
The formula for Lead Conversion Rate is…
Number of Sales / Number of Leads
Take Action
Look at your processes and funnel AFTER you capture the lead.
- Do you make an immediate offer? (As we recommend in our Customer Value Optimization process)
- Do you have effective follow up (email marketing and ad retargeting)?
Metric 2 – Contribution Margin (CM)
Contribution Margin is perhaps the single most important metric you must track as a digital marketer.
Contribution Margin is an accounting metric that equals…
Sales – Variable Costs
These variable costs can include:
- Advertising costs
- Cost of goods sold
- Affiliate commissions
- Sales commissions
…amongst other things.
What Does It Look Like?
If you’re selling educational DVDs online, the formula would equal your sales minus the cost of…
- manufacturing/shipping the DVDs,
- fees paid to affiliates,
- advertising costs incurred with Google AdWords and Facebook ads,
- sales team commissions if applicable, and
- refunds processed.
Below is a sample Contribution Margin chart.
Important: if your business does lots of product launches, you may want to compare your Contribution Margin on a quarterly instead of a monthly basis, as monthly margins may be exaggerated by launches.
Why Should You Care?
As a digital marketer it’s easy to increase your Facebook ad budget, for example, and see your sales soar. Or get affiliates to promote your product by offering high commissions.
The issue in taking such actions is that you often decrease your Contribution Margin (and profits) even though sales increase.
Take Action
To improve your Contribution Margin, make sure you’re not adding less profitable sales as you grow.
For instance, if the commissions or advertising costs you’re paying per new sale are too high, your Contribution Margin may decline. Assess new sales opportunities to make sure they’re profitable.
Metric 3 – Earnings Per Click (EPC) [aka Revenue Per Visitor]
Ok… I saved the best for last.
The formula for EPC is simple…
Sales / Clicks
Last year at Traffic and Conversion Summit I did a quick 3-minute video talking about the ONE metric you should be tracking. Which metric did I choose? You guessed it… EPC or Revenue Per Visitor.
Here it is…
Metrics, Metrics, Metrics
Start tracking these metrics and use them to build a business that is both willing and able to spend more to acquire customers.
http://www.digitalmarketer.com/smart-metrics-analytics/
Friday, 17 April 2015
Find My Market: How to Choose The Right Traffic Source For Your Market
Here’s a shocker…
One traffic source does NOT fit all.
Raise your hand if you’ve heard this before…
“The first thing you need to do is find your market.”
But how do you actually get that done? I’m going to share how I go about finding my market.
But first you need to know…
How to Fail on the Internet
Every business speaks to a different audience. You must run traffic on the platforms where YOUR market is “hanging out”.
If you craft the perfect marketing message but then fail to put it in front of the right audience, your entire campaign will fail.
For example…
Trying to sell Apple accessories using Google display ads on a blog about PC’s would end in disaster.
You know… the proverbial, “You can’t sell ice to an Eskimo.”
But the strategy remains the same…
Conceptual traffic strategies such as “The Pixel Process” or Boomerang Retargeting are applicable no matter what market you’re in.
Those strategies are applicable across all traffic sources.
To learn more about these universal laws of traffic, read these articles…
- The “Pixel Process”: How Digital Marketer Gets 81% More Leads and 38% More Sales From Paid Traffic
- How to Plug a Leaky Sales Funnel with Facebook Retargeting
But traffic is a commodity. A click is a click.
We view traffic like a water faucet. When we want some, we turn it on.
When we want some, we go to the “Traffic Store” and buy it.
But which “Traffic Store” is right for you?
You go to buy traffic when you have an offer that you feel is appealing to a certain market.
You buy traffic where that market is hanging out so that YOU can get in front of them.
One of the biggest questions we get from members in Digital Marketer Lab is, “Where should I start running traffic?”
Great question! I had the same question when I started running traffic.
For most situations, I recommend starting with Facebook because…
- The ad platform is easy to use. (<< This is important, especially if you’re a traffic newbie.)
- The targeting options are insane. With the number of targeting options at your disposal on Facebook – you can find your target market easily.
- Facebook has 1.3 billion users; there is a lot of room for scale on the platform.
But Facebook isn’t for everyone. Facebook has started cracking down and banning advertisers. Markets such as dating or weight loss just can’t advertise on Facebook.
So now I answer this question with a question…
(Want to download all of our free resources? Click here to get the Digital Marketing tool box.)
“Where is your market?”
If you’re looking to buy traffic, you want to do so from a source that will help you reach your market.
Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy answer to this. I haven’t found a tool that tells you which platform to use to reach a specific market (if you have one, please let me know in the comments)
It takes research. It takes time.
It takes thought.
But, the research couldn’t be more important.
Again, if you craft the perfect marketing message but then fail to put it in front of the right audience, your campaign will fail.
So how do you find your market?
First, you need to think about WHO your market is …
What’s their age, gender, income?
Websites like Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. have aggregated millions of users — but each platform has slightly different demographics.
This broad demographic information will help you decide on a platform.
More specific information such as…
- What are their hobbies?
- What TV shows do they watch?
- What authority figures do they follow?
- What books do they read?.
… can be used to target your audience once you’ve decided on a platform.
For example, here’s how to find your market on Facebook.
We like to start with Alexa. This tool will give you demographic data on websites around the web.
Let’s start with Pinterest:
Not surprisingly, Pinterest is WAY above average in terms of visits from Females.
Pinterest is a wonderful platform to run traffic in the craft, clothing, make up, and anything e-commerce or female focused.
Check out this research data from PewResearchCenter on Facebook…
“Fully 71% of online adults use Facebook, a proportion unchanged from August 2013. Usage among seniors continues to increase. Some 56% of internet users ages 65 and older now use Facebook, up from 45% who did so in late 2013 and 35% who did so in late 2012. Women are also particularly likely to use Facebook compared with men, a trend that continues from prior years.”
(Facebook is specifically great for reaching older demographics that have SPENDING power).
YouTube, like Facebook, have a large and diverse user base with over 1 billion people visiting YouTube every month.
Let’s take a look at LinkedIn…
“The site (LinkedIn) continues to be particularly popular among college graduates, those in higher-income households and the employed (although the increase in usage by those who are not employed to 21% from 12% in 2013 is notable).
(LinkedIn is especially powerful for reaching the professional market, or running B2B traffic).
You get the gist! Research must be done to ensure your running traffic on the correct platform. It may sound basic, but it really is the FIRST step to running successful traffic campaigns.
We like to shop first at the big “traffic stores”…
There are
hundreds thousands of traffic sources to choose from but we like to stick to the big stores because…
- There is big volume and the ability to scale
- The ad interfaces are easier to use
- The targeting is (usually) better
Here’s a matrix of the big traffic sources and when to consider using them…
We have resources on using most of these big “traffic stores” for you on our blog…
YouTube
- The 4-Step Slam Dunk Process That Generated 140,000 FREE Leads From YouTube
- Which YouTube Ad Type is Right for You?
- How to Use Facebook Advertising Pixels to Create High Converting Ad Campaigns
- 7 Lessons Learned from 567 Facebook Ad Campaigns in One Year
- 7 AdWords Tips Google Doesn’t Want You to Know About
- Reach 90% of Internet Users Worldwide (And 10 more reasons to buy traffic from Google AdWords)
Dedicated Email Drops
It’s the BIGGEST issue we find when traffic campaigns fail… running traffic on a platform where your market isn’t present.
We might shop at the big “traffic stores” first but we’re always experimenting with smaller, niche traffic platorms. So, if a traffic source doesn’t seem conventional, or it’s not what the industry is talking about at the moment – that’s OK!
Test it out.
The important thing is that you find your market online.
Have questions? Just getting started? Let’s talk about it in the comments section.
(Don’t forget to download all of our free resources! Click here to get the Digital Marketing tool box.)
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