Setting Up YouTube To Drive Traffic

We’re on again this Saturday! If you were tuning in last week to and didn’t hear us on Keeping Company With Starr Hall at KVEC 920am, (a great program by the way, Starr covered ways to teach your children entrepreneurial skills) you weren’t imagining things. Due to a schedule conflict, we weren’t able to be on that show but never fear – Starr is giving us double time this Saturday and we have a lot of good stuff planned to discuss!

We are going to delve deeper into how you set up your YouTube (and similar sites) account and what you MUST include to effectively use these sites in your SEO efforts. For those new to this internet marketing jargon, SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization which is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to your web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. In other words, not paid traffic that comes through AdWords or banner ads.

Why do we feel YouTube, and other sites like it, is so great? We’ve seen it work very well for our business. For example, if you do a Google search and type in “car detailing dvd”, our website selling our car detailing DVD doesn’t come up in the organic search on the first page. BUT our YouTube movie on car detailing shows up in the top 3 selections – along with a little image. Go to Google right now and try it, you’ll see I’m not pulling your leg. For people who click in and view it, they are then directed on how to get to our website. So needless to say, we get many visitors, and sales, from YouTube.

So for those tuning into the show via the web on Saturday, August 1, we are on Noon to 1pm (PST) on KVEC 920am. The link to listen live is http://920kvec.com/pages/1375370.php?.

We’re still working on getting the audio podcasts to our previous shows on our site and will let you know when they are available. By listening, not only would you get some great video information from us, Starr also covers a variety of topics to help you with your business! From computer in and outs thanks to Dean at Computer Techs to marketing, branding and social media, you will come away with great, up-to-date information and advice. She has some incredible guests on; in an upcoming show, John Assaraf (one of the contributors to the book The Secret) will be on. She also encourages listeners questions and we hope to get a good discussion going this week on using video in your business.

Thanks for listening! The show is from Noon to 1pm(PST) this Saturday, August 1 on KVEC 920am – http://920kvec.com/pages/1375370.php? to listen live on the internet.

How to Motivate People to Buy

by Brian Clark (http://www.copyblogger.com/author/Brian)

If you’re in business, someone’s got to buy something for you to make money.

At least last time I checked.

(Twitter, call me).

For the rest of you, this article should help you get more people to buy something.

Sick of Hearing that People Buy Because of Emotion?

Well then… that would be a strong emotional response to a logical assertion, no?

But I hear you. Over and over you’re told that people buy according to emotion, and it seems not to make sense when it comes down to selling your stuff.

Maybe that’s because you’re thinking about emotion in the context of feelings rather than motivation.

And that would definitely be confusing, because it’s not feelings you’re after. In fact, provoking feelings can kill the sale instead of prompting it.
Nothing More Than Feelings… (Fail)

Feelings are magnified, messy, and often misunderstood forms of emotion, and that makes playing with them potentially dangerous. What we’re trying to do is motivate people to do something very specific (buy)… not get them to weep, fly into a rage, or jump for joy.

This may be why so many people doubt that we make purchase decisions via emotion. We don’t always detect a strong feeling when we reach for our wallets, so we must be acting from a purely logical standpoint, right?

Not likely. You simply justify your existing desire to purchase with logic. You’ve already decided you want it. It’s still possible to talk yourself out of it, but the motivation to buy was put in place while your logical brain was making other plans.

In fact, any time we are motivated to do anything, emotion is pulling the strings. It’s just usually an emotional response lower than what we think of as a feeling, so we experience our motivations as mostly rational.

But it’s emotion that moves us to act. In fact, the Latin root for the word emotion mean “to move,” because emotions motivate what we do. Psychologists will tell you that motivations are fairly simple and straightforward, while feelings can be quite complicated (we even lie to ourselves about them).

So, when it comes to getting someone to buy, you’re definitely invoking emotion. But by understanding emotional response in terms of motivation rather than feelings, you’ll have a better idea on how to craft your copy.

More Than a Feeling: Motivation

So, again… the goal is not to get someone to necessarily feel. Your goal is to get someone to want, and to act on that want. If that seems like a subtle difference (since desire can often be a very tangible emotion), well at least now you accept that emotion is driving the train.

In terms of motivation, psychologists know that emotions result in one of three basic categories of responsive motivation:

Approach

When approach motivation kicks in, you want to experience or discover more of something. Approach motivation involves positive desire, and the perceived value of what you move toward always increases.

Approach motivation makes selling high quality desirable products easy, whether it be an iPhone or black granite kitchen countertops. But it can also be used to sell desirable outcomes, ranging from the Obama campaign for empowered change, to get rich quick and get skinny now products of dubious effectiveness.

Avoid

You want to play upon avoid motivation when your prospect wants to get away from something of low value. Avoid motivation deems something unworthy of attention, and an inconvenience or annoyance that should be ignored or eliminated.

People want to avoid paying too much on their electric bill more than any desire for features of the juice coming through the wires, unless you’re using alternative energy sources, in which case many will do business with you to avoid adverse environmental impact. Most charities play on avoidance emotions to lessen the impact of poverty, disease, and natural disasters. Rather than taking a beauty approach, Clearasil plays on motivations to avoid the stigma of acne.

Attack

With attack motivation, people want to devalue, insult, criticize, or destroy something. When someone is emotionally motivated to eliminate something (rather than simply avoid it), attack motivation is the way to go.

Think about ad campaigns for weed killer and bug spray (Raid kills bugs dead!). Likewise, we’ve seen more than our share of large-scale campaigns designed to eradicate various complicated problems by waging war against them – the war on crime, drugs, terror, etc.

What’s My Motivation?

Using the three basic categories of emotional motivation, you should be able to craft the right kind of story to get people to take action. The problem comes when you’re not clear which motivations you’re actually playing to.

For example, it’s rare that an attack against your competitor will work on the basis of attack motivation, but comparative advertising (Pepsi challenge, Mac Guy and PC guy) can work if you invoke enough approach motivation due to the expressed benefits and differentiation. On the other hand, negative political ads work on independents not by triggering attack motivation, but instead by prompting avoidance… the undecided voter doesn’t want to make the wrong choice.

Thinking in terms of motivation makes selling with emotion a little less mysterious. And spending the time to truly know who your prospects are makes motivation crystal clear.

Copyblogger was founded in January of 2006 by Brian Clark. Brian is a new media writer/producer, entrepreneur, and recovering attorney.

Have you subscribed yet?

Paychecks And The Rat Race

Paychecks And The Rat Race
March 24th, 2009
· by Steve Weber (http://stevesclassroom.com/blog/paychecks-and-the-rat-race/)

I talked to an old friend recently who is still in the same “rat race” I once was. She has all the burn-out symptoms I had toward the end. Looking back, I realize the biggest fear I had of leaving the “perceived” security of that monthly paycheck was actually promoted by the monthly payday itself.

Allow me to explain.

With the monthly paycheck, I was boxed into my life by its exact dollar amount. I knew that check was all my time was worth and all I would receive that month…no matter how hard I worked. Therefore, I gauged my monthly expenses as pieces of what I was worth. The very thing I feared most of losing turned out to be the biggest negative of the rat race itself.

Only those who have taken the leap can fully understand this.

When your worth is measured each month by a check someone gives you, it is all but impossible to see what your true potential is. Month after month you equate your worth to the check. You lose virtually all sight of what you truly have to offer the world as you gauge your potential by the check alone.

Once free of “the check”, you begin to see how minimal and unreliable the measure was with respect to your true worth in life.

Do not misunderstand me. Where would our world be without the nurses, waitresses, teachers, and laborers who work for the check? The vast majority of them are happy and meant to be doing what they do.

However, for those of you who hear that discontented voice inside nagging that this may not be your correct place in life, take that as a sign and actually listen to the voice.

The life of an entrepreneur is not all peaches and cream. I cannot promise you that things will always go as planned. However, I can promise you this: The things you fear the most as an hourly or monthly employee are tied directly to your current situation. Once free of that bond, the opportunities to take full advantage of what you have to offer the world dissolve away the limiting mindsets the checks created.

For more great information from Steve on creating a home based internet business, go to http://stevesclassroom.com/

The Power Of The Testimonial

A few days ago I received a pleasant surprise in my email. Jay Michael, who manages the http://InTheViewFinder.blogspot.com blog, sent me a DM (for those of you not on Twitter yet that’s Twitter lingo for Direct Message). He informed me that he had written a post about my Make Money Selling Your Videos DVD.

What a pleasant surprise! I suspect Jay found my site via my video on YouTube and upon researching, I see he signed up on my mailing list for my newsletters and updates. Jay is a fellow Special Interest Video producer, and who, like me, sells his videos on the internet. He has produced a DVD series on Mastering Movie Edit Pro 14 Plus and a recent one on UFOs (a topic I find interesting).

Thanks, Jay! Things like that are golden. In marketing there is nothing more valuable than a totally unsolicited testimonial from a person who knows what he is speaking of, especially if it appears in print or, as in this case, on a professional blog. It is also nice to get connected with like-minded video professionals.

You can read the article here at http://InTheViewFinder.blogspot.com. Also for those of you on Twitter, give him a follow at http://Twitter.com/AspyRider.

I try to do the same thing for others when I find their products or services of particular value. Sometimes I wonder if they recognize the potential of using those testimonials in their future marketing efforts. Equally valuable, if not more so, are critical comments that they could use to improve their product, service or their image in the marketplace.

I hope you will be mindful of the power of both getting and giving testimonials. If you get positive comments from your customers, by all means ask their permission to use them and then take full advantage of them on your website, print materials, direct mail, blog… anyplace current and potential customers will see them.

There are many ways to collect testimonials. I have a very popular guestbook on one of my sites where people write glowing reviews of my father’s book, A Land Remembered, which I sell on that site. You can see it here: http://patricksmithonline.com/guestbook.html This page is one of the most popular pages on the site because people like to read what others have said.

Another way is simply to ask for a testimonial. Don’t be shy about asking satisfied customers to give you a few sentences about why they like your product. I find that most people are flattered when you ask them.

You should also have a contact form on your website where people can easily send comments or ask questions. This also serves to let them know that you are reachable, not walled up inside corporate walls. People like to deal with people.

Now, here is a good example of walking the walk. If you have bought my DVDs, been to my website at http://howtosellyourvideos.com or read read other entries in this blog and found useful information, how about dropping me a testimonial to that effect. It doesn’t have to be a thesis – it can be as short as a sentence. You can even leave me a comment to that effect right here after you read this.

Thanks, and best wishes for your business.