Why you should be using Live Streaming Video

Streaming is everywhere. At work, I used Google Hangouts many times. I Skype a lot with my friends and family. Websites like Twitch that used to were made for small target audiences are booming like. I get it. Twitch.tv reaches over 23 million monthly people, of which 7.5 million (33%) are in the U.S. in one month, the site got 482 million global visits. Youtube today is the second most popular website in the world. Third most popular site, Facebook, is evolving in Youtube with an ad every 6-7 posts in people’s feed in Mobile. Periscope is gaining momentum. Rebekah Radice mentioned these statistics in her blog post:

• Online video viewing accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic.
• Video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines
• 90% of online shoppers said they find retailer videos helpful in making shopping and buying decisions.

How can you use that in your company?

1. Webinars. 60% of all marketers are using webinars. You should too. It’s simple with software like Adobe Connect or Webex. Over the years, I launched nearly a hundred of different webinars. Make sure that you have a really good camera, and sounds. Actually, the sound is more important than video. Practice before you do it. Bring in as much of value for your visitors as you can. Some are giving out ebooks, others are giving information that you can’t find anywhere else. Commit people to something. That’s the whole point of a webinar.
2. Interview. Ask for a really knowledgeable person in your company to give you an interview. Create a set of questions. According to Rosetta reference in Rebekah’s article: “Engaged consumers buy 90% more frequently, spend 60% more per transaction and are five times more likely to indicate it is the only brand they would purchase in the future. All of these factors lead to engaged customers delivering three times the value to the brand over the course of a year.” This is what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get engagement out of your visitors. An interview is a really easy way to create that engagement, especially if your guest is amazing.
3. Evangelists. Every tech company nowadays hire lots of Evangelists. They record their videos on TedX or Companie’s Summits. Then companies upload those videos to YouTube channels and pay to boost them. It’s simple, but drives a lot of engagement, and sales. Evangelists are far better at promoting your product than a recommendation or social media posts.

9 Lessons I learned about SEM in Stukent Simulation.

Stukent Simulation Lessons

In our business school of management, we use all sorts all tools that will help us in our business careers. I love simulations since in most of those I do really well. In our Digital Marketing class, our professor gave us a new simulation tool called Stukent. This tool allows us to safely and cheaply learn how to do SEM professionally. It is still new and it is evolving every single day, but I still love some of the features in that tool that can be applied to real Search Engine Marketing.

1. Use A/B Test in your SEM. It’s simple. For example, in WordPress, you can use plugins that let you do it. I use Nelio that is very user-friendly and allows you to test your ideas with your Audience. It is also free, which is really convenient. It will allow you to increase your CTR (Click-through rate) and your Conversion Rate fairly easy. It is especially vital for e-commerce sites, where every person matters. In Stukent Simulation, people that knew their audiences preference dominated. In real life, this knowledge might generate thousands of dollars.

2. High Margin is the key. Not that many people are not afraid of data, but it’s fairly simple. To improve your ROI (Return Of Investment), you need to make sure you’re bidding on the cheapest keywords that provide you with the maximum of impressions. Be as specific as you can be with your target audience. If you’re selling umbrella, find specific keywords that are used by people buying umbrellas. Then test it out. If it generates money – keep it. If it’s not – drop it. Always test keywords. Write your results in your database or an excel file. If a word generates 200% of profit, it’s good. If it generates 2000% of profit it is amazing. Those percentages will change every month, and those numbers depend on the industry, but you will never know what is effective and what is not unless you’ll try it. In real life, there are tools that will help you research keywords. For example, Ubersuggest.

3. The forecast is complex. It’s really easy to find cheap keywords that have a lot of interest in your target audience. But it’s really hard to understand how to predict potential sales. Use average monthly searches in Google Adwords related to that specific word. Use previous month amount. Use data available to your real store. Use previous year’s data. More importantly, use your common sense and don’t overspend on keyword all of your budgets and then get 0 sales at the end of a month just because people decided not to use that keyword in this month. Don’t routinely forecast. Be mindful.

4. How to make money on SEM. The key to high income is usually the most popular products that your competition. You’re not selling that product, but still want to make money on it? Bid on it. Lead people to your page. And then compare it to your product. And sell your product. It works. Don’t forget to optimize your Landing pages. Use proper tags in the header and meta tags with keywords you used in your ads. Don’t overuse words. Have 3-5 keywords in your landing page maximum.

5. Bid on the most important. Leave everything else to your competition. In the simulation, if you’re spending more than 20-30 cents per keyword than you’re not making money. You’re losing them. In the real world, you need to find that line that you shouldn’t cross. Bidding $20 on a keyword can be a good investment only if it will generate a lot of profit.

6. Use data. Analyze what you can improve. Look at insights of keywords to see what you can do to improve. Are you making all of your profits on a product that you don’t prominently advertise? Are you spending too much on that popular product that doesn’t actually generate profits? Are you showing your most profitable ad to 2000 out of 35,000 people potentially viewing your ad? Does your ad has low CTR, Conversion Rate, or no one is clicking it? Use data to understand what you can improve.

7. Your ads make money. Write your ads very carefully. There are lots of great articles on writing effective ads. Read the article on unbounce that I really like. Don’t forget to add value proposition and call to action to every ad you’re writing. Use keywords in the header.

8. Write unique ads for unique keywords. It takes time, but you will make more money by doing it. Group them together in Ad Groups to help yours with analytics.

9. Be creative. Try new things. Don’t spend too much on that but this is the only way to make money, and win in both simulation and real life.

3 tips that will improve your Landing Pages

Every person who tried to create sell on the internet tried to optimize his Landing Page. Today, I would love to discuss, what can you specifically do to create additional traffic to your relevant landing pages. How to optimize those, and increase your CTR and conversion and decrease your bounce rate.

First of, why even bother with Landing Pages? The answer is simple – to generate more revenue. It is not a secret that the more time you spend on them, the more revenue you generate. If you don’t believe me, read more in Social Media Examiner.

What can you do to improve your Landing Page:

1. Be consistent.

When you create your AdWords ads, or social media campaigns, make sure that they look similar to your site. Make sure that the color of your ads, logos, value propositions, and the main message is consistent with the landing page.   There’s nothing wrong with creating exciting ads, but if they look nothing like the page, it might scare off your potential clients.

2. Be clear.

Please, remove everything that is not leading to the main action on the page. Whether it is a sale, a download, a registration, make sure that you’ll remove all the clutter that leads them somewhere else. You’re not building a Wikipedia page. You’re building a site with a purpose. Get rid of everything that doesn’t have any meaning. Avoid adding additional redundant information, images, videos, graphic, quotes, or anything that doesn’t lead to your ultimate goal in your Landing Page. A famous Digital Guru from Moz, Rand Fishkin made a really compelling video on why it is vital for your site.

3. Use A/B testing.

There’s hardly any rules in Digital Marketing that works everywhere. A/B Test is actually a really good way to test how to remove clutter from your Landing Pages and stay consistent. It is also the best tool that can allow you to check how to be more efficient and sell more. It is the tool to increase conversion and decrease your bounce rate. Here’s a great tutorial on how to perform A/B test.

Below, is a great infographic that I love:

Source: http://www.marketing-mojo.com/infographic/landing-page-optimization-infographic/

 

About the Author

Let me introduce myself. My name is Nikolay. In a couple of months, I will move to San Jose, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. I’ll begin my career as a Management Consultant in PwC US, one of the largest professional services firms in the world, and one of the top 5 consulting firms in the World. I will work with mostly Technology clients, solving their most complex problems. A lot of my tasks will include Digital Marketing tasks.

Right now, I am an MBA student in one of the Top 30 programs in the Nation, in Marriott Business School, in Provo, Utah. Previously, I worked in Digital Marketing field for 7+ years, owned a Web Design company, and loved it with all my heart.

My clients will include Fortune 500 clients. My plan is to post here the most useful and up to date information on Digital Marketing.