How to Use Podcasts in Your Online Marketing Strategy

Despite the increase in video streaming, podcasts remain a popular medium. This means that you should consider using podcasts in your online marketing strategy. You can use them to repurpose old blog articles or to build relationships with influencers in your industry.

What is a podcast? Basically, it’s just an audio file. The delivery method can vary, based on your needs. For example, you can add podcasts to your website, link to them from relevant blog posts, or upload them to various podcast streaming services.

The use of podcasts helps with brand exposure and is a highly cost-effective way to increase your overall marketing strategy. Find out how to incorporate podcasts into your existing marketing efforts.

Invite Guests to Discuss Relevant Topics

The first example of using podcasts for marketing is to invite guests to talk about a topic relevant to your industry. This method is most effective when your guest is an influencer. This is someone that has a good reputation in your industry and a lot of followers.

By using podcasts to interview a guest, you can attract their audience to learn more about your brand. This also helps you build relationships with people that matter in your field. You’ve taken the first step toward building a relationship that could lead to further cross-marketing opportunities.

How do you record the interview? Typically, all you need to do is record a phone conversation. It’s just that simple. This is part of the reason that podcasts are so beneficial. They’re quick, easy, and affordable.

Repurpose Your Existing Blog Content

Another option is to repurpose your existing blog content. If you’ve got old posts that don’t attract any more visitors, you can convert the post into a podcast.

Use the blog article as the topic for your podcast. Don’t simply read the article word for word. Use it as a guide. This makes it easy to find topics for your podcasts and continue to release new podcasts on a regular basis.

Create Informative Content and Tutorials

You can also use podcasts to provide your audience with informative content. Podcasts should generally be kept to 15 minutes or less. This gives you plenty of time to offer tips and suggestions on a particular topic. This is the same as generating blog articles for your target audience.

You can even perform the reverse of the previous tip. You can easily convert your old podcasts into original blog articles. Transcribe your podcast and then edit it into an article for posting on your blog.

Continue to Release New Podcasts

As with any marketing strategy, consistency is key. You’ll want to create a schedule for releasing new podcasts. This helps you gain a loyal following. During your first couple of months of posting podcasts, you should try to publish new podcasts several times per week.

The podcast also requires many of the same SEO strategies as other content. This includes catchy titles and descriptions. This is how you get people to discover your podcasts on podcast directories.

You can also share your podcasts on social media and promote them to your email subscribers. Basically, it’s one more marketing channel for you to use to gain new followers.

Podcasts shouldn’t be overlooked as a marketing channel. One recent survey found that over 46 million Americans listen to podcasts each month. Don’t miss out on this chance to gain new followers or potential customers.

Incorporate podcasts into your existing marketing strategy. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing solutions, along with a method for generating conversion-ready internet marketing prospects, all you need to do is click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

How to Properly Use Hashtags for Social Media Marketing

Hashtags are useful for helping people discover your social media posts. Twitter was one of the first social networking sites to make good use of hashtags. But, they’re now an important part of all social networking sites, including Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.

While hashtags are useful, they can also have a negative impact on your marketing efforts. You need to be careful with how you use hashtags in your posts. So, with that in mind, you should learn how to properly use hashtags for social media marketing.

The Basics of Hashtags for Social Media

First, let’s make sure you understand what a hashtag is and isn’t. You can think of hashtags as keywords. That’s a hashtag in a nutshell. It’s a keyword or keyword phrase without any spaces and it includes the pound sign at the beginning of the phrase.

The reason that you should use hashtags is that they’re used by social media search engines. When a user performs a search, the site finds relevant posts based on hashtags. And, hashtags are now used by almost every major social media site, including:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Google Plus
• Pinterest
• Tumblr
• Flickr

So, you know the basics. Next, find out how to properly include hashtags in your posts.

The Correct Way to Use Hashtags

If you can remember what hashtags are used for, it should be easy to use them properly. Here’s a quick look at the correct use of hashtags:

• Use up to 3 hashtags per post
• Make sure they’re relevant to your post
• Use local terms to increase local marketing

Generally, you’ll only use 2 or 3 hashtags per post. Adding too many hashtags shows that your posts don’t have a clear focus. Instagram is an exception to this rule. For example, Instagram posts with the highest engagement typically have 4 or 5 hashtags.

When choosing hashtags, make sure that they’re relevant to your post. Don’t include a hashtag simply because you think it’ll attract more users. You can take a look at trending hashtags to find examples, but don’t add them to your post unless they actually make sense in your post.

You can also use local terms to help increase local marketing. For example, when posting about an event, you can include the name of the city where the event will take place. The same applies to posts about local businesses.

The Incorrect Way to Use Hashtags

It’ll also help to learn the incorrect way to use hashtags. These are methods that you should avoid:

• Using too many hashtags
• Including hashtags in your message
• Using the same hashtags every time

Remember, don’t use too many hashtags. Unless you’re using Instagram, you should only use up to 3 hashtags. Otherwise, they’re no longer helpful.

Also, don’t include hashtags in your message. Don’t use them to replace words. This makes it hard to read your message. For example, you wouldn’t say, “check out our latest #SEO #service.” Place them at the end of the message.

The final tip is to avoid using the same hashtags every time. Mix it up. Using the same hashtags will only help you continue to attract the same people. Do you use the same keywords on every single page of your website? No. So, use a variety of relevant hashtags to appeal to more people.

As long as you follow these tips, hashtags should help you gain more followers and improve your social media marketing. In addition to these tips, if you’d like even more marketing suggestions, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready marketing prospects each month, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

5 Social Media Advertising Techniques to Adopt

Online advertising spending has surpassed spending on television advertising. While PPC advertising is a big chunk of this spending, social media advertising is becoming just as important.

If you’re not already using social media ads to gain new followers or more prospects, then there are a few techniques that you should adopt.

Use Ads to Highlight Non-Sales Efforts

You don’t need to use social media ads to direct users to your various landing pages. There’s more that you can do, such as highlighting non-sales efforts. For example, you can use ads to let consumers know about your charitable efforts or upcoming events.

Many of the biggest corporations employ this method, but it can be just as effective for your own personal brand. You’re able to highlight details that allow people to connect with your brand on a personable level.

Use Ads to Encourage Participation

Another option is to use ads to encourage participation. You could use this to learn more about your target market. Learn more about their interests by using an ad to direct visitors to an online poll or survey.

One option that’s been used quite effectively by various brands lately is to simply ask a question in your ad and direct users to comment on a specific post. This spurs conversation, all of which revolves around your brand, helping you gain new followers.

Use Sponsored Posts to Gain New Followers

Most social media networks have their own form of sponsored posts. These are essentially paid ads, in the form of a social media post. This lets you instantly reach more social media users, increasing your chances of gaining followers.

Sponsored posts can be combined with the other techniques. You can use sponsored posts for your online polls or highlight your achievements. The idea is to gain more attention than you might with other forms of paid advertisements. 

Use Targeted Social Media Advertisements

With any social media ad, you can target specific regions, areas, or demographics. Use this to narrow down the focus of some of your advertisements. Consider a form of niche marketing.

When you target a smaller market, you’re likely to face less competition. You can also alter your ads for different regions. This easiest with Facebook targeted ads.

Facebook provides numerous options for targeted ads. For example, you can target Facebook users that have a specific interest or hobby. You can also target users based on their age range or geographic location.

When using Facebook ads, another option is to exclude visitors to your website. If you decide that you want to focus solely on people that haven’t visited your site or know about your brand, this is a great option. You can even alter this to include retargeting.

With retargeting, you’ve got the option to only display ads to users that have previously visited your website. You can even set the time since they last visited your site. This helps increase overall engagement.

Use a Combination of Marketing and Ads

You can’t just rely on paid ads. You also need to stick to your existing marketing strategy. Continue to post on a regular basis. Don’t count your sponsored ads or paid ads as another post on your regular schedule.

You want to continue growing followers and engaging with your audience. Use paid ads as a supplemental technique to boost your social media presence. All of this is geared towards increasing your overall online presence and helping you grow your brand.

Start thinking outside the box. Don’t just use social media ads to direct visitors to a landing page. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing solutions, along with a program for getting conversion-ready internet marketing prospects each month, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Easy Solutions to Help Boost Your Email Open Rates

If you use email marketing, then you understand the importance of email open rates. Only a portion of the people that you send emails to will actually open the email.

This is why you need to grab their attention with the subject line. Unfortunately, creating an effective subject line isn’t always easy. People get a lot of emails and don’t have time to read everything that comes through their inbox.

You don’t need to rethink your entire email marketing strategy. With a little bit of tweaking, you can learn how to improve your email open rates.

Your Subject Line Needs to Be Short

Your subject line should contain no more than 8 words. If the subject line is too long, it’ll take too long to read, which will result in lower open rates.

Keeping the subject line short also forces you to strip away unnecessary words. You’re forced to create a clear, direct message with your subject line.

Leave the Recipient Wanting More

While you should be direct with your subject line, you also don’t want to give everything away. The email recipient should want to read more. Leave a little bit of mystery to the subject.

For example, you might state, “Your best online marketing tips are ready.”

With this subject line, the reader knows that the email will contain marketing tips or a link to tips. But, they don’t know much else. This is easy to do. Typically, you just need to cut your headline in half.

A full headline might’ve read, “Discover the best online marketing tips for increasing conversion rates.”

By removing the last half of the headline, and personalizing the beginning, you’re left with a short, effective subject line.

Use Alliteration in Your Subject Lines

Alliteration is the repeated occurrence of the same letter. It makes headlines, titles, and subject lines stand out. They’re more fun to read and more likely to result in an opened email.

Using the previous example, “More marketing tips to help you make money.”

The repetition of the same letter draws your eye to the subject line. When you’re scrolling through multiple emails in your inbox, this small difference can have a big impact on whether or not you open an email.

Use Second-Person Narrative

You should craft your subject lines using second-person narrative. The words that you’re reading right now are written in the second person. This is the use of “you” and “your” in your subject line and copy.

Second-person narrative is a little more personable than third-person, where there is no pronoun. Look at the following two examples:

• Your best online marketing tips are ready
• The best online marketing tips are ready

The second example doesn’t have the same impact as the first one. It doesn’t make any connection to the reader.

Basically, you need to include “you” somewhere in your subject line.

Always Test Multiple Subject Lines

You should always test two separate subject lines when you send out a round of emails. A/B split testing allows you to compare two variations of the same email. You can look at the results and easily see which subject line worked best.

Every time you check these results, make a note of the difference between the two subject lines. This will help you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Crafting effective subject lines requires practice. You won’t always get the results that you want. Remember to test multiple subject lines, keep them short, and speak to your reader.

In addition to these ideas, you can find even more online marketing tips, and a way to generate conversion-ready prospects each month, by clicking here to learn about my done-for-you system.

5 Ways to Find Content to Share on Social Media

If you want to succeed with internet marketing, you need to make the most of the social media landscape. This means attracting more followers with the help of shared content.

Curated content, or found content, should comprise the majority of your social media posts. The profiles that only put out promotional posts never gain traction.

At the same time, you should try to post at least once per day, during the weekdays. This means that you need at least 5 posts per week. It can be hard to find enough relevant content to keep up this schedule, especially if you choose to post several times per day.

But, there are ways to find content and simplify this process.

#1 Search for Content on Twitter

The first place to look for content is Twitter. Simply scrolling through your Twitter feed and seeing what people have shared recently could give you a few ideas. You might find at least one article that you could share with your followers.

When you do find an article worth sharing, visit the actual article and retweet the initial tweet. Then, share the article with your other social media profiles, such as Facebook or Instagram.

#2 Personalize Your News Feed

The next solution for finding content is to personalize your news feed. Google and other news aggregators make it easy to add categories for specific terms. You can include a category for your niche market.

For example, if you’re involved in internet marketing, you can add an “internet marketing” category in your news feed. The news aggregator should then grab the latest news headlines related to internet marketing each day.

#3 Search a Sub-Reddit for Content

Reddit is a great source of content. There is a subreddit for everything. Find the subreddit related to your niche and scroll through the latest entries.

#4 Check Facebook for Content

Of course, Facebook is also a good place to look for content. It’s the most used social media network, with over a billion users.

Look for unconventional sources of news and content. Don’t rely on the businesses and brands that you follow. There’s a good chance that some of your followers will follow these same accounts. You don’t want to just repeat the same content to the same people.

You can use the search feature on Facebook to browse niche categories. If possible, look for content hosted on a website, instead of an individual Facebook post. Then, visit the link and share the article from the original source.

#5 Use Buzzsumo to Search for Trending Topics

The final solution for finding content is to use Buzzsumo. You can test it out for free, but it requires a monthly fee after 14 days. Though, you’ll have quick access to the most shared content related to any topic.

All you need to do is enter a keyword or topic in the search bar. Buzzsumo will present you with a list of search results. They are listed in order of total shares. But, you can adjust the search criteria to fit your needs. You can limit the results to posts within the past day, past month, or longer.

The bottom line is that you need content to share with your followers. You can’t just rely on your own content unless you have the time or money to generate new content on a daily basis. Use these solutions to quickly find content and stick to your social media posting schedule.

Make social media a priority, if you want to grow your sales potential. For even more marketing tips to help you succeed, along with a proven system for generating conversion-ready traffic each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

How to Monetize Your Site and Increase Your Influence Using Sponsored Posts

Several years ago, if you could receive thousands of visitors each month, you could make decent money thanks to your on-page ads. But, people have become blind to the ads.

It’s more difficult to monetize a site with the use of advertising. So, it’s time to start looking at alternative ways to make money from your internet traffic.

At the same time, adopting a new approach for monetization can help increase the user experience provided by your website and your overall influence.

The approach that you should think about using is the use of sponsored posts.

What are Sponsored Posts?

Sponsored posts are blog articles that businesses pay you to publish on your website. This includes articles that you write or that they submit. They can also cover any format, including reviews, informative posts, and videos.

The main idea is that these posts help the business obtain backlinks and increase their online presence. Meanwhile, you benefit by getting paid to add more content to your site.

But, in order to get paid for these posts, you first need to find businesses that are willing to pay for this service.

Finding Businesses That Need Sponsored Posts

Reach out to businesses related to your niche market. Send them an email with your pitch. You should mention that you’re opening up the chance for businesses to have their articles published on your website. Include the fee that you charge for publication.

Obviously, some businesses will turn you down. Though, as with anything, you’ll get a few bites.

Once you start publishing these sponsored posts, you’ll be able to track the stats related to each published post. Keep track of the number of visitors that the article receives and the number of social media shares that it gets.

You can then use these details in future pitches to other businesses. Basically, the more of these posts you publish, the easier it will become to find new businesses.

 Make Sure That the Sponsored Posts Match Your Brand

You shouldn’t publish any posts that don’t correlate with the brand image that you’re trying to promote. While you can disclose that you don’t necessarily agree with the views or opinions of the author, you’re publishing their post on your website.

So, any negative response that the post receives will also be directed to your website.

When you start publishing sponsored posts, you’ll need to create a standard agreement for your customer to sign. This should include a stipulation that all articles must receive final approval before publishing and that you can choose to deny and refund any post that you don’t want to publish.

Don’t Forget to Continue Releasing Your Own Content

You can’t fill your website with sponsored content. After a while, your regular readers will stop showing up. You should use this sponsored content as a source of additional income and supplement your own content.

Using a calendar can help you avoid publishing too many sponsored posts. For example, if you stick to a blogging schedule of one new blog each week, you could take on one sponsored post each month.

Sticking to around 75% original content and 25% sponsored content should be sufficient to keep your readers happy.

If you’re careful with the use of sponsored posts, this can also help increase your influence. Your site can become a go-to source of beneficial information related to your niche. You just need to be a little selective with the quality of the content that you publish.

Sponsored posts provide a simple alternative to ad placement for monetizing your site. If you’d like even more marketing tips and suggestions and a way to generate high-converting traffic, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

5 Ways to Personalize Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Using a personalized approach to your marketing strategy can help increase conversions and boost customer retention. Though, this isn’t always easy. You need to consider every stage of your sales funnel, from emails to landing pages.

We’ll cover each of these areas and show you how to personalize your digital marketing strategy.

Create a Buyer Persona

The first step is to create a buyer persona. You want to start the personalization before you even capture your customer’s name and information. This is done with a buyer persona, which is basically an outline of your typical customer.

The information used in a buyer persona includes age, location, income level, occupation, interests, hobbies, and any other details that you want to include. You can get as detailed as you want. The main idea is to create an image in your head of the type of customer that you want to attract.

You’ll use this buyer persona throughout marketing campaign. You can even create multiple personas, each with their own campaign.

Customize Your Landing Pages

Once you’ve created your buyer personas, you can begin incorporating this into your landing pages and other marketing material. Basically, whenever you create content, imagine that you are speaking directly to the buyer persona that you created.

You’ll be surprised by how effective this step is. It helps you stick to your main point and address issues that your buyer cares about. Overall, this helps increase your conversion rates, after a visitor lands on a landing page.

So, starting with the title of your landing page, think about what it takes to grab the attention of the buyer that you created. What is the main problem that they face that your product or service addresses? Come up with a catchy title that directly speaks to this fear or issue.

This same practice can be applied to all your marketing content. In addition to landing pages, you’ll use your buyer persona when creating targeted ads, social media posts, and blog articles.

Create Personalized Email Campaigns

The next step uses real personalization. Here’s where you’ll actually use your potential customer’s name in the content. Using an email marketing program or software, you can easily set the campaign to automatically insert the subscriber’s name into the email or subject line.

In addition to inserting their name into the email, remember to write the body of the email while focusing on your buyer persona.

Also, you can use this opportunity to provide product or service recommendations based on their past purchases or the pages that they’ve visited. The recommendations provide a simple solution for personalizing your marketing efforts.

Use Location-Based Advertising and Marketing

By tracking the physical location of your visitors, you can direct them to pages or content that’s geared towards a specific market.

For example, visitors from Maine may not have the exact same interests as visitors from Florida. You could use to offer different products or simply incorporate different manner of speech that appeals to a specific region.

Use Personalized Surveys to Learn More

The final step is to use personalized surveys to learn more about the interests of your customers. This offers two major benefits. These surveys help build trust with your customers, due to the fact that you’re showing them that you care about their interests and needs.

In addition to building trust, it also provides you with valuable insight. You’ll be able to learn more about their specific needs and desires, which can be used to enhance your marketing content or revise your buyer personas.

Personalizing your digital marketing strategy can be difficult, but it is definitely beneficial. It’s an extra step with major rewards. If you’d like to have access to more powerful marketing tips and suggestions, as well as a way to gain conversion-ready internet marketing prospects each month, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.