Fancy putting a film on your website?

When it comes to marketing, video can be a great way to get your personality and business offering over to potential customers – but you must do it properly, otherwise you risk frightening them off! Think carefully about what you want the video to do for your business: it might be a “how to” video; it might be entertaining; it might be purely informative – either way remember it has to add value to your offering. Finally, don’t forget that YouTube is a great way of hosting your video – and might get you in front of a whole new audience at the same time!

Does your landing page do you justice?

Your landing page is the first page your visitors see when they come to your site from adverts, Google, your promotional documentation etc. The ideal is to have mind-reading landing pages that fit your customers needs so perfectly they’ll think you’re psychic! Although this is not always entirely possible, this should be your aim. If you’ve paid for an ad promising “red shoes”, don’t give your customers a landing page with "black handbags" otherwise you’ve thrown your hard earned advertising budget down the drain! Make sure your landing page delivers what it "says on the tin"!

Offer your business as a franchise

Franchising can be a highly profitable way of growing your business (although not suited to all small businesses of course!). Franchising will allow you to get to markets that would otherwise be outside your financial capabilities. The secret with this option is really good advice (legal and financial); a mind-blowing offering and top notch promotion. None of this comes cheap, or easily, but is well worth the effort if you get it right. The winning formula is to be a great leader with a vision strong enough to be passed on to others.

What about pay-per-click advertising?

Pay-per-click advertising is arguably the most revolutionary and powerful marketing tool of all time. Nowhere else can you take out an ad and only pay if someone takes a closer look! Pay-per-click allows you to target your ads, test new concepts and control your budget in ways that’ll leave you speechless. That said, it’s also a great way to throw away a ton of cash, if you don’t know what you’re doing! If you’re going to embark on a pay-per-click campaign, invest your time or invest in an expert; start small and test, test, test.

Do you have a squeeze page?

A squeeze page is one web page which is used much like offline direct response marketing to help you develop a list. A good squeeze page will reassure the visitor that their details will not be abused and will make clear to them what they’ll get in return. This page is pure sales: it’s a teaser page, with your best success stories presented in their full glory, to entice people into your kingdom! A well designed and optimised squeeze page will give you prospects for a range of selling and cross-selling activities. The one thing to be sure of here is that you give what you’ve promised; otherwise you’ll be ignored by your contacts and penalised by the search-engines!