How to Get Your Business Noticed On a Small Budget

Getting your business noticed in a world of heavy competition is actually easier now than it has ever been in history. Everyone, whether you’re a business owner, a professional, or just a regular citizen, we have the ability to create our own broadcasting channel.

One word says it all: CONTENT. Creating useful content your potential and existing customers will appreciate is it direct route to breaking through the noise, getting noticed, and creating an audience.

Information Marketing for Small Business

Did you ever think you would be in the information marketing business? Probably not. But read on!

Content comes in many forms.

My best suggestion is to look at your website as an information delivery system, not just an online ad where in inform and educate your potential customers.

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You may be thinking, “How can I create content for my website? Why would anyone care about my content?” Here’s my response: Whatever you make, do, or sell in your business, whatever services you provide, there are people out there looking for it online. First, they’re looking for information about it. By providing information, you become visible (they land on your website). By providing helpful information, they begin to trust you. By being genuine and not delivering a sales commercial, they begin to trust you.

Create a web page or a blog post (like an article) about every product or service you make or sell. Describe it, in every detail. Describe the type of customer’s who buy it or use it. Describe the features and benefits.

Not only will this help the customers to understand what you’re doing and selling in your business, it’ll also tell the search engines (this is a natural search engine optimization process) so your business will become more visible when someone is looking for a business like yours.

Need help brainstorming content ideas? Ask Andrew

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The more you imitate real-world media, the more your content will be seen. Think about TV shows and radio shows. They are consistent. There are weekly shows and daily shows. They are aired consistently on a schedule.

In the Information Age, even small businesses can leverage information to make acquire new customers and make more sales. 

Getting noticed means creating useful material on a regular basis. Some businesses will do this. Some won’t. The ones who do will benefit.

Aside from written content, I also recommend video. Video is as simple as looking into your webcam and talking. There’s no need for high-tech equipment. You can always move up into better quality equipment later but cheap equipment today provides very acceptable quality.

I started creating demonstration videos for products I sell in my wholesale business in 2011. In that time, my videos have accumulated more than 1 million views. Considering some videos go viral and can get a million or more views in a week, 1 million plays in 7 years seems like nothing. BUT, these videos have resulted in helping me sell hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product and driving tons of traffic to my website (Mazerwholesale.com). My point is, all content has the potential of getting you new customers and real sales…so it matters.

Your FREE Channel on YouTube

A YouTube channel is free. Uploading videos to YouTube is free. People love to consume information on video. YouTube is the second biggest search engine right behind Google. If your videos include information that people want to know about, your videos will be viewed. If you do a good job with your video then people will visit your website.

Your videos and your blog posts make terrific social media posts. Now you have a blog post with a corresponding video and then you use social media to syndicate that content. The best time to start blogging and creating videos was about 15 years ago. The second best time is right now. There will never be less competition than there is right now. My best suggestion and what I do every just about every day is write down ideas for new content.

Every time I read something in a book or an article or listen to it a podcast that I think is share worthy, I write it in my notebook for later consideration to share with my audience. It’s as simple as that. You don’t have to have 100% unique thoughts or ideas.

Be real, be yourself, and deliver information you would want to have delivered to you. Be valuable and people will pay attention. This is how you get noticed in a world of competition. This is how you become a thought leader. This is how you get to be known, liked, and trusted in the marketplace.

You will of course need to make your content interesting and useful. Written, audio or video content is not about making a commercial message for your business, but rather it’s about value. Providing good, useful information is the only content you ever want to post online.

Need help with content marketing plans and ideas? Let’s talk. Start here. Ask Andrew.

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Online Marketing Tools and Tips

In this post I’m going to describe 4 tools that I use frequently to help me create content for my website. These actually capture my voice, video, and create written content all at the same time. Talking to the camera to describe or demonstrate products and services is a great way to reach potential customers and establish trust and expertise. It adds excellent website content at the same time.

Make sure you read the blog post below because it contains some extra content not included in the video.

Tips for Making Online Video Tutorials

I do a lot of video tutorials to talk about my products and services and also to give helpful information as I’m doing right now.

The video-capture software I use when I’m at my desk and talking into the webcam is called Zoom.  You can check it out at Zoom.us. It’s GREAT and it’s free! (I imagine there are some extra bells and whistles you can pay for if you need them but so far, I’ve been loving the free version.) With Zoom, you can hold online group meetings or do what I do and simply capture myself speaking to my webcam.

Good Webcam Recommendation

Speaking of webcams I have an external webcam which I use called Logitech HD 720P. It works very well and even though I have a special lighting available, I don’t even use it because this webcam along with the natural lighting in my office, I fell, is sufficient. It’s only in the $30-$40 range and it’s better than the one that’s built into my laptop. It also has a very decent microphone.

Good Microphone Recommendation

Although my webcam has a decent microphone, I already have a high-quality external microphone to recommend, and that’s my next tool to talk about. It’s called the Blue Yeti. The Blue Yeti is a high quality desk top microphone which I learned about from studying other online marketing experts. It costs between $120-$150. It does make a significant difference when you have good quality audio to accompany your video.

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of amateur  videos on YouTube (most are, and that’s fine, so are mine) and sometimes the audio is awful and it’s terribly distracting. Audio quality is super important  in video so if you’re going to use it to talk about your products and services as I do, decent audio quality is really important.

You don’t have to invest a lot of money to produce some really good quality information and deliver it with class online.

Free Voice to Text Technology

And the next tooltip I have for you is Voice-To-Text and it’s how I  created the majority of this article. I just spoke into my Blue Yeti microphone while having a Google app called VoiceNote II Speech to Text.

Voice-to-text software used to be very expensive, but no more. This app is great. All you need to do is use Google Chrome web browser and it comes free with a bunch of other terrific apps. Just activate the app and start talking.

I plug in my high quality Blue Yeti microphone and I’m off to the races just talking to the mic on the topic of my choice and by the time I’m done I’ve got several hundred words worth of information. Then I copy and paste right into a blog post on my website.

Marketing With Video Demonstration

A productive and powerful online presence is much more than just a website and some social media posts. As I was creating some content for my wholesale website I decided this would be an ideal demonstration of incorporating several online marketing processes, all wrapped around the showcasing of a single item. This is how to leverage an “online presence” which includes my website but extends way beyond it. (See video below)

In this process I’m combining video with an entry on my wholesale website’s shopping cart, embedding the video onto the website and sharing the video across multiple channels online. All this with just a little over an hour invested. The video is shot on my iPhone which anyone can do. No special equipment is necessary. No real technical skills are required. Of course you need to know how to get into the back end of your website and learn a couple of processes and procedures which are easily learned and repeated anytime you want. The results are demonstrated.

In this video you will see how I’ve been using video for many years which to date have resulted in more than half a million video views which have been instrumental in helping me sell hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products.

How to Market Your Business, Products and Services Using Video

Demonstration videos like this can be used for showcasing any kind of product or service. It doesn’t matter if you are selling cheeseburgers or computer software, water purification systems or wood refinishing services, garage doors or garbage bags.

Video has a way of being seen by a specific audience which happens to be interested in the content of the video. This makes it highly targeted to a current or future prospect for your product or services.

You can poke around and find lots of my videos online. There is no fancy editing or production quality. There doesn’t need to be. In fact, my videos have a “reality factor” which transmits sincerity and evokes trust.

In my book The Business Owners Guide to Marketing Online, I talk about marketing a cheeseburger. If I were selling cheeseburgers I would make a video of the entire process of making some specialty and maybe a little crazy cheeseburger. It would be a beautiful and gloriously sloppy, greasy and otherwise mouthwateringly irresistible piece of work.

Sure, someone could take notes and duplicate the process at home to make their own, but there are people who would say, “Oh, I gotta try that.” Or they would say, “Hey, I like this guy. We gotta try that place!” It wouldn’t be a commercial for cheeseburgers at my restaurant it would be a video about a wild and wacky cheeseburger. I would post it on YouTube. I would post it on my website. I would share it on as many social media platforms as I could find and I would send out an email directing people to check out this glorious cheeseburger video. I would ask those people who are already on my email list and Facebook fans and friends to share it. This, my friends is called marketing a cheese burger joint. But maybe my place isn’t a cheese burger joint. Maybe my place is a diner and I sell all kinds of food. Then I would move on to another topic like some kind of interesting omelet. I would move on to a handful of dinner entrees. Then, salads and desserts.

How do you get more money for products than your competitors? By differentiating what you sell from what they can get in any other place. Could you sell a $20 salad? Why not? Just add lobster meat or filet mignon. How do you launch a unique dish, product or service? Many of us want to but we don’t even try because we don’t know how to get the word out about this new idea. Well, you’re learning how right here.

Marketing with video and on your website and on social media and by email is a fraction of the cost of traditional print media and you can get the word out fast if you have the understanding and control of your online marketing. You can test things, try things, and have fun with it. And it works.

Is it time for you to take control of your online marketing? Is it time for you to take control of your website so you can implement ideas the moment they enter your mind?

How to Sell Products and Services on Video

You may not know this but I sell products on the internet all day everyday…for the last 14 years +. Besides the “gurus” I learn from, I don’t know anyone who does it better than me. My videos have been viewed over 1 million times.

Watch as I Demonstrate How I Use Video for Marketing My Website and Products.

Creating Video for Marketing is Cheap & Easy. You Can Do It! This morning I made a video to demonstrate a product that I sell in my wholesale company. I decided to use it also as a demonstration for you to see how simple video with virtually no production quality can make an impact in getting my company visible online. The amazing thing about YouTube videos is they don’t need to be commercial quality. In fact the less commercial they are the better (in most situations).

The following video was shot on an iphone. It’s not about perfection…it’s about being authentic and providing valuable information or ideas.

To create a video and get it “out there” used to cost thousands…maybe tens of thousands of dollars. Today, we all walk around with the technology in our pockets. The cell phone is excellent way to capture video which can help you market yourself and your business. Posting it on YouTube is FREE.  You could be leveraging this “gift”. If you’re not, you should be.

I wouldn’t exactly say that I’m a YouTube sensation but my videos of accumulated have been viewed over 1 million times. Do you think this is help me sell some product? You bet it has. It’s made a magnificent difference in my business and my life.

How to Get Your Videos to be Viewed

“Build it and they will come” is a nice wish but it doesn’t work very well in the real word OR online. Even though it’s cheap & easy to create and post video on the web doesn’t mean anyone is going to see them.  I have made a study of it.  You can too.  Start by taking 4 minutes to watch this demonstration and learn from it.

This video will remain online indefinitely and serve me and my company for years to come. Print ads, TV commercials and billboards are like dust in the wind in comparison.

I know many people who have attempted online video to promote themselves and their business and have failed. As the great business philosopher, Jim Rohn teaches, there are about a half dozen things which make 80% of the difference.  In marketing with video, there are a few techniques which make the difference between your videos being seen, consumed, and valuable to your audience to the point where they will come closer to you and engage you in a business relationship.

Success in video is not a miracle nor is it a matter of getting a video to “go viral.”  Learning how to leverage the power of video has made a massive impact on my business and I had zero experience or skills in the field.

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Want to learn how to create videos which serve you and your business in perpetuity? Reach out. It can be a game-changer for you.

Andrew Mazer

http://www.mazermarketing.com  1-866-799-2825

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