Top 5 Ways To Accidentally Become a Spammer
About the worst possible insult you can receive on the Internet is to be accused of being a spammer. Any other attack on your character doesn’t have the same staying power. Once someone thinks you’re a spammer, you’ll almost never get back on their good side. The road to spamville is one-way only.
Worst of all, it’s surprisingly easy to take steps toward becoming a spammer without even realizing it! Here are the top five ways (in my opinion, of course) that you might get accused of being a spammer without realizing it.
#5 – The Random Cause Invitation
Back in the early days of the web, seemingly everyone would forward you joke emails and urban legends. You would correct them via websites like Snopes or sigh as you deleted their messages, but in total we all knew that this behavior was downright annoying.
The reason that these messages were so frustrating is that that didn’t seem relevant. You expect your family to use email to coordinate reunions and your colleagues to discuss business, not to forward the latest Internet petition which was debunked years before.
Thankfully, the Bored-At-Work Network seems to have mostly moved on. But now are inboxes are filled with random cause invitations. We are asked to save puppies, protect the environment, or stand up for the rights of a particular group whose rights are lacking.
And again, all of these causes are sound, but they seem random. They invade our space. If you want to support a cause, pick one or two to send to your friends. Otherwise, you’ll seem like a spammer.
#4 – The Soft Opt-In
Time for a Marketing 101 refresher. Here’s a quick definition
Express permission by a customer, or a recipient of a mail, email, or other direct message to allow a marketer to send a merchandise, information, or more messages.
That means that if I give you the explicit authority to send me messages, you can do so. But what if we meet at a networking function and I give you my business card? That means you can contact me personally, but it doesn’t mean I want to be added to any lists.
Likewise, if we happen to be on the same Reply-All list, you don’t have my permission to Reply-All about some topic other than the one at hand.
Remember that opt-in means opt-in. Otherwise, you’ll seem like a spammer.
#3 – Abuse of carbon copy
The most dangerous weapon in your digital arsenal is the CC box. It’s like a whole box full of armed grenades: you want to be really careful about using just one and almost never want to use them all at the same time.
Remember the Brody PR Fiasco? Here’s the simple rule:
Only use carbon-copy if you are 100% sure that 100% of the people on the list know each other well AND would appreciate the chance to immediately Reply-All AND would immediately appreciate any Reply-Alls.
Every time I get a CC’d message where I don’t know people on the CC line, I think: you seem like a spammer.
#2 – Preemptive Disclaimers
Have you ever heard start a sentence with “No offense, but…” or “Don’t take this the wrong way?” You can be certain they are about to say something cruel. Either we need to tell the honest truth or keep our opinions to ourselves. It will ALWAYS seems patronizing to say: “Sorry for the SPAM, but…”
So–don’t do it! If you promise you are not usually a spammer, you seem like a spammer.
#1 – The generic private message
Here it is: the absolute worst way to look like a spammer. It’s when you send a message to an individual person that was intended just for them, but could just has easily have gone to anybody.
A great example is a Twitter direct message (DM) or a text message. Consider this:
Hey, would you mind telling your friends about our new website? It’s at http://www.example.org. Thanks!
This might well have been a personal, handcrafted message sent just to one person. However, it reads like it could have been sent to millions! If you send a note that appears to be generic through a private channel, you’ll look like a spammer. Compare this with:
Hey Robby, you gave us such great feedback when we were building our new site. It’s up now, feel free to share it if you want.
http://www.example.org/ Thx!
That doesn’t seem appear to be spam. Make sure your messages are specific, so you don’t look like a spammer!
This post was written by Robby Slaughter
Robby Slaughter has had a lifelong passion for information technology, spanning some twenty years of education, teaching, full-time employment and consulting. Robby is the Principal of Slaughter Development, a workflow and productivity consulting firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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11 Ways To Do More With Online Video
As a small business owner, using online video helps you to stand out. It allows you to attract new customers, gain additional rankings in the search engines, and to offer content in a more digestible format. You know this. But what are some ways you can get even move from video as a small business owner? Here are some online video techniques that are getting me excited right now.
1. Optimize Everything: The easiest way to get MORE from your online videos is to make sure you’re doing everything you can to make them findable by optimizing them for users and the search engines. When it comes to optimizing your video, you want to pay special attention to your Title, Description, Tags, and Captions/Annotations. The more keyword-rich and engaging you can make them, the better.
2. Test your Thumbnails: Once you upload your video, YouTube will allow you to pick from three video stills to use as that video’s thumbnail image. You may want to test what works best for you. Does a human face get more clicks than a slate of text? Does a smiling woman get more clicks than an image of your CEO (probably)? These are things you’ll want to experiment with to make sure picking the thumbnail that will lead to the most conversions.
3. Add Transcripts: A few weeks ago I offered some tips on how to add transcripts to your YouTube videos. This is a really easy way to increase the benefit you’re seeing from your videos by making them more findable and search-engine friendly.
4. End with a call to action: Make sure your video closes with some type of call to action. Someone sat there and watched your entire two minute video – now what do you want them to do? Include a call to action that encourages them to continue their interaction with your brand and gets them to DO something, whether it’s to visit your site, check out a blog post or even to share the video with their friends. If you’re not including a call to action at the end of your video, you’re missing out on a great marketing opportunity.
5. Make an offer: Want to increase views and comments on your video? Offer an incentive for customers to do so. Maybe there’s a free discount code in the video or something that will give them special access to your brand. Include an offer to incentivize the video.
6. Make it easy to share: Encourage people to share your video by including calls to action for them to do so, uploading it on Facebook and, of course, tweeting it! The new version of Twitter is designed to put media right in the forefront of the service. That means prime real estate for your video content.
7. Experiment with different platforms: While it’s the biggest, YouTube isn’t the only video game in town. Try uploading your video content to sites like Vimeo, Viddler, Blip.tv, iTunes and others to increase your audience and monopolize more room on the search engines results page. When you upload your content to both YouTube AND another platform, you can make them both rank for keyword-searches. Don’t have time to upload the same video to multiple sites? TubeMogul will do it for you at no cost.
8. Alter the content for each platform: Or, instead of uploading the same content to different platforms, tailor the content to the different audiences to increase conversion rates.
9. Put videos on high-conversion pages: Help increase sales by using online video on conversion pages. At last year’s Streaming Media West show, Zappos Content Team Senior Manager Ric Nasol talked about how Zappos was using video on product pages to help drive sales. And they seemed to have worked. Ric reported a sales impact of 6 to 30 percent.
10. Create playlists: If you’ve ever gotten stuck in an endless loop on YouTube watching one funny video after another, you know that video is addicting. Luckily, it’s also addicting for your customers. Help feel their addiction by creating playlists for them to watch and subscribe to. By going to your My Videos page and linking your videos, you help your customers kill their entire day watching content about your brand. Like potato chips, when it comes to online video, you can’t have just one.
11. Use the Insight: YouTube Insights is a free tool that allows video creators to see detailed statistics about the videos they upload to the site. You can see how often the videos are viewed, how popular they are relative to other videos, what the community engagement is like, how many subscribers you get daily, and lots of other important information. Just like with anything, knowing the numbers behind what you’re doing can help you to make smarter decisions down the road.
Those are my eleven tips for getting more out of YouTube. What’s working for you?
11 Ways To Do More With Online Video
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10 ways Dirty Data (Fuel) is Clogging up your Marketing Automation Engine – B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #290
As a marketer, I’ve known for a long time that the success of any program I run is more than 75% dependent on the list of contacts I send my program to. My creative, messaging, and delivery vehicle don’t matter if it doesn’t get to the right person.
It’s just a …
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3 Unique Ways to Gain Trust on Landing Pages
Reducing the amount of friction and anxiety on the mind of your landing page visitors is critical to convincing them in taking the action you want and converting on your offer. There are many factors that go into your audience’s decision to fill out the form which gives them the offer or not. Below are three different ways you can establish a greater sense of trust while working to eliminate any fears your visitors might have in giving up their information. 
1. Add Customer Testimonials
Short quotes from happy customers or partners can go a long way in easing the anxiety a visitor has before making the decision that your offer is valuable enough to warrant their information. A great place to put these testimonials is right below the form or underneath an image you have on the landing page.
Try and choose a testimonial that says something unique and relevant to the specific offer on that landing page. This will help the prospect relate to and visualize the experience they may have as a customer or for whatever offer they’re receiving.
2. Use Trust Symbols
In many cases your company may be a member of an exclusive organization that lends credibility. Some may be industry related or general such as the Better Business Bureau. If you’re a member of one these organizations or distinguished by some other criteria that can add credibility and authority to your business you should proudly display this on your landing pages. 
Use symbols or logos that represent the organization or affiliation you have in prominent areas on the landing page that draw the attention of your potential lead. This could be the difference between someone feeling comfortable enough to go through with their submission or abandoning the page.
3. Include Your Privacy Policy
Many visitors will want to explicitly know that you will not be distributing or sharing the information they provide you to receive your offer. The standard message under the email field “we will keep your email completely private” is sometimes not enough of an explanation for certain visitors.
Experiment with having a 1-2 sentence explanation of your privacy policy regarding the collection and use of their information. You might also link to your “Privacy Policy” inside the form (make sure this link opens in a new tab so they don’t leave the landing page). This allows them to get any questions they have answered and concerns addressed.
What are some ways that you establish trust and credibility on your landing pages?
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8 Ways to Optimize Your AdWords Campaign
You may have noticed that Google makes it easy to set up an AdWords campaign, but not so easy to get a return on your investment in pay-per-click. There are a lot of levers you can pull in your AdWords campaign to influence results. Here are eight ways to optimize your AdWords campaign for better ROI.
1. Know your target audience profile
Knowing your target audience, in the context of Google AdWords, goes beyond maintaining a list of demographic parameters that describe the identity of your customers. You also need to keep in mind one important question – how is my audience using Google? Trying to get a feel for their behavioral patterns and letting that behavior inform your selection and use of keywords will give your AdWords campaign an edge over your competition.
2. Speak the language of your audience, not your own
Keep in mind that your target audience may or may not use the same vocabulary that you do to describe what you sell. Your keywords should reflect the way they talk about your offerings, not the way you do.
3. Select primary and secondary keywords
Each keyword in your campaign has a cost that depends on how many others are bidding on it. Your primary keywords are directly related to your product/service. In case of highly competitive products, your primary keywords may prove to be quite expensive. It’s equally important to choose secondary keywords that are not directly related to your product. Secondary keywords widen your reach and can bring down your pay-per-click advertising costs if you choose less competitive segments.
4. Select smart site placements
Apart from bidding on keywords, AdWords also gives you access to a wide range of partner websites where your ad can appear. You can choose categories of websites that your target customers are most likely to visit. For example, if you sell digital cameras, you can advertise on photography sites or sites that target gadget-lovers.
5. Use long-tail keywords for high conversions at lower cost
Online users are gradually using longer key phrases rather than keywords. These longer phrases have lower search volume than common keywords. However, long-tail keywords increase your chances of clicks and conversions since they are very specific. For instance, “digital camera” is a generic keyword. A long tail alternative would be “best deal for Canon 1000D.” If you’re struggling to find relevant longer tail keywords, there are a number of free keyword tools that can help you discover profitable, traffic-driving terms.
6. Monitor conversions, not just clicks
While you pay for clicks, tracking overall conversions from each keyword can help you derive better value out of your campaign. This, however, requires good integration of Google Analytics and AdWords with your CRM and sales management system.
7. Optimize your ad copy
Just like headlines play an important role in a traditional media campaign, having highly contextual ad copy that’s closely related to the keyword being searched for plays a vital role in conversions. An ad for a broad term like “digital camera” might lead to information that would aid the purchase decision of the buyer. However, if the search term indicates intention to buy, the copy should be persuasive and lead the user to a landing page with an option to purchase.
8. Test your landing page designs
The key to continually increasing ROI from Internet marketing is testing. Beyond testing multiple versions of your ads, make sure to test variations on your landing pages. Google offers the Google Website Optimizer tool that can help you decide the best layout for your landing page. Decisions like where to place the “Buy Now” button and what color to make it may be aided by this tool.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
8 Ways to Optimize Your AdWords Campaign
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