Here at the Internet Business School, we know how important it is for new businesses to have their accounts in order. That’s why we’ve created our Fast and Easy Accountancy ONE DAY COURSE to help the self-employed master the sometimes-confusing world of finance and accounts. But what should you be considering before you even start crunching the numbers? Here are six ways you should be taking control of your finances.
1. Don’t underestimate your expenses.
When sitting down to work out how much running your own business will cost, make sure to think over everything you might end out paying out for. These don’t just include the cost of the computer you’re working at or the software you need. If you’re spending more time at home during the day, you need to take into account that you’ll be using more of your own utilities, such as water, electricity and gas. You may be spending more time working so have less time for childcare or laundry, which adds expenses like babysitters or dry-cleaning. Make sure to take these into account when budgeting for your business.
2. Manage your income
Your income may vary as your business grows often on a monthly basis. Make sure you work out your average monthly income and how much you can afford to spend. That way, when you have a more profitably month, you can put the extra amount into a savings fund to help deal with times a little more lean.
3. Keep accurate records.
Don’t lose valuable profits and connections due to having a disorganised desk. Complete all your paperwork on time and keep it filed away in an organised system. Send invoices and bills as promptly as possible to minimise the amount of time it’ll take you to get paid. Keep copies of all your receipt so you’ve got them on hand when you work out your tax. Also, after networking, make sure to keep all the business cards and contact information you receive. You never know when you might need to reach somebody!
4. Avoid credit cards!
Borrowing from a credit card can quickly end up as a slippery slope to financial trouble. If you need money to launch your business, many banks offer small business loans you can take that won’t leave you in dire straits. If you must use a credit card for business expenses, open an account specifically for that purpose and don’t use it for anything else!
5. Keep tabs on your taxes
Make sure to research all the taxes that could be placed on you and your business and at what threshold you will have to start paying them. Ignorance isn’t an excuse not to pay your taxes and you could end up in serious legal trouble if you don’t keep up with your payments!
6. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
There are many online resources that help the self-employed find their feet in the business world, especially when it comes to necessary, and sometimes very complicated, legal and financial matters.
Here at the Internet Business School we get asked often about how to set up as a self-employed person – and how to manage your accounts once the money comes rolling on.
So if you think you’re missing a certain skill or haven’t got the know-how to expand a certain area of your business, this is for you!
We created a ONE DAY Fast and Easy Accountancy COURSE to help you understand the secret language of accountancy so you don’t get taken for a ride by the jargon and buy services you don’t need.
AND: ADD COUPON CODE ‘FAST50’ at checkout to get £50 off.
In one day you will learn everything you need to know about managing the accounts for your business. From all the lingo surrounding finance to matching your business up against your competitors, you’ll learn everything you need to know about accounting and finance fast.
You’ll be receiving coaching by one of the leading experts in the business solutions industry. Our expert tutor Abdullah has helped over 70,000 individuals and businesses since he launched his own company in 1989.
An expert on everything accounting from start-up support through to business development and growth, he’s partnered up with the Internet Business School to help you get the results you need for your business.
Take Control Of Your Accounts & Financial Future Now.
Get The Training & Tools To Make Your HMRC Tax Return Quicker & Cheaper.
Here at the Internet Business School, we’re always looking for new ways to assist inspired entrepreneurs to start an online business. That’s why we create courses and tutorials to make every stage of creating an online business as easy as possible. We’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs discover there is nothing like the freedom of owning your own business. Running an online business gives you the freedom and flexibility to work when and where you want to, allowing you to make money around your personal lifestyle. Once you setup your online payment systems you can make money even whilst you sleep. So what do you need to start up a business? Well let’s start with the basics.
It goes without saying that you need a product. Once that product is selected, you should create a framework around it from which to structure your business. This includes registering the right URL for your business’ website.
To create content for your website, you’ll need to research what keywords and phrases will be best for advertising your product. This can be done through simply brainstorming what you think people will search for when they want your product.
Or you could use Google Adwords to see the most popular searches related to what you want to sell.
You’ll need to install WordPress to create your website and decide how you’re going to host it. Without a fully functioning website, you’re not going to get anywhere online!
On WordPress you’ll need to select a theme and install all the plugins you’ll need for all the functionality on your website. From SEO plugins to get your site higher up on relevant Google search rankings, to linking your website to any social media you create for your business, you need to set your site up with everything your business needs. You’ll need to create the all important sales page and payment gateway to start selling. A contact form to capture customer details is essential. Make sure to test all the site’s functionality.
Social media is essential for promoting businesses in this fast digital age. If you want your customers to see your business, it needs to be on social media. Create your business a Facebook page, Twitter account, even perhaps a Youtube and Instagram account so you can get creative with your advertising. Millions of people use social media every day. Promoting your business on social media enables you to reach this vast and ever-growing audience.
Once you’ve set everything up, you need your business to grow for increasing successes. Attract new customers and keep your existing customers returning by offering free downloads and following up purchases with emails. Using opt-in forms will help you capture customer information which you can then use to increase your sales further. After collecting enough customer data you can monetise it, sending out sales emails, producing sales funnels and bringing back customers again and again.
Does this seem like a lot of work? Worried that you might be overwhelmed? There’s no need to worry! You can complete all this in one day with our Rapid Implementation Workshops. Also called “Go Live in a Day” you can arrive at this workshop and leave with a fully assembled business.
Our expert coaches will guide you from start to finish, making this the easiest way to start your own business. This is an opportunity you’ll rarely find anywhere else. Most entrepreneurs have to go it alone, learning on the job and perhaps wasting precious time and money doing so. However you can start a cut above the rest with this workshop. To find out more visit www.internetbusinessschool.co.uk or go straight to information on the course by clicking here.
Here at the Internet Business School, we’re committed to make sure small business owners make the most of the latest internet marketing trends. With social media getting ever more influential in how people spend,we’ve made sure to create a range of courses, from how to advertise on social media to simple tutorials for everything from the basics onwards. Our Twitter tutorials have proved very popular over the last few months. However did you know there are other ways you can use Twitter other than simply tweeting your thoughts or chatting with people? Here are five alternative ways to use Twitter!
Useful Reminders
By drafting tweets you can also use Twitter as a notebook – leaving reminders for yourself for later. Twitter can also connect to many personal management or time management apps, enabling you to put reminders for yourself on Twitter, or using Twitter to put reminders on these apps. You can also have people tweet reminders at you if you need the help.
Quick News
If you want to check the latest news on the go, Twitter provides a great way to catch up on what’s going on through quick snippets of information. News broadcasters will often tweet the latest headlines, often updating with news as and when it happens. That means you can constantly be up to date with the significant events happening at the moment. Perfect for those who want to stay informed, or those particularly interested in a certain event that’s currently unfolding.
Finding a job.
When job opportunities come up, big companies will often post about their vacancies on Twitter, linking back to their recruitment pages. Recruitment agencies, local news pages, and temporary work agencies will also often post job listings on their Twitters. By following these you’re provided a live feed of new positions as and when they come up, making Twitter very useful for everyone from those seeking a first job to someone looking for a change in career
Getting Help
Large companies, especially those involved in technology related industries, often use Twitter as a form of Customer Support. You can tweet your tech troubles to them and get fast replies and solutions to whatever problem you are facing. Twitter is also used as a great way to answer customer queries about queries about online shopping such as delivery times, prices and postage.
Looking after People’s Health
Health services make the most of Twitter to deliver important information to their patients. From advice on what to do in extreme temperatures, to alerting them dangerous conditions such as a high pollen account or risk of asthma attacks, Twitter makes for a quick and easy alert system. Doctors’ Surgeries may use Twitter to inform patients of walk-in clinics and pop-up services. Twitter is also useful for passing out surveys to improve patient experiences and give feedback to health professionals.
Need to brush up on your Twitter skills? Why not try our Twitter tutorials and learn everything you need to know about to become a Twitter expert? From the very basics to how you can use Twitter to promote your business, we cover everything you need to know. To find out about our exciting range of social media courses, visit www.internetbusinessschool.co.uk. We look forward to seeing you!
Helping entrepreneurs and small businesses make the most out of their time has always been important to the Internet Business School. From the first steps of creating a business to promoting it through the latest internet marketing trends, the Internet Business School is here to make your online business as easy and stress-free as possible Today we’re here to recommend a great method for growing your business that’s we’ve used ourself – outsourcing! Over the years we’ve hired some expert freelancers to produce our content, resulting in the great successes we’ve had today. That’s why we’ve created our outsourcing course, so you can discover the benefits for yourself. But first, why should you be outsourcing in the first place?
Save Time
Finding the time to write content for your social media, website and other platforms may be difficult whilst running your business. By outsourcing your content creation, book-keeping, accountancy, you leave plenty of time to focus on the core part of your business. Managing your outsourcers takes significantly less time than completing the work yourself, or having one of your employees take time out of their work to complete it.
Save Money
Whilst time is often said to be money, there are other ways that outsourcing your content creation can save you money. When you outsource you can often ‘shop’ through a range of outsourcers and determine how to get the most skill for your money. We’ll touch on this below, but if you need to hire skills you don’t have in your business, out-sourcing individual tasks is far cheaper than hiring new employees.
Higher Quality of Work
Let’s face it, creating an enjoyable and creative piece of writing isn’t everyone’s strong point. If you feel your text is a little dry, or you don’t have it takes to entertain a particular audience, outsourcing to someone with the skills to do so will produce better copy overall. If you’re targeting a different generation that the one you occupy, consider outsourcing to someone of that generation who really understands what people of that age want to read. They will also have more time to work on your copy, compared to you doing it yourself and having to fit it around the rest of your work. This will overall create a higher quality of copy better aimed at the people you want to sell to.
No Need for Business Premises
The joy of outsourcing content and copy is that you can work from the comfort of your own home and so can your outsourcer. When you hire someone conventionally to do work for you, you’re legally required to have a business premises, which brings with it a whole host of costs from rent to bills to tea and coffee. With outsourcing, there’s no need for any of these additional costs, making content production, in comparison, simpler and stress-free.
Before you outsource it’s important to understand the basics of what you want from your outsourcer. If you want content for you website, you need to know what sort of content, on what topics. Not only does this allow you to give your outsourcer a brief on what to produce, but it also makes sure you are tailoring your content towards what your customers want to see. When you outsource your accounts, it’s important to know the basics of accountancy, just to make sure everything is going smoothly and accurately.
This may seem complicated, but it couldn’t be easier with the right tuition. Discover everything you need to know about managing your business’ accounts at our Fast and Easy Accountancy Course. Once you know the basics, you can outsource your accounting, making running your business a lot easier! Need to know more about outsourcing? We can help with that too. Visit www.internetbusinessschool.co.uk for everything you need to know along with our other great courses!
29th June – The Next Interpreneur One Day Workshop
The Very Best Internet Money Making Strategies Presented by Simon Coulson
Dream of making money online, but don’t know where to start? Want to increase your income without sacrificing your current hobbies and lifestyle? Well you would make a successful Interpreneur! Discover everything you need to know about making money over the internet in this jam-packed one day workshop. Everything is covered from coming up with your first idea to advertising it to the world and creating a new stream of income for yourself.
Want an easy no-nonsense approach to managing your business’ accounts? Look no further than our new fast and easy accountancy course. We’ll teach you all the skills necessary to develop your business, ensure success and help you profits soar.
29th July- Live in a Day – LAST FEW PLACES LEFT
Want to create your own business and launch it all in one day? With our live rapid implementation workshop you can do exactly that! You’ll go from zero to live with your own product just using your own laptop and the hands-on training of our expert Internet Marketing Instructor. You’ll get your own hosted site, WordPress training and a repeatable formula you can go on to use for as many business as you like. There’s 1:1 coaching during the day and afterwards too.
What are you waiting for? Visit our website to discover how to go live in a day! You can use Coupon code RAPID200 and get £200 discount!
Did you know you can outsource pretty much everything you need to start an online business? Everything except for your idea – that’s got to be yours. And overcoming fear. Only you can do that.
So let’s say you come to me, wanting to start an online business. You’re a blank slate, in that you don’t have a clue where to start or what to do. No worries, because someone who is a blank slate actually holds a tremendous advantage over someone who already thinks they know it all, when in fact they don’t really have a clue.
So you come to me and ask what you should do. And I stuff a pad of paper and a pen in your hand, and I tell you to go somewhere quiet and think. Because you’re going to brainstorm like you’ve never brainstormed before. You’re going to write down every idea you get. Good ones, bad ones, stupid ones – even the ones you KNOW for a FACT you cannot possibly pull off.
You’re going to write them all down.
“I want to teach a cooking course to people who currently can’t boil water.”
“I want to build an app that tells people where the vacant parking spots are in New York City.”
“I want to build a community gardening site for people who live in southern Florida.”
And so forth.
Be vague. Or get specific. Just brainstorm your heart out.
Speaking of which, watch for those items that feel especially near and dear to you, and put a little star by those. And then keep writing. You’re going to start your business on YOUR idea – not on what’s necessarily gone before or what other people are doing.
Lose all preconception of what will and what won’t work for now. That comes later. By generating your own business model without worrying about what anyone else is doing, you’re freeing yourself up from comparisons, crappy advice and self-doubts. Your business model can be anything you can imagine.
Naturally once you’ve narrowed your choices down to a handful, you’re going to do some research to make sure there is indeed a market for what you’re proposing. But I’m going to discourage you from spending a lot of time looking at any potential competitors. Ignore what they’re marketing, how they’re marketing it, how they’re advertising and so forth. Because that is where people learn to fear their own idea.
“This is already being done, so I’m too late!”
“This company is already doing a good job of covering this market, there’s no room for me.”
“Their idea is different from mine, so theirs must be the right one and mine must be wrong.”
And so forth.
Thus, you’re eliminating one type of fear that plagues all new marketers.
But there is a second fear you’ll need to overcome – the one that creeps up on you when your friends say, “What, YOU’RE going to start a business? HAHAHA!” Or maybe your friends are supportive, but you lack confidence. “What if people hate my product?” Yup. There’s a real heart stopper. And you cannot outsource overcoming those fears. So how do you deal with them?
For me, I just acknowledge them rather than fight them. Yes, I’m afraid. No, I’m not going to let it stop me. So Mr. Fear, you go sit in that chair over there while I work. And if you get bored, feel free to fly out the window. Believe it or not, this attitude works. When you stop letting fear take ahold of you, when you stop feeling like you’re trapped in its icy grip, when you just acknowledge it and do the work anyway, then fear tends to get real quiet. It takes a seat and watches for an opening. And if you don’t give it one, eventually it just leaves the way it came.
Ignore what’s going on around you. Put blinders on, manage your fear and above all else, stick to your idea
That awkward moment when you arrive second year in a row in that outfit that you haven’t bothered to update. It’s alright if no one remembers it but not quite as fun when your best friend – who has no issue expressing themselves out loud to everyone – reminds you that he/she remembers it well. That equally awkward moment when you have a favorite item of clothing that you think look great in but no one has worn hipsters since the early nineties.
You see, fashion is fleeting and if you don’t keep up with the times, you think you look quirky – while the audience unfortunately thinks that you are simply out of touch. Out dated. Not listening.
And there’s no difference between this concept and your presence online. One of the major problems I have come across is Internet Marketing entrepreneurs that have set up a website a few years ago and it might have cost a fortune or they think it still looks awesome and they don’t need to fix it, unaware that it reduces faith in your ability to know what is currently going on. Because attention to detail is very important and if your website is old and not displaying some of the features that a more updated website of the same ilk is – they will conclude that it is safer to go with them and their products.
Keeping up-to-date is translated as you listening, being current and being interested in what is going on. For example, long sales scripts – while they still convert well in some cases – are being replaced by shorter more visual means. Videos, infographics and modern squeeze pages that are well produced for example.
On this note there’s two things to consider with modern and current Internet Marketing.
1. Update Your Website – It’s mid 2000’s, so your business website shouldn’t look like it’s still stuck in the early 2000s or worse (even if at the time it converted highly.) And it’s about more than just aesthetics. Best practices and web standards are constantly changing so a regular refresh can help you make sure your website is at the top of its game and not being over shadowed by more contemporary sources.
2. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly – Recent studies have revealed that 80% of local searches on a mobile phone have ended in a purchase. In fact, most people due to better technology and convenience, browse and use their mobile to do everything now. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly and is difficult for the user to open or look through, they will click off and go to someone who can serve their needs for speed and ease. You are missing out on these local consumers when you refuse to move with the times.
Finally, just like fashion, nothing ever stays the same. You will look back at the hairdo you are wearing now proudly one day and think how crazy you were. Don’t let your customers’ feel that way about you right now because simple modern tweaks can raise your profile immeasurably and it’s not overly costly to do so. Just put the time in because that will translate as effort and expertise.
Here at the Internet Business School, we’re devoted to making sure you’re up to date on the latest internet marketing trends. We’ve constantly got our eye on social media, but don’t worry, we’re not slacking off! Keeping an eye on what’s popular on social media has never been more important for business owners. Those who don’t advertise on social media are being left behind in the dust by their competitors. That’s why we want to draw your attention to the millions of potential customers you could find through Snapchat.
Snapchat has just dropped their “Snapbot Spectacles” upon the UK. These sunglasses boast a range of colours, and more importantly, the ability to take photos and videos that links to your phone via Bluetooth or Wifi. These glasses probably won’t be reaching a shop near you anytime soon, and at £130 a pair, they’re a costly accessory. However this doesn’t mean you should underestimate the power of Snapchat as a whole. With over 100 million active users and counting, Snapchat is an ever expanding market that businesses need to be making the most of. Ignore the spectacles for now, this is why you should be advertising on Snapchat.
10 Billion Video Views a Day
That’s millions more than other video-hosting platforms such as Youtube and Vimeo. The number of people who use Snapchat is staggeringly large. With over 100 million active users at the beginning of 2017, that number has no doubt increased by millions by the time you’re reading this. If your business only reached a fraction of that user base, you would be seen by thousands of potential customers.
A New Way to Interact with Customers
Engaged customers are customers who spend more. Snapchat provides a new way to engage with your audience. Social media competitions are a great way to amass a following and encourage customers. Snapchat makes entering these competitions even easier, with the simple nature of just taking a snap. Businesses can also give customers filters to use on their own pictures, letting customers do the advertising for you!
Show You’re a Real Person
It’s important to show that you’re human and not an automated system. Customers like see the people, the human side, behind a business. Take pictures of you, your staff, your business headquarters to give customers a look behind the scenes. It’s another key way to engage your customers with your business.
Prove You’re Up to Date
Snapchat is an instant medium, you can show what you’re doing at the moment you’re doing them. Therefore it’s perfect for showing that your business is aware of the best and latest trends both in social media and in your industry. This gives your business a level of prestige, making customers believe you are the experts in your field.
Want to know more about how you can make the most of Snapchat for your business? Well with the popularity of this social media platform ever growing, the Internet Business School is proud to announce our Snapchat for Business masterclass. This online course can be done whenever and wherever suits you with professional tutorials that will teach you everything you need to know to become a Snapchat professional. To find out more, click here, or visit us at www.internetbusinessschool.co.uk
Would you like to know how to double your conversions with only one sentence? Well you can. Believe it or not, a single sentence can literally double the conversions you get on your higher ticket items.
Yes, this sounds too good to be true, but once I reveal what the sentence is, you’ll understand.
Now mind you, do not try this with low ticket items. You’ll hate yourself in the morning if you do.
Then again, if you have a lot of time on your hands, it’s your decision as to whether you try this on a £50 item or not. In my experience, not many marketers are doing this – probably because they’re either too lazy or they simply have no clue how powerful this can be.
Okay, are you ready for the sentence? Here it is…
“Please get in touch with us personally if you have any questions.”
That’s it. Simple, right?
Then you give them options. It could be a dedicated email address, a phone number or a chat box. The key is to make it a soft invitation, no strings attached. You want to be clear you’re not going to strong arm them once you get them on the phone.
Here’s why it works so well: You’re asking for a lot of money for your high ticket item. Maybe that’s £300 or £3,000, I don’t know. But whatever it is, it represents a sizeable investment for your customer. It’s not like they’re buying a £10 ebook. So naturally they’re hesitant. They need just a bit more of a push to take the plunge. And for some of them, simply knowing they can get in touch with you is enough. This tells them you are indeed a real person with a real business and this is a real product. They relax. They have more confidence in you. And they order.
For others, they have a legitimate question that you either forgot to answer in your sales material, or you did answer it but they didn’t see it. In either case, they really want that answer before they buy. With these folks, you will often be off of chat or email or the phone in less than 5 minutes. Sometimes in less than 2 minutes.
Then there’s the third type of person. Their only real question is, “Are you for real?” because they want to know what happens if they have trouble with your product. Are they going to be able to get in touch with you? How quickly will you answer? And so forth. They need reassurance that you’ll still be there in a month if they decide to use your guarantee. They might even get in touch with you more than once just to make sure.
There is a fourth type of person in this scenario I need to warn you about. This is a tyre-kicker, and they will likely waste your time. The problem is, you don’t know at first if they simply need reassurance, have real questions or they’re just bored and looking to chat.
If you suspect they’re just wasting your time, you can politely tell them you have another caller and you have to go. But generally this isn’t a problem, especially when you check your numbers and realise your sales have about doubled since you offered customers the opportunity to get in touch with you.
One last thing – which communication method should you offer them to get in touch with you? That’s totally up to you. Ideally you want to offer all three – phone, chat and email. And if you have a virtual assistant helping you out, you can do that. We’ve found that offering all 3 choices has the biggest impact on sales. But if it’s just you, then you might want to limit the choices to just the one or two you’re most comfortable with for now. You can always add another method later.
I started to compile a bunch of stats to show you how popular video marketing is becoming.
And then I realized – the last thing you need are more stats about how video is taking over the internet. The fact is, if you’re not using video yet, you’re losing customers, clients and revenue.
Consumers love video. They watch video. They ENJOY video. They even enjoy video when the video is selling something, as long as the video still entertains and informs.
So how can you use more video in your business? And how can you make those videos perform as well as possible in getting your viewers to take action? Here are ten tips to get you started in the right direction:
1: Make your video is about the story, not about the sale.
Anyone can slap up a sales video and put it on YouTube. “Buy my product!” But will it get views? Not likely. Instead, tell stories and deliver value. Let’s say you’re selling a course on how to do marketing for chiropractic offices. It’s tempting to tell the viewer why your course rocks, why it’s exactly what they need, and how it’s only available for a limited time. But what if you make a series of short videos, with each video providing one powerful marketing tip just for chiropractors? I guarantee those videos will be watched and shared among the chiropractic community. You’ll establish massive credibility. And of course you can politely refer them to your website at the end of each video.
These videos won’t sell your course for you. But what they will do is make it far easier to get the sale. Think of it as romancing the client…First you take them out on a date or two or three…And THEN you close the sale. Your success rate will be much higher than if you try to close the sale while the two of you are still strangers.
2: Make the first 10 seconds the BEST 10 seconds ever
One stat says that 20% of viewers will click away from a video within the first 10 seconds. Now you’ve got to ask yourself – why would they do that? They came to watch something, yet they leave almost immediately.
There could be a few reasons:
Your video doesn’t appear to be what they expected. If they are coming from a link that says, “Free iPad!” and your video is about growing organic veggies, you’re going to lose them. Continuity is key here.
You have a long, boring, “Look at me!” intro. You’ve seen those intros where it’s 30 seconds of how great the company, video creator, brand or whatever is. The problem is, no one cares but the person who made the video. Lose the long intro.
You dilly dally around. Taking the first minute of the video to finish setting up your recording equipment is a major no-no.
You don’t start out with a bang. You want to get right to the meat of the subject by quickly introducing what’s happening and then making it happen.
Think about movies back in the 50’s, 60’s and even 70’s – they all had long boring intros filled with lots of credits and no action. Now think about today’s’ movies – from the first moment there is action; something that captures your attention and makes you want to stay tuned to find out what’s happening, why it’s happening and what’s going to happen next. When it comes to writing fiction, teachers often tell their students to lop off the first page or two, because they’re usually full of long, boring intro stuff to set up the first scene. But when you lop that off and start with the action, BOOM – the reader is captivated. Videos are the same way. Start with the good stuff and let it just get better form there.
3: Don’t be so serious.
Your video might be to inform and instruct, but that doesn’t mean you have to sound like a boring, stuffy college professor. Find ways to inject fun and humor into your presentations. This doesn’t mean to inject knock-knock jokes that have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Instead, find the humor in what you’re teaching or talking about. It’s always there, you just have to look for it.
Now I know that when you get in front of a camera, if you’re like most people you get nervous. And when you get nervous, you might not be able to find the humor in anything, except perhaps your own nervousness.
Three things I can tell you – if you practice beforehand in front of a friend, you’ll be surprised at the funny things that come to mind. Go ahead and try your humor on your friend and listen to their feedback. They’ll tell you which ones parts and which to leave out. Second, when you’re filming, continue to think of the camera as your friend. You’re just having a friendly conversation, regardless of whether it’s you on camera or you’re using slides. Third, have fun. If you’re having fun then the viewer will likely have fun as well.
4: It’s good to be human
No one really likes someone who is perfect, or even someone who comes across as perfect. That’s why it’s okay to make mistakes on camera. If you are nervous or if you do something wrong, just acknowledge it and move on. For example, you drop something you were showing the viewer. Laugh, pick it up, make a joke about your nerves or your butterfingers or whatever, and move on. It’s a funny thing when we admit to the audience that we’re human and we can laugh at our own foibles – the audience begins to like us more, and they root for us, too. I even know people who purposely make a mistake or do something clumsy, just so they can get the audience on their side. It’s a truly effective technique when done right.
5: Tell embarrassing stories about yourself
As an extension of the last point, use yourself as an example of what not to do. Let’s say you’re teaching dating tips. You want to tell the viewers what not to do. Instead of saying, “You should never, ever do this or that because it just annoys the other person,” say this: “I was once on a date and I made the dumbest mistake possible. What happened was…” And then go on to tell a story about yourself doing something stupid or wrong or whatever. Notice that now instead of lecturing the viewer, you are sharing a valuable story about how you goofed up. This does a couple of things. It teaches the viewer in a way they will remember, because people remember stories much better than lessons. And it’s yet another opportunity to show just how human you are, and make the audience like you even more.
But what if you never made that mistake yourself? It’s up to you, but I see no harm in telling the story from your point of view anyway. Again, it’s a highly effective teaching method, and everyone loves somebody who can laugh at themselves. Just look at comedians – they are continually telling audiences about the stuff they’ve done that wasn’t too bright. And audiences love them for it.
6: Optimize your videos for search
Here are a few tips for doing just that:
If you can, host your video to your own domain first, before uploading it to sharing sites. This has the potential to get people to link back to your own domain, which will also help your overall SEO efforts.
Enable embedding on your video to increase the likelihood of receiving inbound links.
Add your videos to your sitemap to give Google information about your video. This gives Google useful metadata that can improve Google’s ability to include your video in search results. Here’s a handy page to tell you how:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/videosearch/sitemaps
Use tags for the relevant keywords. Write full descriptions and add a unique title.
And remember this: If it has a box, Google needs you to fill it out in order to help you rank.
7: Educate your audience
Some of the best videos you’ll ever make, that your prospects and clients will love, are videos that teach your viewers something useful. Whether it’s to get a result they want, show them how to best use your product, or provide useful tips, people enjoy short ‘how to’ videos that teach them what they want to know, when they want to know it. Which of course means you need to be found when they are looking. To do that, go back to #6 and make sure your video shows up in the appropriate SEO searches.
8: Let your customers speak for you
Social proof is best done by your customers on your behalf. For example, you can ask customers to film themselves talking about how they use and love your product. Case studies are an excellent way to showcase your product while teaching your audience how to achieve the result they desire. Your customer might talk about their buying decision, what might have stopped them from buying, and why they went ahead and got the product. Next they might talk about their results of using the product, what specific features they like, and the biggest benefits of using the product. A good customer testimonial or case study can be worth an entire sales letter when it comes to converting new prospects into customers.
9: Add a call to action
Whatever kind of video you’re making, don’t forget to add a call to action at the end. It might be to visit your website, go to a landing page to grab a free report, check out a sales page or whatever.
Just remember that your videos should be 90-95% great content and just 5-10% sales.
10: Add a video to your landing pages to increase conversions
Naturally you’ll want to test this out, but odds are you’ll see a nice bump in your conversions on your landing page if you add a short video.
The video should quickly introduce yourself and let them know what they’re getting when they subscribe. Make it friendly and fun for the viewer, and try to inject a little humor. Most of all, give one very clear and immediate benefit of subscribing to your list and grabbing your free offer.
I know a marketer who never sells a thing on his videos. All he does is provide helpful tips, tell silly stories about his industry and act as a helpful friend to his viewers. And his sales are through the roof. Why? Because people love him and trust him.
Video isn’t hard. What’s difficult sometimes is relaxing enough to simply be ourselves and lend a helping hand or tip to the viewer.
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