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Secrets to Success
Deborah Cole Micek
and John-Paul Micek
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Make sure you keep it entertaining
First there was direct-mail marketing. Companies sent you brochures, newsletters, and advertising materials.
Then there was e-mail marketing. Companies e-mailed e-zines, letters, and advertisements to inform, educate and keep in touch with their clients, prospects and anyone they'd ever met. Since there was no real cost involved with e-mail marketing -- no envelopes to buy, or postage required -- companies spammed every e-mail address they could find to get you to buy their products and services. Then anti-spam laws were passed, making it illegal for a company to send e-mails to people who never requested them
Now there is new-media marketing, aka Web 2.0 marketing, one of the hottest and most effective marketing methods available to the small-business owner on a budget. Its effectiveness in terms of results and cost makes it the leading choice for entrepreneurs who need to get their names out at relatively little cost.
I like to think of new- media marketing as "video entertainment marketing." If your company wants to get exposure by creating buzz, it's not going to happen with a paid advertising spot on TV. Rather, it must be something that is so entertaining and engaging for the viewer that they'll feel compelled to share your video with a friend and talk about you at parties.
You want to create something buzz-worthy that makes people actually smile as they talk about your latest creative video that you just posted on YouTube or your blog/podcast.
However, there is a right way and a spammer way to engage in new-media marketing. The wrong way will get you banned, not buzzed.
The wrong way: Thinking that just because you're creating a video, you're engaging in a better form of advertising.
Some of the best Internet marketers have fallen into this trap. They merely use the same old tactics of the '90s that they used for e-mail marketing, except they're putting it on video and calling it Web 2.0 marketing. This is not new-media marketing. It's just a sales commercial stuck on video.
A sales page put on video is also not new-media marketing. That's basically using a great tool to get your message across persuasively.
If every video you send to your list has some type of sales pitch, your subscribers will avoid it, if they're not in the mood to hear a pitch.
Instead, use what's called random reinforcement. Give them what they enjoy at least three times as many times as you send out videos with a pitch. That way, they'll be addicted to your video style, and won't mind watching the occasional "commercial" during your entertaining video.
Entertaining is the key word here.
John-Paul Micek is the lead business coach at RPM Success Group Inc. Reach him at
JPM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.
Deborah Cole Micek, chief executive officer of RPM Success Group, is a business success coach and life strategist. Reach her at
DCM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.