5 Ways to Increase Paid Click Through Rates

An effect paid advertising campaign depends on your ability to get people to click on your ad. At the same time, you want to get the right people to click on your ad. You want visitors that are actually interested in what you’ve got to offer.

When pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements aren’t bringing in the sales leads that you expected, you don’t need to scrap your entire campaign. You just need to start tweaking your campaign to improve click through rates (CTR).

Here are 5 ways to increase paid click through rates.

Improve the Headline

The first place to start is with your headline. It’s the first thing that people see and it’s how you get them to click on your ad. This makes the headline the most important part of your PPC ad campaign.

The headline needs to be 25 characters or less. You have limited space. Use it wisely. Keep these tips in mind:

• Use keyword phrases in your headline
• Don’t use your business name in the headline
• Solve a problem or ask a question

Include Keyword in Display URL

The focus keyword of your PPC ad should be used in your display URL. This is the visible URL that appears under your headline. You’re allowed to edit the display URL, even if it doesn’t match the destination URL.

You can include up to 35 characters in the display URL. This will include your domain name, along with space for your keyword. The ad will direct users to the URL that you specify in your

Don’t Include the Price in the Ad

When you include the price of a product or service in your headline or description, people are reminded that they’ll be spending money.

Instead of showing the price, you could display a discount or savings. For example, if you’ve got a product that regularly costs $50 and it’s on sale for $25, you could highlight the 50% off or the $25 discount.

Deliver a Specific Message

Before you go live with an ad, you should review it and ensure it delivers one specific message. Your ad can’t be ambiguous.

You should never try to promote more than one thing at a time. When a person views your ad, they should know exactly what they’re going to find when they click the link.

When you finish writing your ad, read it and ensure its direct and to the point. Don’t fill it with keywords. Write in a way that a person can easily understand.

Use Ad Extensions

Google introduced ad extensions several years ago, and they are available for free. They offer additional ways to entice people to click your ads. This includes site links. Site links allow you to include additional links in your ads.

Your ability to include extensions depend on your Ad Rank. The Ad Rank is determined based on the quality of your ad and your landing page.

In the end, improving your click through rate depends on a quality ad. You need to use a short headline that gets to the point quickly.

The body of the ad provides a line or two to elaborate on the message presented in the headline. You only have a few lines to make an impression and attract the right visitors.

As a final suggestion, you should take a look at what your competition is up to. View ads for relevant keywords and examine their landing pages.

Tweak your PPC campaign using these tips to boost click through rates. If you want more internet marketing suggestions, plus a way to generate conversion-ready prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Conduct Audience Research for Free to Improve Your Marketing

Gaining a better understanding of your target audience can be incredibly beneficial for internet marketing.

It helps you write more effective sales copy, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, blog posts, and find the right content to share on social media. Market research is essential to marketing. But, you don’t have the same budget as a major corporation to conduct extensive research.

Luckily, the internet provides many resources for researching your target audience for free.

Identify Your Target Audience

You first need to know who your target audience is before you can research them. Keep in mind, you may have a variety of demographics that you want to target.

If this is the case, you’ll need to conduct market research for each demographic individually. Also, each of your advertisements and landing pages should be geared toward one key demographic at a time.

Start Following Your Followers

You don’t need to follow every profile that follows you. But, you can start to learn more about your target audience by following a selection of your followers.

Look for followers that are active on social media. You should find people that follow brands and businesses that are in involved in the same niche market.

As you follow these people, you’ll see the types of posts that they share or like. This will give you better insight into the type of information they’re interested in.

Ask Your Target Audience

Of course, the best way to find out what your target audience is interested in is to ask them. There are several ways to ask your target audience about their interests, including:

• Customer surveys
• Social media posts
• Online polls
• Questionnaires

Use these methods to solicit information. You can ask specific questions to learn more about your core audience. Find out what they fear most, what they want from products, what they enjoy doing in their free time, how they spend their time online, and anything else that helps you learn more about them.

Create a Customer Persona

As you learn more about your target audience, you can begin creating a customer persona. This is a detailed set of information about a typical customer.

You should create multiple personas to represent different types of customers. The main criteria to place in this persona includes:

• Age
• Sex
• Location
• Job or profession
• Income level
• Education level
• Hobbies and interests

When you write sales copy or PPC ads, you should use these customer personas.

Open the document where you’ve created your persona and keep it open as you write your copy. Imagine that you’re talking directly to this customer.

Always Ask for Feedback

Feedback is one of the best ways to learn more about how your target audience feels. Ask for their feedback in every email related to a purchase or transaction. This includes confirmations and follow-up emails.

Don’t ignore this feedback. Use it to learn more about the needs of your customers and how you can improve your products or services to better meet their needs.

Another step that you can take is to look at your competition. When in doubt, look at the type of content that they use. For example, if you’re creating a paid advertisement, look at your competitor’s paid ads. If you’re creating a press release, look at the press releases for your competition.

Don’t copy what they do. But, you can use what you find to learn from their research.

Audience research is a necessary step in internet marketing. In addition to these tips, you can find even more advice, and a system for gaining conversion-ready internet prospect each month, by clicking here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Increasing Sales Leads by Boosting Twitter User Engagement

Twitter is an effective platform for entrepreneurs that want to reach out and increase their online presence. But, these efforts don’t provide a lot of help if you can’t engage your followers.

Twitter user engagement directly impacts your ability to gain sales leads through this social media platform. Engagement refers to the number of followers, retweets, and messages you receive through your Twitter profile.

If you want to boost engagement, then take a moment to review these simple tips.

Shorten Your URL Links

Every entrepreneur should use a web-based program to shorten their URL links. Studies show that shorter URLs receive more clicks.

The programs that generate these shorter URLs also typically provide a method for tracking these links. You can see how many people followed the shortened URL.

Use Images in Your Tweets

Tweets that contain images receive more clicks and more retweets. If possible, all your tweets should contain an image.

If you’re sharing a link to a landing page or a web page that you own, you should set up Twitter cards. This allows Twitter to pull the featured image from your page and place it in the tweet.

You can also upload photos for each tweet. It’s time-consuming, but it can help you get more retweets, clicks, and new followers.

Ask People to Retweet Your Tweets

Sometimes you just need to ask people to do exactly what you want them to do. Ask people to retweet your tweets.

Including “RT” in your tweet can help you gain 10 times as many retweets. On average, including the word “retweet” in your tweet will result in 23 times as many re-tweets.

This only takes up a few characters of the space that you have available. Give it a try. Add “RT” to the end of all tweets moving forward.

Include Actionable Words in Your Tweet

Along with asking people to retweet your tweets, you should include actionable words. You may not have enough space to include a full call to action, but you can use actionable words to increase engagement. Examples of actionable words include:

• Download
• Free trial
• Subscribe
• Learn more
• Read now
• Gain access

 Engage Your Twitter Followers

You should also drive engagement by being more engaging. You can include questions in your tweets, to encourage people to respond. This drive engagement and could result in more followers.

If you haven’t already, you should set Twitter to send email notifications when you receive a new message and when your Twitter tag is mentioned in another tweet.

You should respond to questions and comments as soon as possible. Even if the comment is unrelated to the products or services that you sell, you need to be active on social media. Respond when people talk to you.

Tweet Late at Night

The final tip for increasing user engagement on Twitter is to tweet late at night. These late-night tweets obtain about 10 times as many retweets as similar tweets sent during the day.

If you go to bed early, you can use a social media management platform to automate the release of your tweets and social media posts.

In the end, using Twitter to increase your online exposure depends more on quality than quantity. The number of followers that you have is less important than how engaged your followers are.

Focus on engagement by responding to tweets, asking questions, and using these other tips. Increasing your Twitter user engagement will help you boost the number of followers that you’ve got, along with helping to increase traffic from Twitter to your website.

Gain even more internet marketing tips and access to a system for generating conversion-ready prospects, by clicking here to learn about my done-for-you system.

A Guide to A/B Testing

When you are trying to figure out which tactics work for digital marketing, it is commonly suggested that you run A/B tests. This can give you a better picture of what your target audience responds to and how to capture their attention better.

A/B testing can be used in a variety of ways. You can perform A/B tests on email subject lines, newsletter design layouts, social media ad call to actions, and more. When you are trying to figure out what works best for your digital marketing efforts, A/B testing is the best method.

How to Start an A/B Test

 A/B testing is a great way to figure out if there are better ways to connect with your target audience. If you have noticed a dip in email campaign open rates or display ad click-through rates, it could be the perfect time for an A/B test.

Running and A/B test is fairly simple. First, you need to decide what you want to run the test on. For the sake of ease, we will use email subject lines. In order to perform the test, you need to create two different subject lines for the same email.

It is recommended that you use a subject line that was previously performing well and the create a distinctly different subject line to compare it to.  Divide your email list in half. One half will get the A version with the old subject line and the other half will get the B version with the new subject line.

In order for the test to deliver usable results, deliver both the A and B emails on the same time of the same day to both the email lists.

What to Do After the Test

 After you have performed the A/B test, you can analyze the results. If you were testing email subject lines, you would compare the open rate of the A group to the B group. If the group with the different subject line had a higher open rate, you now know that you should try some similar tests.

If the alternate version of the test delivered better results, it is tempting to go ahead a change everything to fit with that test. It is strongly suggested to not do that.

After you have seen the results, you should perform at least three additional tests to prove out the theory. If the other tests deliver the same positive results, you can then go ahead and apply what you learned from the A/B test to the strategy moving forward.

Why A/B Testing is Important

 A/B testing is a vitally important part of every digital marketer’s wider strategy. When you A/B test, you get a better picture of your customers and what they respond to. Consistent A/B testing allows you to stay ahead of changes in your customers wants and preferences. This prevents your marketing efforts from falling behind and scrambling to regain lost customers.

A/B testing also allows you to consistently improve and innovate. Customers notice if you have been doing the same thing over and over and this can cause them to lose interest. A/B testing helps you stay top of mind for your customer.

How A/B Testing Can Help You

 A/B testing is one of the most underutilized forms of market research. It is inexpensive, easy to execute, and give you real-time data on your current customers. It also helps you stay abreast of changes in the customer mindset ensuring that you can stay ahead of any marketplaces changes.

Proper A/B testing can make all the difference in your digital marketing strategy. The more you know about your customers, the better off you will be.

If you want to learn more about A/B testing and how it can improve your digital marketing efforts, check out my done-for-you system.

Learn How to Write an Effective Press Release in 4 Steps

Press releases provide an additional solution for building backlinks, increasing online exposure, and gaining web traffic.

Though, if your press release doesn’t deliver the right message, it won’t be effective. A press release isn’t the same as a blog post or sales page. You need to pay attention to a few important details.

Here’s some advice on how to write a killer press release in just 4 steps.

Choose the right topic for your press release

You need to choose the topic before you start writing. The topic needs to have a newsworthy angle. This means that the topic should be relevant and current.

Examples of common press release topics include:

• New store opening
• New business launch
• New product or software release
• Major update or development

Always ask yourself if the topic is something that you’d read about in a newspaper or in a blog. Searching for press releases will provide examples to give you a better sense of common topics and writing style.

Introduce the newsworthy information

Write two to three paragraphs discussing the topic of your press release. Don’t worry about an introduction. Just jump right in and start writing about the details of the news release.

Remember to write in the third-person (he, she, her, him, they, and them).

These paragraphs are the main body of your press release. This discusses the newsworthy topic in a straightforward manner.

Don’t use any hype. Stick to the facts.

You need to address the following details with your press release:

• Who will be interested in this topic or who is it about?
• What is the subject of the press release?
• Where can people find more information?
• When will this event or product release occur?
• How does this benefit the reader?

Answering these questions will help you stay on track. You have limited space.

The press release will typically be between 300 and 700 words. This doesn’t provide an endless word count to go into great detail.

Write the Introduction and Conclusion

After you’ve written the main body of the press release, you can write the introduction and conclusion. The intro paragraph should summarize the body in several lines. It introduces the topic and your business or personal brand.

The conclusion offers a short bio for your business or brand. You can discuss your area of expertise and provide some background information.

At the end of the conclusion, you’ll typically have a spot to provide contact information, such as your email address, web URL, and phone number.

Create an attention-grabbing headline

The headline should be the last thing that you write. You’ve already written the body of your press release, so you already know the exact message or story that you’re promoting.

Summarize the main message of your press release in a single sentence. Press release headlines are often longer than a typical blog headline. Make sure that it fully explains the topic.

You may also have the option to include a sub-headline. The sub-headline should provide further information about the topic of your press release.

It’s an extension of the headline. Don’t repeat what you’ve already stated in the headline.

Before submitting your press release for publication, make sure that you check it for spelling and grammar errors.

You should proof read it by reading each line aloud. This is the best way to catch errors and also to find ways to improve your content.

Writing an effective press release isn’t difficult. Take it one step at a time. If you’d like more internet marketing tips and suggestions, and a method for generating conversion-ready internet traffic, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Saving for Retirement in the New Economy

Let's face it. Most of the financial advice out there says something like this, "If you make on average $60,000 per year..." Most of the advice is designed for baby boomers about to retire. The young generation 35 years-old and under are not going to relate when their incomes range from $25,000 to $40,000. True their income may rise someday but there is a good chance it could decrease with the onslaught of lay-offs, downsizing and cost cutting.  The wages their parents earned who worked at companies like GM making a combined income of benefits and wages in the $65 per hour range are not likely to be around in the future. Many of these companies have two-tier wage systems that hire new workers somewhere around $24 per hour (benefits and wages combined).  Not only are low wages going to be a problem but also lack of employment opportunities, high interest mortgages, expensive college education, lack of social security income and major cut backs in all federal spending. So what strategies should a young person making his/her way in a "tough times" economy to do? The biggest advantage young people have is their age. Compound interest is a very powerful force that is likely to make or break a retiree. By putting away only $200 per month from the age of 30 and compounding it at 9% interest a young person could have around $500,000 by the time they are 67 years-old. Double that amount and you could be well over a million dollars. With a 401K offered by your employer it becomes very easy to save because it is pretax dollars that you don't have to think about. You may also choose to put your money into a Roth IRA. Generally, the money is taxed before it is put away and then you don't have to pay taxes on it in retirement. Not a bad deal when it has compounded for 30 years. The best retirement utilizes a combination of the two. It is beneficial to put away money automatically in your 401K and set a goal of putting away $100 or $200 per month into a Roth IRA. One may also consider reducing the cost of big expenditures and saving big money. The housing market is beginning to cool as baby boomers are leaving the market with their large incomes. It won't be long before appreciation on houses has returned to a mediocre percent such as 3%-5%. As a young person trying to show his or her financial stuff they may want to buy the nicest houses they can get. Unfortunately that nice house also comes with a large mortgage payment. A good rule to follow is that your housing cost should not be over 25% of your household income.  To Start Earning Now Press HERE For example, If my wife and I make 70,000 (two young professionals at $35,000/year) than we could have a house that costs $1,400 per month. Because we are financial savvy, with a lot of energy, we bought an older house with an $800 per month mortgage payment, put our sweat equity in it, and watched its value increase 20%. Because we were under our $1,400 limit we also bought 10 acres for a nice cottage at $300 per month. Now we are increasing our long-term assets at a cost of $1,100 per month. What happens to the savings? Well they go into our retirement account. Of course one of the best ways of saving money is diverting your expenses into investments. Basically, "You don't buy what you don't need!" Go to discount grocery stores, take cheap vacations within driving distance, buy good quality clothes at discount prices, and stick to a solid budget. It is much easier to save money than it is to make more. Keep in mind that even though you don't look as wealthy as your friends you are probably much wealthier financially. Trust me; no one gets out of college making a hundred thousand dollars a year. Therefore, don't try and make your self look like it.

How to Grow a Targeted Follower Base on Instagram

Instagram is becoming increasingly popular. It’s a useful social media site for any entrepreneur that wants to remain updated with the latest marketing channels.

As with most social media platforms, the more followers that you’ve got the more effective your social media marketing will be. So, to begin increasing your Instagram followers, you need to focus on a target audience.

Here’s a set of simple tips to begin growing a targeted follower base on Instagram.

Start Liking Posts Related to Your Niche

The first way to begin increasing your follower base on Instagram is to start liking posts. Like posts that are related to your niche industry.

For example, if you sell products for internet marketing, you’d want to like posts related to internet marketing.

Liking other posts is a good way to gain attention, especially from industry leaders or people with more followers than you.

Instead of simply following an industry leader, you should go through and like 5 to 10 of their posts. Make sure that you leave a comment on at least one of these posts.

Respond Promptly and Leave Authentic Comments

Commenting is a good way to gain followers, retain followers, and increase engagement. You should respond to comments as soon as possible. You can set up email notifications so that you never miss out on these comments.

Also, don’t be afraid to comment on other people’s posts. As mentioned, this can be effective when you start liking other posts.

While these comments are useful, they need to be authentic. Don’t leave a generic comment as a response.

For example, if someone leaves you a compliment, don’t respond with, “thanks!”

Instead, you should come up with a real response. It only takes a few minutes, but can have a major effect on follower engagement and your overall online reputation.

Create Your Own Hashtags and Get People to Use Them

You can start building your own community on Instagram by creating your own hashtags. Though, you also need to get people to start using them.

For starters, you can create a hashtag related to your targeted audience or niche industry. Combining abbreviations and words is a good way to create original hashtags.

You can also search for hashtags. When you create an original hashtag, perform a search to ensure that it’s not already in use.

Find Out What Your Audience Wants

If you know what your target audience wants, it’s easier to create Instagram posts that they’ll enjoy. You can start by looking at who they follow.

Look for Instagram accounts for other businesses in your industry that are followed by your target audience. See what types of posts these people put out. Also, see what types of posts your audience tend to share and like.

Continue to Release New Posts Each Day

If you want to target a specific audience, you need to remain consistent with your posts. Continue to release new posts each day.

You should also pay attention to the time of the day that you receive the most engagement from your followers. You might find that your target audience is more active during a specific time of the day. Use this to your advantage and schedule your posts to be released at this time each day.

Use High-Quality Photos and Videos

Don’t forget to use high-quality photos and videos. If the photos that you use appear to be professionally-taken photos, you’ll be able to gain more followers.

People perceive the value and quality of your products or services based on what you put out there. If you use grainy photographs, people will assume that you don’t have a quality business, as you can’t afford quality photos.

Start making better use of your Instagram account by focusing on your target audience. If you’d like even more internet marketing tips and a system for getting conversion-ready prospects, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

How to Grow Your YouTube Following

The use of video marketing is becoming increasingly popular for entrepreneurs. The reason is simple. More people are using mobile devices and the videos are easier to view on these devices than reading a lengthy blog post.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of competition on YouTube. Getting noticed isn’t always easy. But, with a few simple tips, you can begin increasing the number of followers that you’ve got on YouTube.

With more followers, your videos are more likely to get noticed. Here are several steps that you can take right now to begin growing your YouTube following.

Increase the Value of Your Videos

The first step is to increase the value of your videos. People won’t share videos that don’t provide any real value. You can’t just create a video introducing your business and hope to get thousands of views.

Each video needs to have a specific focus. It’s much like writing a quality blog post. In fact, you can recycle your most popular blog content into videos.

Whenever you write a script for a video, always ask yourself if you’d share this video with others. The video needs to offer some benefit to the viewer. You can provide instructions, demonstrations, or tips related to a specific topic.

Remain Consistent with Your Release Schedule

YouTube offers video recommendations based on what you’ve already watched. If you remain consistent with your release schedule, you’re more likely to gain new subscribers.

If a viewer watches one of your videos without following, YouTube may recommend another your new videos as they’re released. This helps bring viewers back to your channel.

Whether you release one or four new videos each month, you should stick to a schedule. Decide which day of the week you’ll release your videos. Subscribers will know when to check back and your viewer retention rates will increase.

Ask People to Subscribe to Your Channel

Your videos should serve a specific purpose. As with your blog articles, the end of the video should include a call to action. You could tell viewers to follow a link or you can use this call to action to remind viewers to subscribe.

YouTube also provides the option to include an image or graphic to act as a clickable button overlay directly on top of your video. With this clickable button, you can include a link to subscribe to your YouTube channel.

Include a YouTube Widget on Your Website

You should also add a widget or link on your website that connects with your YouTube channel. Increase exposure to your channel by adding these features to your blog or business site.

If you use WordPress, you can find numerous widgets and plugins that allow you to add YouTube videos to your site. You could also add a YouTube subscribe button on your site.

Become a Featured YouTube Channel

You have the option to add “Featured Channels” to your YouTube channel. These are channels that you follow and recommend your followers to follow.

By getting these other channels to recommend you to their followers, you can boost exposure. There are two ways to go about this.

You can either directly ask a channel to add you or you can start following them. There is no guarantee that the other channel will follow you, but it’s still worth the effort.

Interact with People That Comment on Your Videos

You shouldn’t ignore the comments on your videos. Actively respond to these comments. People may leave a comment without following. After responding, they might rethink their decision and start following your channel.

Increasing your YouTube following is one method for improving your online presence. If you’d like to gain access to more internet marketing tips, and a way to generate new sales leads, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Building a Successful Video Marketing Campaign

Videos have become an important tool in digital marketing. They are eye catching, finger-stopping, and engaging. People are much more likely to stop and watch an engaging video ad on Facebook, Twitter, or in the sidebar of a webpage than they are to stop and read a link ad.

Building an effective video marketing campaign for your digital platforms is simple when you take the right steps. Video marketing requires more than just a campaign objective and flashy editing to make it successful. To help you build a successful video campaign, we have created a four-step guide of things to consider as you navigate the video ad creation process,

Build a Story

Of course, the goal of any digital marketing ad is to push sales. While it is important to have this objective with video ads, it is not what is going to make them successful. People like videos that tell a story. It is important to keep in mind that your video ad will be competing with social media stories and content from people’s network.

Because your video ad will appear alongside your target audience’s photo of their new puppy or video of their child saying their first word, your ad has to be equally as engaging. Video ads that work connect the viewer to the brand in an emotional and engaging way. The better you tell the story in the ad, the more likely the person watching the ad will take action.

Keep in mind that your story should be concise and cohesive. You don’t want it to be any shorter or longer than it requires to tell the story. Capture your audience with the first frame and keep them engaged from there.

The First Few Seconds Are Crucial

There is a lot of content on the internet. Digital marketers compete with not only their competitors but also viral videos of cats and stories and photos of their customers’ relatives and friends.

For this reason, you have to use the first few seconds of the video to capture the viewer’s attention and keep their attention. The viewer should be able to know what they story of your video is in the first 8 seconds. Those first 8 seconds also have to prove to the viewer that watching the whole video will be worth their time.

Get the Story Across With and Without Sound

 Many video ads now autoplay with sound on, that is, unless the viewer’s phone is on silent. 85% of people browse social media and the web on their mobile devices with their device on silent mode. This means that video ads play without sound.

Because of this, your video ad needs to tell its story without sound. Using subtitles or making the video powerful without the need for any dialogue can help ensure your video’s story is getting across to those viewers watching it without sound.

While sound is an important part of video ads, today’s viewers need more than sound to capture their attentions. Use powerful and impressive visuals or a text focused introduction to capture the attention of those viewers watching without sound.

End With a Call to Action

 While how digital marketers create and use video ads is changing, the end goal of video ads is still the same. You want to end the video with a powerful call to action. People who have watched the video to the end have been captured by the story of the ad, now it is time to drive them to act.

Keep in mind that the CTA of a video ad doesn’t have to be getting the customer to click to your website or sign up for your newsletter. Video ads’ CTAs can also include the following: subscribing to your YouTube channel, following or liking your page, sharing the video with friends, commenting on the video, and going to other content.

Traditionally, the CTA would appear at the end of the video ad, but consider placing the CTA in the middle of the ad. By the middle of the ad, people have bought into the story and are more likely to act. It is always good practice to test where to place your CTA, so doing some A/B testing with where to place your CTA is a great way to figure out what works for you.

Creating video ads that work is an important part of a successful digital marketing strategy. If you would like to learn more about how to optimize your digital marketing and make it work better for you, go here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Creative Lead Generation

Lead generation is a vitally important part of a digital marketing strategy. If you don’t have leads, people don’t get your emails. Emails generate sales, foster public relations, and give you a place to talk to your customer. Having leads for those emails is a must.

Getting new leads can sometimes be difficult. More and more people are choosing to not opt into emails and this can leave your lead list flat and your email delivery stagnant.

People are more apt to share their emails with you if they feel like they are getting something of genuine value by sharing them. Here are a few creative ways to capture leads that convert.

Use success stories

Odds are that you have at least a few success stories from thought leaders in your industry. Reach out to them and interview them. Turn that interview into a webinar, podcast, or articles.

A conversation with a thought leader about how they became successful is a compelling and valuable piece of content. When you share this content, lead lock it. People who really want to see the content will be more than happy to give you their email in exchange for advice from a thought leader.

Make “Help” videos

 Making help videos is another great way to capture leads. If there is a problem that you see a large number of people who use your service having, such as “how do I create a Facebook page” or something of the like, make a video solving the problem.

Not only do these videos provide useful information for your clients, they can also help you gather new customers and clients by helping them solve their problem.

For the best payoff from help videos, create an education center page on your website with a few videos. Have people provide their email address to sign-up and use the free education center. This gives you valuable leads that can turn into new customers.

Embrace the quiz trend

 Quizzes are big right now. They are all over social media and have started to creep into display ads and email inboxes. Use the quiz trend to your advantage.

Quizzes, especially when they are created well, are a great lead generation driver. People love learning what kind of flower they are or which celebrity they act like the most. Usually, the more outlandish the quiz, the better.

Quizzes are also great to push out on social media for some new engagement and boosted traffic and likes on your company’s page. Use the power of the quiz for all it’s worth and it will deliver a host of great results.

Give insight into what’s working for you

 Have something you are doing that is working really well for you? Talk about it! Host a webinar about it or write a blog or whitepaper. People want to know what works for others and they are more than willing to exchange their email for that information.

Be an information provider and people will start to look to you as an authority. Consider using the pieces as a lead generation ad on Facebook and test the response.

Host a giveaway

 Giveaways are one of the easiest and frankly the best ways to gather leads. When you create a great giveaway, people will happily give you their email address for a chance to win.

Giveaways do require some careful consideration when you are using them for lead generation though. You have to be prepared that some people who enter the giveaway may have little to no interest in your company and won’t be good leads.

That being said, giveaways are still a great lead generation tool and can give you a ton of leads in a short amount of time. This is especially true if you use social media to promote the giveaway.

Want to learn more about getting great leads? Check out my done-for-you system today!

Facebook Posts: There is No Ideal Time

When Facebook started to be a tool for digital marketers, there was a whole slew of data that came out about ideal posting times. Each digital marketing consulting company had a different time of day and day of the week that they designated the “ideal posting time.”

These were supposed to be the times when your Facebook posts would be seen by the most people and when the most people would engage with your content. The concept of hacking Facebook to make it work best for marketers was alluring and most digital marketers fell into the trap of “ideal posting.”

It didn’t take long for Facebook to figure out that people were trying to figure out their algorithm. Truth is, there is no ideal time to post on Facebook. At least, there is no universal best time to post on Facebook.

You have to figure out when is the best time for your brand to post on Facebook. Hacking the Facebook algorithm changes from brand to brand and there are a few ways you can do that. Here is how to figure out the best time for your company to post on Facebook.

Lean into the data

 More specifically, lean into your data. If you haven’t had a chance to dive into Facebook Insights yet, you should make a point to do that soon. Facebook spent a lot of time developing tools for digital marketers to make Facebook’s data work for them.

Facebook Insights give you access to a lot of information, including the demographics of your audience, how much engagement each of your posts gets, and even the day and time of day your posts perform the best.

While it can be tempting to take Facebook’s data at face value, you should cross reference it with another service. If you are using an outside social media management tool, chances are that platform has its own data. Check that data with the Facebook data and you will know for sure that you have ideal posting times.

Do not be afraid to use the data Facebook gives you to your advantage. They provide it to help you be a better digital marketer, use it.

When it is relevant

While less scientific than data, relevancy is powerful when it comes to optimal Facebook posting. Embrace in the moment posts. If something big happens like a celebrity death, significant world event, or pop culture craze, being the first brand to post about it creatively can be a big deal.

Posting when it’s relevant requires that you are always up to date on what it going on in the world and have a fast moving creative team behind you to get things done. Moving fast and efficiently is of the essence. You want to be the first people to say something.

Stay in your niche when it comes to pop culture posting. You know your audience. If they don’t care that this country star or that giraffe had her baby, don’t post about it. Stay on track with what you know and relevancy postings will work for you.

Content over timing

 At the end of the day, businesses win Facebook because their content is great not because they had the best timing. Content is king in the digital marketing landscape. If you want success on Facebook, have great content.

While timing does have a slight impact on the performance of your Facebook content, the content that you are pushing out has the most impact. If you want your Facebook content to perform, put out great content. Then you will start to see the results you want.

Curious about learning more about Facebook timing and content, check out my done-for-you system today!