Hiring an Internet Marketing Consultant

To get the most out of your advertising you will need to ensure that you have a presence in the online world! This short article will give you an idea of the role of an internet marketing consultant and how they can help you.


It is incredibly important for every business to make sure that they try to stay one step ahead of their competition if they want to be successful. In order to do this they need to ensure that they are competitively priced and have a huge marketing presence both online and offline to constantly remind people of who they are and what they do. However some of the more traditional methods of marketing can be quite expensive; especially if you do not really know what you are doing. For this reason it can make good business sense to hire an internet marketing consultant to assist with your online presence and the design and development of your website.

Why hire an internet marketing consultant?

If you have a website and wish to make sure that it is as effective at advertising your business as it can be then you will no doubt benefit from hiring a specialist consultant who can assist you. They will be trained in all of the most up to date marketing methods and techniques and will have built up a number of years of knowledge and experience regarding how best to promote your site. Often they will be able to offer you advice and guidance on a variety of different aspects such as the design of your website and its development. Creating such an effective presence on the internet will help keep you in the minds of potential customers and can really help to boost custom for your business in the long run.

However, you should bear in mind that although having a successful website is incredibly important, you also need to consider marketing your website to as many people as you possibly can. In order to achieve this you will need to direct as much traffic as you can in the direction of your site and find ways of maintaining this traffic. Again, this is where a knowledgeable consultant can be worth their weight in gold.

What to look for

When you begin your search for a consultant you will find that there are many around, but as with all things, some will be better than others. You should look for someone who has had success in the past and has knowledge and experience in your business area. It may be worth asking for references and links to sites that they have previously worked on so that you can get an idea of their style. Choose someone that you have a rapport with as it is essential that you think in a similar fashion so that you can get the most out of your business relationship.

How To Generate 4 Times More Business Leads Though Your Blog

A study carried out by the software company HubSpot, found that companies who post fresh relevant content to their business blog on a regular basis, receive many more leads than those who post sporadically.


No big surprise there.

As an added incentive, those businesses that post to their blog daily, on average, generate 5 times more traffic than those who post weekly or less. And for the vast majority of businesses, more traffic generally results in more leads – 4 times as many leads no less, for those companies who post daily, according to HubSpot’s research.

Now isn’t that worth considering?

‘Daily!’ you’re protesting. ‘How can I possibly be expected to produce ‘hot content’ for my blog every single day, when there are barely enough hours in the working day as it is?’

There are several ways round this. You could:

Book out blocks of time in your diary where you sit down and produce a week’s blog posts in one hit.

Hire a freelance writer or marketing specialist to produce your blog posts for you (or at least some of them.)

Invite guest writers to share their views and knowledge with your audience.

Ask work colleagues or business associates to chip in with their ideas and contributions.

So what should your blog posts be about?

It’s important that the prime focus of your blog posts is your target audience, rather than your company. That’s more ‘you’ and less ‘we’ or ‘us.’ So think about:

The main problems your customers (and potential customers) want solved.

Your customers’ aspirations and goals.

What you can offer that your competitors cannot (this could relate to your USP, though not necessarily).


Remember though, that blogging every day is not the ‘be all and end all’ if it’s likely to prove too much of a struggle for you. Actually, that can be detrimental. It’s more important to have a workable schedule you can stick to month upon month, rather than to put yourself in a position where you end up demoralised and uninspired and the rest of your work suffers as a result.

If you’re a one or two-person business, then blogging every day may not be practicable, so make it your aim to blog at least once a week. You can always increase the frequency later on as time/ funds permit.

You might think it’s a better option to have one person write all your blog posts for consistency of style. To a degree this can be a good thing. But having the input of others can also be useful too, because they might come up with topics or angles you’d never have thought of by yourself, and this can be very beneficial indeed for your business.

The vital thing about having a business blog, is that you offer up content-rich material to your hungry audience on a regular basis.

If you can achieve this, you should see a gradual improvement across your site and page rankings and you could find yourself doubling, tripling, or quadrupling your leads in no time.

How To Boost Your Credibility With Powerful Testimonials

Powerful testimonials are a proven way to add credibility to your business. I place an emphasis on the ‘powerful’ bit, because judging from some company websites, it seems all too many businesses are happy to print any old testimonial and be done with it.

Let’s be frank, some ‘recommendations’ don’t look terribly authentic do they? And poorly written (or dubious) testimonials on a website or in a brochure can have a worse impact on your reputation than none at all.

Which of the following do you think looks more credible?

“Wow! XYZ company is a pleasure to do business with. I can’t recommend them highly enough.”
Mrs JH , London.

or

“I’ve been working with Michael from XYZ for the past six months and during that time I’ve seen our website rise from virtual obscurity to Page 1 of Google. Not only that, but the number of ‘qualified’ enquiries has doubled over the same period. Here at JS Accountancy, we consider Michael a valuable asset to our sales team.”
Jack Smith, CEO, J S Accountancy, Norwich.

The second one sounds like it’s from a real person doesn’t it? In fact, it’s really easy to check that this testimonial is genuine.
So if you can, always include your endorser’s full name (rather than initials), their position within the company, the company name and location. A photograph of the person giving the testimonial makes a nice addition to the piece, but it’s not a ‘must have’.

You might think contacting customers to ask for a testimonial is tantamount to hassling them, but the reality is, satisfied buyers of your product or service will be pleased to help you out.

Having your customers do your talking for you within your marketing materials is a sound business strategy. Getting the right testimonials from the right people will do wonders for your professionalism and prospects.

Having one or two testimonials to back up your business is great. Having a whole range of endorsements is even better. Ideally your testimonials need to come from slightly different angles, so they are not all reinforcing the same point.

For example you could have individual testimonials which highlight:

Your great service
The quality of your materials
How easy you are to work with
That your business represents excellent value for money
That your product or service consistently exceeds expectations
That customers have recommended your business to friends, family, or colleagues

By including lots of testimonials, which focus on differing facets of your products or services, you give your potential customers the complete picture – an overview of what it’s like to do business with you.

I’m sure you will be able to come up with lots of exciting ideas for testimonials that you could use to boost your reputation in business – resulting in more enquiries – and more sales.

6 Top Tips For Using Online Video To Promote Your Business

The sheer popularity of YouTube: currently 490 million users worldwide, generating an estimated 92 billion page views per month, demonstrates that online video represents the ‘now’ and the ‘future’ of social media.

In fact, the ‘how to’ video category is YouTube’s fasted growing group. Are you beginning to see the potential already?

Thanks to huge technological advances in recent years, corporate videos are now easier than ever to create in-house, or via an agency if you prefer. However some companies have reported a reluctance to try video marketing in case their message comes across as ‘mixed’, or the audience reaction isn’t as positive as they had hoped for.

Video can be a really profitable marketing tool for businesses of all sizes, so it’s well worth considering for your next campaign.

Whether you choose to employ a professional company to produce your video, or decide to do it yourself, here are 6 top tips for making videos work for your business:



1. What is the key purpose of your video?

Is it to drive awareness of your brand? A platform from which to launch a new product or service? Is it to attract affiliates to sell your products? Or perhaps you want to persuade your customers to take part in a survey.
It’s worth spending some time outlining the basis of why you are creating your video and what its key purpose is. It’s also a good idea to write your initial ideas down in the form of a Mind Map or draft document you can refer to at various intervals.

2. Who is your intended target audience?

What is their age range? Gender? Salary? Lifestyle? Hobbies? Define your ideal customer as far as possible. You can even give him or her a name if you wish, which can provide a focus for the project. You will then create your content for this particular character or persona, for example ‘Project Arnie.’

3. Why will your target audience watch your video?

Just as TV programmes are made with a particular audience in mind, your video communications need to do the same. Writing and delivering your content with a target demographic in mind, will ensure you have better chance of reaching the people you want to with your message.

4. What is your key message?

Thanks in part to the immediacy of the Internet, most of us have shorter attention spans than we did a decade ago. Very few people (even committed fans) will sit through a video that waffles on aimlessly. You need to create a proper structure with an emphasis on one or two key messages. Ideally your video should be no longer than five minutes – three is ideal. Make sure your tone of voice is consistent throughout and that the video content reflects your brand values. And talking of ‘tone of voice’, make sure you address your audience in their preferred language – don’t alienate people by being ‘too corporate.’

5. Promote, promote, promote.

You have now created a great video for your business – congratulations. But it’s not much use to you if no-one sees it. So how will you promote it?
Via your website – make sure it’s embeded in a prominent place, preferably on your Home page, not buried several layers deep.
On your very own YouTube Channel – it’s easy and free to sign up.
By emailing your list.
Using a dedicated ‘Squeeze Page’ for a particular campaign.
All of the above.


While it’s perfectly possible to do much of your video’s marketing in-house, if you are seriously planning a viral campaign, I would urge you to consider utilising the services of a viral marketing agency. By ‘seeding’ your video they will be able to create a buzz for your brand far quicker than any non-expert could hope to achieve by themselves.

6. Measure and evaluate your video’s performance.

You need to put a system in place to measure the effects of your video campaign against your objectives. A truly effective video should pay for itself in terms of savings or sales. Hopefully, the experience will prove so profitable for you that you will decide to use video as the focus of future internet marketing campaigns.