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I guess youtube is ready to try and start making money… They have a new feature that’s sponsored videos.  Right now this represents a fantastic opportunity. It’s PayPerClick, meaning you only pay when someone clicks to view your video.

The reason this is exciting is because it’s an auction kind of system,  (the more you pay the higher you are on the list of advertisers), but there aren’t a lot of advertisers on it yet. This is a huge advantage for bidding on keywords. I was able to get keywords like build a website for 10 cents, and actually show up number one for that search. This hasn’t been the case in any other ppc search engine for about 5 + years.

Here’s a video with more info.

One of the key things you need to accomplish when sending out a direct mail piece, is to get your envelope opened.

Here are a few tricks to get your letter opened…

• Put some extra stamps on your envelope – The most extreme level of this, is to use all one penny stamps
• Use large envelopes
• Hand write the address (labels will reduce your open rate)
• Hand write a personal note
• Use a small envelope
• Use a different color
• Use a cartoon

The idea is to get someone curious about what’s in the envelope. You’re using the envelope to sell them in the idea of opening it.

A post-it note is a great way to advertise your website. You can get printed post-its, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

How about this… Every time you send someone a letter, you put a sticky note on it with your web address. Hand write the note and assuming it’s readible, your site will be promoted even more.

PDXforsale.com is a site providing free classifieds. You can include a link to your site in your ad making it a way not only to possibly get some good traffic, but also to increase your search engine visibility.

Run a contest among clients with the winner receiving a featured spot on your website, and/or in your newsletter. Not only is this a clever way to keep in contact with your clients, the winner will be more likely to send you some referrals.

This is a great prize for to use as insentive for people signing up for your newsletter. I might do this myself.

You can also give away T-shirts with your URL on them. If it fits your company, give away T-Shirts in childrens sizes, and make them blue and pink.  You don’t want to give away the T-shirts for no reason, you want to people to wear them. Striking Graphics has a printer that actually prints on fabric. This tool allows them to sell with no min. order.

On more than one occasion I’ve had a complete stranger come up to me and ask me for a business card. No, they weren’t psychic. They new what I did because I was wearing a shirt with my logo and slogan on it.  One of my clients, Striking Graphics, did my shirts and I highly recommend them.

A powerful way to position yourself as an expert as well as get in front of more potential clients, is to organize a regular meeting. This could be a networking meeting, a learning seminar, or just a fun get together of people with a similar interest.

The site Meetup.com will streamline this and even hook you up with people already looking for a group in your area.

Last post I talked to you about word of mouth marketing. If you haven’t read that article yet click here to read it first and come back to this one.

Mainly I was focused on how you can get referrals from your existing customers, but I also want to talk to you about one of the most profitable marketing strategies you can use. Creating strategic alliances with complementary businesses can literally make your business. One good strategic partner could provide 25-50% of your business.

What is a strategic partner? Sometimes it’s obvious… If you’re a mortgage person, you want to have partnerships with good real estate agents, a photographer wants to have partnerships with wedding planners, etc. You want to look around and see what other kinds of businesses share your same potential customers.

Once you identify potential alliances, you’ll need to ask an important question, “what can I do for them?” You are trying to make a sale, not just meet people. This is USP (Unique Selling Proposition) revisited. What’s unique about your business as far as how you can help a potential strategic partner.

I won’t go into great detail about the concepts of this kind of marketing. The idea here is to get you thinking about it. It’s probably one of the most under used marketing strategies.

You can use magnetic or vinyl signs on your car to promote your website. Having a website (if it’s easy to remember) on the back of your car will allow people to memorize it while they’re waiting in traffic behind you. You could use a unique domain name just for this feature.

The main thing that you want to keep in mind is these people probably won’t write down your domain name, so it needs to be easy to remember. Sometimes sentences can work better for this case. JHLAutomotive.com may be fine for your main domain, but for a vehicle wrap you may want to use something like www.TheBestTuneUpForLess.com or something like that. Notice how I capitalize each letter to make it so the end user can read it as a sentence.