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August 21, 2017 by RonTester Leave a Comment

Making Videos? Ask Your Audience What They Would Like to See

Ask Your Audience What They Would LIke to SeeAsking Is Almost Always Better Than Guessing

Generating topics for videos is something you will need to do if you’re going to produce regular videos for your audience. The best way to accomplish this is to ask your audience for ideas about the types of videos and what subjects they want you to cover. There are different ways you can ask or find out what your audience wants to see.

* Warm Them Up – Most audiences are used to the one-way communication that most people provide to them. They get emails, they sit and watch a presentation, and they read blog posts. But they aren’t used to real engagement. You need to start small, warming them up by always ending every blog post, every social media post and so forth with a short question.

* Encourage Interaction – Reward people who engage with you by thanking them, and by acting excited about their contribution. Consider giving them a prize or a percent off coupon for coming up with such a great idea or question.

* Send an Email – Use your email list to your advantage. When you are trying to come up with ideas, shoot them an email to ask for their input. Make it fun for them to respond by inviting them to a free Facebook brainstorming group, or offering points toward products and services for good ideas.

* Visit Discussion Groups – Remember that your audience lives in other places besides only on your lists, your groups, and your discussion boards. Go to other places where they like to hang out and read the discussions. Any question they ask can become fodder for a new video.

* Conduct a Survey – A really good way to ask questions of your audience is to send a survey. With a short survey you can also get a little extra information about the group, plus input into what types of videos they’d like to see. Make it worth their while by promising and delivering a surprise at the end of the survey. I use SurveyMonkey or Google Forms.

* Ask on Social Media – Go straight to your social media accounts to ask questions of your audience. You can also send a poll via social media, or you can post an infographic with information and a question such as: “What is the next video you’d like me to make?” If you can give them a couple of choices to choose from, you’ll be more likely to get more answers.

* Have a Contest – Let the audience pick the topic by giving five topics you want to talk about, then let them vote on which one they’d like to see most. The winning topic gets made, and the ones who voted on the winning topic get invite to submit more questions and maybe ask a question live at the event.

* Frame the Question Right – You want to lead the choices in a certain direction so that you know you can make a video about the topic. For example, maybe you are confused about two different options; post only those two options. Or maybe you know the topic, but you want to know what they need to know about the topic; approach it that way instead.

Asking your audience directly is one of the best ways to choose a topic for your next video. Don’t be afraid to ask them. It doesn’t mean you don’t know what to do—it means that you care about what your audience needs. They’ll appreciate being included.

If you have an idea for a video you’d like to see, post it in the comments below. Or you can email me ron@rontester.com.

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: DoThisNotThatMarketing.com, Ron Tester, Video

January 3, 2017 by RonTester 1 Comment

12 Ways to Use Market Research for Your Business

Because Guessing Is Bad Strategy

Market Research

Market research is the best way to ensure the longevity of your business. Many small business owners often overlook market research — to their detriment. Market research is an essential and ongoing component of all successful businesses. Here are twelve ways to use market research for your business.

1. Discover Your Target Market – Many people make products or decide to sell services, and then try to find a market for them. However, the truth is that you should first find the market you want to work with, then create products for it. But, even if you skipped that, you can now find your target audience so that you can get your marketing materials right.

2. Get to Know Your Potential Customers – Don’t just rely on web research—get out from behind your desk and get to know your potential customers. The market research that you conduct will allow you to get to know your potential customers better. When you know them better, you’ll be able to create customer personas that help with creating content and marketing which really gets results.

3. Develop New Products and/or Services – When you know what is going on in the marketplace you’ll get more ideas about products and services that your audience needs. You may also get new ideas from reading industry news or from what the competition is doing.

4. Refresh Your Marketing Efforts – Sometimes marketing becomes stale and even though your audience doesn’t change who they are, they do change how they feel about things. For example, what was acceptable marketing for companies in the 1960s isn’t acceptable today. You need to refresh your marketing so you can maintain good will as you keep your company’s offerings in front of your potential customers..

5. Determine Who Your Competitors Are – I’m consistently suprised when I ask business leaders who their competition is and they say, “We don’t have any.” Either you do and you don’t know it, or you’re in the wrong industry. Sure, no one offers exactly what you do the way you do it, but you do have competitors. And it’s important to identify your competitors so that you can keep an eye on them and what they are doing. Sign up for their lists and purchase some of their products. Don’t copy them, but do use them as a standard bearer so you can be better.

6. Educate Yourself to Become an Expert – The more information you learn about your industry and the market for your products and/or services, the closer you’ll become to being an expert. Reading as much as possible keeps you up-to-date and knowledgeable.

7. Confirm Your Ideas – It’s important that when you have an idea or assumption about anything to do with your business, you do the research to determine if it’s right. Sometimes anecdotal stories are wrong; sometimes a result is an outlier and not true most of the time. Only market research can help determine what is genuinely right and wrong.

8. Learn New Opinions – During the market research, you’ll also learn totally new ideas and opinions you never considered. You may find during your research that your new ideas/opinions are wrong or you may find out that they’re right. Before you make a potentially costly move, it’s always better to do the research.

9. Keep Up with New Technologies in Your Industry – Keeping up with market research will also help you learn about technology as it happens. Every day new technologies are being developed that can help you with your business. Without research, you won’t know about it. It’s easy to get trapped within your four walls and not realize what is happening.

10. Identify New Trends – As you’re doing your research, you’ll start to be able to identify new trends that are happening right now. These trends are things that you need to jump on because as fast as they come, they can change.

11. Avoid Marketing Snafus – Business owners who avoid market research are prone to making horrible marketing mistakes. They are at risk of believing their own biases. If you want a laugh and a cringe or two, see Ad Week’s list of advertising and marketing fails.

12. Track Your Own Brand – Many people don’t realize that during market research you’ll also be able to determine how you’re doing as a brand getting information out to the public. If you do not run into your own articles, interviews, blog posts and research while searching, then you need to start working harder.

The fact is, without market research your success is in jeopardy. Some business owners will achieve accidental success but it will be hard to keep up. If you plan for success by conducting market research for your business, you will be set up for success from day one. If you started already, it’s not too late to conduct market research to ensure that you achieve and maintain success.

Action step: write down a list of your competitors. What can you learn from them? What can you do differently to distinguish your company in the mind of your potential customers?

Filed Under: Small Business Marketing Tagged With: DoThisNotThatMarketing.com, Market Research

November 8, 2016 by RonTester 13 Comments

How to Stand Out In a Crowd

Being Different is Good.

IMG 8664

If you’re looking to stand out from the crowd, you could learn a thing or two from Paula Deen. Paula isn’t afraid to call it like she sees it in the kitchen. And what does she see? Mostly butter.

Butter is making a bit of a comeback, mostly due to the rising popularity of the ketogenic diet and new research that shows it may not be as bad for you as everyone thought, but the truth is Paula loved butter when butter wasn’t cool.

So here’s my question for you: What do you love? Are you willing to take a stand for it, even if it’s not cool? Are you willing to take criticism or make enemies if necessary?

I was in Savannah recently and we decided to eat at Paula’s restaurant, Lady and Sons. As we were waiting (business was brisk that day and we waited about 45 minutes to get a table), I wandered over to the gift shop and saw this marvelous display. She may be driving vegans crazy, but there are probably just as many folks who resonate with her passion for butter. “I like butter. Paula likes butter. Paula’s like me. I like Paula.”

Here’s the other thing about Paula, though. Paula’s not afraid to change. She’s not pretending that she’s someone she’s not, but she’s evolving. So across from the homage to butter, you’ll see a display her cookbooks, which includes Paula Deen Cuts the Fat. Rather than stick with the same old butter story, Paula’s making healthy changes while playing with her fame as the Butter Queen.

Here’s my challenge to you: figure out who you are and what you love. Find something that you love so much you’re willing to take a stand for it, even if it’s not popular. And when you do find that thing, let the world know that’s who you are and what you love. And if you change your mind or grow and evolve, stand for that, too. 

If you need to know how to let the world know who you are, or are having trouble telling your story in an authentic way, please email me ron@rontester.com and let me know how I can help. I’m here for you. Butter and all.

Edit: I heard back from someone that I was mischaracterizing vegans as hostile. I admit that most of the vegans I know are lovely people. I do know a couple of cranky, vocal vegans, though, and they were the minority I was referencing.

Paula Deen

Filed Under: Small Business Marketing Tagged With: DoThisNotThatMarketing.com, Paula Deen, Ron Tester

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