Good SEO Consultants: Why Are They Expensive?

The experts know their value and know that SEO services are not sold cheaply, because they can double or triple business revenues. But how do you know a good SEO consultant from a bad one or what is supposed to do a good consultant? You will find out next.

Previous SEO results: keep track of personal history

All good SEOs must be able to show you the websites/companies they worked with. But if they are so good, they could be already working for big corporations in your area. I have received many so-called incredible deals with very cheap prices, but when asking for some results they have obtained, I didn't receive any answer.

Promised SEO results: guaranteed & for a long term

A good SEO consultant must ensure long-term results, or for a certain period of time minimum. Many companies do not want to pay a good SEO consultant, but they end up paying more and the ratings are lower.

The most effective SEO strategies

There is a different way of optimizing a website for each SEO consultant. The difference between the good and the not-so-good SEO consultants is that the first ones implement effective strategies. Implementing the strategies that not all consultants know will help you defeat competition. And information costs, this is why good consultants are expensive.

Unfortunately, I must say that I had to resolve many sites that had been screwed by SEO consultants, so I strongly recommend that entrepreneurs are not cheap when it comes to paying them.

The SEO Staff

Most good SEOs already have their professional team working for them. The costs for you to hire such a team step by step are higher than to pay just one consultant, plus the time spend with the recruiting.

Quality vs. Quantity in SEO

These concepts are the same as in any other domains. If you want quality, you have to pay for it. However, more quantity does not necessarily mean more quality.

Choosing the Best SEO Consulting Services

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a process whereby the visibility of certain websites, in search engines is enhanced. In other words, SEO is the process of increasing the visibility of websites in search engines. It is, therefore, pertinent to note that the best SEO consulting services are those that are in charge of improving the visibility of websites. Given the importance of the best SEO services, it is necessary for you to choose the best service providers. It is, therefore, noted that there are a number of best SEO consulting services today.

Before getting into how to choose the best SEO consulting services, it is necessary for us to examine what they do exactly. As noted, the best SEO are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the visibility of websites is improved. In other words, what the best SEO do is improve the ranking of websites in search engines. These services look at the commonest search engines and then try to incorporate the website in them. In this way, the website will be gaining popularity and thus, improve its ranking. Some of the commonest websites used by the best SEO are Yahoo, Google and Bing. The best SEO services look at the keywords that best describe the website in question, and then try to incorporate these key words into the search engines. The best SEO consulting services get these key words by looking at the objectives of the website and services that it offers. After incorporating these key words into the search engines; it will have linked the website to the search engines. It is, therefore, pertinent to note that these services as a link between search engines and the websites of clients.

Given the importance of the services provided, it is necessary for you to be able to choose the best SEO consulting services for your website. You should choose the best SEO that will be able to provide the services required by your website. It is necessary to note that the whole basis of the best SEO consulting services is to optimize websites. This should, therefore, be the first thing that you look for in consultants. In other words, you should look at whether the service will be able to expose your business the way you want it.

One of the best ways of choosing the best SEO consulting services is to get as many quotes as possible from many consultants. Since there are many consulting services today, they all offer different services and price ranges. It is, therefore, essential for you to be able to compare these services and prices, before you can finally be able to choose the best SEO consulting services. The best SEO chosen should provide the best services at the lowest prices. The services should be able to give your website high rankings at an affordable price.

In addition, the best SEO consulting services chosen should adhere to high ethics and professionalism. There are so many services today, but not all of them have professional ethics. Therefore, it is necessary for you to choose the best SEO that adhere to high professional ethics. This will ensure that the service has the ultimate aim of improving the ranking of your website, unlike others that might only be after making money.

All, in all, given the importance of SEO, it is very essential for you to be able to choose the best SEO consulting services for your website or internet business.

10 Tips to Get Recruitment Consultants Motivated

A recruitment article by Dougles Chan - A 15 years experienced top SEO consultant and SEO experts that specialised in Search Engine Optimisation, provides quality https://dougleschan.com/SEO services in Singapore. An author of 8 books and having 25 years in business and SEO hands-on experiences in SEO services and SEO Consulting in Singapore, London, NJ, Dubai, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York.

Nowadays, ‘motivation’ is considered to be a challenge for recruitment agencies. First, talented candidates are selected for a particular post. Secondly, they are motivated for the performance purpose. Motivation is also used to reduce the turnover rate. In the same way, the organization also needs to motivate their suppliers, investors, recruitment consultant and other stakeholders.

Recruitment consultant has become the most important constituent of a particular organization. The reason is that they perform the job of hiring candidates for the business. So in order to keep your recruitment consultants motivated, you can use various ways. It will not be fruitful for a particular sector, but for the whole organization. You can motivate recruitment consultants with the help of monetary as well as non-monetary benefits. 10 ways to get recruitment consultants motivated are discussed as follows:

Monetary Benefits: It is considered to be the most important factor to motivate recruitment consultants. First of all, you should integrate monetary benefits with their hiring activities. You can offer extra fees and bonuses, if they search out talented executives for the organization. This would greatly affect the activities of a recruitment agency and they will surely be motivated to work for the company on a long term basis.

Corporate benefits: You can also offer corporate benefits for the recruitment consultants. You can arrange long-term contracts with reliable recruitment consultants. This will really bring positive results.

The sense of responsibility: You should designate different responsibilities for the agency. You can do this by increasing their stake in the organization. When they know their stake and recognize their sense of responsibility, they would definitely be motivated for the organization.

Goal Setting: It is really important to set goals for the agency. If you want that they work swiftly, then you must set goals. In addition, you can also check the performance of consultants with the help of goal setting.

Hone skills: If you want to motivate recruitment consultant, then you should conduct training sessions to hone their skills. You can also use Job fairs in this regard. It would definitely be a good motivational factor.

Benchmark Competition: You can also motivate with the help of benchmark competition. You can organize competitions and provide them suitable access to the candidate pool.

Recognize High Achiever: It is one of the most important motivational factors. You should recognize consultants who are performing their jobs efficiently. This will not only motivate them, but also other ones who are trying to be a high achiever and get recognized.

Help the Recruiter: Never leave consultants alone to perform all tasks. Instead, you should help recruiter regarding all hiring matters. Guide them properly and convey your expectations regarding a particular job.

Continual Feedback: It is really a useful to motivate recruitment consultants. You should know the importance of this tool to use it carefully; as excess of it would not be feasible. You should encourage recruitment consultants with the help of continual feedback.

Value: You should value your recruitment consultants to keep them motivated. If you value your consultants, they will value you in return. This means that it is a two-way process and you should use extensive motivational factors to enjoy long-term benefits. We hope that 10 tips to get recruitment consultants motivated have clarified most of your doubts.

How to Brand Yourself as a Professional Recruitment Consultant/Recruiter

Many recruitment consultants/recruiters who are working for a recruitment agency or working for themselves had never thought that self-branding is very important in their ultimate success or failure in the industry.

When I was talking to many consultants and owners or the recruitment industry,I always ask them 2 basic questions that they are not able to answer, these are the 2 questions:

1)      If I am the client, why should I give you the business?

2)      If I am the client, why should I give you the business exclusively?

For many recruitment consultants/recruiters, question number 1 is already quite tough to answer, some of them who are more experience will be able to answer the first one but when it comes to questions 2.

Many of the really do not know how to answer that question at all!

If you are not even able to answer the 2 questions above, how do you expect people to give you the business and sales?

It just does not work in real life, you can continue to do cold calling via telemarketing, email marketing, social media marketing and other available techniques but at the end of the route you will still hit the WALL and the same question will goes back to you….

WHY SHOULD THE CLIENT GIVE YOU THE BUSINESS?
Part of the answer is related to Self-Branding, which is to say how the clients perceive you to be, what you are and what can you do. You see, the keyword is “PERCEIVE.”

It may not be a real thing but how the other people think of what you are.

If it is for good, then it will be great but what happens if the self-branding is on the negative side and you do not even know about it, would it be very sad to know that the client perceive things that you are not into it and you do not know why this is happening?

My friend, in real life, it is always happening everywhere especially if you are not strong in your self-branding.

Let me ask you a very straight question, did the company you are with now tells you how to brand yourself and position yourself in such a way that you are special, unique and one of the kind and not just another recruitment consultant out there?

Well I dare to say over 95% of the people out there will tell you the following steps:
1)      Find the client and get the job orders
2)      Find the right candidate and forward them to the clients
3)      Close case and hit your target (KPI)
Err….excuse me…where is the branding? It seems that it is not even there at all…
Yes, it is totally not in the equation at all, they will not ask you to brand themselves because the company is the brand, but do you know that YOU are also a BRAND by itself and you are not even making any effort branding it?

Ask yourself this important question:

If you have a great brand do you think your clients and candidate will follow you wherever you go?

The answer is a definite YES!
Well, apparently we seem to have answered part of the 2 questions which was asked above, isn’t it?

Here are some proven methods that you can do to start branding to another higher level:


1)      Play the level you want to play – That is to say that you choose what type to clients and candidates to serve, not the other way around. Do not attempt to take all the clients who are available and choose what kind of candidates you want to recommend.

2)      Your Niche – If you perceive as one of those consultants out there, you will be treated like anyone of them, when you are positioned as one of them, you will end up like one of them. Choose and focus on the industry, function, category and level you want to play and able to play. Do not attempt to enter an area which you are not familiar or un-comfortable, you will not go very far on that.

3)      Act like a champion – Regardless whether you are meeting a client, wear like a winner, talk like a winner and think like a winner, eventually your habit will make you to become a real winner.

4)      Market Presence – Get your own website, your own domain name if possible then put your picture, information and everything people need to know to let them know you exist. Make your own facebook fan page, Twitter, Linkedin,etc…

5)      Blogging – Talk and write about things in your industry that showcase that you are a professional and expert in what you are doing, remember that you must always give something before you get something in return.

6)      Finding your identity – Once you have position yourself on what people what to perceive you, brand it and let people knows who you are.

For example, when someone comes to my website @ www.dougleschan.com they will automatically see me as  SEO Master Shifu and when they visited my website long enough and more frequently enough and when they think of SEO master or even SEO coach, next time, they will automatically relate to- >  Dougles Chan…that is how powerful branding is!

7)      Search Engine – Well once you started to brand yourself, put some effort in branding your own website in the optimisation part and there will be more people knowing who you are and what you do.

Do you know that some clients and candidates “Google” you when they make some contact in Linkedin, email or other social media with you? If your name is not even in “Google” it shows what “level” of branding you are at….

If you were to search The SEO Coach or SEO coaching, you will notice that my website is at the top page of the local Google search page and also the first page of Google International. That shows the level of “branding” it has on “SEO coach” itself.

Branding is a long term effort and the process will be pretty much tedious and bumpy but you will need to put some effort every single day to ensure it is working.

Happy Branding….

A recruitment article by Dougles Chan - A 15 years experienced top SEO consultant and SEO experts that specialised in Search Engine Optimisation, provides quality SEO services in Singapore. An author of 8 books and having 25 years in business and SEO hands-on experiences in SEO services and SEO Consulting in Singapore, London, NJ, Dubai, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York. More information, check here.

The Chatbot Factory

Overview

The Chatbot Factory est une startup technologique spécialisée dans la conception, le développement et le déploiement de chatbots et les algorithmes basés sur l’intelligence artificielle. Notre technologie propriétaire permet la gestion, l'automatisation et la contextualisation des conversations en langage naturel, associant sources de données multiples et intelligence artificielle. Nous intervenons sur des problématiques B2B (automatisation des procédures internes, Helpdesk et assistance, outils collaboratifs) ou B2C (recommandations de produits, opérations de promotion, qualification niveau 1 et SAV, dispositifs de communication personnalisés, …). Nos clients, Aviva, Publicis, Groupe BNP Paribas, Groupe Auchan, ...

Website

http://www.thechatbotfactory.com

Industry

Marketing and Advertising

Company size

11-50 employees

Type

Privately Held

Founded

2016

Specialties

applications conversationnelles, chatbots, bots de messagerie, natural language processing (NLP), and intelligence artificielle

I Just Want To Talk To A Human!

The digital revolution, as it applies to customer service, means that companies are using chatbots, interactive voice response systems (IVRs), robocalls and more to communicate with their customers. The intention is that customers will get answers faster, and it will be easier than waiting for a live person to take care of them. But, according to a recent survey by Usabilla, which helps its clients get customer feedback, more than half of customers (55%) prefer talking to a human on the phone. I’ve seen research that could debate these numbers, but that doesn’t mean they don’t tell a good story. So, even if these numbers don’t apply to your type of business, the story that they tell does. That story is simple. Customers want a quick and easy way to get customer support, regardless of how they get it.

Here are some of the key findings of the survey with a few of my comments:

55% of customers prefer speaking to a human customer service agent on the phone. This is a powerful statistic in that one might think more than half prefer not to have digital interaction, but we can look at this from the other direction and state that nearly half (45%) of customers are willing to use alternative channels to interact with companies, thereby avoiding human contact. The gist of this is that a majority has not yet embraced these newer alternative methods to get customer support. But, compare this to just a year or two ago and you’ll see the trend is moving toward digital.
54% of customers surveyed said they would always choose a chatbot over a human customer service rep if it saved them 10 minutes. This supports my comment about the first statistic. Customers will use the technology – and even embrace it – if it saves them time. That number will increase as more and more people get comfortable with the technology.

When faced with the dreaded phone-tree, 73% of customers skip the robocall, often pressing “0” to reach a human first. The phone tree, as in “push 1 for this, 2 for that and 3 for something else" is antiquated compared to IVRs and other technologies. Who wants to listen to all of those options? It’s so much easier and less frustrating to push “0” and get an operator.

40% of customers want better training for the customer service reps, and 31% want faster service. While many customers want to have a phone conversation with a live customer service rep, a good percentage of them feel there is room for improvement. A negative experience can be summed up with another statistic from the report. Eighty-two percent of customers say that just one poor experience will decrease the likelihood that they will recommend the brand to others. That means you get one shot, so make it count.

74% of customers report that a “High Customer Effort Score” (meaning it’s hard to do business with the company) would stop them from doing business with the company again because of the bad experience. It doesn’t matter if it’s over the phone or via newer technology, an experience that has friction is a recipe for losing a customer, especially when it is tied to customer service. Is it hard for your customers to reach a human representative? And when they do, is it a good experience? How much time does it take? How many times is the customer transferred? How many times do they have to repeat the same information? You get the idea. Avoid friction. Be easy and convenient. As mentioned above, you get one shot, so make it count.

The Usabilla survey focused on phone support; specifically, the difficulty of using the phone to get to a human. Do not confuse this with the trend toward the acceptance of self-service options. Going to a website to find answers to frequently asked questions is a starting point for many customers. And, customers love how-to videos that answer their questions, show them how to best use products and walk them through setup and other processes. Just remember, that with all these technologies, the human backup is crucial. If a customer could quickly and easily navigate through a phone-tree or didn’t mind talking to a computer because the experience was similar to talking to a human, we wouldn’t see the same results in the Usabilla survey. Technology must improve and save the customer time and effort. Until that happens, don’t expect the phone – and the desire to talk to a live human – to disappear in the foreseeable future.

Marketing Teams Need Strategy Too

Marketers have heard it all. User-generated content is king. Chatbots are the future. Influencer marketing delivers the most ROI. And what about micro-moments? This latest addition to the marketing lexicon refers to the idea that you have mere nanoseconds to capture your audience’s attention. However, for all the trends and buzzwords, the best marketers know the real not-so-secret sauce behind breakthrough campaigns.

Combining creative and data is essential to campaign success — but it all starts with vision and strategy.
This is especially true today because more is required of marketing teams than ever before. And since marketers are moving extremely fast — beholden to dates that they have little control over, like the launch of a new product — most marketing teams live in chaos. That makes them reactive. Really reactive.

I know this because I spoke with hundreds of marketers as we prepared to launch Aha! for Marketing — a new product we released this week. It is purpose-built for setting strategy, building visual marketing plans, and reporting on program results.

Before we launched Aha! for Marketing, I wanted to really understand the struggles that marketing teams are facing. I wanted to focus on what they need in order to deliver those brilliant campaigns and also be happier at work. Almost all of the conversations had one common thread.

Marketing teams are passionate about using their own creativity to power the growth of the business.
This made sense — marketers are always among the most creative people in any organization. Yet I was amazed at how many are working without a clear strategy.

If you are a marketer nodding your head in agreement, I will tell you the same thing I told those other teams I spoke with: In order to help drive the business, you need to be clear on where you are going and why. In other words, it is time to get out of react mode and start with a goal-first approach.

Here is how I suggest you should approach strategy as a marketing team:

Set goals and initiatives
Everything starts with objectives. So, get clear on what you want to achieve by setting goals that are actionable, measurable, and support the overall direction of the company. Then establish the initiatives (the major areas of work) that will help you successfully achieve those goals. These initiatives should be time-bound to hold you accountable for getting the work done.

Research the market
Do you really know your audience? You cannot craft and share a meaningful message unless you know who you are speaking to. Do a market analysis — research your target market to understand who will get the most value from your product or service. Then document this information in a place that the whole team can access, whether it is a simple one-page note or broken out into detailed customer personas and competitive landscape analysis.

Know the benefits
Once you understand the market, you can create messages that will really resonate. This starts with crafting your positioning strategy and clearly articulating the benefits of your product or service. To get going, you can use a simple formula like this: (This group of users) have (this specific problem), which (your company/product) uniquely solves/makes possible by providing (this value).

Define the channels
Now that you have the right messaging, you need to distribute it through the right channels. From your research, you will already know the channels your customers frequent and trust — focus on those first. Then, explore new areas for promotion and placement. Be sure to define what success will look like and set performance targets, so you can continuously monitor whether those channels are delivering a solid ROI.

Prioritize work based on what matters
You can be incredibly busy — but activity is not the same as achievement. When you stop reacting and start assessing what comes next based on your goals, you will be able to better prioritize your tasks. As new ideas and requests pop up, weigh each one against your strategy. This will bring objectivity to the planning process and ensure you are pursuing strategic marketing activities.

Strategy is the first step towards creating breakthrough programs that will have a real impact on the business.
You need strategy — clear goals, deep research, and the courage to act upon what you learn. The word strategy might not be a magic buzzword, but getting strategic is the best way to achieve the results that will make you and the company proud.

An Introduction to Paint Protection Film For Cars and Trucks

Twenty years ago, clear coat car paint protection was all the rage. Clear coat for cars promised to end paint damage from road debris and leave cars looking new year after year. The problem was that when the clear coat got a nick or a scratch, it looked nearly as bad as damage to the paint itself. Repairing extensive clear coat damage was just as time consuming and expensive as repairing the paint job itself. Clear coat offered a degree of protection, but nowhere near what was promised. These days there's something new on the market that fulfills many of the broken promises made by clear coat: Clear Paint Protection Film.

Paint protection film is the latest evolution in the automotive paint world. It's been around for a few years, but just lately has it caught on to the masses. Though not a perfect solution to all problems paint related, it's the best thing on the market and should be considered by anyone looking to protect an expensive paint job.

Paint protection film is made out of a thin thermoplastic urethane. Anyone familiar with do-it-yourself window tinting film should have a good idea of what paint protection film is since the two are nearly identical. Window tinting is of course tinted and paint protection film transparent.
The film comes in sheets or rolls. Several companies are now producing custom protective film pre-cut to fit a particular vehicle. This is a wonderful innovation and saves time in the cutting process, which can be very tedious for amateurs.

Recently, custom paint protection film shops have become very popular. Though the film can be applied by anyone with patience and some skill, the best results will be obtained by a professional service. These shops have the facilities to apply the clear film in a clean environment, which is critical. Any dust, dirt, pollen etc. on the paint when the film is applied will be trapped there until the film is removed. Most do-it-yourself people just don't have the necessary facilities to do that. Even clean garages contain dust and must be draped with plastic sheeting to achieve anything near the required conditions for a clean environment.

Although car protection film is not armor plating and can sustain the same nicks and abrasions that a clear coat paint job is vulnerable to, it isn't permanent. When the film becomes damaged, it can easily be removed without damaging the paint and new film applied. This is much cheaper than trying to repair damaged clear coating or paint.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru, staffing agency coach. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized in business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO Services, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 staffing agency coaching, kindly check here.

How to Brand a Recruitment Company.

It is extremely important that any recruitment company needs to brand themselves aggressively because the competition is extremely stiff out there. If you are not able to position your recruitment company to a level higher than your competitors, the possibility of losing your existing clients will be very high, and in addition, the fact is that the potential new clients will NEVER bother to entertain you at all if you do not have a certain brand.

Here is the key factor why branding is extremely important to your recruitment company –

The better the branding of your company, the higher the level of your client and the more sales figures you will have.

To brand your company you will need to do the following:

1) Have a simple, yet carefully designed logo.

2) Have a great website that is designed by a top professional.

3) You must create a blog in your website to create constant interaction with visitors.

4) Have a LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter account. Generate thousands of friends and followers in the account. Constantly update your social media accounts so that it keeps the public aware that your company is always present.

5) Make your presence felt in SEO, Adwords, LinkedIn Ads, and Facebook Ads to create a dominant appearance in the market.

6) Create multiple office branches in different countries. You need not have to create a physical office, it can be a virtual office! You can even share office with recruitment companies in other countries.

7) Go for awards that make your company shine. Many awards are easily obtainable when you are able to follow some processes.

8) Ensure that your employees love your company, make sure the priority to make your staff happy is the number one goal. Make your sales target your number two priority.

9) Reduce your company reporting process to as few as possible so that everyone will feel that they are not so distant from the boss of the company.

10) Give public talks, attend events, and let the public know you exist.

11) Donate some of the company profits to charity, and don’t let people know you are doing it. This branding is within yourself and not for the public to see. This is a higher level of branding.

Branding is an expensive game and the process must be done from day one of your business. Once you have started the branding, you will need to start to put aside a percentage of funds in that area. The biggest brand will hold a firm and great market presence and will dominate the market in the long run, since branding is the easiest method to generate a lot of sales for the company.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A business coach that specialized in recruitment agency business. Specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized in business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO Services, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 staffing agency coaching, kindly check here.

6 YouTube Marketing Tips

YouTube is one Digital Marketing channel where you can market your products and services. Now that Google owns YouTube, you can also use YouTube for link building and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Here are some tips that you can use in using YouTube for marketing:

1. Create a YouTube channel.

The first step in using YouTube for marketing is to create a channel. This is where you can upload your videos. You have to make sure that your username reflects your brand.
There is an About section on your YouTube page where you can write about your business. This is where you can put important information about your company. It is also possible to include links to your Digital Marketing accounts.
You can also categorize your videos into different sections like "Our Fans" or "Product Demonstrations." Creating playlists also has a similar function and helps users watch all your related videos without pausing.

2. Invest time in connecting with the other members of the YouTube community.

Place a comment on videos that are relevant to your business and always include the link to your YouTube channel or website in your comments. This will increase the traffic to your website and your channel. Try to reply to any questions and interesting comments from other users.
You can also ask viewers to like your video, comment and subscribe to your channel. You can put this request in the description of your videos or explicitly say it in your videos.

3. Always focus on brand recognition.

Making YouTube videos can increase brand recognition. But, if you want to reap these benefits, you have to include your company name or logo at the beginning or end of the video.
Try to have visual consistency among all your videos so that viewers can easily recognize a video as one of yours. It can be a similar background, using the same typography or the same voiceover. You can also have the same presenter or actor for all your videos. Make sure it is somebody quite charming and engaging. If you are comfortable on camera, then you can star in the videos yourself.

4. Use the right keywords.

You have to use the right keywords in formulating your video title and description. Ask yourself, what do customers type on YouTube to find products similar to mine? If you are selling ladies’ bags, make sure to include that in your YouTube video title. You have to make sure that your content is related to your title. Write titles that catch people’s attention. Do not just put “New Product by Company X” when you can put "Awesome Product that Would Change Your Life – Company X." The latter is more interesting and will get a higher number of clicks.

5. Create valuable content.

To effectively use YouTube to market your products and services, you have to create content that showcases your products and services. But, you have to create a video that piques the interest of your potential customers. Your videos must be engaging and interesting.
You can create “how to” videos or videos that showcases the unique feature of your products and services. You can also aim to create videos that you intend to go viral. These are usually humorous or clever videos that people want to “like” and share with their friends.

6. Post videos regularly.

If you are serious about using YouTube for your business, you have to post videos regularly. This will keep your customers and potential customers updated. Think of the videos on your YouTube channel as if they were shows on a TV channel. TV shows have a regular schedule that people know, so they can tune in when their favorite shows are on. Make sure that people know the schedule when you upload new videos so they can log on to YouTube when that happens. You can also simply invite them to subscribe to your channel so that they get notified when you have new videos out.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Recruitment Agency & Staffing Agency Business Coach. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO services, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

7 Snapchat Quick Marketing Tactics

Snapchat used to just be another photo and video sharing mobile application. Many people did not quite understand what made it better or more different than Instagram and Twitter that have similar functions. It seems to even be a more stripped down version of those apps and has limited capabilities. However, with more than 100 million users with an account on the app sharing 400 million snaps every day, Snapchat is a Digital Marketing dark horse.

There is a limit on how long a photo or video can be viewed by an account's followers. This was its original selling point, so users can share a post that their friends will only see for a short time. It can be for mere seconds, and it will not be seen again by the receiver. In essence, your message self-destructs. This poses a challenge for marketers, but they can also use it to their advantage if they know the following:

1. Create a Snapchat account.

As with your other Digital Marketing accounts, you have to download the app and create an account. Follow the previously mentioned guidelines for usernames and profile photos.

2. Know your audience.

3. Do not feel constrained by the time limit.

You can look at the time limit as an opportunity to give teasers or short previews. Sometimes, people become more interested in a product if you do not give a lot of information about it right away. This creates buzz and speculation that will make people even more excited about what you will announce later on.

What marketers have to understand is that most of the content on all Digital Marketing sites are viewed by users in five seconds or less, making them not any different from the experience of using Snapchat. It is also similar to the experience of passing a billboard on a fast moving highway or flipping to a TV channel and catching a few seconds of a commercial. However, the difference lies in not being able to find the content again while users can look back at old Tweets and Facebook timelines, so make sure that your posts are all memorable and easy to digest.

Take a cue from how other brands use Snapchat for advertising and think of many creative ways to use it for marketing. It is good to work with the time limit to create a sense of urgency so that customers will go and purchase the product immediately before it is too late.

4. Engage with your followers.

5. Share exclusive, private content.

Snaps cannot be seen by people who are not following your account. So, your customers will feel special every time you deliver content that other people will not be able to see. It is more personal and intimate, which makes you connect better with customers.

You can also share promo codes or announcements about flash sales on Snapchat. That makes your users feel rewarded for following you on the app.

Similarly, you can bring people behind the scenes and let them see you at work - developing and delivering your products. This makes your customers feel like they are part of the company, too, in some way.

6. Find influencers you can partner with.

Find influencers like celebrities or Digital Marketing stars who can promote your brand on Snapchat. They should have millions of followers and have an image that is related and relevant to your brand. You can ask them to post snaps while using your product or in your store.

7. Use Snapchat’s advertising features.

As part of Snapchat's push to monetize the app, they are now allowing brands to use ad options. The first one is "Live Stories." Users can share photos, and videos of an event live, so you can have a collection of snaps from different users who are present at a live event. For example, if there is a concert, then different people can show themselves, show the acts playing, or show the crowd to their friends via the app.

By looking at all the snaps together, users can get an idea about what is going on. In a way, they can also enjoy the event or even go there at that moment to catch the rest of it in person.  Companies can pay for a 10-second spot to advertise in a live story. It is better if the live story is related to their business or sponsored by them.

Take note that “Brand Story” is no longer offered by Snapchat. It is similar to sponsored ads on Twitter or Facebook where users can see ads from accounts that they are not following. Live Story is for people who are following the story while Discover is for people following the publisher’s account.

Snapchat can be an intimidating and difficult to understand app at first, but once you integrate it into a concrete marketing plan, it can generate a lot of leads for you. Its brilliance lies in its simple and straightforward nature. It also fills the gap, which is missing in other Digital Marketing platforms.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO Services, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 staffing agency coaching, kindly check here.

7 Blogging Tips for Marketing

Back in the day, blogs are mostly used to express personal feelings and musings. These days, it is a very effective tool to generate traffic for a website.
Using blogs for your business has many benefits:

1. Setting up a business blog will help drive traffic to your website.

Of course, everyone wants to have more website visitors. So, how does blog drive traffic to your site? Well, it is pretty simple. Your website probably does not have many pages, and its content is not updated very frequently. Blogs solve both problems.
Every time you post a blog entry, it is considered as an additional indexed page on your website. It is a cue to search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo that you have an active website. This is the reason why having a blog will help put you on page 1 of the search engines. And, if you are on page 1 for the keywords in your niche, it means that you will generate more traffic to your site.
For example, if you have an online dating site, adding blog entries about online dating may help put you on the number 1 spot of Google Search Results page when a client type in "online dating."

2. Setting up a business blog helps convert traffic into leads.

You can generate leads through your website by adding call to action buttons like free fact sheets, free ebooks, free trials, and free webinars. People love free downloadables that are helpful and useful to them. These can serve as free trials or act as supplements to your product or service. Doing so will entice customers to avail of your products and understand better what they can gain from patronizing your business.

3. Blogs help establish authority.

Writing good articles about your industry will help you establish your authority in that particular industry. You can share insights that you have gained throughout your experience in the industry and even give people advice or tips. Come out with good quality content that is informative.
Here are some tips that you can use in using blogs to promote and market your product:

4. Build a strong foundation for your blog.

If you want your blog to be the center of your marketing plan, you have to make sure that your blog is built on a strong foundation.
You have to make sure that you have your URL. Do not use free hosting options such as WordPress or Blogger. It is best to go for a self-hosted blog that WordPress offers. You also need to incorporate your blog into your main company website.

5. Get to know your audience.

Before you start writing your blog, you have to know the people who will blog your blog. To do this, you have to create marketing personas. If you are targeting different and distinct audiences, it is important to create different marketing personas. It is also important to create more than one blog to cater to different audiences.

6. Develop a strong marketing plan.

If you are going to walk down the content marketing road, you have to start planning your marketing events for the year. This will make it easier for you to determine what to blog about. You have to write about Tradeshows and conferences that your company will take part of. You need to plan your content carefully.

7. Make sure that your blog content reflects your brand and your company.

You have to make sure that it is easy for readers to associate the blog content with your product, brand, or company.
It is also important to break down your content into bullet points. This will make it easier for your readers to process information.

a. Write about the big 7.

You have to take advantage of the big seven content strategies:

• Promote your services and products.
• You need to position yourself as an industry expert.
• Announce launches or new products.
• Share amazing and flattering stories about your products, your brand, and your company.
• You need to write content that answers frequently asked questions about your product.
• You need to create blog posts about your accomplishments and milestones.
• You also need to write about job openings in your company.
• Plant keywords into your blog post.

As mentioned earlier in this part, blog posts can help you with Search Engine Optimization or SEO. If you are targeting certain keywords in your niche, you have to strategically place those keywords on your blog post.

b. Link your blog post to other blogs.

When you see a blog that you find interesting, comment on that post and make sure to post backlinks to your blog or your website. This is one way to improve your site or blog traffic.

c. Integrate your blog with your other social networking accounts.

You need to link your blog to your other accounts such as Twitter and Facebook. Post a link to your blog on your Facebook account or tweet about it.
Creating and maintaining blogs is one of the cheapest ways to promote your product and improve your online presence. It is also a great way to share your stories and your ideas.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO Services, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 staffing agency coaching, kindly check here.

10 Steps to Digital Marketing Automation

Digital marketing is heavily integrated with sales it is the ongoing relationship between a brand and prospect (customer).

Without marketing companies wouldn’t be in a position to distribute their products or rather introduce their product to the consumer.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO Services, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment agency coaching, kindly check here.

It is through marketing that marketing automation comes in, as it is software whose primary objective is to ensure marketing actions automation.

The Automation of repetitive tasks by many marketing departments such as social media, website action, and email handling.

These tasks are made more accessible by the marketing automation technology.
Companies can buy and sell through different tactics with the help of the software by the use of specialized content that can convert prospects into delighted customers.

Companies can generate significant revenue through marketing automation, thus ensuring outstanding return on investment.

Marketing automation is not a simple marketing initiative to execute neither is it impossible.
Just like growing a plant you need to prepare the fertile land, acquire the seeds and plant and lastly water the seed so that I might evolve into a blooming plant.

Like nurturing a plant that’s how useful marketing automation should look like because at the end of the day your objective is to nurture leads that would produce paying customers.
However, in reality, marketing automation is nowadays considered as a buzz-word as marketers integrate marketing automation with the impression that all marketing tools which are essential for growth like those that generate leads.

Marketers are left with complicated tools for automation with this misconception but without solutions in the first place that will enable generation of new points.
It is not a lasting solution instead of a quick fix as it doesn’t create a conducive environment for lasting relationships with prospective customers.

Using the plant analogy, it's like trying to make your plants grow faster by the use of artificial enhancers or chemicals. Indeed, it is okay or rather a quick fix, but the process doesn’t offer long-term success or set you up for future.

10 STEPS FOR DIGITAL MARKETING AUTOMATION
An array of business optimization can be driven by marketing automation, but it can as well be overwhelming to your users when you adopt them all at-a-go to launch which in turn enable process changes.
That’s why marketers find it easier to begin with a few primary features and expand into sophistication in time. You can decide to make partial implementation of the software on a given timeline like a year as you gradually increase the effectiveness and efficiencies of other options of marketing automation installation. Marketing automation has multiple aspects that help in determining new processes. Below are some of the best practices for marketing automation:

DEFINE YOUR PERSONA
In the past few years different channels and strategies have appeared, but that still doesn’t change marketing foundations. The deep understanding of the customer is considered as one of the vital marketing fundamentals, but it’s so unfortunate that when marketers or marketing team start the implementation of new acquisition tactics, the essential tasks tend to get lost.
The first phase of marketing automation implementation planning should be based on developing customers personas.

The emails and offers should be designed in such a way that it speaks directly to the buyer and based on their personas like customer modeled representations, research-based, pains, and their needs.
The definition of your persona process should start by asking the right questions like: who is your respondee, what are your buyers goals, which goals fuels their behavior, their level within the company and their mode of thinking and its influence towards the buyer behavior.
Answers to some of the questions can be extracted from a mix of qualitative data and quantitative data

DATA MANAGEMENT AND INTEGRATION
For the success of digital marketing is fundamental to have an effective integration and data management strategy. Having relevant and up-to-date information as you penetrate into the market, through the planning of data consistent integration into marketing automation.
Integration of marketing automation with CRM system enables sales representatives to extract from their CRM self-selected accounts in marketing automation solution.

MAP BUYERS JOURNEY FLOW BASE
On developing your ideal customers, you will uncover that each of them has a specific set of problems and needs.

Other customers are more into the price of your products while others would want to compare you with your competitors so that they may see your competitive advantage.

Thus, it is essential to develop different flows to convert your prospects into customers.
To begin, its key to defining buyers journey steps from the paying customers to recent acquired leads. The next step would involve content establishment for each of your customers to move forward along their journey.

The last step would be mapping the specified content information from each steps of the buyer. A good example would be, suppose if your buyer is an active consumer of business leadership eBooks and they're a medium-size CIO, IT enterprise.

You can start to create the buyers' route by developing an eBook but place your primary focus on leadership then end up by introducing the buyer to a specific webinar offer.
To nurture and guide the process, marketing automation set of emails can drive the campaign each phase of the way.

With the use of eBooks as the center of information and other chunks of content to flow from it such as emails and webinars can ensure the creation of targeted insights that is of importance to your customers

ROUTING AND SCORING
It improves the provision of sales leads quality and ensures the insights provided are relevant to your customers. Routing with emails isn’t allowed thus it is considered as a dynamic process. The routing process works best between integrated CRM system and market automation systems.
With that, the sales representatives would be able to manage their sales processes, and sales-ready leads would be displayed in the system.

Provision of marketing alert dates to help representatives get essential steps or suggestions to take when following up.

Maintain a positive engagement with the prospects that haven’t decided to engage in sales by delivering valuable content and offerings example webinar, articles, white papers, and events.

ATTRACT LEADS BY OFFERING GREAT VALUE
It’s becoming hard to attract or convert individuals into leads as there are a massive amount of insights that is available.  For a business to excel they must ensure that they are delivering content that is of high-value.

Whether you're offering an article, webinar or even an eBook the offer should outline buyers needs and appeal.

The benefit of marketing automation is that it enables you to scale your outreach efforts. Business is able to offer immense value to prospective leads due to their outstanding A/B testing tools.
They can provide different content types to attract to the different personas by using their resources like:

• Designing better landing pages that boost the return of investment
• Increasing conversion rates on webinars
• Developing a killer writing copy
• 
  

OBTAINING THE RIGHT INSIGHTS FOR YOUR LEADS

It is easy for marketers to collect valuable information from its leads. To pursue all leads effectively, you need to set some standards on the data collection as what you need depends on what you are asking.

The Marketers are allowed to overwhelm prospects with questions by marketing software companies, but that doesn’t imply that quantity is quality. Somewhat less is always more, thus narrowing of the facts will assist in connecting the customers with relevant offers.

This increases the chances that you will attain the required responses from your potential customers. The first step is creating a list of all the vital data that you expect from your customers.
The essential data may vary from their website details, their revenue either personal or company, the location of the company or prospect then note that to your list.

Ensure that you include all the critical information and don’t leave aside any information. Once you have established your list of attributes, the next step would be trimming it down.
In this step, you should be careful as you should leave what’s essential to enable you to score your leads and communicate with them.

A good example is payment gateways do when they offer an eBook, they only ask for information that is vital and likely to increase the conversion rate.

7. LANDING PAGE AND DATA COLLECTION

The first impression is crucial because the first page where a customer gets in contact with an organization is the landing page. It offers customers an opportunity to understand the product your offering without having to contact you.

Incorporation of hidden URLs parameters that can be used to store information that will provide metrics which you can gain insight into advertising effectiveness. Customers data is captured easily and placed in a marketing database.

SCORE YOUR LEADS
The leads are not all the same as there are some that are more vital than the others according to your sales goals and objectives.

That’s why for development of marketing automation campaigns leading scoring is quite crucial.
The process is simple and straightforward as each lead is assigned a numerical score that is seen worthy.

Within your marketing automation is where the lead scoring process takes place.
You can leave them to the CRM once you have clearly defined your business standards for ranking the leads. Your sales and marketing team can prioritize their efforts with the help of lead scoring as it is vital for scaling your business.

Your team would not be able to follow up on each lead if they have limited resources at the end of the day.

That might be considered as an ethical problem, though its essential ensure the leads that are crucial for the business bottom line.

The data that you will send to your leads vary depending with the lead scoring. Leads are likely to be low, if you don’t outline any intent of purchase. With marketing automation software, its significant interest in ensuring that communication is focused on achieving higher-intent type on insight.
The benefits of having a high lead score is that it gives an assurance on taking further action.
With that you can send your sales team to your customers either directly, in-person or through call. To measure the interactions with onboarding programs, lead scoring can be a crucial and influential attribute, as well as identification of emerging advocates. Marketing power is multiplied once you are in apposition to determine your supporters, both previous and current customers who have had a good experience with your business

All of these practices offer a comprehensive view of the functionality that can improve the marketing department dramatically and effectively.
Before this group of functionalities have never helped marketers meet and exceed their business goals until the introduction of market automation technology that has pulled all these features to your fingertips.

CAMPAIGN AUTOMATION AND PROGRAMS
They provide unique capabilities that can move prospects through repetitive marketing steps without the need of queuing, sending or manual marketing efforts.
It includes the integration of customer contacts during the process of sales by the sales executives to increases success rates and readership. It deploys message to several versions based on your database and requires a single email template which in turn leads to an increase in effectiveness and efficiency.

REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
This ensures improvements in your marketing efforts.
Due to inaccuracy and incompleteness, you might arrive at wrong conclusions and especially when you don’t have a distinct discipline on data management.

Helps in the tracking of visitors as they change into customers by a provision of crucial information which enables effective assessment of both sales and marketing.

Reporting and Analysis also help in identifying the strengths and weakness and areas in which improvements can be injected to facilitate growth.

Recruitment Training - If Your Team Is Having a Crisis of Confidence, This Will Help

Recruitment, like any kind of sales role, is the kind of environment where you are likely to see some fluctuations in your teams' performance over time. A few months when your teams are on fire can make you feel great, but then when they hit a dry month it can cause some serious anxiety. When that month turns into a longer lean stretch, you can even begin to question their abilities. Was it just a fluke that they were doing so well before? Has the market changed? How long can you accept their weaker results?

A vicious circle

Naturally, when you are full of doubt and worrying about your team and if this will affect the company's overall billings, it can change how you tackle each professional conversation and opportunity. You can find it hard to muster up your own enthusiasm that came easily when everyone was doing well. Your desperation and attitude can easily have the opposite effect on your recruitment consultants than you actually want. The next thing you know your own performance is suffering to as you become distracted not knowing where to focus first.

Why recruitment training can help

Getting some fresh recruitment training for your team can be really good ways to kick start their return to form. While you may not think it is a lack of recruitment or professional skills that are causing your problems, undertaking some professional training can help your team regain their enthusiasm. This might even give them and you a new perspective on the way that you both work together to generate even better results.

Some of the ways recruitment training can help you turn your teams lean spell around

Training can be about more than your team learning new skills and updating their industry knowledge. Here are some of the key ways that training can really benefit a recruiter going through a dip in results:

1.Spending some time reconnecting with what they do away from the pressures of their daily work can remind them about what they like about working in recruitment, and help renew enthusiasm. This can have a powerful effect, leaving them raring to get back to the office and start making positive changes.

2.Training gives them a chance to address concerns and issues with someone experienced in helping recruitment professionals, who is also independent from your company. This can give them a chance to explore the problems they might be facing freely with someone who understands your industry, but won't judge.

3.Even the most experienced and successful recruitment people don't know every good technique, and the industry is also very fast paced. Picking up some new skills or getting a fresh look at the market can be all it takes to help you enable your recruitment team to pick up those billing numbers back up again.

As a recruitment manager the important thing is to plan ahead and stop the issue before it starts having training as an important part of your teams development will minimize the number of times underperformance happens.

Recruitment Training: Why Performance Coaching Can Double Your Turnover

Recruitment training is, like any profession, a varied field. In any company there'll be someone who is naturally confident, and another who needs a bit more time to be able to tap into their full potential. If you're of the first disposition, you may think that everyone will get there in the end, it just takes some time and much needed perseverance. And, while this may well be true in the majority of recruitment consultant training situations, there are always some people who require extra assistance. There is nothing wrong with the way they do things, necessarily, but with extra help, their abilities grow rapidly and the results can be nothing less than extraordinary.

And this is where NLP - Neuro-Linguistic Programming - makes its recruitment training appearance. A relatively new technique in the UK, it's making all the difference in training for recruitment consultants; a field which is growing at a serious pace, and becoming a major employer in all the big cities.

If you're now already dubious about what NLP can do for you, let's look at the basic facts of what it tries to achieve: 1) In recruitment training, NLP aims to change the way people think about the decisions they make. It gets right to the heart of why we make certain decisions, and teaches us that changing the way we think about things can have a highly positive effect. 2) Recruitment consultant training is all about people skills, and NLP excels at helping people get the most out of what they have to offer. In someone with a lack of confidence, NLP will allow them to see where they are going wrong.

The most impressive thing about this new technique? By changing the way we look at the world, we feel more motivated. So the benefit for a recruitment training company is two-fold, actually: firstly the individual benefits both personally and professionally, and secondly, the business sees new energy which converts directly into a better working atmosphere and sales.

Another strong aspect of NLP is how it gets people to ask questions about their behaviour in a recruitment training atmosphere. Rather than criticising and focusing on what might be wrong, NLP works on the basis that by asking more questions, we seek more answers. This inevitably leads to a greater personal insight, and the end result is that people find out why they haven't been as effective as they perhaps believed they could be. Self-esteem is the first thing to be improved thanks to this, and it means your recruiters are happier, smiling more, and passing all that positivity onto a client who will then speak kindly of you to people they come across.

Yes NLP takes some time - anything from a day or two to several weeks - but training in recruitment is your business and one of the most important things in the world to you, so why allow the ineffectiveness to continue when you could have so many blossoming opportunities?

Recruitment Training: The 3 Key Areas That Will Quickly Guarantee Increased Billings

Recruitment training is vital to any business that wants to either hire employees for themselves or for another company. The recruitment industry is huge and growing by the day. This is not surprising when you appreciate how important it is to hire the best person for the job. Mistakes can be costly financially and in lost time, clients and candidates. That is why it is vital to train your recruitment consultants from day one.

It does not matter how experienced they are. All recruiters can get rusty in key performance areas if they stop paying attention. As one great trainer says, if you are not growing, developing and pushing forward you are generally headed in the opposite direction!

So what are the 3 key areas to focus your recruitment training around? They are the vital 3. Knowledge, Skills and Attitude. And yes you can develop all three of these.

1. Knowledge

Depending on the recruitment sector you are working in knowledge of the business environment is key. There is nothing worse than a recruiter taking to a potential new client and using the wrong words, phrases or examples. Quite often each industry sector has its own words and phrases. For instance our own recruitment sector talks about billings rather than hitting sales targets.

This knowledge can be transferred by observation, shadowing and research and questions. One company I know has a project for their new recruiters to complete in the first month of coming on board that ensures they are up to speed on all the latest information and happenings in that environment.

2. Skills

This is key when you are focused on recruitment training no matter how experienced your recruiter is. For instance imagine bringing on board a recruiter in a new sector to him or her that does not have a list of contacts. Prospecting and networking might be a number one priority.

Successful billers are good at selling and following up with the CV's they send out. There is a skill and knack to all of this. For example, when to email, what to say and how to follow up and close.

Relationship building is key in any selling situation and recruiters are generally pretty good at this. The challenge can arise when a recruiter is too bullish and pushy. Knowing how to build relationships and rapport is the starting point to having the opportunity and permission to present your case so that you get heard.

3. Attitude

Some people disagree that  recruitment training involves training on attitude. I disagree. Attitude covers a whole range of areas. From mind-set, approach, dress sense and impact. When you are training your recruitment consultants a starting point is to model the behaviour and attitude you want to see. Make sure that you have a performance management system in place that measures and monitors behaviours and the impact that has on performance.

When you have a recruitment training process in place at your agency spend some time to highlight how you can include these three areas over an induction period. You will be amazed at the impact it can make.