The Ruby Marketing Agency

We help B2B, Luxury & Professional Services brands get more clients and more referrals.

Ready for Pay to Play?

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Are You Ready for 100% Pay to Play on Facebook?
If Not, Here Are 2 Things to Do Now!

Currently, organic (non-paid) reach on Facebook is hovering at about 2.6% across all industries.

If your reach is is anywhere north of 2.6% you’re doing great!

But get ready. Because organic reach will eventually arrive at zero. I strongly believe it will happen in 2017.

Here are 2 things I’d like to see you doing now to get ready:

  1. Know exactly what content your audience likes and wants. What are the topics they are interested in? And how do they like it delivered to them? As images? Videos? Blog posts? In text format? Knowing this will help you with step #2 . . .
  2. Learn FB advertising now (before you’re forced to) and use the knowledge of what your audience likes to make your Facebook advertising effective right out of the gate. (That means you save money by avoiding a lot of testing.)

I’m going to talk about Facebook – and 6 other hot marketing trends for 2017 – at 2 upcoming events. A webinar on January 10 and a live event on January 18 in Phoenix. (Registration links are below.)

During these events, I’ll share some tools with you for implementing these 2 steps so you’re ready for Pay to Play and much more in 2017!

7 Hot Marketing Trends for 2017

Webinar – January 10, 2017Live Event in Phoenix – January 18, 2017

#1 Reason For Email Marketing Failure

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done-is-better-than-perfectYou’ve invested in an email marketing program like Constant Contact.

You’ve learned how it works and have created a draft email or two.

You’ve worried and fretted over the exact wording, the images and the size of the fonts and the colors.

You’ve attended one or more of my email marketing presentations and learned what to do and what not to do.

You’re convinced email marketing works! And it does!

All of these things are important. But NOT as important as the #1 thing:

PRESSING THE SEND BUTTON!

The #1 reason people are not successful with email marketing is because they don’t press “send”.

And they don’t press “send” because their email isn’t “perfect” yet!

As a recovering perfectionist I can relate.

Consider these facts . . .

  • On average, it takes 18 times for someone to see something before they take action on it. (You’ve got a lot of opportunities to get in front of people before they even notice your so-called mistakes.)
  • The average attention span of a human is 8 seconds. (They won’t notice those “imperfections” in just 8 seconds.)
  • It will never be perfect anyway. So hit the send button.

I have met way too many of you at my workshops who say “I’ve had my email marketing program for 6 months and haven’t sent out an email yet.”

Remember, DONE trumps PERFECT every time!

Learn More

Join me on Wednesday, April 29 in Phoenix to learn about the dos and don’ts of email marketing combined with social media marketing.

LIVE EVENT

Build Your Marketing Toolkit

A Framework for Small Businesses and Organizations

April 29 – Phoenix, Arizona

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How to Increase Your Video Views

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video viewsVideo thumbnails are listed again and again by video marketing researchers as either the first or second reason that viewers choose to either click play or skip your video entirely.

And even though they are a very VERY important component to getting your viewers to click the play button, they are often overlooked.

What Exactly is a Video Thumbnail?

It’s the image that appears when the video screen is just sitting there waiting for the play button to be clicked.

It is also the same image that appears in search results when your video shows up in a search.

We talk about video thumbnails (as well as the other key factors to getting people to click play – the video title and description) extensively in my self-study Teach Me Video Marketing program.

Here’s the thing about thumbnails. Thumbnails are a sort of advertisement or poster for your video.

  • If it’s compelling, you’ll get more play clicks – and more video views.
  • If it’s clearly focused, you’ll get more play clicks – and more video views.
  • If it contains a face or at least a person, you’ll get more play clicks – and more video views!

If your thumbnail has nothing whatsoever to do with the content of your video – in other words it’s false advertising – you’ll get more dislikes and complaints and your reputation will suffer.

Here’s Some Irony for You!

YouTube does not allow you to generate your own thumbnail. They select 3 random shots from your video and you have to choose one for your thumbnail. (Note: YouTube is currently rolling out the ability for us all to have custom thumbnails. But really! What’s taking them so long?)

Other video hosting sites, like Vimeo, not only allow you to choose any screen shot from your video as your thumbnail, you also have the option to upload a still image, like a JPG or a PNG, to use as your thumbnail.

Yet another reason to not rely on YouTube for all things video related.

All hail the thumbnail!

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