- Green technology extends to the internet too, ya dig?
Did you know that electronics (that includes your computers) account for 6% of the annual commercial power consumption of the United States each year?
If all Internet marketers were able to do more in less time in front of their PCs (or Macs), we’d save a LOT of energy as an industry.
I’m in a planet-saving mood right now.
A lot of marketers think that putting together a full online branding or sales campaign entails insane amounts of planning, execution, fine-tuning and follow-throughs. Today I’ll show you how to cut through all the time-wasting stages and launch a campaign with just a whitepaper as a starting point.
Yes YOU can!
A lot of time is usually invested by a marketer and his crew on writing good, unique copies for every free report, email blast, video, podcast and blog post. What if I told you that all of these can stand with just ONE copy to base everything on?
Don’t believe me? Here are the steps to launching a full-blown Internet marketing campaign with just one whitepaper:
1. Write a whitepaper/free report – whitepapers and free reports are great for building trust, credibility and brand awareness within your niche. These are usually 10 to 30 pages long and they contain timely, well-researched and useful information that your audience can benefit from. These shouldn’t be used for direct selling, unless you want your market to hate you and you think it’s cool.
Your whitepaper can be distributed to your existing email list, but don’t stop there. You may also want to try PPC to channel traffic into an opt-in page where you can take email addresses in exchange for your free report. This is GREAT for expanding your mailing list.
2. Read the whitepaper aloud and RECORD it – add some nice intro and ending tunes to it, maybe a brief introduction and a few plugs of your brand and what do you have? Yep, you just created a podcast. Go out and upload it to iTunes or Podcast Alley and see how many listeners you get.
3. Make videos as easy as pie – So you’ve recorded your podcast. Overlaying it on a simple PowerPoint slideshow shouldn’t be too hard. Just get the timing down and the appropriate visuals on cue. Start uploading it to the most popular video sites and remember to use keywords to title, describe and tag them.
Here’s a list of the interweb’s most high-traffic video sites to get you started:
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/video-websites
Like I said before, videos rank nicely in Google regardless of the production quality. In this case, your PowerPoint and voice over video can trump PPC ads, sites with good SEO and maybe even some big-budget corporate vids.
4. Blog about it – Your existing blog followers may not catch the whitepaper on PPC, video and podcast sites or email blasts. You’ll want to eliminate the chance of them missing it. Write a short synopsis of the whitepaper’s core topic and leave them a link to the download page. You’d also want to give them links to the podcast and the video for good measure.
5. Use social media – Don’t let your blog post get a few reads and cool down! Submit the link to the top social bookmarking sites. These sites can help drive MASSIVE amounts of traffic to your site if you have the right stuff, so give it a go.
This free tool makes social bookmarking easy: http://socialposter.com/
Additionally, you’ll want to post a link to your blog post in your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Matter of fact, there are lots of other social media sites that you can join to spread the word on. Tools like Ping.FM make it easy for you to post quickly and simultaneously to different social networks, enabling you to generate buzz effortlessly.
Okay, by now you probably get the idea of the kind of MILEAGE that one piece of valuable content can give you. There are a few other ways of letting more people know about your content (like co-promotions, SEO, forum activity, etc) but these 5 steps give you the quickest wins.
And remember, the time you cut on fussing about your content saves electricity, gives you more time to relax and chips in a wee bit of help to the Green movement.
But don’t take my word for it. Give it a go and let me know how it went in the comments section below.
Catch you later,
Andy “the Planet Protector” Jenkins
