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Monthly Archives: May 2015

California Set To Give Solar Panels To Low-Income Families For Free

27 Wednesday May 2015

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California is the best state in the country if you want to go solar – but only if you are rich enough. Due to the steep initial cost of $ 15,000, only the middle to high-income families can afford to install solar panels. An original initiative is, however, seeks to change that. This new project aims to help disadvantaged communities see the sun in a different light.

Using the money collected by the government to help combat global warming, GRID Alternatives project aims polluting companies to pay to put solar panels on the roofs of those who can not afford them. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the plan is to use the money from cap and trade proposed by the state of the companies that have to pay per ton of carbon dioxide emitted. The cost for disadvantaged families: nothing.

GRID Alternatives Project Manager was $ 162 million solar homes affordable individual (SASH), the first solar system in the country dedicated discounts for low-income families the project. They want to install solar panels to more than 1,600 homes by the end of next year. The use of professional programs and donations of solar companies, their goal is to keep costs as low as possible. While it is free for families to settle in their homes, it is not required that families are the supply to feed the crew or help to install the panels.

The California state government will use $ 14.7 million raised by the system of cap and trade designed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, to be used to install solar panels. In general, the system of cap and trade has totted up to an impressive $ 1.6 billion.

Plowing at least 10% of this money on solar energy, the project aims to kill two birds with one stone – low-income families to save money, while large polluters of fossil fuels contribute to the reduction of emissions for the state power even more.

Anyone who is currently living in an area in California which is classified as disadvantaged qualified to apply for the cards installed. Grid Alternatives predicts that individual households could save up to $ 1,000 a year, waiting time could be spent on other essentials such as food. The sun sets on the initiative in 2021, so if you live in the state, you may want to jump on board soon.

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If You Want Your Content Marketing to be Great, Ask Influencers to Participate

27 Wednesday May 2015

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participation marketing with influencers

With ubiquitous internet connectivity and billions of people empowered to create and publish online, digital marketing competition is greater than ever. Companies are increasingly challenged to create quality content that can stand out to attract and engage new customers.

How can businesses grow their reach and improve content quality in such a market?

Through participation marketing with industry influencers.

Over the past year, the expression “influencer marketing” has exploded in popularity and many marketing communications professionals are continuing to see influencers in the light of “celebrity endorsements”.

There’s more to influencer marketing than advocacy.

But there’s more to influencer marketing than advocacy and all influencers are not created equal. With participation marketing, companies can take a view of working with influencers of different types to produce a variety of benefits – all through content.

What kind of benefits? The investment in co-creation of content between brands and influencers enables quality content at scale. With brands and influencers working together, co-created content can reinforce mutual authority for all involved. In such a cooperative scenario, influencers can gain exposure, brands can reach new audiences, and customers are “info-tained” and inspired to engage. Everybody wins.

At TopRank Online Marketing, we’ve worked with over 200 influencers in the past 5 years to create numerous content assets ranging from our famous conference eBooks to videos to blog posts to infographics. These assets have driven over 800,000 views and well over 1,000 leads. Content co-created with influencers also continues to serve attract and engage objectives as long as they are live online.

Establishing a successful influencer content program requires a framework for identifying, engaging, and managing relationships. Here’s a 5 step approach to do just that.

influencer content goals

1. Set Goals for Marketing and Influencers

In order for co-created content to be successful for marketing, specific audiences and goals should be identified.

Think about: What do you hope to achieve with an influencer content program? How will influencers benefit? More importantly, how will your customers benefit?

Think about the distinct audience that you’re after with the content being co-created and set goals specific to what your idea of success looks like. Quantify those goals as well, whether it’s to increase the reach and engagement of your brand to the influencer’s community or to inspire more leads and sales by a certain percent.

Also, set goals for the influencers. For short term projects, focus on participation quality. With longer term programs, focus on participation, marketing outcomes and the relationship.

influencer content focus

2. Pick Your Theme and Focus Topic

You can start by asking, “What does your brand want to be known for?”

Themes facilitate planning content and also serve to focus the sourcing of the right influencers. Themes that are meaningful to all parties involved: brand, influencer and target audience will be far more successful.

In addition to branding goals, themes in co-created content programs are often driven by key customer questions that can be answered by brand marketing. Looking at distinct customer segments and the buying experience at each stage should reveal the themes and triggers that your content program will focus on. What is the solution? How will it work for me? What do I do next?

Consider what questions your customers are asking at awareness, consideration and purchase stages. Then think about the themes that will drive asking and answering those questions through influencer content.

identify recruit influencers

3. Find, Qualify and Recruit Influencers

Beyond the famous “brandividual” influencers in your industry, consider niche experts that have an active and passionate following. Also consider subject matter experts within your own company.

To start, talk to executives, marketing, PR and sales to identify a seed list of influencers. Then use an influencer discovery tool like Traackr or BuzzSumo to filter them out and add new influencers your team didn’t know about. Results are better when influencers matches are found on more than one tool.

When reaching out to influencers, be sure to accentuate the positive and the mutual value. Focus first on what’s in it for the influencer. If possible, find out what their goals are and see how working together can move them towards reaching those goals whether it’s overall exposure and being associated publicly with your brand or early and unique access to information.

Influencer participation pitches should be credible, succinct and offer a clear description of what is being asked.

Once a topical list of influencers is identified, they can be engaged in a variety of ways including:

  • Share their status updates on social networks
  • Comment on their blog posts or industry articles
  • Follow on social networks
  • Write about them
  • Interview them

Influencer participation pitches should be credible, succinct and offer a clear description of what is being asked. Pitches should also be very easy to act on. In other words, make it really easy to participate. For example, writing takes time, so offer to do a phone interview instead.

Other tactics that work include: humor, high degree of personalization, incentives and association with other influencers already on board.

CoCreate Influencer Content

4. Content Co-Creation is Participation Marketing

Influencer content co-creation might best begin with small, easy projects that advance the relationship to more robust and substantial time commitments.

Any content type you can create in a content marketing program can be co-created with influencers.

After content is collected from influencers, assemble, edit and package in a promotable format. Then share a preview to inspire their continued participation to promote. Be sure to set expectations by sharing your timeline for production, publishing and promotion.

Any content type you can create in a content marketing program can be co-created with influencers, from eBooks to videos to articles to social microcontent.

Measure Influencer Content

5. Promote and Measure

Provide influencers with tools such as sharing images, pre-written tweets, embed codes and short URLs. Making it easy to participate and promote can substantially increase the success of your influencer content program.

Offer influencers feedback on what’s working and what is not. Since they’ve invested in the creation of the content, it’s in their interest to see the promotion succeed.

You’ve Got This!

By partnering with influencers, marketers can tap into a wealth of knowledge and a breadth of exposure for brand messages. These are not self-promotional messages though, they are the things that the brands’ customers care about.

The mutual investment in creating useful and engaging content can pay dividends for all involved. This is especially true for the resource-strapped marketer looking to scale content quantity, while not sacrificing quality. The icing on the cake are the relationships built that can fuel content collaboration, partnerships and even new business in the future.

A version of this post originally appeared at Brand Quarterly. 

Watch for our latest influencer content project featuring speakers from the 2015 Content Marketing World conference publishing throughout the month of June.

Photos Shutterstock: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6


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© Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®, 2015. |
If You Want Your Content Marketing to be Great, Ask Influencers to Participate | http://www.toprankblog.com

The post If You Want Your Content Marketing to be Great, Ask Influencers to Participate appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

Solar Energy Is Feasible for Prevalent Energy

23 Saturday May 2015

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The debate about solar energy is feasible to produce widespread outbursts of energy and is likely to continue for some time. In today’s time, everyone is aware of solar panels and their ability to provide benefits to the individual owners. As many as 500,000 companies and households in the United States implement change, so it is safe to say that people see the irrefutable benefits of renewable energy. If you are thinking of installing perhaps a solar energy system in your home or your organization, but are hesitant whether it’s worth, here are some reasons why the installation of solar energy that could be interested.

Profitable

Solar energy to save money. When he first came available only to homeowners, which was very expensive to install and pretty useless. But that was ten years ago or more. The price of solar panels has dropped significantly since its introduction in the market. Depending on the type of solar system you choose, maybe you could reduce your electricity bill by half or even completely get rid of the bill.

In fact, some states such as New Jersey and California to promote the use of renewable energy, which means that if you qualify, the electric company will pay you instead of vice versa. Similarly, the value of your home may also increase due to its solar panels. Recent research shows that you can sell your home to 15 percent faster if you have installed solar panels and conventional installation could increase the value of your home for about $ 20,000. This indicates that, even from a financial point of view, there are many advantages of installing solar panels.

Green

The use of solar panels helps to reduce emissions such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other gases that are harmful to humans and the environment. The use of renewable resources helps prevent global warming, which is having a negative effect on our planet. The more solar energy is used, the lower the air quality will improve and benefit us all. It is believed that if only five percent of households in the United States use of solar energy, to bring 89, 500, 00 pounds of carbon dioxide from the earth.

Reliability

Solar panels work to convert sunlight into energy in your home, and the sun will not go away soon. Even if we assume that the sun does not come out at night from solar panels can store enough energy to the network has access to energy even when the sun does not shine. You need to keep your solar panels free of debris such as dirt, leaves and snow, as this will make your panels are used to full capacity.

As you learn more about solar energy, you will notice that it is hard to believe its significant benefits. You can also visit local businesses if you are unsure of how solar energy can benefit you specifically.

Content Marketing: 6 Steps to Building a Massive Audience

19 Tuesday May 2015

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Joe Pulizzi

Joe Pulizzi has been a content marketer before content marketing had a name. While working at a media company in the Custom Publishing department, he had dreams of starting a small business, which he eventually did in 2007 by starting a blog about content marketing.

Fast forward 3 years later and he had built Content Marketing Institute, which is well-known today as a source of content marketing thought leadership, training, events and consulting.

Today, Joe is joined by many other companies who built their businesses aided by the power of content marketing, such as CopyBlogger, Social Media Examiner, and the team at TopRank Online Marketing.

Being the curious type, Joe wanted to know more about the paths which other businesses had taken in their journey to success through content marketing, so he did some asking around. The interesting thing he found was that when boiled down, there were remarkable similarities between these businesses in terms of the process and steps they had taken, which led Joe to the conclusion that there is a consistent formula for content marketing success.

In his session at Authority Rainmaker 2015, Joe shared six steps businesses should follow if they want to join the ranks of those getting incredible value from content marketing.

Content Marketing Sweet Spot Diagram - Authority Rainmaker 2915

#1 Find Your Content Sweet Spot

It’s hard to make people care about a topic unless you care about it yourself and even harder to hold their attention if you don’t know what you’re talking about. The most successful content comes from people who have identified both:

  • Their area of expertise: what they know
  • Their passion: what they love

Of course, there isn’t always a perfect overlap between passion and expertise, but there should be some. That perfect overlapping area is known as your sweet spot, and that’s where you want to start to focus your content creation efforts.

#2 Find Your Content Tilt

While it would be great if we could all only write about exactly what we wanted (your sweet spot), unfortunately that may not pay the bills without some tweaking. Successful content marketing means serving others first, not yourself, so if your content sweet spot doesn’t align with the needs and interests of your community, it likely isn’t going to attract many eyeballs (or wallets).

Similar to expertise and passion, there may not be a perfect overlap between your sweet spot and what your community wants. Alternately, you may share your sweet spot with others who have well-established authority that would be tough to compete with.

Tilting your content means tweaking your focus so it aligns with an area of opportunity in the community that falls within your sweet spot. Even with the explosion of content on the internet today, there are still plenty of areas which aren’t being served effectively, or at all. If you can tilt your content focus to be the only one that serves the niche, or simply serves it better than anyone else, you can become an authority that attracts and audience and keeps them engaged all the way through to converting into customers.

The key is to be very specific, as this allows your content to be tightly targeted and specific to the needs of your niche community. As John Lydgate famously said, “you can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

The goal for your content should be to please some of the people all of the time, so avoid broad content like a bad cold.

Build Your Content Marketing Base - Authority Rainmaker 2015

#3 Build Your Base

Before you can start to see business benefits from your content, you’re going to need a build a base audience. This takes time for everyone, so it’s important to be patient and set realistic expectations both for yourself and for your key stakeholders.

Brian Clark (CEO of CopyBlogger media) built his base for over 15 months before seeing any monetary gains. Joe admits that when he started the blog that evolved into Content Marketing Institute, he had an audience of one (his mom). It took time for the experts to build a base and it will for you too.

In order to attract an audience, you need to create a content hub for them to go to. While you will need to promote and publish your content to a variety of destinations in order to get traction, your content base or hub is your primary platform where publishing takes place and it should be a place you own, like your blog or newsroom.

The reason why it’s so critical to own your content hub is that it’s insurance for the future. Like many businesses learned last year when Facebook drastically reduced the visibility of brand content without paid promotion, building your content hub on rented land is a recipe for disaster if the landlord decides to change the rules, raise the rent or evict you.

#4 Harvest Your Audience

While our primary focus so far has been to attract new eyes to our content, it’s important to remember to pay attention to retaining those eyes. The internet is awash in content these days and people have short attention spans, so it’s important to keep people coming back or they might forget you.

The key to staying memorable with your audience is to maintain consistent regular touch points by converting them into subscribers. While it may not be the trendiest tactic in digital marketing, email lists are the gold standard when it comes to building a subscriber base. Joe strongly recommends prioritizing email far above social followers, as email tends to generate far better response rates and eventually revenue.

One of the best ways to keep your list growing is to make it dead simple to join. Prominent links on your site template, cross-linked in blog content and on your social channels are essential. Make sure to thoroughly test all your subscription forms as well as reduce required fields down to the bare essentials, as too many form fields are an absolute conversion killer.

While controversial, you should also consider using popup subscribe boxes. Joe was against these at first, but changed his tune when a test showed that popovers not only increased subscriptions but tended to bring in better qualified subscribers compared to the standard non-popup forms.

#5 Diversify Your Offerings

While you should never waver in your topic focus, it makes sense to branch out into multiple formats for your message, as this may help you to both reach new audience members and reinforce your authority among your existing subscriber base.

Joe recommends pursuing a model of content diversification, which includes:

  • Personal content:
    • Blog
    • Book
    • Public speaking
  • Business content:
    • Digital
    • Print
    • In-person

First Build an Audience Then Monetize It - Authority Rainmaker 2015

#6 Monetize

“First build an audience, then monetize it”. For Joe and his team at Content Marketing Institute, their monetization comes in the form of consulting, training and events. Your revenue source(s) will likely be unique to your business, but you should always be on the lookout for new ways to monetize your content marketing.

Although monetization is typically the last step in the audience building roadmap, you should never pass up opportunities along the way to get some monetary value from your content marketing. You may even come across revenue opportunities you never even considered at the outset.

Just make sure that you never cross the line of being pushy or dishonest with your audience in your attempts to monetize. The objective of content marketing is first and foremost to serve your community.

Disclosure: CMI is a TopRank Marketing client.


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Solar Attic Fans Can Reduce Your Energy Bill

19 Tuesday May 2015

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A simple way to reduce your electricity bill

Many owners of Hawaii spend a small fortune to run fans and air conditioning in trying to keep your house cool. Most homes, houses, especially older, depends trade winds to keep your home from becoming unbearable.

Generally people who are trying to beat the heat was just installed an expensive air conditioning system. What they do not realize is that they could reduce their energy bills and save money simply by improving ventilation. It goes without saying that if you can keep the heat naturally, will have less and less fans air-conditioning, lowering their energy consumption.

How to keep your home cooler Naturally

The radiant heat from the sun hits the ceiling in each sunny day. Most roofing materials absorb much of the heat, especially asphalt or clay tile roofs. Hot air rises, but can be trapped in their attic or vaulted ceiling. If the hot air does not escape properly migrate down at home and continue becoming hotter and hotter inside. That is why it can often be cooler outside than inside your home.

Consider as a natural ventilation fan that moves air. Ideally, you want a high constant volume of air circulating in your home.

What do you want to set it is known as “Thermal Flow,” which comes out cold air and warm air is out. This thermal air flow can be adjusted by a combination of the contribution or soffit ventilation and adequate attic ventilation. There is only enough to allow hot air; You must ensure that fresh air is circulating.

There are several ventilation systems create ways to exhaust hot air:

Box vents – These vents are more common and less expensive upfront. They are usually made of plastic or metal. You can add additional vents to improve ventilation but not usually work on vaulted ceilings

Vents Whirly Bird – These are a step above a ventilation shaft and works well when a breeze blows. The problem is they are in a ball bearing system and eventually lead and become noisy.

Evacuation Ridge – A very good ventilation solution because it creates a large flow of air through the ridge peak. Ventilation puzzled edge and actually creates low pressure area on both sides of the ridge vent literally suck the hot attic air. This “aspiration” is known as the Bernoulli effect, the wind passing over a structure actually creates a lifting action or traction. The lifting effect of the difference in air pressure is the same force that allows aircraft to fly and sail boats.

Solar attic fans – These have proved more effective in removing unwanted heat. The small built in solar panels literally cause a fan to suck the hot air out. Solar fan 30 watts is usually sufficient for every 1,200 square feet of attic space. Some solar fans are specially designed for installation in vaulted ceilings. Best fans have a brushless motor system and a guarantee of 20 years. We see a lot of units manufactured in cheaper foreign failing within 5-8 years.

Solar Energy Air Conditioner – If natural ventilation does not solve the problems of overheating, air conditioning with solar energy can be a great alternative. These refrigeration units are fully managed by the power of the sun. They are autonomous units and because they are not binding on the electrical system of your home, do not require special license HECO.

The two ceiling fans, solar energy and solar air conditioners are the most powerful way to get the hot air outlet. Being solar devices, they can still qualify for solar tax credits.

Three Reasons Why You Should Consider Solar Installations

17 Sunday May 2015

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In today’s society, there is a good chance that you’ve probably seen or at least heard of solar panels. Regardless of how you learned about solar installations, you may wonder if they are a good choice for you and your energy needs. With about 600,000 businesses and households in the United States to make the change, it is safe to say that people see the clear benefits of renewable energy. If you are looking to heat your pool or the entire house, here are some reasons why the choice of solar energy that could be interested.

It is profitable

No one likes to spend money on your electric bill. According to the solar installation package you choose, you could reduce your electricity bill in half or even get rid of your bill in full. In fact, some states such as California and New Jersey promoting the use of renewable energy, which means that if you qualify, you could pay utility rather than the reverse. Moreover, the value of your home may increase because of its panels. Research has shown that you can sell your home up to 15 percent faster if you have installed the panels, and traditional systems could increase the value of your home around $ 17,000. This means that even if you’re just looking at this from a financial point of view, there are several ways you can benefit from opting for renewable energy.

It is the environment

Is there anything better than saving money while doing something good? By using renewable energy, reduce their carbon footprint and protecting the environment. The use of renewable energy helps to prevent global warming, which has had a very negative impact on our planet, as shown by the growing number of animal species in danger of extinction, erosion of our coasts, and melting glaciers. While only five percent of households in the United States used the solar installations, we could remove 89.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide from the earth.

It is reliable

Its working panels to convert sunlight into energy in your home, and the sun will not go away soon. Even if the sun is not at night, its panels store energy in the electric grid so you have access to energy even when the sun does not shine. It is important that you keep your clean and free of debris such as snow, dirt, tree branches and leaves panels, this will ensure that the panels are used to full capacity and you get all the energy possible.

To read more about renewable energy, it will be difficult to deny its tangible benefits. If you are not sure how to get renewable energy benefit specifically to a local company for a consultation. In most cases you will see that there are benefits that had not even considered. Finding a reliable way to save money and the environment is something that everyone should be interested in. Make sure you take the time to discover what renewable energy can do for you and your community.

Dr. Evil’s Guide to Landing Page Design and Optimization

17 Sunday May 2015

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Sonia Simone - Authority Rainmaker 2015

Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone kicked off her Authority Rainmaker presentation with a question that has certainly been asked before.Is marketing evil? Unfortunately we’ve all come across misguided campaigns that seem intended to trick people rather than help them. But that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

“Like brushing your teeth before going out on a date, marketing is about putting a good face on what you have”, explains Sonia. You may be able to pull the wool over people’s eyes in the short term, but tricking your audience is a sure path to failure in the long run. Every brand’s reputation is pretty easy to research on the internet these days and people just aren’t dumb enough for a truly ‘evil’ strategy to work.

So, effective digital marketing is decidedly not ‘evil’, but can we learn something from evil people? According to Sonia, we certainly can. Drawing on some classic villains including Dr. Evil and the Joker, Sonia laid out how well-meaning digital marketers can benefit from adding just a little ‘evil’ to their landing pages.

Dr Evils Landing Page Optimization Tips - Authority Rainmaker 2015

Always Try to Shoot Fish from a Barrel

The best way to generate conversions from your landing pages is simply to make it easy for people to convert. Like a barrel, a well-constructed landing page puts visitors directly in the firing line of your offer and doesn’t include ‘leaks’ or distractions to divert them from converting.

To get more ‘fish’ into your barrel, it needs to be inviting to your audience. Make sure your landing pages (and by extension your whole website) look professional, are easy to use and load fast. Test your forms across all major devices and browsers, then test them again. Even better, ask your grandma to test them.

Also, your offering needs to be something that people actually want. As Sonia explained, if you’re trying to sell broccoli ice cream, it doesn’t matter how well you market it, because nobody wants that.

Social Proof is Scarily Effective

Just like nobody wants to miss a party that they know their friends will be attending, people are much more motivated to join a list, download an ebook or sign up for an offer if there is evidence that others like them have already taken the same action.

Smart marketers have been aware of the power of social proof for a long time and the really smart ones are incorporating it into their landing pages to help them convert better.

A few ways to take advantage of the evil power of social proof:

  • Endorsements from influential people in the industry
  • Case studies
  • Social share count widgets
  • Facebook Like Boxes

 Landing Page Title Optimization - Authority Rainmaker 2015

Don’t Be Too Clever

Catchy clickbait headlines may work well for BuzzFeed, but they are notoriously poor performers on landing pages.

One of the fundamentals of high-converting landing page is clarity of messaging. While clever headlines may be attention grabbing, they are often confusing and confusion is the enemy of action.

In addition, confusing messaging can lower the perceived trust people have for your company, which is absolutely the last thing you want when potential business is on the line. Would you prefer to trust your health to a doctor who knew her craft, or one who could entertain you with jokes?

There’s a time and place for cleverness, but landing pages are rarely a good fit for either.

 The Terrifying Power of the Call to Action - Authority Rainmaker 2015

A Good Call to Action is Like Jedi Mind Control

When it comes to landing pages, your biggest competitor is inaction. Everyone’s attention is extremely limited, so make sure you aren’t wasting your audience’s time by being confusing or ambiguous with what they are supposed to do by including a good call to action.

Really killer calls to action have the following attributes:

  • Incredible clarity
  • A clear benefit
  • Builds trust

Provide Multiple Paths to Your Evil Lair

Any evil genius with any credibility has at least a few routes to reach their lair. There’s the hallway with spikes that pop out, the ventilation shaft hidden behind a bush and of course the front door (with lasers or something…).

Each of these distinct paths to the inside of your lair appeals to a different kind of secret agent or commando. The cautious and pragmatic spy will likely prefer to take their time and slink in through the ventilation shaft, while the overpowered bruiser henchmen will crash their way through the front door.

Similarly, visitors to your landing pages are likely to respond to different paths to conversion. Varying degrees of experience with your brand, places in the sales cycle and personal values are a few factors that can cause people to respond better to different messages or formats.

Boiling it down, Sonia says there are two major categories which your visitors are likely to fall into:

  • Already sold – These are the people who know what they want, know you can deliver it and are ready to convert. Make sure you have a direct, frictionless, straight-to-the-point path to conversion for these visitors. Don’t waste their time.
  • Need some convincing – There’s a reason these people made it to your landing page (perhaps a useful blog post, ebook, or webinar you created?), but they’re not quite sold yet. A softer call to action will likely work much better for these visitors to help convince them it’s worth it to become a customer.

Make People Feel Safe

In order for evil geniuses to be successful, they must be able to build trust. In order for your landing pages to convert visitors into customers, you have to do the same.

According to Sonia, your audience’s single biggest fear is feeling stupid. Most people want to believe that your offering is everything you claim it is, but they can’t be sure until it’s too late. What if they buy your product and it doesn’t work? What if they join your email list and receive nothing but spam? What if they come to your webinar and you share incorrect or unhelpful information?

All of these unfortunate outcomes can make someone feel pretty stupid. Unfortunately, anyone who has used the internet for a while has probably been in at least one of these situations before, so they have built in wariness about it happening again. Therefore, in order to convert visitors to customers, you need to help them overcome the fear that you’ll make them feel stupid again.

In order to help your audience feel safe to do business with you, make sure your landing pages:

  • Project credibility
    • Include visual indicators such as security badges and privacy policy links.
    • List endorsements from trusted authorities.
    • Include references to other clients you work with.
  • Reverse the risk
    • Offer a money back guarantee.
    • Start with a free trial.

Evil is Good - Authority Rainmaker 2015

The objective of any strategic digital marketing campaign is to translate attention into action. A well made landing page can be scarily effective at doing just that. But, as the decidedly non-evil superhero Spiderman famously said, “with great power comes great responsibility”, so please make sure to use these evil landing page optimization tips for good.

Keep your eye here on Online Marketing Blog as well as Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest and Twitter @TopRank for coverage of the Authority Rainmaker conference. You can also see the eBook we created featuring advice from Rainmaker speakers here.


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© Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®, 2015. |
Dr. Evil’s Guide to Landing Page Design and Optimization | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Top 3 Solar Energy Breakthroughs to Watch Out For

17 Sunday May 2015

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Solar power remains untapped genius we need for sustainable clean energy. After the discovery, the cost and effectiveness, even cosmetic-continue to advance this technology as a generator fully commercially viable and sustainable energy.

Getting Skyscrapers in downtown

It will not be long before our cities become independent power, requiring little or no power unsustainable. Gone will be miles of pylons transmission unsightly piles of coal and wind turbines. Such a scenario could be possible in the not too distant future when the solar windows reach their full potential. Professor Henry Snaith, co-founder and scientific director of Oxford says Photovoltaic solar coating technology developed in Oxford PV could transform buildings and skyscrapers of glass covered with a city in power plants. Our future cities glow with the colors of the rainbow, as the buildings on the supply of glass multi-shaded from the sun. According to Oxford PV, some color treatments result in more efficient electrical conversion: black treatment on top of the list, green and red are in the middle, and blue is less effective.

Coming soon: completely transparent solar panels

Ubiquitous Energy, an MIT startup plans to fully transparent market using innovative technology that changes the way cells absorb sunlight solar panels. The new panels use the invisible part of the solar spectrum, while allowing ordinary visible light to pass through. The breakthrough called transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC): use organic salts which absorb wave lengths of invisible ultraviolet and infrared light. These wavelengths of infrared light reflected luminescence not visible in the panel edge, and converted to electricity by the ordinary solar cells.

3D Printed solar tree

Researchers from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have joined solar technologies today 3D printing and print trees harvested energy. The leaves of these trees are specially designed and able to generate enough solar energy to power most mobile devices today and LED bulbs. Trees capture the kinetic energy, even against the wind and thermal energy from the ambient temperature changes. The new solar trees are the product of biomimetics, the new science of copying nature. And biomimicry exploit these new trees come as a Nanoleaf. Unlike conventional solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, lens half the wave length of infrared energy rich Nanoleaf. Equally impressive is the piezoelectric Nanoleaf petiole. When the wind whispers a Nanoleaf return, the mechanical stress resulting in the petiole, branch and branch converts this motion into electricity.

The sun bathes the Earth continuously to 800 terawatts of power. Wind energy is unfortunately untapped. Is not it time that we use more of that free energy?

Online Marketing News: Apple Users More Apt, Facebook In An Instant, Push Opt-In Dropped In

15 Friday May 2015

Posted by darronfossett in Uncategorized

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The Cost Of Not Prioritizing Customer Experience – CXM is the process of providing unforgettable experiences to your customers at every touchpoint – online, on the phone, on social, and in person. To find out what it will cost if you don’t prioritize your customer experience, check out this infographic. Inc. STUDY: Android Users More Likely […]

The post Online Marketing News: Apple Users More Apt, Facebook In An Instant, Push Opt-In Dropped In appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

The New Era of Sales and Content Marketing – Daniel Pink Keynote

15 Friday May 2015

Posted by darronfossett in Uncategorized

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This week’s forecast calls for heavy rain. Not from the sky, but from the stage at Authority Rainmaker 2015, hosted by CopyBlogger. The conference got off to a bang with an electrifying keynote from Daniel Pink, speaker and author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others. According to Daniel, the buying experience […]

The post The New Era of Sales and Content Marketing – Daniel Pink Keynote appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

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