Luckily I don’t see much of this type of advertising as I’ve stopped watching TV years ago. Occassionally I get them at the movies. But last week the best advertising ever reached me, so much so that I even take out the time to write a blog post. Well done Santam and Nando’s, your brands are now forever edged into my memory.

And I’m not alone. All of South Africa loved it when those two sparred via ads and on top of it only good came out – a Johannesburg Children’s Home gets now food delivered every last Friday of the month for a year.

There is lots to learn here. First of all, advertising to engage the users needs to be interesting. And lets face it, that first ad by Santam the “serious” one is actually one of the good ones, and not just because of Ben Kingsley. Here is the ad that started it all:

(In a funny twist Floyd the barman is Jean Teplitsky, an actor I happen to know and have been on stage with years ago, more reason for me to remember this whole story)

Nando’s, the well known and loved chicken fast food chain of South Africa is also known for their spoof ads. Much to the entertainment of the general public they have taken on all sorts of big names, even Fifa back when we hosted the WorldCup. So, here they come out with a spoof on the very Santam ad above:

Brilliant idea! Twitter lit up and that’s when I first heard about it – and of course went to watch. Lesson no 2: “traditional” advertising can reach a person who’s anything but traditional. So far so good, we had many of those in the past.

But then Santam decided to not just leave it at that and they came back, with a challenge:

We all held our breath to see what Nando would do…..

How brilliant is this! Including the stab at the insurer at the end. Love it.
What’s really nice about this story is that, we are ALL winners! The people who watched the ads, because they are truly and honestly entertaining. The children’s home who now get a bit of extra food. The two brands who added hugely to their brand awareness and lets not forget the added cool factor. And of course the two agencies who no doubt loved seeing this campaign go viral for both of them.

Take away for big agencies: don’t force it, have fun and be natural.

Take away for small businesses: don’t force it, have fun and be natural.

Seriously, I think this truly is the great lesson here – we’ll talk about something and share it with everyone if it either entertains, educates or inspires us. So next time you post something on the interwebs in the hope of getting some new clients down the line somewhere make sure it fits this criteria of entertain/educate/inspire.

By the way, I don’t think you can plan a success like that. But what you can do is make sure the best version of you always shows up to deliver. Then things like that can happen.

How can you entertain, educate or inspire your audience?

I am also using many other Google products (apps) and the native integration of G+ into everything makes it appealing indeed. So what is it? To answer this question I’d like to post a video I found made by Aljazeera English, it gives a really nice overview.

By the way, Aljazeera is missing an important “trick” with regards to using YouTube for spreading their message: in the description they should add a link to their website or anything else they’d like to drive traffic to.

The first one concentrates on total beginners who have no clue what is what on Twitter and how to use it and the other one is aimed at those more advanced users who have been on Twitter for a little while and are now wondering how to get the most out of it.

Both are free because they are sponsored by a fantastic NLP online training course by Confident Future, learn the persuasive powers of NLP (neuro linguisitc programming) in the comfort of your home. Click here to get a free book explaining what it is and a couple of videos explaining some of the core concepts in NLP.

Webinar 1 – Twitter for Beginners

Thursday, April 12, 11:30 am CAT, click for details and to register

Webinar 2 – Twitter for Business (advanced use)

Monday, April 16 at 11:30 am CAT, click for details and to register

Does that sound familiar? Are you in the spot where you feel a website is going to bring you additional business? Or more likely, were you in that spot, approached a web designer, paid anything from R300 – R30,000 for a lovely looking website and 2 months later, there are still no leads coming in?

Odds are you understand this scenario. The problem is a lack of understanding. Online marketing is the rave, everybody gathers you need to do online and mobile. And most people who are generally too busy building their business for really understanding what this means.

So let me clarify this for you. No, you don’t need a website. What you need – in most cases – is a lead generating machine. Paying a webdesigner x amount to build a website and then not doing anything with it equals printing 10,000 brochures and putting them on a shelf in your garage.

Nothing is going to happen. Nothing.

Unless you send people to your website it’s not going to do anything for you. There are millions of websites set up every day, how are you planning on competing with them? Where is your strategy? Unfortunately webdesigners won’t tell you that. They will ask your brief and give you what you want – but what is your want based on? Did you tell them to build a SEO optimised website? If not they won’t necessarily do that because they usually aren’t marketers, they are designers. No good or bad, that’s just how it is.

The problem is, you see a pretty website and equate this with a good one – oh I want one like these. Let me tell you something every web designer is hating me for saying, pretty doesn’t cut it to generate traffic online. There are only two things that bring people (organically) to your website: words and as of late pictures.

I run several websites and the ugliest one brings in the most traffic. Why? Because it’s optimized for people searching for the information it provides, means it concentrates on the words not the design. And people type words into that search bar on Google. They don’t care how the words are presented as long as they can read them and give them the information they were looking for.

The key to a successful (= traffic/lead generating) website are:

• usefulness (does the information provide me with what I’m looking for?)
• easy to navigate
• interesting enough to keep you on it longer
• conversion (turning visitors into leads)
• traffic generating strategies in place

I like to compare it with a shop. Will you go back to a supermarket where you can’t find what is where? Where you don’t find what you’re looking for? No, all the points above are the same for a successful shop. Of course you need to have it clean, and pleasantly looking. If it’s revolting people will run away. But the most important is, do the people that come by (your shop or your website) find what they are looking for?

Key questions you need to answer for yourself

• How are people going to find the website?
• How am I going to convince those visitors to *insert CTA (call to action: phone you, buy off the site, send email, sign up for newsletter, etc)*?
• How am I going to keep the site updated and relevant?
• What information must go on?
• What are my keywords?
• Do I want to build an online income stream in addition to my business?

Basically there are two ways to look at with regards to a website, either you just want to have a pretty online brochure that works the same as it’s offline counterpart. When someone comes across it they hopefully get converted and end with an action. But your main idea is not to drive online traffic there, it’s actually the offline activities that drive traffic there (link on your email, your brochure, your business card, etc.). All you want is for people who know your name and/or your domain to find you and see what you’re all about.

Or the other side of it is you want people who search for your services but don’t know your name yet to find you and thus create completely new leads you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

And I know that’s what people usually mean when they say “I want a website”.

So how do you go about getting one of those? The first thing is to understand this is a fundamentally different process to the first option. For the first option (the brochure website) you could even get away with a free website (although I suggest to at least get your own domain).

For a traffic generating website on the other hand you don’t just need someone to design it, you also need a plan of how that traffic is going to reach you.

And that’s a science in itself. SEO, keywords, landing page optimization, content marketing, blog, social media, etc comes into play. You need to make a plan how you drive the traffic to your site and then how you convert/monetize it. If you have an existing business then that last part is easy. That’s the goal, to monetize it via your existing business.

The guys over at Hubspot are doing an incredible job in educating the world at large about all the stuff that needs to happen. They also have a phenomenal grader software I constantly use to assess client’s websites. They have the tools that will make your website a lead generating website, there is no doubt about it. I haven’t used them yet because I find them a bit pricey for our South African market. But I strongly suggest to subscribe to their list, there’s a lot of great information coming from them for free.

There is a more affordable option for a lead generating website available, albeit one that takes more time. Remember the ugly site I said brings in the most traffic? Well that’s a Sitesell.com website. Their SBI (site build it) system is unrivaled when it comes to creating an online business. It is really unbelievable at that price – and they never increase the price!

So what is Sitesell? Well in a nutshell it is THE online tool for creating a lead generating website. If you want to make money online that’s the way to go, but it’s the slow one. You know all those get rich quick scam artists? Well they promise you a quick buck online, there is no such thing. Whether online or offline, you gotta put in the hours to make it work. Sitesell is the slow way, but personally I have not seen a better and more affordable system then theirs.

And the best part, whether you are a total newbie (know nothing about anything online) or an experienced web pro you will find their system works for anybody. I told you my “ugly” site generates traffic and pays for the site itself, and I hardly spend any time on it. I am busy planning on putting up another SBI site, particularly because they are about to launch their new 3.5 mill $ block builder system which is going to be the best of breed. It’s a drag and drop website building system with which anybody can build a good looking website that works (= brings in traffic).

It’s interesting to me, this very page here is a wordpress based page and I’ve always treated it as a brochure page more than anything and that’s exactly what it is. Yes I do get more traffic slowly as I am putting up more content, but in essence it’s just there to help me put online what I can offer to the business world (an online brochure). I’m using the techniques I learned via SBI as much as I can here but it’s nowhere near the success of my other site, which is much smaller and yet ranks on page 1 for it’s keyword consistently and brings in 3-5 x more traffic.

So in summary, do you need a website?

If you just want a nice place online to send people to via your business cards (and other offline media) then go the WordPress route, it’s quicker than SBI. Set up your own domain (here my thoughts on whether to go .co.za or .com) and install wordpress on it. (I offer a wordpress setup for R2,500 for a basic site, here’s an example)

If you want a website that generates leads and you are passionate about your subject (it’s a prerequiste, you need to want to write a lot of content) then go with Sitesell.com, they will teach you everything you need to know. Please do yourself a favour, for the same amount I charge you for a WP site you get SO much more, it’s incredible. I don’t even want to mention the awesome community you’re going to be part of, just check their Facebook page to see what I mean.

If however, all you want is your phone number to come up when someone looks for it then I suggest to go with a simple Google Places listing. That’s really all you need for that, it’s free and they put you on top of page 1. I call it a yellow pages listing on steroids. Just make sure you’ve put in the appropriate keywords.

As always, if you have any questions at all, please contact me (top right all the links)! I’ll be happy to help you navigate what will be the best solution for your particular circumstances.

And if you found this article in any way beneficial I’ll appreciate you sharing it with your network:

You’d be hard pressed to find any executive coach worth his or her salt who hasn’t heard of NLP and uses some or all of these tools day in and out in their work. Another example are successful sales people  who all know about building rapport, which is one of the tools of NLP. When you call someone a born sales man what you are actually saying is that there’s a person who is a master at rapport building, consciously or unconsciously, which is key to mega success in sales.

Who benefits the most from learning NLP?

Anyone who wants to get ahead in life. Yes, that’s very broad but that’s what it boils down to. Learning how to effectively communicate, persuade others and master self are valuable life skills to learn indeed. I personally would go so far as to say that in today’s trying economic times you have to do whatever you can to stay ahead of your competition and in top form – and that includes using all systems available to you.

What are the systems available to you?

I’m talking about things like your senses for example. NLP teaches you sensory acuity, which basically means to become acutely aware of what your senses are telling you and how to interpret these messages. You start reading other people quickly and accurately, which gives you an edge in communicating with them. You can notice somebody being hostile to you long before they’ve said a word for example.

If you’re able to detect how the other person you’re talking to is feeling and what they’re thinking would you say that this would be to great advantage to you?

Lets take a sales situation, what if the person you’re trying to sell to just had a heated argument with their boss and they got under a lot of pressure. They will not tell you any of this as you start your meeting and so from words alone you will never get a clue as to what happened. But clearly if that person is tense and his mind busy with that other situation no matter what you say will not make a difference. You will not sell anything.

You have to first get that other person to change the state they’re in. And in order to do that you first have to know what state they are actually in. That’s where sensory acuity comes in. When you can read all the signs the other person gives off (their breathing, muscle tension, tone of voice, etc.) before they said a word you are at a clear advantage for this conversation. Now you can work on changing their state by first building rapport – another NLP technique and then using anchoring or any of the modelling techniques.

Other systems available to you are value and belief systems. If you can adequately assess the other persons believes and values you’re at an advantage. Your mind is a powerful tool, and so is that of everybody else. The question is ….

… are you using your mind with purpose?

Are you training your mind? What are the thoughts you are thinking? Who controls your thoughts? 

These are powerful questions to ask and learning NLP is a journey that takes you on a course to answering these and many more questions.

How can you learn NLP?

There are several ways you can immerse yourself in NLP. I have over the years studied a lot of the free material available online plus of course many of the techniques I learned from Blair Singer are based on NLP. Then there are live courses and online courses. Both valuable ways of learning these skills. The question you have to ask yourself before you spend too much money on any of the courses on offer is, why do I want to learn NLP?

If you just want to learn the tools for use by yourself then you can easily do this with a good online course, you won’t need the certification really. Which is only when you want to train others how to use NLP. Be aware of those online courses which are basically just recordings of NLP practioners doing a live seminar.

It’s for that reason that I’m so excited to have come across “Confident Future”, a company based in Australia and headed by Lloyd Johnson, a master NLP trainer and practitioner. His business partner Jenny Wensing lives here in South Africa and she’s the one who got me to finally quit the nasty smoking habit easily with NLP. Lloyd has put together an incredible online course for NLP – tailormade for the medium of online training.

But instead of recording him while talking to a group of seminar participants his videos are made with him speaking into the camera directly to you, a proper online course to learn NLP. They are also cut into specific topics and there’s no jumping forth and back during the talking as it happens so often in a live course. This is a course laid out and recorded according to a systematic approach and outline.

At the end I believe the best way to learn NLP is actually in a live setting practicing with others, and certainly for a certification you need that component, but to learn NLP in itself you don’t need it. But because you might want to take it further Lloyd and his partners all around the world offer live seminars too.

Oh and you know what I particularly like about Lloyd’s programme?

It’s affordable. He understands the medium, the market and the circumstances and has decided on an incredible offer for you. But before we even go that far, how about just reading up some more about what NLP is, it’s components and how they can help you? How about you “meeting” Lloyd yourself? He’s written a great NLP eBook and recorded a couple of videos in which he explains some of the techniques in full detail with exercises you can try out yourself while you’re watching. All available for free! 

I’m thrilled to take part in Lloyd’s programme and go through my own certification with him and his team which is why I wanted to share this information with you. I’m myself in the midst of learning and studying and thus know, after trying out many other courses, that this is the best NLP online training course by far with the highest standard and quality and at a fraction of the price some others are charging.

Here’s a link to Confident Future where you can directly sign up for FREE for the first couple of videos and the eBook “The Secrets To Learning Neuro-Linguisitic Programming”. 

When you’ve decided to go on this journey of self mastery let me know! Would be nice to compare notes with you!

Do you have any examples of NLP in action? Add them in the comments below.

However where it becomes a problem is when that favour involves things that you’d normally charge for as a service. Or when the favour is really time consuming or even costs you money. The thing is, I’m the first to advocate giving comes before receiving and this is certainly true in my life. So when you ask me to do you a favour I will almost always say yes, and if I really can’t do it then I tell you why not.

The question then is – how does that favour return? Well that depends from which side you’re looking at it.

If you’re the one who’s done the favour and you sit and wait for the return you’re in trouble. That’s not how it works. You give without expecting and that’s how it should be. Just give and let the universe work out the receiving. And it will always come back to you, good or bad. What you sow is what you reap, always, you don’t have to worry about it.

However if you are on the other side, when you are asking for the favour, you have a GREAT opportunity to easily help karma along (which we mostly understand as a symbol for that which controls who gets what based on who did what). The next time someone does something for you and doesn’t ask anything in return you thank them as normal as you would always do, but then you go one step further.

You thank them online. 

The easiest way to thank anybody with a bit of “meat”, meaning something more than just appreciation (which by itself is good too, don’t get me wrong, I’m just taking you to the next level here), is to hop online and give them a link, a share, a like. 

These days almost everyone I know is selling something online (and if you don’t, why not???). Everyone has something they want to promote, an idea, a business, a product, a charity, a cause etc. There’s always something that each one of us wants to help along, to promote. And that’s what makes it so easy for you to thank for the favour, look at their profile and give them some link love, as I call it, to their business or cause.

Here are a couple of ideas:

• If they have a fanpage on Facebook, go there like it AND share it with your friends. Just find the share link bottom left and share it on your timeline. You don’t have to do anymore. That’s just fine. Big thanks.
• If they recently posted something about a cause that’s dear to them, go find it and share it with your peeps. Big thanks.
• If they have a website and you have one too, add a link from yours to theirs. MEGA THANKS. This is called linking and the search engines look for these links. The more links pointing to a website the higher it will rank in the search results.
• If they have a website but you don’t, hop on your favourite social media platform and share a link to their site with a little explanation on what people can find there. So many thanks.
• If you’re both on Twitter give them a #ff shoutout. But please don’t just drop the name, give a reason why people should follow.
• Go one further, tell the people in your network (via your preferred social media platform) that soandso just did you a really big favour and you’d like to publicly thank them. And then link to whatever page, site, content, profile of them.

Can you see how easy it is nowadays to thank people in public and give them something totally cost free in return? In the old days we used to write thank you cards, that’s totally come out of fashion. The online link is the modern day thank you card!

I’ve become known as the promoter non plus ultra. Watch my timelines anywhere and you’ll see I promote a lot of other people and businesses. And it’s always because I think what I’m sharing is of worth to my followers and the people mentioned most likely have done me some or other kind of favour and I’m gladly returning the thank you with some link love. Or sometimes I just think they’re doing such a great job they can do with an extra shout out here and there. Or it’s something that is close to my heart. Or sometimes it is a proper referral program, also fine because mostly I use those myself. You get the idea.

To summarize: don’t hold back with your public praise of others and include a link to their stuff with the praise. It’s the easiest way to return or at least thank them for the favour.

So here’s how to go about it, there are basically two options (from the front of your page and from the back of your page) to add anyone as an administrator on Facebook – that means, you don’t have to be friends on Facebook to add another person.

Option 1 – from the front page

This used to be the quickest and easiest solution, but Facebook changed how we find the list of people who like our page. It’s still quick and easy – as long as the person you want to make administrator likes your page. Check below the image for a description of the steps.

5 steps to add anyone who likes your page as an administrator:

1. On your page on the left navigation bar under your page logo click on “Insights” that opens your insights as well as a little submenu list below. In there click on “Likes”.
2. Once you’re inside the likes insights of your page look to the top right corner. You’ll find a link “see likes”. Click it.
3. A pop-up opens showing you all the likes of your page. Most recent ones on top. Find the person and click “make admin”. There is no way to search for them so if you have many likes and the person was an early “liker” this way to add them is not the easiest. Scroll further down for option 2.
4. You will be taken to the backend of your page and it will alert you that you have unsaved changes. Click on “Save Changes”.
5. Another popup opens and asks you for your password, an added security feature by Facebook. Click “Save” and voila, it’s done. The person will get a notification that you have made them admin and they then have all the same options as you the owner with the page.

Option 2 – from the backend of your page

This option is a bit quicker if you have the person’s email address. Now this works flawlessly if you’re using the email that is associated with the person’s Facebook account (the one they use to login to Facebook). As this very often is a different one to the one they are normally using the adding is not immediate as in the first option. If you got the one they’re using to login then it’s just as quick.

4 steps to add someone who’s email address you have as an administrator to your Facebook page:

1. On your page look top right to click on “Edit page” and enter the backend of your Facebook page.
2. In the navigation list on the left choose “Manage admins”
3. Add the email address of the person you want to add (see above explanation on which one to use). Here you also have to option to add several admins at a time. Click on “Add another admin” if you want to do that.
4. Enter your password again to confirm.

And there you have it, now you have multiple admins to your Facebook page. If you want to remove anyone follow Option 2 until you get to your admin backend and simply click “remove” next to their picture and name, confirm with your password and that’s it.

I hope this helps. Our team are specialists in creating outstanding Facebook presences for individuals as well as companies and brands. We make sure you look good on Facebook, know how to use it to your fullest advantage and learn how to build community as well as generate leads for your business – tiny or huge. Contact us  for more information.

Business owners are generally convinced their product/service is the best on earth and so it should be. But all too often they assume their potential clients (or even the existing ones) should know that too. However that is not so. In this world of over information we cannot be bothered to take too much time trying to figure out what makes you or your product so special that “I” (= the consumer) should spend my money on it.

So you’ve got to tell people why they should buy from you. As simple as that, or is it?

Turns out, it’s actually not so simple. Most of the time when I ask a business owner/marketer why anyone should buy from them they sometimes say things like:

“My product is really good.”
“It has features a, b, c and lets not forget d.”
“It can do better what this other product can do.”
“They need my service.”

And the list goes on, all very generic and/or self orientated. What I mean by that it’s all about the product/service. Huh? I hear you say. Isn’t that the important thing, to explain what my product is all about?

I’ve got news for you, and they might shock you.

Nobody cares about your product and/or service.

Nobody.

Nobody will buy from you because your product/service is so good and they need it.

Huh? I hear again. So why then does anybody buy? Here it is:

People buy products and services because they believe that by having this product/ service it will FULFILL A NEED/DISRE/WANT they have. It’s all about THEM and not your product. It’s how your product makes them feel, how they see themselves interacting with it, how they can imagine that having/using the product will make them feel better.

It really is that simple. Nobody cares if your MP3 player has 1GB or 10GB, heck what does a GB really mean? But everyone cares about being able to take their entire 10,000 songs strong music library with them.

This example – Apple’s first ad for the iPod (1000 songs in your pocket) – is THE best example of a well formulated USP – unique selling proposition.

Apple website Dec 2001 introducing iPod - 1000 songs in your pocket

It is:

• about the consumer
• his/her pocket
• his/her songs
• his/her future wellbeing after having the object
• explains clearly the BENEFIT of having the object

Note the last line, the benefit. All too often in marketing we revert back to rattling off all the amazing features and of course, there is a time and place to talk about them! But before you get to that, you already have to have the hook in your buyer, the potential BENEFIT to them that makes them want to find out more about your product.

By the way, while we’re talking about Steve Jobs – he was first and foremost a brilliant marketer. The iPod at the time was by far not the best product on the market, nor the cheapest and still, he sold the most. Why? Because he knew how to sell it. Buy telling YOU the benefit of having it (plus adding a perfectly designed product that lets you get to the benefit easily).

Back to what having a strong USP is all about. It’s about what makes you stand out from the crowd? And I promise you, if you change talking about the features (upon first contact with potential buyers) and start talking about what the product/service will do to them your changes will be astounding! You can achieve a staggering 300% increase or more in your conversions if you’ve neglected benefits in your marketing so far and include them now.

I suggest you sit down and write out a list of features for your product/service. And then next to them write the benefits of them to the consumer. It’s not always easy in the beginning but it really is worthwhile going through the exercise. And then start predominantly talking about what your product does for your clients in all your marketing and advertising.

If you’re in the Cape Town area check under events when my next “Creating a Marketing Plan for Small Business” workshop is held again and join it. You will not only walk away with a killer USP but a whole host of other actionable items which will help you attract more leads and convert them better. (Can you spot the feature/benefit in this sentence?)

Leave a comment below and let us know your product’s benefits!

Today I want to show you why and how a video works in generating traffic to your website. I am producing little How-To videos as of late and one reason I like it so much is because based on the feedback I get people really appreciate them and thank me for them. This has been the strongest motivating factor so far in keeping producing them.

But a new reason has popped up. You Tube has some great analytics for its videos (under the link insights in the section where you find all your uploaded videos). And as I checked the stats for my latest How To video (about how Facebook’s Edgerank works, how they decided what to show and what not in their newsfeed and how you can control that) I saw that for the first time my video has been by far more sources via search than via my own direct marketing efforts.

When I create a video I release it first to the subscribers of my newsletter and out of those 16 so far have clicked on the link to watch it. See in this graph.

Where it gets interesting is in all the search results – a direct result of my tagging with keywords (you do this while you upload or afterwards). At this point there were 25 views via search already – 9 more than from my direct links. In other words 61% of my viewers came from other sources all across the web.

One important little “trick” I do is to add my website url in the beginning of the description of the video as there is no other way to send people to it to find out more about what I do. (You can annotate the video with links which I have done with this one at the end, but I sent it to my channel with the other videos and not to my website). This has resulted in 2 clicks at this moment. Not bad at all.

So while we’re waiting in all eagerness to get more bandwidth in South Africa make sure you’re getting the hang of video marketing. It is working better every day! Have you tried out video yet?