The session was led by professional internet marketer & SEO / PPC consultant Zach Thompson. He jumped right in with tips for picking the best domain for your site and how to register it. Then he covered the basics for web hosting with several recommendations on service providers.

There were a few beginners at the meeting who had great questions on getting started and what Zach’s recommendations were on tools to use like WordPress, Joomla or custom build your site using outsourced web designers.

I had to admit that even I learned a few things about improving the SEO of my sites, where to locate service providers and more. I was  impressed with Zach’s depth of knowledge and I look forward to working  with him on some JV deals in the near future.

Our next meeting is scheduled for March 25th from 7:00 to 8:00 pm. We’ll planning on meeting at the Comfort Inn at the Roanoke Airport thanks to our member Lori, who works there and made arrangements for the use of the meeting space. Thanks, Lori.

We meet on the fourth Wednesday of each month from 7:00 – 8:00 pm in and around the Roanoke valley.  Our January meeting was a hit. The topic of discussion was my favorite subject…”Harnessing the Power of Web Video.”

I explained how you can use a simple video with some proper keyword usage in the title, tags and description to get your content on page one of Google and grab tons of free organic traffic. I also covered a few free resources for syndicating your web video and using these tools for totally dominating your niche. There were plenty of great questions from those who attended and we tried to answer them all. Most stayed well past the one hour time to network and get answers to even more great questions.

Here’s a short video of comments from the attendees of the January meeting.

Internet Marketing Professionals January Meeting Testimonials from JointVentureLightning on Vimeo.

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 25th from 7:00 to 8:00 pm at the Cave Spring Library on 419. We’ll be meeting in the small meeting room back in the children section of the library.

Full-time internet marketer and SEO / Pay Per Click consultant Zach Thompson will be leading the discussion on “How To Set-up A Website. You can see the full details online and you can join the group at: http://ibd.meetup.com/841/

The key is to use these tools properly.

Think of a social networking site like this… imagine a global night club or dinner party where celebrities, authors, poets, artists, models, rock stars, and political leaders and industry experts are all standing around chatting about everything imaginable. Now imagine that this seemingly exclusive gathering is open to the public and has no cover charge to get in.

Everyday folks like us can simply sign in, look around, find somebody interesting to listen to and then join in the conversation. That’s also a fair description of microblogging sites like Twitter.

Now imagine how you would feel if some stranger just barged in on your conversation and tried to sell you something. That’s how most people try to use these types of sites… by barging in and selling without offering value and interest first.

Here’s an example of how to do it properly: I was interested in communicating with a particular donor prospect but I didn’t know quite how to introduce myself in-person. It felt like I would be “barging in” uninvited. So I found this person on Facebook and saw that they were a member of a local civic group that I used to belong to. This gave me the opportunity to comment in a relevant and interesting way with this prospect.

The result was that he “friended” my Facebook profile and we have since been  able to communicate with each other in a friendly and mutually beneficial way. The point is to establish rapport and warm up a cold prospect before you go for the appointment and the funding request.

Here’s another example: I love using LinkedIn because they have an Answers forum where you can post answers to members questions. This allows me to establish myself as a credible expert in a variety of subjects. I’m offering value first. People who benefit from my answers can give me a “Best Answer” designation and a recommendation that all builds my credibility.

People who read my answers can then contact me for other related questions and to further build rapport. Maintain these online relationships with care and you can convert them into donors over time.

I went back a few days later and played with social bookmarking on sites like Digg, Furl, StumbleUpon and others. These bookmarks did two things for me. First, they drove traffic to my son’s video. Second, they gave the video two more postions on page one of Google.

That means that the video controlled postions 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 on page one of Google in just two days! Imagine what that can do for a business marketing their products online.

The traffic from organic search results goes up. The credibility of the expert goes up. Conversion goes up. Profits go up.
So, you can boost all of your efforts with web video by including social bookmarking as part of your overall strategy. TubeMogul lets you do this for free quite easily but if you want AWESOME power for totally dominating your niche then I recommend TrafficGeyser.com.

I uploaded the video at 8:30 pm and it was on page one by 11:00 pm that same day.

In fact, it not only showed up on page one but it totally dominates the page by getting the first four positions!

Here’s how I did it.

First, I chose keywords related to the topic of the video… maximizing methane production and renewable energy. Then I used those keywords in the title, description and tags. Then I uploaded the video to my free www.tubemogul.com account and clicked the Launch button.

Tubemogul then syndicates the video to about twelve of the top video hosting sites online including Google, YouTube, Revver,Veoh, BlipTV, and others.

That’s all there is to it. It took about 10 minutes. I checked back at 11:00 and there it was on page one!. Checked back again that same evening and it was in the first four positions.  And YES… according to Tubemogul video traffic stats his little video has had more than 100 views in the first day alone.

Now I wish my son had some kind of info product to sell so we can take advantage of the free organic traffic.

Scott conducted an experiment demonstrating how to increase methane production for power generation by adding readily available organic waste materials like leaves, wood chips, saw dust, and old newspaper to the sludge at the Western Virginia Water Authority.

How To Increase Methane Production For Power Generation from Brian Duvall on Vimeo.

Click Here to take survey

The reason for the survey is to gauge how quickly these organizations are adopting this medium to achieve core missions. With the advent of web video, global syndication is now a reality… for FREE. It has been my experience that smaller organizations with limited resources tend to fall far behind in the adoption of new tools like social networking, bookmarking, RSS, SEO, web video, and syndication.

If you are a staff member, board member or volunteer for a non-profit, association or chamber of commerce then please take this short 2 minute survey. I’ll be happy to share the results when the project is completed.

Thanks.

Their hope is to go to Thailand for 15 days and tutor children in the poor hill tribes there. Unfortunately, political unrest in Thailand right now is hindering trip preparations. So, they have several fall-back service trip options focusing on the U.S. mostly.

Either way, they still need to raise money so they can go on the trip and learn leadership skills through serving others.
To help my son raise the money, I have installed a secure donation widget below courtesy of ChipIn.com

Please Help. Every dollar counts and your donation is vital to the success of this wonderful program.
Thanks.

It’s not particularly hard to do but it does take a certain mind-set to do it successfully. It also takes dedication, persistence and tracking. I’ll share details on what to track, why track it and a simple spreadsheet to make tracking & analysis easier.

Take a look at the following plan to see how the timing works out.

Example: You have 2,000 businesses to call, each earning $5 million per year or more in annual sales.

You can call a business about every 2 to 3 minutes. So, it’ll take about 2 and a half hours to call about 50 businesses. You can shorten the time to reach all 2,000 if you recruit additional phone callers. If you get others involved in calling then make sure they have a sample script to follow so they stay on message and don’t flub the call.

Be sure to track who you call and what the result of the call was for each business. Do it as you go or you’ll never keep up with the tracking and important notes… like who to call back and when. You can do this with a simple spreadsheet. If you have helpers calling from other locations then try sharing the spreadsheet by posting it on GoogleDocuments. Be sure to set the caller as a collaborator on the document or all they’ll be able to do is view it and that won’t help you much. They need to be able to add their notes to the spreadsheet as they call.

There’s plenty more to be covered for effective calling and tracking but we’ll need to cover that in a later post.
Hope that helps.

Brian

Well, for starters… try contacting businesses that are earning $5 million or more per year in sales and are located within your service area. Mail the top executive at each business and asked them to please include you in their budget for the coming year with a 4 year pledge.

How do you convert that into actual donations?

You start with a simple phone call to each business and ask, “Who handles your donation requests from local charities?” Once you get the name and are connected to that person, simply ask if they received the letter of request you just mailed to them. You’ll be amazed at how many do not recall getting the letter. That’s fine. It gives you an opportunity to drop by to hand-deliver a more detailed request pack with a copy of the original letter.

This takes time. It also takes timing. You’ll want to mail the letter early in the year and before June because you don’t know which businesses are on a calendar year or a fiscal year. Why does it matter? Because many businesses have donation committees who consider requests and make recommendations for yearly budgets. If the company is on a July to June fiscal year then you don’t want to miss out and have to wait another year to begin the process. If they’re on a calendar year or on a third quarter fiscal year then your June request is a little early… which is fine. You just need to make sure you do plenty of follow-up like providing the committee additional info packs closer to their decision time.

I’ll cover the follow-up calling plan in more detail in the next post. So, stay tuned.