Marketing Lessons For Small Business Owners From My Kids Favorite YouTube Channels

You know, when we first had kids, I never thought I’d be Googling usernames like Chuggaaconroy and NintendoCapriSun.

Griffin spends hours watching Chuggaaconroy and NintendoCapriSun narrate their console game exploits relatd to Pikmin, Zelda and Super Mario. There’s actually a name for it. It’s called “Let’s Play.” G probably does it as much as he plays the actual console games.

Half the time, we make him watch them without sound. Especially Chuggaaconroy, because he can drop some language. Never an f-bomb, but G is still G, not PG-13, you know?

Still, I’m jealous of these nerds. As much as we small business owners wish for social media presences, we got nothing on these Let’s Play dudes.

Chuggaconroy has 382,766 YouTube subscribers and over 61million channel views! He also has 37,342 Twitter followers and 80,582 Facebok likes with 2,534 people talking about his Facebook page.

NintendoCapriSun has 167,228 YouTube subscribers and 99, 487,462 channel views. Nearly 100milion! On Twitter he has 10, 573 followers. His Facebook numbers are quite modest however, only 604 likes.

What is the lesson to be learned here? I think it’s personality.

These twenty-something guys make a living by layering entertainment on top of entertainment kind of like MSTK3000 (that’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 to the unhip). The inject their personality into what’s ostensibly tips, techniques and cheats. The videos highlight their gameplay skill, the voiceovers provide a steady stream of tips, commentary, complete with screams of agony and ecstacy depending upon how things are going.

For the average small business owner this translates into the important “Never Be Boring Lesson.” It’s easy to separate yourself from your competitors when you take aggressive steps brand yourself as Mr. Insurance or Mrs. Nails in your marketplace.

You do this by demonstrating excellent technical chops and mixing in with a healthy dose of personality and fun. Technical skill is the ante. You have to have this first and then build from it. Marketing-wise, this means you adopt media like PR and public speaking, and also visual media like web videos (you DO have your own YouTube Channel, right?) so people can see your eyes and see you entertain and inform. If you do direct mail, you create fun, outrageous offers. If you do a newsletter, you have fun with it. One of the top newsletters for Dentists is actually an activity book for the toilet. That’s right, it’s sold to dentist’s by a third party and it licenses top content from national newspaper and magazine columnists and includes crosswords and sudokus and has nothing to do with dentistry! And it’s terrifically successful.

The thing with newsletters is that people seem compelled to fill them with boring industry info. Let’s keep that in trade rags and account statements, shall we? The real reason to send a newsletter is three-fold. First to keep in touch. Second to build a relationship (you do that with personality and fun and by sharing). Last, to make a sales offer. Nothing industry- or product-related required!

What steps could you take to brand your business with your personality to competitve advantage? If you’re struggling for ideas, give me a jingle!

 

 

 

 

The only 3, no wait…5 ways to grow your business

only-3-ways-business-growsThe only ways to grow your business

If there is a foundational concept behind the SmallBizWithKids blog, “only three ways to grow your business” would be it.

But I will add two more for the sake of being different. Here they are:
1) Get more new customers (most companies focus too much on this)

2) Sell more to existing customers (most companies don’t do enough of this)

3) Increase the average transaction size\unit of sale (achieved variously through premium pricing, product and price ascension, slack adjusters) and
4) Cut costs (freeing up working capital to invest in 1, 2 and 3)
5) Firing bad customers/prospects (freeing up time and energy to focus on 1, 2 and 3)

OK, so cost cutting and firing bad customers are operations functions and not sales and marketing, but their net effect is still revenue growth.

The secret is to do these tasks so they have a multiplier effect on your business. Ramping up new customer acquisition and implement drip campaigns to sell more to your existing customers is an example of how this is done.

 

Usability Insights and Tips For Seniors

Good Usability or user experience is essential to your site’s success. If your site is ugly or hard to understand – click – visitors are gone in a flash!

Usability is especially important for seniors

Just today I was responding to an email from a gentleman interested in meeting with me. In preparation for my response I visited his company web site. They deal with the senior market.

I was impressed they had a video tutorial describing their program and process step by step. The narrator’s voice sounds more mature to me, and I liked the attention to detail there.

Thing is, they are using white captions. While the use of captions shows attention to usability details, but the use of white captions is hard to read. Check out the screen capture below.

senior-helpers-usability

Note the use of white captions and how hard they are to read

Now I’m only 44, and have 20/20 vision and I find the captions hard to red. I’m positive more elderly viewers will have trouble reading the captions. Note how the captions are especially hard to read when they are super-imposed on other images or where the background fades towards white.

Usability Poorly executed is as bad as no usability at all!

I’d recommended to the gentleman that he request that his company HQ redo the peice using black captions. I am sensitive to this because I just read a great book by Steve Cone called Steal These Ideas! Marketing Secrets That Will Make You A Star.  Here is a quote from page 43: “Small type is the enemy. Sans serif type is the enemy. Reverse type is the enemy.”  White captions is reverse type. I found the book funny, informative and overall one of the better marketing books I’ve read in a while.

Below are some tips on usability for seniors.

I developed this list for a presentation I gave to a group in the senior industry.

The number one usability tip for seniors: When talking to seniors, online text must be readable.

Progression in age brings changes in our vision making it more difficult to see and read from a computer screen. The first step is to make your text as legible as possible for seniors. Here’s how:

  • Use either 12- or 14-point type size, and provide a text enlarger on every page of the site where it can easily be found.
  • The background and text color must be in contrast with each other. Ideally, a dark text should be used against a light background. Avoid using yellow, green and blue in close proximity. Better yet, go for colors that are viewable on a black and white monitor.
  • Don’t ever use white type over a black background. This is difficult for web users of ALL ages to read.
  • Use a sans serif typeface such as Arial, Univers, Helvetica and News Gothic for your on-page text – unless it is part of a graphic element and is used for aesthetic value
  • Avoid using all caps.
  • If you want to use italics, use it only in headlines.
  • Reserve the underlines only to indicate active links.
An example of a senior-oriented site with good usability

I found a site featuring great senior-oriented usability, Adelaide Place. They really deserve some praise. Below is a screen shot.

Adelaide-Place-usability

Senior-focused site with great usability

Note how the site uses large type, lots of white space. Large icons and a enlarger for the accomodations photos.

Note too, how prominently the phone number is displayed. This usability detail recognizes that for some demographics, it’s not all about texting and twitter. Yes, some generations still prefer the phone and in person!

Take a look at your site. Do you cater to a usability-sensitive consumer? If so, where could you make some improvements? I’ve given you a list to start with.

What other usability tips to know of? Please share!

6 Questions to Determine if you qualify for a 6 or 7-Figure Information Business

Here is a great checklist to determine if you can add a significant additional revenue stream to your business. I got it from Dan Kennedy, who is, as you know, one of my great marketing mentors.

info-product-road-mapGo ahead and see how you stack up.

  1. 1. Do you process Expertise or Insider knowledge about your Industry that you charge for?2. Do you perform a Service for your Clients that is Time-Consuming and therefore limits your ability to “Scale” your Business?

    3. Do you follow a step-by-step process to get results for your Clients?

    4. Do you have (or could you develop) checklists, calculators, shortcuts, quick start guides or a list of common mistakes Clients make or a list of lies that are told in your Industry?

    5. Do you have stories (proof) of how you’ve helped Clients save lots of time and lots of money?

    6. Do you like to write? You don’t have to Love to write to be a Successful Information Marketer, but you can’t hate it either.

If you answered yes to at least 3 of those questions, there is a very good chance you could be sitting on a 6-Figure Information Marketing Business. All you need now is instructions for how to mix those ingredients into a Successful Info Business…

If you are interested in building an information marketing program to your business, let me know! I can help.