Seven Tips for Hosting Webinars that Rock

1. Do the training. Whatever platform you choose, see what they offer in terms of videos or a training manual, and go through every scrap of it. Check the specs and make sure your computers and microphones will work with your chosen platform.

2. Record a practice. Arrange to do a separate practice session with your presenters, and record it. Play it back and listen to how you sound. Consider writing a script or at least talking points so you have something to refer to as you present. 

3. Have a co-presenter. Collaborating on live events with service partners is the way to go. You get another business to promote your event, double the expertise you offer your audience -- and now someone can be talking or responding to chat questions while you're frantically trying to fix whatever might be going technically wrong.

4. Go slow. Remember The King's Speech? The slower you talk, the more authoritative you sound. Don't rush or talk over other speakers. The presentation software tends to lag, so if you go too fast your audience may miss what you were trying to show them.

5. Stay calm when things go wrong. Run on the assumption that some issue will arise -- someone's screen will freeze, they won't be able to hear, the slideshow won't work, the entry or exit chimes won't turn off, or your co-presenter's computer will fry mid-presentation (these have all happened to me). Take a minute to try to resolve it, but if you can't, apologize and move on. Otherwise, you risk losing the rest of your audience. If it's really a disaster, offer a freebie item or recording of the event on email later, or schedule an encore.

6. Don't try to do too much. My first one-hour Webinar covered 40 points. It was pretty frantic trying to get through it all. By contrast, I've seen fantastic events where just five points get covered. Remember, the point of most live events is to get participants to buy something from you after the event. Give them a small taste of what you have to offer and leave them wanting more.

7. Leave lots of time for Q&A. The number-one reason people come to live events is to get their questions answered. Too many Webinars run long and cut out the question time, which leaves participants unhappy, so keep an eye on the clock. Leave at least 10 minutes for questions in a one-hour presentation -- 20 minutes is even better.

7 tips for creating great link bait

1. Give them a reason to link to you

Before we begin to weigh into creating link bait effectively, it's worthwhile to remember what type of marketing strategy it is. The great thing about this technique when it's done effectively is that it will make other websites promote your online presence. And why would they do this? Mainly, they would be interested to promote you because it is an incentive for them. People share content that increases their social status in some way - that makes them look clever, funny, or in the know.

Strong and exclusive content from your website give their readers what they want, and when links are made back to your website, you get traffic and interest which will bring sales. As you can see, the first point is to give other blogs and web pages a reason to link back to you, offering something that makes you stand out from the crowd.2. Link out first

The second point to creating great link bait is to make sure that you offer connections and references n to other websites, giving your visitors connections to other relevant online services. In a way, this could mean that the website you have helped will pay you back by linking back to you at a later date, meaning that you both generate new hits as a result.

3. Do the hard work to uncover great content

The third tip for making memorable link bait is one that many of us will follow begrudgingly: doing research to make our content have 'the edge'. You need to bear in mind your aims and cater to your core demographic. The things you produce should inspire a cathartic response in your readers - stirring the emotions in a way that makes them want to link their friends to view your website for themselves.

So, once you've done the planning that many of your competitors will fail to do, you need to ensure that the research you've done in advance is used to create a twist on the content that already exists. If you're writing about the travel industry for example, you won't want to produce link bait about growth in the tourism sector if another website has already done it.

Instead, you will want to develop and grow the content you create into something refreshing and novel that hasn't been done before. Why not use trends and analysis from experts to predict where the industry will be in a year's time? How about scrutinising how the tourism sectors here in the UK and abroad have done comparatively amongst British travellers during the economic downturn?

By including fascinating statistics, you could instigate a conversation and a debate about the industry that revolves around the facts that you found for inclusion in your article. Even though number-crunching in link bait will do you wonders, make sure that you obtain the findings from a reliable source, as there is nothing worse than feeding your readers untrue information and your reputation diminishing slightly as a result.4. Keep their attention

Fourthly, a way to ensure your link bait is top notch should be to ensure that you don't let a word count define your content. There is nothing worse than when you have to write 500 words of content, but you only have 300 words of valid points to make. As a result, you find yourself padding out the information you have with the remaining 200 words.

Slimming down the length of link bait in favour of a more succinct, tightly-written and informative article is far more effective, retaining the interest and attention of the reader. The concentration span of many Internet readers is low, so you want to place the most hard-hitting information and objectives of your link bait first.5. Think of the visual element

This brings us onto fifth pointer on our list. Even though the written word has the ability to blow Internet users away, an original image will bring just the same effect - potentially in a better way than relying on your descriptive gifts. Creating a summary to accompany the photo will be wise, and photo storage websites will ensure that the traffic your server is able to handle won't be breached by the increase in bandwidth you will use.6. Make the headline re-tweetable

Number six is a relatively new point, particularly because of the developments that have been made in social media. Now more than ever before, you want to keep your headline 're-tweetable'. So: what does this mean? Many blogs and websites now allow visitors to post a micro URL onto their Twitter account, meaning their followers will be shown a hyperlink and the headline of your link bait.

With the few words you have to use, making sure that you make an impact and leave the reader intrigued is vital. First impressions are integral to your link bait's success, and asking a question of the reader is one way to establish that all-important connection. If you are re-tweeted by a user or service that has thousands (or even millions!) of followers, you will reap in the traffic afterwards.7. Don't overcomplicate things

And finally, the last point which will get you on your way to making fantastic link bait is this: don't be afraid to keep things nice and simple. Sometimes, if you have a powerful message, delivering it very clearly and without gimmicks will get you far further. After all, if you have too many clich?s, bells and whistles in your content, could the main points and objectives be detracted from?

Link bait is an art not a science, and using these seven tips will be the start of a long journey towards mastering it.

10 Tips for Better Content Marketing

1. Be goal-oriented: You need to create a business-aligned communications strategy where everything links back to company goals. Without such a strategy, you're shooting blanks. Let your strategy dictate your communications instead of knee-jerk reaction to events or "we need a blog post immediately because something truly inconsequential just happened."

2. Use great writers: It's the quality of your thoughts that are on display and you need writers who can relate them intelligently, easily switching hats from being conversational for socially engineered content, to being informative and logical for articles, white papers and case studies.

3. Calendar everything: Plan your work and work your plan, and that starts with creating and vigilantly maintaining an editorial calendar for nearly all of your content (i.e., blog posts, strategic social media placements, white papers, case studies, webinars, videos, etc.). Share the calendar with your entire organization and ask for ideas from everyone for new content going forward. 

4. Distribution rules: If content is king, then distribution is the ace. Putting content in front of the right consumers -- and lots of them -- is key. Without traffic, your content is worthless. This means distributing your content using social channels such as Facebook and Twitter, aligning with the right content curators and securing links from relevant sites. 

5. Wear a white hat: The worse thing you can do is employ keyword stuffing and bogus blogs to serve as a link bait to your website. The best way to generate a high SERP (search engine result page) is to create great content over and over again.

6. Diversify your content: Content marketing offers you the opportunity to publish in multiple formats, settings and channels. Maintaining a Facebook Business or Brand Page or a Twitter account is a step in the right direction, but the mix might require blog posts, white papers, case studies, articles, webinars, FAQ lists, eNewsletters, videos, photographs, forum and message board posts, and online newsroom material.

7. Make it evergreen: Most of your content shold be perpetually relevant… I recommend a 70/30 split (70 percent evergreen, the rest relevant for at least the time being). Evergreen content stands the test of time, reinforcing your business-related goals. Example: You own a local coffee shop and you notice a trend toward siphon brewing individual cups of coffee. You write a blog post called Siphon Brewing 101 and three years from now it's still relevant and drawing upon search results.

8. Curate your content: Aggregating and providing access to content in your own branded environment -- your own website or eNewsletter or web portal -- puts you in the position of being credited for sharing, not hoarding, content.

9. Design matters: The formatting and design of your website, blog, eNewsletter, white papers, case studies, FAQ list, etc. must be great. If you don't nail the design or if you dismiss the importance of a professional layout, don't expect the majority of us to take your content seriously.

10. Analyze performance indicators: Analyze and adjust your approach to content marketing based on key performance indicators, including views, shares, response to calls-to-action, others' curation of your content and so forth. Creating content is job one; analyzing and adjusting as you go are part of job one!

The Top Five Mobile Marketing Mistakes

No. 1. Mismatching content with mobile messaging 

Text messages, quick-response codes and emails are all great ways to reach mobile device users with links to content such as websites, videos, downloadable apps and other content. That is, unless your links point to content that won’t function properly on every type of device. If you’re going to spend time and money targeting mobile devices with a marketing message, make sure every part of the experience --- from message to response -- works on all mobile devices that may engage in the campaign.

Related: How to 'Mobilize' Your Social Media Marketing

For example, nobody with a Blackberry wants to receive a text message with a link to an iPhone application. Similarly, scanning a QR code leading to a website that requires people to endlessly scroll, zoom and type is a literal turnoff. Ask your web developer to use device detection to serve up different versions of your website based on the type of device, or target specific device users to make sure everyone you reach with your messaging is capable of interacting with your campaign.

No. 2. Building an app without a plan for promoting it

With over 500,000 apps available between the iPhone, Android and Blackberry app stores, there’s no doubt your app needs more than a listing and a few ratings to be noticed by your prospects or customers. When you budget your application development, add on a budget to promote your apps with mobile advertising, emails, text messages and traditional ads.

Don't forget that your promotions shouldn’t end when you get someone to download and install your app. You also have to remind your customers to use your app regularly, and you should plan to advertise any updates and new features you release. Of course, it also helps to make sure you have a strong business case for developing your app in the first place so you can justify all the development and advertising costs.

No. 3. Too much targeting

Mobile devices are capable of tracking and collecting all kinds of nonpersonally identifiable information that can be useful for targeting and personalizing your marketing messages. Examples include the geographic location of the device and the shopping preferences of the device owner. While it’s easy to get excited thinking about what could be done with highly personalized marketing messages, it’s a mistake to do that without thinking about whether it should be done.

Cost-effective messaging requires some degree of scale, so targeting individuals or very small groups of people usually reaches a point of diminishing returns as more time and money is spent trying to customize each and every message for every possible personal scenario.

Related: Five Ways to Win a Sale Using Your Customer's Mobile

Instead of trying to set your sights on highly individualized marketing, go with the more practical solution I call “just enough targeting” or JET. To use JET, use the data you collect from your mobile campaigns to create marketing messages for groups of prospects and customers with similar characteristics. Examples may include everyone with an iPhone, everyone who is currently in your store or everyone who is searching for your products from within five miles of your physical location.

No. 4. Ignoring the potential of voice

It’s easy to get excited about the wide variety of rich media and communication experiences available through mobile devices, but don’t lose sight of the fact that many mobile devices can make it easy for your customers to touch or click a phone number to call your business. Put your phone number in all emails and on all websites and social media sites. If you’re not staffed for inbound phone calls, try an interactive voice response (IVR) system to answer and route calls. Some IVR systems can even automate ordering and collecting payments by phone. Mobile instant-messaging and chat are also emerging ways for quickly connecting your business to a prospect or customer. Chat technologies are dependent on bandwidth and cheap data plans for a good overall experience, so you may want to wait a bit for carrier data plan pricing and mobile infrastructure to stabilize before investing too much in instant messaging.

No. 5. Taking privacy concerns lightly

Consumers, especially in the U.S., are concerned with personal privacy, and few devices are more personal than someone’s mobile. Make sure you and each of your mobile marketing technology providers follow all industry regulations and best practices for collecting, using and securing personal information. Ask your customers for permission before collecting personal information to target your marketing messages, and publish a link to your privacy policy on all your company websites and advertisements. If you need help with best practices and privacy policy guidelines, check out the Mobile Marketing Association's list of best practices. (Disclosure: I am the education director of the Mobile Marketing Association.)

Related: 10 Ways to Find Customers with Mobile Marketing

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