It's amazing how time flies. I can still freshly remember how we started 2015. The year however has been a busy and exciting one. Despite the failures and successes, we should now be looking forward to 2016 and putting things together for more successes.
If you are into any type of business, here are seven ways to boost your activities and generate more revenue in this year and beyond!
1 – Add Videos to your strategies
In today's business world, keeping videos out of your content marketing activities is an error. There’s a lot of compelling evidence suggesting that online video marketing should be a major focus of your advertising and marketing budget.Â
According to hubspot.com, in 2015, experts believe that video will take up 57% of consumer Internet Traffic, an equivalent of almost 4x as much as web browsing and email. By 2017, this will rise to 69% and 79% by 2018.
There are two crucial phases in video marketing:
- Production of top quality video: This include both audio and visual quality. Once your output is amateurish, you are surely going to face a lot of difficulties in the market.
- Distribution of your videos: This has been one of the biggest challenges in the video production industry. While free platforms like YouTube are playing a big part, experts still need dedicated video distribution platforms like Uscreen with unlimited bandwidth and a huge list of features to facilitate distribution and improve customer experience.
Some popularly used video software include CamStudio and Screencast-O-Matic
Here are recommendations from Ms. Ileane for the Best Webcam and Mic to Use in Your Videos
The webcam is the Logitech C920 and the recommended mics are the Rode SmartLav+ or the ATR 2100.
2 – Create a blog
Creating a professional blog today is no longer a business for the experts. With Content Management Systems like WordPress and the increasing growth in premium themes and plugins, it has become powerfully easy to set up your business blog within hours.
Some folks doing business today still don't see the need for a blog. That's a mistake. Here are some interesting stats:
- B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not.
- Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI.
- Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website.
- Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information.
If you still haven't created a blog for your business, you need one to boost your success in 2016.
3 – Build a list
One of the ways to create a marketplace where you have full control is to build a list. Once you have an email list made up of targeted subscribers, you can always tab into it for traffic, sales, opinions, etc.
There are many ways to attract the right subscribers but what you need to start with is the right email marketing platform. Some of these platforms I can recommend you check out are AWeber, iContact, MailChimp, INinbox, GetResponse (click here to see Deborah Anderson's review), etc.
4 – Use Surveys
Surveys are the most direct ways to put together statistics from your market in order to make informed business decisions.
In the coming year, I recommend running a couple of surveys in your community. Ask your customers and readers strategic questions that will help you better understand their problems and needs.
Surveys results provide a snapshot of the attitudes and behaviors – including thoughts, opinions, and comments – about your target survey population. This valuable feedback is your baseline to measure and establish a benchmark from which to compare results and grow your business over time.
5 – Attend live events
One of the ways to meet the right people and create profitable business partnerships is to take active part in live events. Live business forums, seminars and conferences are being organized everywhere around the cities, creating avenues for connections and market expansion.
You need to buy the tickets and be active participants in these events. Walk up to the right people, create discussions and network with people in your industry. It always pays to meet business-minded people physically, exchange ideas, business cards, take further business appointments, etc.
6 – Be active in your industry
In order to be a pro-active business person this coming year, you have to be noticed in your industry. In today's online world, blogging has made it easy for folks to feature on different websites and be easily attracted to by other readers and website owners.
Through guest blogging and blog commenting, you can literally decide to impose your brand on any active blog and be noticed by both the blog owner and readers.
When you publish awesome contents on other niche blogs, you cannot go unnoticed. While commenting for networking and expansion, you have to add indisputable value in your comments through thorough reading and understand of contents.
7 – Offer free services
People generally like free stuffs, including free services. One of the ways to attract customers is to offer them part of your services free. If they see value in your free services, some will upgrade and add to your income.
These are some of the many ways to boost your business in 2016.
Kindly share this post to social media and drop your comment  below.
Thanks for the list. These are the actionable items I am looking to complete each week to boost the traffic to my site and improve my online business.
Hey Gerald,
Thanks for your feedback. I hope you are having a wonder start of year 😉
Heya! Enstine 😀
Enstine Your work is very good and I appreciate you and hopping for some more informative posts 😀 i’ll share your post on Twitter and My Facebook Page
Thanks 😀
Harsh
Glad you mentioned guest posting and blog commenting. I’ve found both to be great strategies for building my profile and traffic.
Hey Clement,
That’s right! Both methods are evergreen and will keep generating good results.
Hope you are having a wonderful new year
this is a Great post,
all the tips are very important for me. i used many tips but i want to ask a question how can i arrange best survey for my blog so i can get requirement of market. is it any tips regarding surveys ?
Hi Arun,
Thanks for the comment. But I’m afraid I didn’t quite understand your question. Please shoot me a mail 😉
@Enstine I am not able to find your email id. please mention your mail id so i can mail you.
Great post Enstine, thanks for sharing. I love using video in my marketing, it is a great way for your audience to get to know like and trust you. And as you mentioned video is and always will be one of the most consumed pieces of content online.
I have never done any guest posting though. How would you suggest that one would go about starting? Do you just find blogs in your niche and ask if you can do a guest post?
I look forward to learning more!
Thanks again
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the beautiful question.
Generally, you’ll need to build a relation with any blogger before trying to guest post on his/her blog. However, if you have a professional blog with great content, some blogs may accept your content even on a first try.
Now, contact me and let’s see how you can submit to my blog
Happy New Year
Hi, Ileane and Enstine.
Great post. Great list.
I especially liked #1 and #6.
Using videos is definitely something I need to get into in 2016.
And being active (guest posting and blog commenting) is a must if you want to grow. Especially in the blogging/online marketing space, since search traffic is almost impossible for new blogs these days.
Well anyway, thanks for the tips, Enstine and Ileane. 🙂
Cheers,
Julian
Shared. 😀
Hi Julian,
Isn’t is great to have you here?
Thanks for your comment. I hope you are set for a wonderful year in 2016 😉
Hello Enstine,
welcome to Ileane Smith blog as a guest author this time….
What a lovely post to look up to this year…
Mid last year, i got serious in vblogging. Sincerely, it is time consuming but very rewarding especially when then video pull in some good ol traffic 😉
Nice article mate.
Have a lovely new year both of you
Happy new year bro and thanks for the comment!
Yeah it takes time to do video but once good once are published, you stand a chance to have great results.
Do have a wonderful new year bro
I have never attended live events, so thinking of doing that first.
Thanks for the post.
I think being active in one’s industry is a wonderful concept. It’s kind of marketing that pushes towards building relationships. And relationship building is the topmost reason for long-term success!
Thanks for the helpful post!
That’s correct Dutta!
Thanks for the feedback. I hope you are set for a wonderful 2016 😉
Video Marketing is very important, it also boosts ranking. We should not do internet marketing without it.
Hi Dana,
I think you are right. But what about marketers in areas of poor Internet Bandwidth? You know video requires a huge bandwidth 😉
Hi Enstine,
Nice to meet you here, and happy New year bro.
I have started playing around with video production (YouTube), though not anywhere near a good video to say, but the good thing is I have get started.
I do more of turning blog posts into slideshare and from there into YouTube videos, so I get more from a single post.
I didn’t have the time or opportunity to attend live bloggers meetings last year, but am hoping this will change this year for better. Am planning on attending one this January for a start and hopefully meet awesome people there.
Thanks for writing, always top quality from you Enstine.
Hello Enstine,
You indeed said it all. What i would want to emphasize is on ‘freebies’. There is a need for us to realize that we do business for our customers, our customers are humans and humans love free things, like you mentioned in your post ‘free services’.
If you own an electrical store, a free service might be accompanying your customer to their home to install the electrical appliance. Most businesses do not see the need to do this, but the customers see the need why this should be done.
This can also be implemented on a blog, you can offer free services to your readers, it might be a free e-book, it might be a give away item, they’ll appreciate it.
Have a lovely weekend Enstine
~ Raphael
Great post for all those having New Year’s Resolutions. I think that great success can be achieved if you focus your business towards a niche. While the target population would be low but so would be the competition. So that would be a good idea.
My favorite among these are creating videos and using email lists. Recently I started taking both of these ways very seriously.
Hey, You have mentioned some of the really actionable ways to boost income. Building a blog, adding videos and offering some free services are good ideas which I personally like. Thank you for providing insights on improving business income.
Nice seeing you here Enstine!
Another great article. There are definitely some things I want to add to my marketing arsenal in 2016 and video is one of them. I’ve known for years the power that video has and I’ve been shy to “bite” the bullet and just do it.
Hopefully I can overcome my hesitations and just get it done.
Keep writing these great articles and great seeing your content on Ileane’s blog.
I like the part about adding video to your strategies. I like that you also mention making quality videos. I believe videos are seriously going to drive marketing going forward. Thanks for the share.