VIDEO is taking over the internet world. I can’t explain enough how important it is to get on board. We will see more directories with video more websites with optional welcome videos and most importantly if you have a help page on your website make sure to have help videos!

Videos give the customer/visitor a sense of realism and that someone is with them during the process.  Really compared to text and a image it is a much more suyppeir way of getting something acomplished.

So why hasn’t everyone jumped on the band wagon? Well besides having a full plate it’s because the technology is still alittle cloudy. Do you use WMV, Flash, Quicktime, right.. Who knows.

Well I feel strongly that flash video is the best, it seems to roll with web pages better then the others and has more interactivity them the others.

So how do you start with video on the web?

1. Buy a camera, newegg and costco are good for this
2. Buy the video editor ulead
3. Export the finished video in flash
4. Add it to your website

Also green screens are great ways to spice up the video but don’t get cheesy. This is a business video and needs to not waste time and look clean.

The was written by Charles Yarbrough 

Do you know who your most profitable customers are? They may not be the ones who buy your highest-priced items, the ones you talk to the most often or those who shop the most frequently. They’re the ones who bring in the most profit per customer over the long term. There’s only one way to truly discover those customers with the greatest lifetime value: know the data.

“The dividing line in gaining this knowledge has to do with how automated you are,” says Joanna Krotz, CEO of communications firm Muse2Muse Productions in New York. “It starts with your database. As a business owner, I know it can be difficult to take the time to put one together, but the payoffs are tremendous.”

You may already have a database in place, but the right software can turbo-charge what you do with it. There are a variety of customer relationship management (CRM) software packages and online services that now exist for small business, such as Salesforce.com’s Group Edition, ProphetCRM, RightNow Technologies, NetSuite and many more.

And if you already use Microsoft Office, you have a fairly powerful tool in place. Business Contact Manager, which comes bundled with most versions of Outlook, offers more than 20 different reports and a range of helpful fields to populate, says Krotz. “Whenever you communicate with customers, whether it’s in-person or online, you want to get as much data as possible and do it with their explicit permission.” She adds that the typical data you might want to collect, depending on the business you’re in, include:

• customer name,
• address,
• phone,
• cell phone,
• e-mail,
• birthdays,
• names of family members,
• spouse/children’s birthdays, and
• when kids are entering and getting out of college.

You then add the data you’ll track ongoing to their profile: the annual amount they spend with your company, a history of past purchases, special offers acted on, any loyalty clubs, events or promotions in which they’ve participated and their service history.

The first part of the data collection can assist you in terms of contacting customers. For example, when you know when birthdays are, you can send personalized notes. Or, if you have a financial services firm, knowing when the kids get out of college tells when it’s time to ping that client regarding setting up a meeting to deal with newfound disposable income. The tracking data helps you learn about who spends the most money with you on a longer-term basis. Why is the service history important here? “If a customer buys a high-end product or service from you every week, but then takes 10 hours getting help on the phone from you after the sale, you need to account for that time and include it in your estimate of their overall value,” Krotz explains.

Once you know who your best customers are, it’s about communication. That’s when you can effectively up-sell, cross-sell or provide timely rewards or discounts. “When you contact these people, you know you’re not wasting your time,” Krotz observes. “You can create ‘inside deals’ for them and communicate in a medium they prefer—e-mail, phone or even fax. The communication is designed to make customers feel recognized, so thank them for their last purchase and let them know that you’re extending a better deal because you know they’re truly valued customers. Your goal is to get best customers to return and buy more or buy more frequently. Remember, one good lifetime customer can pay for all the effort you put into your database efforts.”

Getting visitors to your web site is not one of the easiest
things to do especially if you’ve only just set up your web
site. The trick here is to find as many ways as possible to
get the visitors, that do visit your site, to come back
again and again.

Here are 8 ways you can achieve this:

1. Start a blog

Yes, everyone else, including my grandmother, has a blog.
You should start one too. A blog is a great way to get your
visitors to return to your web site. Especially if you
frequently update it with entries that are relevant to your
visitors’ needs. And also that occasional odd entry on
what’s happening in your personal life. A blog can greatly
increase the personal touch of your web site. And your
visitors are more likely to come back.

2. Start a forum

An active discussion forum may be all that you need to
attract repeat visitors to your web site. You’ll generally
get two types of visitors to your active forum. a) One who
seeks help and one who provides help. If your forum is
active with these two types of visitors, you can almost
guarantee repeat (as well as new) visits for many times to
come.

3. Provide a free useful tool

Every one loves free stuffs. Try and provide a free online
tool, that’s hosted on your web site of course.If your tool
is very useful to your visitors, they will come again and
again to use this tool. Example of tools include a banner
creator, web site popularity checker, or html generator etc.

4. Free Stuff

Don’t just stop there. People really love to get free stuff.
List free stuff on your web site. It could be software,
services, sample products, e-books etc. The freebies should
be related to your web site topic. Keep the freebies coming
and your visitors will return regulary. You could maybe add
a monthly freebie to your site.

5. Encourage feedback

Have a section on your web site or open a forum especially
for visitor and subscriber feedback. You could write a small
line at the bottom of the articles on your page to invite
readers to leave feedback about the article. Or get your
subscribers to leave feedback on your ezine topic for that
month. Make sure you reply to their feedback. Not only will
this increase repeat visitors to your site, but you’ll also
have happy subscribers.

6. Publish an online version of your ezine

Though email ezines are popular and wide spread, you should
also publish an online version of your ezine at your web
site. There are bound to be some subscribers who would
prefer the online version. This would bring them back to
your web site.

7. Original Content

This is by far the best way to get your visitors to come
back for more. Give your visitors content they can’t read
anywhere else. I’m not saying all your content has to be
100% original, but a portion of your web site should have
original information. People will usually read information
they haven’t read before.

8. Prize Drawings

Hold an ongoing prize drawing on your web site. The prizes
should be something of interest or value to your
subscribers. Most people who enter will continually revisit
your web site to get the results.

A profitable business starts and ends with the customer. By placing the customer at the center of all your thinking you create an environment which fosters long term success. A key component of success lies in your ability to generate repeat and referral business, and a sure way to do this is by forming lasting relationships with your customers.

Here are 10 things you can do:

1. Set yourself apart from the competition. Give your customers something they can’t get elsewhere. This is your niche on the Web. Make your niche something of real value over time and people will come back again and again.

2. Don’t waste time on activities that can be automated. For instance, let your email program filter and route your incoming messages automatically, use a template to build new pages for your site, etc. Automation frees up your time so you can concentrate on the important stuff - your customer.

3. Eliminate the time you spend you on non-productive tasks. For instance, unsubscribe to newsletters your never read instead of deleting them each time. Handle paperwork one time and then file it instead of stacking it in a pile. All these little things add up to lots of wasted time that could be spent on your customer.

4. Concentrate your efforts on marketing to the people that need your service. Start by auditing your marketing and sales data to find out how and why a sale is made. Eliminate or change marketing strategies and services that don’t serve the needs of your customers.

5. Respond to email quickly. Response time should be under 24 hours. By responding quickly you send the message that your customers are important and you are genuinely interested in meeting their needs.

6. Follow up on sales orders. Make sure your customer is thoroughly satisfied with their purchase and offer additional services related to their purchase.

7. Give refunds promptly and unconditionally.

8. Ask your customers to fill out a survey so you can better understand their needs. Offer a valuable freebie or a discounted service for participating. This strategy establishes a dialogue between you and the customer and helps determine the direction of your business.

9. Publish a newsletter. Give your subscribers valuable tips and information they can’t get anywhere else. Offer subscriber-only discounts and freebies.

10. Make your site easy to navigate. Customers value their time and appreciate finding what they want quickly and effortlessly.

Imagine every customer as a real person standing in front of you. What are his needs and how well are you addressing these needs? Let this image guide you in all aspects of your business and you’ll discover hundreds of ways to form lasting customer relationships.

Flush with frustration over something gone wrong, the client or customer flies into an uncontrollable rage. Complaints crescendo into shouts, accusations fly and, sad to say, an occasional profanity slices what little silence remains.

Although every small-business person needs a bucket of water to douse these sorts of fires, it’s hard to know where to reach amid the flames. Here are seven at-the-ready responses that may help tame even the most unpleasant situation: