What can BP teach us about marketing in the face of the largest environmental disaster in USA history? Some very good points and some points that Frank Kern talks about “avoiding at all costs” in one of his squeeze pages.

I hesitated for a minute before writing this because this is a marketing forum and I wanted to keep it that way, however, it is so disturbing to me that this is being let happen to our country that it just flat out pisses me off!

So, lets start with some of the good that we can take away from this horrendous situation as I try to stifle my cynical tongue for a moment. BP can be compared to a “guru” in the internet marketing industry. Because of this they can move and guide opinion as people already have a positive opinion of them due to their “guru” status.

This means they can influence their customers opinion much easier.

They can recover from mistakes faster.

They can charge a premium for the same product.

They can lead the conversation in their niche and people will listen.

All this adds up to their ability to survive the worst environmental disaster in our history. They will come back as a company and find a away to turn this around because they have influence in the market. Influence that reaches much wider and deeper than people realize. Every dollar they spent to build their brand equity will pay them tenfold when the begin the image recovery process.

So what is the “one thing that we should avoid at all costs” in the words of Frank.

Taking on a major endeavor without a backup plan. Whether that is conducting a product launch with only one merchant account or creating a website in a niche without doing proper research first. If you don’t have a back up plan you are just asking for trouble and BP didn’t have one.

The end result is an unfortunate incident that started off as something that probably had more to do with the inherent risk of doing business, and ended up as the worst environmental disaster of our history. All because BP had no backup plan.

God help us if this is the best we have to offer.

Don’t let this happen to you…. and say a prayer for the workers who passed away.

Content is king if you want to attract readers to your blog or website. That is what Google is looking for and that is what will keep people coming back to your site over and over again.

However, writing articles all the time is difficult. Specially if you are not a professional writer (I’m definitely not a professional -:)). Fear not, content doesn’t always have to be articles. It could consist of video, PowerPoint presentation, audio, all kinds of different information channels. The one I have become better acquainted with lately is video. I love video!

Why, because depending on your writing skills it may be easier to “show” someone what you are doing or how you are doing it rather than writing about it.

Imagine looking over someones shoulder while they are creating a website, or searching for keywords, or optimizing a web page. how cool would that be. I enjoy making video’s because all I do is record the computer screen as I perform the tasks I do on a daily basis, edit it a bit, and post it to the site and BOOM…. you can see exactly what I did. And the best part…. nothing gets lost in the translation.

So…. you are thinking OK Gregg, how much is this going to cost me? Well, remember I want to bring you as much value as possible so how does FREE sound? That’s right, FREE!

The name of the product is Cam Studio. It is free and I have a free video on how to use it. I started out using Cam Studio but have progressed to “Camtasia” which is a bit more advanced and costs about $300. But you don’t need Camtasia to make video’s for content. All you need is Cam Studio and you are all set.

So why is video so good as content? Well, Google LOVES video and you might be able to get ranked for a certain keyword a lot sooner with video than an article.

Think about it. Google owns YouTube. Now who do you think they will push up in the rankings if you post something? An article posted at EzineArticles.com or a video at YouTube? R I G H T….exactly. See how this works? And you don’t have to be a pro either.

So fire up your Flip Mino or just record your computer screen with Cam Studio, either way, you need to get started producing video’s today.

Do you think you can do this or is this too complicated? Please leave a comment below.