My most challenging part of copywriting to sell something online has always been the task of writing benefit statements. And, second to the headline, the benefits are what sell people on your manufactured goods, service, thought or even political opinion.

Coming up with headlines, tales, price offers and all the fancy Buy Now! buttons you’d need to fill a sales page was simple for me in comparison. The benefits list always drove me crazy; until I learned the surprise to making one benefit or more per minute.

You may recall from Sales 101 that benefits are what sells your manufactured goods or service, not facial appearance. Knowing that, I started to try to get to the bottom of what benefits really are. I learned they are really just action items in disguise, agreed? As an example, you “build” muscles or “make” more time. If that is right, how about starting each benefit statement with an action verb? This is the process to take:

1. Alphabetize a long list of action verbs.

2. Show the alphabetized list of action verbs on your desk or, even better, view them on your computer screen so that you can see the list in its entirety.

3. Start with the first verb in your list that starts with the letter A and read the verb out loud and make a sentence out of it that describes one benefit of your manufactured goods.

For example, the first word in my list of verbs is “Accelerate.”

So, I might say that my manufactured goods helps to “accelerate” fingernail growth.

4. Write as many benefits as you can and don’t stop! You’ll weed out the benefits later that don’t have as much punch as you thought. Don’t worry about duplicates right now either. Just let your brain consider your manufactured goods and freely make the benefits as they come to you.

5. Now is the time that you will prioritize your list from most vital to least.

This process has worked for me to write fantastic benefits statements, as well as when coming up with article thoughts for my blog, such as “35 Reasons Why a Blog is Better than a Traditional Web Site for Your Business,” or “50 Ways to Kill a Perfectly Excellent Seminar”.

Use my list of verbs or make your own and start making your killer benefit statements in just 20 minutes. Most of the time, you won’t need more than a fantastic list of 20 benefits.

Marty Dickinson is the founder of HereNextYear, Inc., a all in one Internet marketing company in business for more than 15 years. His specialty is Internet marketing solutions for entrepreneurs, speakers and authors. Visit to see what HereNextYear has to offer and to learn more about their innovative new website packages fully integrated for ease with social networking and other Internet marketing strategies.

More than 30 billion videos were viewed in November, 2009. A lot of those videos were advertising or marketing productions. So you might be thinking about getting into the online video marketing arena as well but might not know exactly where to go. Places like ReelSEO.com offer up loads of fantastic information but it can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. So here are some quick basics.

Fit your video to your messages. You need to really know what it is you want to tell people and then use a specific type of video. Starting a new firm or launching a new manufactured goods? You need some sizzle and could do well with something that leaves them wanting more information. Increasing awareness of your manufactured goods or firm? Many viral videos are viral because they’re amusing so this might be a excellent way to go. But, if you want to get valuable information about your products to the masses then you might do well with a video review to show how it works etc.

After you’ve got a grip on what you want to say you can start looking at some more technical points. The reflect you must do is include a way for the viewer to interact or get more information. That means dropping a link, contact information or other way for them to go forward. If you’ve got a manufactured goods to sell then you need a call-to-action in the video. After all, if they are watching the video, they probably searched for the info and might be ready to buy. Give them the opportunity to do so.

Getting people to the video requires some search engine optimization. Including as much useful information as you can with the video is key here. A descriptive title, accurate keywords and a small but compelling description will help. So will subtitles or closed captions as they are generally text files that are fully indexable by search engines like Google. As an added bonus, they’re fantastic to help spread the message without sound.

Viral videos are called so because they spread themselves meaning you don’t have to do all the work. You do have to give viewers ways to share those videos so they can go viral. Linking the video to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook is essential. Myspace is another outlet. By giving tools to the viewers you are enabling them to help you by spreading the word on their own. In the end it’s what’s needed to get the word out in a huge way.

While these are only a few basics for getting started in online video marketing you can certainly find hundreds more. If you want to do it yourself you will need heaps of information which can be found online. If you are going to pay someone to make and manage the campaign for you, your best preparation is still to amass information so you know what you’re getting and how it’s working. [youtube:S9Y1_jXB4UA;[link:Video Marketing Services];http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Y1_jXB4UA&feature=related]

If you would rather trust your company’s video marketing efforts to the internet’s #1 source for youtube video marketing, consider ReelSEO. ReelSEO has an army of video marketing specialists ready to provide your company with professional online video marketing services.