Archive for June, 2009

The online and offline business community is finding itself going more and more toward promoting with video.  From the hometown dentist to the sophisticated Wall Street businessman, using video to promote their services or products gives their business an edge.  More and more prospective clients can relate to video better, so the intelligent business owner takes it upon himself to use video promotions online.

It isn’t as technical as it used to be so more and more businesses are either hiring professionals do the promotions. But the savvy do-it-yourselfer can produce a fairly nice video with some practice.

There are a few things to keep in mind though.  Firstly, keep it simple and clean.  While it is tempting to get flashy and loud, a simple video with minimal excess movement will appeal to your audience better.

Use charts and diagrams if it helps you explain your businesses purpose.  This is a simple matter if you use Microsoft Power Point to create a slideshow, which you can later edit into your promotional video.

Highlight your service’s or product’s uniqueness.  If you are the only natural dentist I your area, make a point of telling the benefits of having natural dentistry.  If you offer some service that is over the top, say so.

Make your business unique and to somehow brand you as the one to go to for your particular product of service. Promoting with video is still fairly untouched online advertising medium.  With it, you will have a much better chance of getting exposure online.

Many business owners have jumped on the bandwagon of adding video promotions to their online advertising campaign and as such they have learned how to market online with video.  Using and producing video is only half the equation though.  Learning how to produce video is a skill most can learn with practice.

But the skill that takes more than just practice is how to market.  Marketing is the science of getting inside your prospects’ heads and thinking like them and therefore producing advertising that captures the viewer’s heart strings.

Video does this well as we know from watching a good movie or well made commercial.  So the best way to learn how to market online with video is to study commercials, magazine ads and other marketing gimmicks to see what works.  Pay attention to what catches your attention – what makes you want to “rush out” and buy or do what the ad is selling.

That is marketing – making you want what is being sold even though there are dozens of other similar products or services like it.  Being unique, selling to a certain age group, appealing to one gender or the other - decide what angle you want to take in your marketing plan.

Whether you do it yourself with the video or hire it out, the real trick with how to market online with video is reaching your customers “hot button” and pushing it.  Whether or not you get the sales is determined by how you reached into the consumer’s head and caused them to say, “I need that!”

We take for granted video media like TV and movies so that it’s a natural transition to use video advertising to reach your consumer.  It’s statistically very likely that your potential customer has a PC and the income to make purchases online, so it would be prudent for the savvy business owner to employ video as part of their marketing and advertising program.

Technology is becoming simpler so, with practice, nearly anyone with good command of the English language can use video to its best advantage.  It’s also true that a large group of the population who owns a computer also has access to the Internet and YouTube.  And as YouTube is the second most viewed website on the ‘net, more and more businesses are using it as one way to get the word out about their product or service.

It isn’t difficult to produce a simple bit of video advertising either.  Just a few minutes of recording with a digital video recorder like a Flip Mino, and you’re ready to publish to YouTube.  Of course you’ll want to add your website URL as a watermark and perhaps some introductory slides to give your video a more polished look.

Any way you may look at it, video media is the way of the future.  It isn’t some passing fancy either; as long as there is the Internet, there will be a viewing public.  So, letting the public get to know you better through well-planned video advertising will assure your position.

It’s a very competitive world, business-wise, and a smart businessperson will bring in marketing consultants to round out their team of business advisors.  The whole point of being in business is obviously to make profit.  In order to make that profit, it takes someone with specialized knowledge to research your business’s marketing advantage, which a good marketing consultant will do.

Your marketing specialist is trained to help you come up with a plan to reach your consumer demographic then systematically implement your marketing campaign.  He or she will help you determine more accurately who that target market is and how best to reach them.

He will discuss with you, the strengths and benefits of your product and then devise ways to capture the public’s eye either through a catchy logo, a different way of reaching your client base or coming up with a new marketing scheme.

Another aspect of a marketing consultant is one who can determine your businesses worth, help you to buy new acquisitions and/or sell your business when the time comes.  He will research the viability of any purchase or sale to your best advantage.

Make sure to let your marketing consultant know what you expect of him or her at the time of the first interview.  Whether he or she considers another business for acquisition or chooses which demographic to focus the company’s service is what you will hire them for.  In this respect, you will want to get references from other businesses about prospective marketing consultants.

Everyone knows where to go when they buy something from a website.  It’s toward the bottom of the page, right?  Maybe there are a few order buttons sprinkled throughout but most of us know exactly where to go if we just want to buy.

But how do you make it easy for your viewers to respond to your online video sales campaigns?  If your video is sitting on a squeeze page, and not directly within YouTube, you will make sure to include a submit button right next to or below the screen and even go so far as to point to where it is in relation to your video. This is just smart brand management.

One thing you can be sure to do is to add a watermark on your video when you are editing it.  Put your URL in good sized letters and positioned toward the bottom edge of the screen. This will make it easy for people to find you on the ‘net.  A distinctive watermark will help to brand you, too.

More importantly, don’t forget that within YouTube you have a description box that shows up to the right of the viewing screen.  So, when you are filling out your description as you upload the video to YouTube, make sure you write out your URL first, before they read anything else about you.  That way it will be the first thing they see.

Here again, you may want to use arrows or other gestures that point to the URL so that it is clear that they can find out more by going here.   Again, tell them where to go and what to click. Part of savvy brand management is leaving nothing to chance. Lead them through the process.  Make it worth their while by offering a freebie of some sort when they sign up or buy through your link. Do whatever you need to make it an easy final step to make a purchase through your online videos.