Video marketing, a domain that has swiftly changed the face of business advertising. In the digital age where attention spans are becoming shorter, yet the craving for engaging content is at an all-time high, video marketing emerges as a powerful tool to capture audience interest and convert casual viewers into loyal customers.
This dynamic platform, combining the magic of storytelling with the allure of visuals, has become a game-changer for businesses, both large and small. With compelling video content, they’re able to give their brand a voice, articulate their value proposition more effectively, and create a meaningful connection with their target audience.
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Why You Should Be Using Videos
Not sure about using video for your business? Many business owners are a little concerned about this. This may be due to not feeling comfortable with creating videos. Or it may be wondering if they are really worthwhile. This article should help dispel your fears on both accounts.
- According to research done by Cisco videos are going to account for 69% of all internet traffic by the year 2017.
- Consumers say that watching videos helps increase their confidence when it comes to purchasing a product online.
Now if that hasn’t changed your mind maybe this next statistic will.
- YouTube had 1 Billion unique users per month in 2013.
Let’s look at some more tangible reasons why you should be using videos.
1. Videos are easy to watch especially when it comes to learning how to do something. How many times have you tried to learn something by reading a 50 page text manual. You simply didn’t understand the instructions, got confused or it was just too time consuming. Even a 10 minute video would have made a big difference.
2. Videos show the viewer “How To” and they can help you to tell a story. When people watch a video they often don’t realize that they are being “sold” to.
3. Google owns YouTube and so adding videos to your sites is going to put you in a good light. Google will reward you with higher rankings and more exposure for your business. Do a quick Google search for a topic and make note of how many videos are listed at the top of the results.
4. Video is easy to share and can be shared across multiple channels. Place your videos on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and watch how many times they get shared. Imagine what this can potentially do for your market reach?
5. Videos are just plain fun. People love them and a good video can do wonders for your business. Look at how the Blend Tec videos went viral when the company started blending up all types of products.
6. Using videos is just another type of content strategy. It helps mix up your articles and blog posts.
Are you starting to see why you should be using video in your business now? We hope so. It is not that hard to create your first video. You can even just turn a slide presentation into a video. As you create more videos the process will become easier and less time consuming.
Benefits of Video Marketing
Did you know that Google now owns YouTube? This is just one reason why you should start incorporating videos into your marketing methods. According to research a video can easily reach 84% of the U.S. population who have an internet connection.
Other statistics state that any type of web page that has a video on it is fifty times more likely to reach the first page of Google. Can you imagine what that could do for your business?
When you send out an email try using the word Video in the subject line – you should see an increase in your open rates. The downside to this is that you cannot embed a video into your autoresponder service. But what you can do is to create a thumbnail or image, that when clicked opens in a new tab with the video playing.
Videos are perfect for landing pages as well. These videos don’t have to be long. You just want to incorporate enough information to intrigue your viewer to want to know more. This will get them to opt in to your list where you can send them further information.
Videos are also easy to create. You can easily create a basic video using tools such as PowerPoint, Camtasia or any screen capture type of program. Of course you can just use your webcam to record yourself speaking and save it as a video.
Most computers today are equipped to create videos and movies. If you use a PC you can use Windows Movie Maker along with Audacity to record the sound.
Videos can be easily created in just a few minutes. If you don’t want to record your voice, add music to the background. Just make sure that the sound track you want to use allows you to use it on a video. Otherwise you may get into copyright infringement trouble, and you want to avoid that at all costs.
Let’s do a quick recap on the top benefits of using Video:
- Quick to create
- Create using free tools
- Great way to promote your products/services
- People love watching videos
- Can use PowerPoint slides to create your video
- Good videos can go viral causing increased traffic to your site
- Google loves videos
As you can see it is relatively easy to incorporate videos into your marketing efforts. Creating videos is a great tool to use for marketing and promoting not just your products but for branding your business too.
2 ways to look at video marketing
You may have heard the term “video marketing” used frequently, but do you really understand the concept behind this term? In this article we will take a look at what video marketing is all about.
There are actually two different ways to look at video marketing.
1. Video Marketing – in this instance we are talking about marketing a product or service by using videos. You would create specific videos that describe your products or services and how they would be beneficial to the perspective customer.
For example if you had a software product you would create a video demonstration of how to use the software. Just enough to create interest and get viewers to visit your main site to purchase your product.
For a service provider you could showcase your work. This would work really well for a graphic designer. You could create a video that highlights your designs.
If you publish a monthly newsletter then you could create a monthly video to promote each new issue.
2. Marketing a Video – in this instance we are referring to using video to brand your business. This type of campaign is often used in conjunction with a social media campaign at the same time. You will see top businesses use this method to create interest and awareness for their brand. These are the types of videos that are meant to be shared and are the ones that often go viral.
Companies that use this method will push these videos across as many distribution sites as possible at the same time. Grabbing huge media attention is their main goal.
You can do both types of marketing regardless of the size of your business. While you want to create promotional type videos, it is important to use those that brand your business too.
Don’t forget that you should start incorporating videos onto your blog and this can be as simple as recording yourself speaking the text version of your blog post.
Other ideas for using video include:
- Explaining details in more depth
- Showing people how to perform a task
- Talking about upcoming products
- Reviewing a product
In fact you can use video for anything you like. You may want to use video to showcase your portfolio or your new product line up.
One thing to remember is that video marketing is on the rise, so as a marketer or business owner you don’t want to be left out in the cold. Hopefully you can see the benefits that video marketing can bring to you.
Where to Market Your Videos
You have now created your first video, congratulations! Now just where and how do you market them? While your first choice may be uploading them to YouTube, there are other places that you will want to use too.
Uploading your videos to YouTube is a great video marketing practice and should be one of your first steps. However, you don’t want to stop here.
Other places to upload your video include:
On Your Blog
Including a link to your video should become a habit. You may even want to create a video for your blog posts. Some people just prefer to listen while they are busy doing something else.
On your home page a video can really help retain the attention of your visitors. You can even use a video as bait to get them to opt in to your email list. Just place the subscribe box right next to the video.
If you offer services, a video of you describing what you offer, can be more personal than just a written article. Depending upon your service you could showcase some of your work.
Get into the habit of using video to describe any type of lengthy process. If you are explaining about how to edit a document, for example. It is often easier to “show” rather than “tell”.
If you don’t often incorporate video into your blog start doing so today. Google loves video and you will probably see that your search engine rankings increase when you add video marketing into your content mix.
Slide Sharing Sites
Many text based videos are perfect for putting up on slide sharing sites. This can be a fantastic way to increase the traffic to your site.
If you tend to create lots of videos from PowerPoint slides then this is the perfect marketing method for you to use. Try uploading your next slides to places such as Slide Share.
Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts are a great place to actually record your videos, and no you don’t have to record a live Hangout. The nice part of this is once your video is complete Google will automatically upload it to your YouTube account.
If you create weekly videos on the same topic you can list them in Google+Hangouts. Again this will help increase traffic back to your main website or blog.
All of these video marketing methods are ones that you should be incorporating in some form or other. Don’t overlook videos as they are a powerful tool that can help grow your business.
Video Marketing Best Practices
When using video in your marketing methods you want to keep certain things in mind. We have listed the following best practices to help you get the best results from your videos. We have also included tips which you can use when it comes to marketing your videos.
1. You can start off creating videos with free tools. Use Jing or Windows Movie Maker.
2. Don’t forget to create videos that brand your business.
3. Videos are great for service providers too. Adds a more human touch to your services.
4. Use PowerPoint or Keynote to create informative slides that can be turned into a video.
5. Upload your videos to all the top sites.
6. Showcase your video on your social media sites.
7. Use video on your blogs and other web properties.
8. Google owns YouTube – this should be an incentive to start using them!
9. Companies are seeing an increase in sales when promoting with videos.
10. Add a thumbnail to your emails that open to your video when clicked.
11. Use the word “Video” in your subject lines to increase your open rates.
12. Create a video that promotes each new product you release.
13. Book trailer videos are a great way to showcase your new book.
14. Create video landing and squeeze pages.
15. Videos help increase your search engine standings.
16. Try to make your video stand out from others.
17. Incorporate images, graphics and audio into your videos.
18. Always add a link to your website in the description area of your video.
19. Don’t create long videos. You would be better off to create two or three shorter ones that form a series.
20. You can record a video from your IPhone or Smartphone.
The benefits of using video are huge. They can help increase your online presence. Your search engine rankings should start to improve and this increases traffic to your site.
Instead of writing a long winded page of text, record a video. Videos can easily demonstrate things in a better way than reading through a big instruction manual.
Another benefit to creating a video, especially if you are recording yourself, is that it shows the human side of you. With so much marketing being done online, it is too easy to hide behind your website.
Use videos to really connect with your audience and build a relationship with them. You may be surprised at how much more interaction you suddenly start seeing on all of your sites.
Tips for Sharing Your Videos Quickly
Once you have created your videos your next step is to figure out the best way to share them. While uploading them to YouTube is great, why not have them shared across as many platforms and sites as possible? Let’s take a look at how you can do this.
There are certain services that will share your videos for you. So basically all you have to do is upload it once, and they take over for you. These, of course, will be paid services and Tube Mogul is an example of this.
If you don’t want to use a paid service you can search for a list of video sharing sites and manually add your video to each one. If you prefer to use your time as opposed to paying, this can be a cost saving measure. It is not one that will save you time though.
Inside your YouTube account you want to ensure that you have your settings set to share your videos. Go to your Video Manager and then click Settings and then Sharing. Simply connect the sites where you want your video to be shared.
If you produce short videos then use sites like Instagram. If your videos become popular then you can receive a ton of views. Vine is another site that helps you create short videos and get them online to Facebook and Twitter. They have to be no more than 6 seconds long – get creative and see what you can come up with!
Remember to share your videos on Google+ and if you create a weekly video turn it into a Hangout and list it on specific lists just for this purpose.
Of course the best way to get any video shared quickly is by creating one that is really popular. Try to make your video stand out. Sometimes it can help to add a little humor to your video. Or you may want to use images that tell a story. Currently whiteboard videos are really popular.
Always stay on top of the what’s hot when it comes to video marketing and creation. If you can stay up to date and produce your videos in the popular formats, they have more chance of going viral.
Take a look at the top videos to see why they went viral. Sometimes it has to do with something that happened on the spur of the moment. Like a group on a plane suddenly singing. Or a child or animal that does something funny. See if you can come up with something in the same vein, it never hurts to try out a new idea and see where it takes you.
Easy Video Creation Tools
When it comes to creating videos you don’t need to rush out and buy expensive equipment. There are plenty of free tools that you can start using at first. Then as your experience improves you can decide whether or not more expensive tools will be helpful.
Jing
Jing is a free tool that allows you to capture video, still images and basic animations. You can easily capture portions of your screen that you would like to share. Or you can create a tutorial type of video where you share a process or method with your viewers.
You can save your creations directly into Screencast dot com and share your links all over the web.
ScreenFlow
This is similar to Jing above but is a paid version that works on any Mac. You can record your screen, edit your videos and software and create demos. If you are looking to create high resolution videos then this might be a tool worth investing in at some point.
Camtasia
Again Camtasia is a screen recording and video editor. It is more powerful than Jing, and is made by the same people. You can download a smaller version of this program for free, Cam Studio. Plus it works on both Windows and Mac operating systems.
Snagit
Snagit also allows you to record videos from your screen. You can try Snagit out for free for 30 days. It’s a great tool for resizing and adding text to your images too.
Windows Movie Maker
This is a free program that is available for all Windows users. On Windows 8.1 you need to download this from the Microsoft App store. On earlier versions it is included in the operating system.
Windows movie maker allows you to easily create a movie from your slides or photos and add a sound recording to it. If you are just starting out this is a great tool to use to become familiar with making movies.
Audacity
A free tool that allows you to record your voice or a sound track for your video. You can edit your footage and cut out any blank spots. Then simply convert it and export it into your video making software. Works great with Windows Movie Maker.
PowerPoint/Keynote
Both of these tools help you create fantastic looking slides and templates for your videos. Keynote is the Mac version while PowerPoint works on Windows.
You can add images, icons and animation to your slides and then export them into videos. Newer versions of PowerPoint allow you to create your own soundtrack before saving.
All of the above tools will help you learn how to make videos quickly and easily.
Basics of YouTube
In this article we will explain some of the basic items you need to understand when using YouTube. The benefits of using YouTube include having your videos load faster for your viewers and getting Google love. If you host your own videos you could lose visitors due to slow loading times.
Let’s look at some YouTube basics:
What is a Playlist? A playlist is a list of all of your videos in certain categories. They can also be a list of all the videos that you like. For example you can create a playlist of your favorite bands. Or a list for all your marketing videos.
How to Create Your Playlist? This is very easy to do. Log into your account and find a video you want to add to your list. Click the Add To button and either select a current Playlist or create a new one.
How to Upload Your Videos to YouTube? You will need to log in to your account. Once you are logged in on the top right hand corner you will see a button that says “Upload” click on that to start the process.
Once you have uploaded your video you have to assign a privacy setting to it. These are as follows:
- Public – this means that your video will also be displayed on your Google+ page and anyone can view this video. If you want to get ranked in the search engines then use this setting.
- Private – You select people that can view your video. This is perfect if you have a family video or a private training that you don’t want people to find.
- Unlisted – this means that only people who have the actual link can view the video.
What is the Video Manager? This is the area where you can change all of your video settings. You can change your privacy settings, your description, add tags and images and select or add a custom thumbnail.
What is Video Quality? This refers to the resolution of your video. When you upload your video to YouTube they automatically select, what they think, is the best resolution for you. For best performance and loading it is best not to change these settings.
How to Share Your Video on Facebook? This is actually very easy to do. You can either use the link under “Share” from YouTube. Or you can click the Photo/Video tab on your Facebook page and share your video there.
Now that you understand the basics of YouTube you can easily start creating and uploading your videos.
How to make a rubbish video
Here are some tips on how to make a rubbish video.
Have rubbish raw footage – if your source file recording is low quality for video files then this will mean that no matter how much you try, you won’t always get the best end result. Recording the footage with bad lighting and sound is not something you should do for a video you are expecting to look high quality. You can always downscale a video file but you can never upscale as this will reduce the quality of the video.
Have bad lighting – by not having a good light source is a brilliant way to produce low quality videos. With bad lighting you won’t get any decent colour exposure and you won’t be able to do anything in post production to make the result better.
Have bad sound – by using bad sound form the beginning means the output will not be great. Again no matter how much you try to correct this post production you just won’t be able to get rid of the hiss , even if you try to increase the volume you will just create more background noise and this will create a bad user experience. If you don’t use a good sound source such as lapel mic or some external sound recording device then you are setting your self up for fall.
Don’t let your editor work their magic – one of the best things you can do to make a rubbish video is to take charge and tell your editor step by step what to do. Don’t let the editor use his/her creativity and experience to work their magic. Sit next to them and you with your lack of experience tell them exactly what to do.
Have a really high expectation without understanding what is being provided – At times its best to get a professional to do the work, especially if you want to show yourself in way that will help promote and market your business. We suggest you do your research on who you choose but expecting high end results with out storey boarding, planning and practice may not be a good idea.
Expect high end production on shoe string budgets – pay as little as you can and expect that you will get high end video. This is another classic on how to create a bad video.
Don’t prepare before you make a video – just like you would practice for a presentation in the same way its good to practice for video. Remember with video you can redo things, record in small sections and piece things together in editing, so do practice as it will help.
Be boring – Having high energy on camera will go a long way. So for this its good to do something before you record to get you slightly hyper otherwise the video may look boring. So get into state, emanate and ooze confidence, pose and excitement – assuming you are making an uplifting video. If your message needs to be serious then get into the right state for that. Whatever emotion you want to convey or get across is the emotion you should tap into yourself.
Don’t use a good stable stand – allow your camera to wobble, this will definitely make the viewing experience annoying for the viewer.
Don’t do any editing at all – lol just upload it as it is, unless you are awesome at first takes or if you want people to see unedited footage then go ahead.
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