Welcome to Video Marketing 101. This lesson is designed to introduce you to what video marketing is and what it can do for your business. It will also highlight the other lessons in this course including How To Create Your Own Marketing Video. Let’s get started!
Video Marketing Defined
Video marketing is defined as using video to market your business. Pretty straightforward, right? The simplest form of video marketing is an advertisement – a video which sells your product or service – you buy space on relevant sites and their visitors see your ad.
However there are many other ways video can be used to market your business. These forms will be addressed in Lesson Two. Before you can determine how to use video to build your business, it’s important to understand what video can and cannot do.
The Strengths of Video Marketing
According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center, 57% of Americans have downloaded online video and 19% download video every day. As computers are slowly replacing televisions for many consumers and cell phone technology continues to develop, it is anticipated video will continue to grow. The research also found more than half of users watching video were sharing the video clips with others, showcasing the viral or word of mouth marketing aspect of this medium.
There’s no doubt about it, video and audio mediums are a powerful form of content and they’re rapidly growing as the marketing tool of choice for many businesses both large and small. They offer numerous benefits not available through standard print content, including:
- · The ability to showcase company personality. Customers are demanding authenticity and transparency online. They want to know who you are and what your company is about. Video is the ideal way to communicate your personality.
- · The ability to evoke immediate response. Video and audio are often viewed immediately. Standard print content can often sit in an email inbox for weeks.
- · The ability to tell a better story. Video and audio give your company a unique opportunity to show rather than tell – anyone familiar with good storytelling technique and advertising knows the old adage, “Show, don’t tell”.
- · The ability to avoid duplicate content issues. Duplicate content restrictions pain internet
business owners. Penalties are fierce; rankings plummet. Duplicate content struggles simply don’t exist with audio and video, and both forms still help to improve search engine ranking.
- · The ability to easily add new content regularly. To maintain a high page rank with the
search engines, webmasters need to regularly add new content to their websites. However, creating new content on a consistent basis becomes a struggle for many, particularly if it’s a small business and you’re wearing many hats.
- · The ability to capture the attention of your audience in a whole new way. If your
audience has become accustomed to print, video and audio may light a fire under them again and inspire action.
- · Google is showing more and more videos in the search results..
- · Most video sharing services such as YouTube have several tools to help people spread the word. Think about it. People actually market your videos for you.
- · Millions of people promote their websites using articles, but just a small percentage of them use videos. The competition is a lot less fierce.
- · Video communities are a lot more active than article communities. It is not uncommon to post a video on YouTube and get 1,000 comments in a month!
According to a recent Marketing Sherpa report on Marketing with Video, released Jan 09, 57% of internet marketers who have used video for marketing purposes have been pleased with the results. They cite an increase in sales, lead generation, site use, and improved customer relations. In the world on online business, that’s what it’s all about. It’s what we strive for and when a tool like audio and video comes around, it pays to take advantage of it to build your business.
Technology, audio and video content, tells great stories. Like no other medium, it enables businesses to connect with their prospects on a whole new level. Designed to help business owners accomplish greater profits through audio and video content, audio and video enable a business to reach their target audience in a way that no other medium offers.
What other tool gives your target audience a view inside the company – who’s running it, what their personality is and, best of all, how they can offer a benefit and a solution to their problems, or a way to fulfill their desires?
Video gives your company, and you, a voice and it gives your audience a personality to connect to. Great content and “likeability” motivate purchasing behavior.
Video Encourages Sharing and Interactivity
Let’s talk about Web 2.0 for a minute. Web 2.0, is defined as the shift in the internet as a one way street to a two way street. Instead of your audience simply being the recipient of information online, they now participate in it. They create information, they share it and they interact. Video meshes quite well with this concept.
If YouTube proves anything, it demonstrates that people love to share videos they find both entertaining and informative. They forward videos from their cell phone, via email and even forward links verbally. Great videos can be water cooler talk and exceptional audio and video products are recommended to friends and associates.
The trend for sharing and interacting with marketers who use audio and video is so strong that there are a number of widgets available to facilitate the process and of course to track the information for marketing purposes. Major news sites like CNN and Forbes offer widgets for users to download so they have access to the most recent and popular videos. This gives website visitors instant access to information. They can vote, comment, or forward the links, all of which increase traffic and build a subscription base.
In an article published in Business Week, Peter Yarad is quoted as saying "instead of simply trying to build brand awareness, marketers now have the ability to reach out to customers with useful features to enhance their personalized experience.”
Social networking sites like Facebook also offer thousands of user created widgets all designed to enhance sharing of videos and posts.
Video marketing can quickly become the most powerful tactic in your marketing strategy. It can be a great investment and often a little strategic tagging and SEO ensures your video reaches your audience and the viral nature of video takes over expanding your reach and awareness.
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Conclusion
Video marketing is a powerful marketing tool. It gives you an unprecedented ability to speak to your audience in a very personal way. It helps brand your business and it is far and away the most digestible content format online. It’s also the most commonly shared making it a fantastic viral medium. The next lesson discussed the various ways video can be used to grow your business.
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