Video communication is an efficient means of reaching prospective customers, of promoting the presentation of your products or services. The use of videos on the Internet brings numerous advantages. It is a great solution with great impact on the visitor. It combines the advantages of "classic" TV advertising with the Internet's most important characteristic, interactivity.
The ad becomes thus more attractive to the Web surfer, who becomes more receptive to what you have to offer. Online marketing is therefore more cost effective than regular TV ads, simply because, on the one hand, it's less expensive to produce and disseminate, and on the other hand, it makes customer targeting a lot easier too.
A Definition
If we were to define the online video marketing concept, it would be as a marketing strategy used by companies in order to promote products and services, by making use of short, catchy, informative videos, with the purpose of inducing awareness to the prospective customers about the promoted products/services and enticing them into purchasing the above-mentioned products/services.
Characteristics of Online Video Marketing
It is common knowledge that nowadays people enjoy more to watch a screen (be it a TV's or a PC's) than reading. Information is delivered at a higher rate via images than through text.
The main advantage that Internet marketing videos have over the traditional, text format approach is that videos can get to the point much faster and waste less of the precious time of prospective customers. Instead of having the Web users go over some pages of text, trying to figure out the message that you're actually trying to convey, you can deliver the same message in a small percentage of that time in a more attractive and inciting manner.
When to Use Video
Marketing videos can be used when a company decides to promote, a bit more aggressively (in the good way), one or more of its products/services. They can help reach the prospects better, on a well-trodden path, that of visual advertising, laid before them by television. Given that more and more people nowadays turn to Internet in search of information, served hot and fast, Internet marketing videos come naturally to supplement the Web user's need for new, for useful, for sensational.
Advantages of Video Advertising
If you decide to use video in your marketing campaigns, it's a very good option. It is catchier than other types of advertising. It captures the Web user's attention easier and transports your message to prospects much faster than simple text.
A video ad can contain a demonstration of a product's use and usability. Add to that a human face and a very pleasant voice (or even a well harmonized combination of a woman's voice with a man's), and you can have your prospects wrapper around your finger. By using these techniques, the prospective customer can relate more to your company and to what you're promoting.
A Few Tips
It is important not just to take the video you made and put it in a video directory and just sit back and wait for it to bring you loads of prospects. The road to a nice result is similar to the regular Search Engine Optimization way. Bear in mind that videos are a gourmet dish for search engines, so it's best that you take some time and prepare it accordingly. Use the right ingredients, so to speak.
Today's technology offers you many opportunities to track traffic and analyze results. Take your time and make an effort (which will be rewarded in the end) to measure the impact that your videos have had on the prospects and to measure their performance. Search for tools that can tell you how much of your video was played before the visitor closed it, how many prospects actually decided to pay your site a visit after watching your video add on a different website, how many of these visits converted into sales, and so on.
Just because you have invested some time and effort in one or several videos, it doesn't mean that you should leave out content. It's still an important part of your business. Offer your visitors enough information on the site. Remember that marketing videos are meant to promote your business, to inspire Web surfers to visit your site and, luckily, convert into sales.
Many experts advise to use the videos on the first page. It's like handing out your business card. The first page recommends you, and we all know that first impression counts. Don't tuck your marketing video away, on some page that a visitor might not even get to. Make it visible. Anyway, give your site visitors the opportunity to skip your video. Maybe they're not in the mood for watching it, and the last thing you want is an annoyed visitor.
Optimizing Videos for Search Engines
Optimize not only for video search engines, but also for content search engines. A good approach would be to use meta tags for the content (text) of the page where your video is placed.
- Give relevant names to your videos. It's highly improbable that your video will show up in the SERPs if it is called "12032002.mov" rather than "XYZ- antivirus-demo.mov".
- Use keywords in the video titles and their descriptions. Video search engines will find it much easier to index your video files and link it to your web pages.
- Use anchor text if you link to the video from other pages of your Web site.
- Make sure the video files you submit have the proper extension.
- Make it short. Say in 2 minutes what would take a normal person 10 minutes to read on paper (or on a Web page).
- SEO professionals recommend creating separate video site maps, which can be submitted to video and content search engines alike. Both kinds of SEs will index these site maps.
- Remember to include RSS feeds. Metadata can be inserted here.
- Research, measure, test, report and optimize.
Promoting a Video
The keyword for the success of any online marketing video is "submitting". The best choices are video hosting sites like YouTube 
, Yahoo! Videos , or Google Videos . The main advantages are that your videos will be hosted for free and they will not take up any of your site's bandwidth.
Share your videos. If you really want to make yourself known, allow users to be able to link to your videos. Viral marketing videos are the best way to make companies (and, subsequently, their products/services) known across quite vast Internet user communities. They carry a company's name across the Web at far greater speeds than any other marketing tool in existence.
Don't forget to add such phrases as "Tell a friend" or "Visit our Web site" at the end of your video.
Conclusions
Use online marketing video to supplement the "traditional" TV ad campaign. Online and broadcast go hand in hand, they don't exclude one another. Online marketing videos give you the opportunity to communicate important messages to people more accurately and efficiently than ever. Use videos to differentiate your business from your competitors', to make yourself known and stand out of the crowd.
The Internet marketing videos must be short enough no to get Web users bored and drive them away from your site. Video ads on the Web must be significantly shorter than those usually seen on TV. Web users don't like to waste time, and they are fed up with never-ending ads.
IF you want to learn more on video marketing or web video production, you can contact me directly at ed@edman.tv or visit my website www.edman.tv
