10 Tips for Video Marketing

 

By: Matt Bacak

If you are selling products or services online, but your online sales are not doing as well as expected, it may be your marketing strategy. From research to purchases, with the advances in technology, consumers are using Smartphones and other devices to research products and services. Consumers also use Smartphones differently than they use tablets or desktops (and laptops). If given a choice, consumers prefer to view a video than to read about a product. If “a picture is worth a thousand words”, imagine the opportunities video will do for your business? Consider these facts:

1.  Captive audience: An estimated 71 percent of online adults use video-sharing sites such as YouTube or Vimeo to upload or search for information, products, or product reviews.  According to YouTube’s website, “over 3 billion hours of video are watched each month”

2. Going viral: Videos are more likely to be shared, liked or commented on which increases the chances of your video going viral. The statistics on YouTube show “500 years of YouTube video are watched every day on Facebook and over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute”

3. Big fish in a little pond: Google owns YouTube with both owning the #1 and #2 search engine/results spot. With so few entrepreneurs using video to market their product or service, you increase your chances of ranking higher on Google. The next time you search for something in Google, notice how many video results display on page one – probably not many and probably not your competition.

4. Smartphones: An estimated 44 percent of cell phone users own Smartphones with 96 percent researching a product or service using their Smartphones before they buy. Having your video display in the search results increases your chances of being seen by new or existing customers.

5. Selling local: An estimated 94 percent of Smartphone users search for local businesses with 90 percent of them taking action as a result. If your target audience is people within a few mile radius, the use of video to promote your product or service may increase your chances of capturing market share.

6. Going global? At this stage, you should know exactly who your target audience is and where they are geographically located.  Have you considered with 101 million Smartphone subscribers currently in 2012 the number of subscribers is expected to increase to 318 million by 2015? Add another 775 million tablet users and by 2015 there will be more than 1 billion devices worldwide. Why is this significant? There are some global consumers who are mobile-only users who rely on their mobile device to access the internet in such countries as Egypt (70 percent), India (59 percent) and South Africa (57 percent). Are you marketing your product or service to people in these geographical areas? If so, you may be missing another video opportunity to market your product or service to customers who use mobile devices.

7. Inexpensive to produce: The expensive, slick videos may be impressive to watch but the videos that turn viral are often home-made, down-to-earth real people doing silly or incredible things. It would be easier to show consumers your product’s features and benefits in video rather than putting words to paper. You don’t need expensive equipment either; you can buy an inexpensive video recording device for under $100. Or you can use screen-capture software like Camtasia (PC) or Screenflow (Mac) if you want to demonstrate a particular technique from your computer desktop.

8. Proof of concept: Potential customers need to know they can trust you and that your product or service will do what you say it will. Proof of concept, results or testimonials, is one way to win them over. You can show before and after photos or interview satisfied customers and put a montage together as evidence that your product or service works.

9. Vary length and time: Viewers don’t have great attention span so many experts recommend a series of short 2 to 3 minutes videos to keep viewers from leaving. Two or three minutes of video may not seem like a lot of time, but in comparison to time customers spent visiting your website, video marketing offers twice as much time as website marketing.

10. Giveaway your best stuff upfront: If you create a series of 2-minute videos and you promote them as a series, customers will be more likely to watch more than one video in the series. This is especially true if you give away your best point for free in the first video. In the second video you may consider giving away another point and so on. That way people will want to watch the second, third or fourth video to see what other free tips you have to offer. Don’t be concerned customers won’t want to buy if they can get the information for free, just the opposite will happen. You actually will build trust. Consumers, on average, have to read or view at least seven messages before they trust you enough to buy from you.

There are so opportunities that can be explored by using video to market your product or service. There are thousands of combinations of visual images and audio available, that it is impossible to list them all here. One of the best ways to narrow down the choices is to look at other people’s videos to see what appeals to you and duplicate the formula.