Do You Avoid Video Marketing?
Posted: June 13, 2011
What’s great about the web, is that it affords marketers and business owners the opportunity to extend their reach in new, authentic ways. Case in point, video marketing. There's good news for everyday people as well, you don't have to be polished celebrity to succeed with video.
What’s great about the web, is that it affords marketers and business owners the opportunity to extend their reach in new, authentic ways. Case in point, video marketing. If you are like me, you probably aren’t a Tom Brokaw, Ellen Degeneres, Denzel Washington, or any other celebrity who is polished when the camera comes on. There’s good news for people like us, you just might be thinking about marketing with video differently than you should. Most camera friendly celebrities took a while to get where they are at. More than that.. you don’t have to be polished on camera to succeed with video marketing. Let me explain.
Do You Avoid Video Marketing?
In fact, you don’t even have to appear on camera to have a successful marketing video.
Product Recommendation: The folks over at Video Boss – Andy Jenkins - teaches online marketers how to sell using surprisingly simple, but powerful, video marketing strategies. The pre-sales videos (opt in required) alone teach a lot about doing it right. Learn more here. The free videos will be taken offline soon.
UPDATE: Skip the optin and see video directly with this link.
For Many It’s Time to Reconsider Video Marketing?
Do you fit on one of these categories when it comes to video marketing?
- Aren’t Aware of Video Marketing Power – You know videos are prevalent on the web, but have only used them as a “consumer”. Think it might help your business but have no idea how to start video marketing online.
- Aware but Avoid Video Marketing – Knowing it is something you should do, you are swamped with other things ignoring it up to this point.
- Aren’t Aware How Easy Video Marketing Can Be – This is where a lot of people live. They think video marketing is expensive and super-hard (myth dispelled in video #1 found here). Did you know you can make a high quality video with your PC or Mac and presentation software like Google Presentation (free with Google Docs), PowerPoint or Keynote?
- Doing Some Video Marketing – You have done some marketing with video, but it just hasn’t become more of a priority, in fact, you can’t remember if the last marketing video you made was this year or last year.
- Doing Regular Video Marketing – You have invested in some tools, and are publishing videos at regular intervals, but know you are stuck when it comes to growing your skill-set with video. You know there are things you could improve on, but don’t have the time to figure out how.
If any of these bullets describe you, I have a resource many have found helpful. Before I get to that, let’s talk a bit about the social web, video, and SEO.
The Challenge for All Online Marketers
The web is centralizing on social activity to determine personalized search results as exhibited with Google’s +1 product and Facebook’s moves to engulf the web. Main Point: the most valuable and shared content will be rewarded with better search results. Video is the most compelling medium to engage web visitors meaningfully and socially.
[caption id="attachment_8654" align="alignnone" width="585"]
+1 Sharing Option Below YouTube Videos[/caption]
Now that Google’s +1 is available on YouTube Videos, it is a great time to reconsider the importance of video in your overall marketing strategy.
A Quick Word About Video Marketing and SEO
Whether Google’s +1 is successful or not, some simple truths to ponder.
1.) For some time now content of those who engage in online video marketing often always rank better than those that don’t.
2.) YouTube search is much less competitive (perhaps because so many are avoiding video marketing) than Google.com search.
3.) Social interaction will continue to grow as a ranking factor as Google figures it out, and video is probably the easiest gateway to higher interaction, and rankings.
Some Video Marketing Inspiration if You’re Short on Ideas
One of the best ways I’ve been able to get up to speed with a given technology or marketing strategy, is to find out who is using it, and learn from them. When it comes to polished videos, with a mind for conversions (sales), and a solid understanding of SEO, I think of Andy Jenkins.
Andy teaches is the importance of having a story, of being strategic, as well as thinking through and writing out a script (when it comes to sales videos anyway).
I had never considered the importance of a video script prior to Andy.
What I found? Scripts aren’t hard, just have to slow down and think it through.
Yes Andy get’s into the technology a bit too, but having all the technology in the world without a good story/script won’t convert visitors to customers.
He currently has a free set of videos available, which contain valuable lessons without investing a dime. Even the opt in video (~ 3mins long) is a lesson itself in humor, engagement, building trust and more.
As a heads up, he is also offering a full-blown course (version 2, “Even bossier”, as he likes to say), that he’ll definitely offer you if you choose to stick around. In any case, I’ve found him to be professional, and he does a great job helping people learn how to up their video marketing game in a short amount of time. Watch it here.
How are you using video in your marketing? Have you found success? What do you need help with? Thanks for reading!
Biz Tip Source: Marketing Professor
Author: Travis Campbell