Internet video marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most effective online marketing techniques available. Whatever product or service that your business is trying to promote online, there is no doubt that the marketing video is one of the most effective forms of advertising that you can implement on your website. Although still not widely used, those companies or businesses that have taken advantage of the ability to host a short video online promoting their business or service have found it to be the most effective way to engage with potential customers and visitors.
No matter how hard you try to push your business higher and higher up the ranks of Google’s search results pages, once your visitors arrive at your website you still have the task of trying to sell or promote your product or service. Offering them a web page crammed with information, mostly text with perhaps some graphs or images, can seem fairly overwhelming to a potential customer or visitor. Many websites make the mistake of having too much textual information about the product or service on the very first page, hoping that potential customers and visitors will take the time, and make the effort, to read most of this information.
The truth is that most website visitors are actually very lazy. This is evident by the way in which Google search results pages tend to be used. 97% of those who use Google to search for a website never look beyond the first page of results. Once they click to a webpage, the Google heat-map shows that they focus on the headline and some of the text and adverts, but 80% tend not to scroll down below the fold (the visible part of the screen).
It is these facts and others that help us to understand that if we want a website to be effective in what is was designed for, it is necessary to catch interest immediately: within that two to three seconds that it takes for a visitor to either stay or go. Your web page or video must catch attention immediately, and not rely on people hitting keys.
This is where internet video marketing comes into its own. A well placed online marketing video, that is immediately evident to anybody who happens to visit the website, can engage with potential customers far more quickly and effectively than any number of words and images which you choose to post on your website.
Why do you think that YouTube is one of the most popular and used websites on the internet? Why are an increasing number of people putting their videos on MySpace and Facebook? In fact, why are these social networking sites going to the expense of offering video facilities to their members at all? Why is so much online video editing software being sold online, and the hardware to shoot the videos? Why are so many people making a fortune by marketing internet video eBooks?
Because people prefer video to audio! Were that not true then radio would be more popular than TV. Radio is popular, but it is a fact that most radio programs are listened to when or where it is not possible to watch TV. At work, in cars or at home in the morning and afternoon when people do not have the time to sit and watch through a whole TV program.
There is no denying that video is king, and you can use that fact to your marketing advantage.
Of course simply having a video on your website is not enough to be a success. You should consider making it auto-play so that it starts when your prospect hits your page. To do that your marketing video must be compelling or it could be counter-productive.
If not, you have to give your customer a very good reason to click on the video and play it. People are not going to click play on a video if they suspect that you’re going to give them a 20 minute sales pitch. You have to give them a clear idea of the length of the video and what it will teach them. People want information, not to be sold to.
You, on the other hand, want to sell to them, but the old adage concerning ’softly softly’ and ‘catching monkeys’ always works online better than the hard sell. It might be difficult to close the door on a real salesman once he is in your home, but it’s really easy to click away from a website or switch off an online video. You might also consider offering a carrot and suggesting that within the video they will be given the code for a 10% discount or some other benefit not available on the website itself.
Once you have persuaded the prospect to play the video, your next task is to ensure that they continue watching it. The first 20 to 30 seconds of a marketing video are likely to decide whether or not your prospects watch the remaining part of the video, or close your website and go elsewhere.
With a simple web page it’s more like 2 – 3 seconds, but people tend to take longer to watch a video, particularly if it starts automatically rather than requiring them to take some action to start the video playing. Article marketing, with a note in the resource that the link will offer a video, is an ideal way of leading into a video that begins to play without further action on behalf of the visitor, and there are others. However without that pre-warning, it might be better to describe the video on your webpage and then offer them an inducement to play it.
Internet video marketing can enable you to market your business using a technique that is rapidly becoming one of the most effective online marketing techniques thanks to YouTube and other video social networking sites. Using video marketing techniques you can reach an audience that would otherwise have been inaccessible to you.
