Online video advertising is finding increasing use in online marketing, and if you don’t use it, then your competitors will. Any successful business which has managed to achieve a high ranking position within the results of major search engines such as Google will almost certainly be taking advantage of some of the latest technologies and methods to help promote their online presence.
One of the techniques that the most successful of your competitors will probably be using is online video advertising, which is the placing of promotional and explanatory videos either within the website itself, or promoting the brand through the publication and distribution of a marketing video in any one of the video sharing sites available, as YouTube.
But what is it about online video advertising which makes this such a revolutionary and successful form of promotion? There are many reasons, but perhaps one of the most significant, and perhaps also one of the most obvious, is the fact that distribution and availability of video online is still relatively new and cutting edge. Until quite recently the idea of streaming video content on your website would be considered almost absurd. Two things have changed to turn that situation around.
The first is the fact that a greater number of people now have fast Internet access. Broadband Internet access is now the standard method that people use to connect to the Internet, and as such, richer and more varied media content can be viewed and distributed.
The second reason why video content has become far more available and expected, is because the technology and equipment needed to create a video and then upload it is accessible to even the most basic and humble of set-ups. Even a basic home user will often have a WebCam that comes as part of their computer package, and really little more than this is required. For relatively small sums of money you can purchase digital video cameras which will be able to produce video content for your website of an excellent quality. As far as software is concerned, most operating systems now come with basic video editing software, and little more than this is required by the majority of people.
Because of the ease of creating online video advertising you might imagine that a huge number of people are starting to incorporate this form of promotion within their website straight away. In fact this is not the case, and is still relatively rare to find a website which does have video content embedded within it to help communicate directly with visitors and potential customers.
Of those websites and companies that are using online video advertising, or other forms of video content, not all have managed to get it right. Simply recording a video, embedding it into your website and uploading it for the world to see is unlikely to result in an increase in sales, or an increase in interest. Naturally the first challenge that you will face is ensuring that visitors actually find your website. Fortunately, embedding video content into your website encourages Google to view your website as being more modern and likely to be more relevant. As a result, Google will increase the priority and positioning of your website with its results, helping you to draw attention to your website.
Once visitors have arrived at your website the next challenge is encouraging them, and giving them a reason, to click on the video and watch it. This should not be too difficult so long as you follow two basic rules. The first rule to encouraging a visitor to view your online video advertising is to tell them in advance how long the video it is. People who are familiar with viewing videos online, such as on YouTube, will expect to be able to see how long the video is, in order help judge whether it is worthwhile investing in the time to watch it. Keeping the video to thirty seconds, one minute, or perhaps at most two minutes, and informing the customer clearly that this video will not take them long, will almost certainly help encourage the majority of people to watch your video content.
The second rule to encouraging people to click on your online video advertising is to give them a reason for wanting to watch it. Emphasizing the fact that this will help explain your product or service clearly and quickly, saving the reading of several web pages, is a good start. Another method that some have tried is to suggest that there is an extra benefit provided within the promotional video, such as an extra discount code.
But no matter how successful the positioning of your website within Google’s search results is, and how successful you are at encouraging people to view your online video advertising, you will still not managed to achieve any greater number of sales if the video content itself is not slick, exciting and worth the time to watch it.
