Leveraging your online business with Video Marketing
What exactly is video marketing and how can you use it as leverage for success in running a business online? Well before we get to that, did you know that Youtube gets around 48 hours worth of videos uploaded to it every single minute? Now that’s just out there and most people would find it unimaginable – that’s equal to approximately 8 years of content every day. That’s 8 years worth of video playback uploaded to Youtube every day which translates to around 1.4 million videos which is just crazy.
That’s certainly a massive amount of new video content and that’s not all there is to it. Think of all the viewers of these videos which numbers to around 3 billion views in a single day. Yes, that’s billion with a B. Huge number of videos uploaded every single day and massive amount of views on Youtube.
Now Youtube is actually the second biggest search engine in the world next to Google. More and more people are starting to use it in order to find out information on how to do things and not just entertain themselves with music videos or funny video content. Indeed more and more people are using Youtube especially in countries like Australia which is all set to roll out its national broadband network within a year or two which would literally make watching television shows a thing of the past. Developments such as these will encourage people to watch more and more videos online and not just on their computers.
Now just to show you how easily this can be done, think about this for a moment – there are over 1.4 million videos being uploaded to Youtube against 3 billion views every single days. What this tells us is that there is a massive opportunity for us as business owners to become an authority and be noticed or seen as an expert in our market. It doesn’t really matter if you are a massive multi-national company or just a one man operation catering locally to surrounding suburbs.
As a matter of fact, we’ve often seen people become very successful just by putting up videos talking about makeup or how to trim your hedges.Mobile videos are also making an appearance as well. Online videos are now very accessible on iphones, HTCs and other kind of mobile devices like Ipads that enable people to stream videos online faster than ever.
Now you may be wondering why all these things had to be mentioned. Well these current realities are aimed at making people realize that there’s actually a huge opportunity for online business owners to go out there and create valuable video content that people can use and enable them to place themselves as an authority in their market quite easily.
Regardless of what kind of business you are running online, you too can provide valuable targeted traffic for your business. Even if you are actually not using it to drive traffic to your website, you should at least be using it to stand out from the crowd. Newton accountants for example are not at all fond of using videos for the services that they are offering online. There are presently no websites for Newton accountants making use of videos because they probably believe it shouldn’t be done that way or they simply don’t believe in it but other accountants that do use videos online are getting massive results simply because they stand out from the crowd and are not the same old boring accountants (no offense meant if you are an accountant and reading this).
The main point is that you shouldn’t miss out on video marketing as a means of standing out and be recognized in your market. After all, marketing is all about standing out and being recognized. It’s not about doing the same thing that everyone else does. There is an old saying that goes – if you do the same thing that everyone else does then you get the same thing that everyone else gets.
Why do video marketing?
Now what exactly are some of the things that video marketing offers your online business? Well as mentioned earlier, it’s an easy and effective way to create authority especially if you are publishing videos online on a regular basis contributing value to the market and solving people’s problems. If you can succeed in all these, you will automatically be assumed as authority in market which is a great place to be for many reasons. What exactly are these reasons though?
Now for one thing, being a market authority gets you more business. It also puts you in the position to charge more for your products and services. More importantly, being an authority in your market opens up a whole of other opportunities for you in terms of joint ventures and speaking engagements. When Justin Bieber first started out, he started out with a few videos on Youtube of himself which enabled some very influential people in the entertainment business to see his talent and pick him up. Today he is a young multimillionaire and found much success in the opportunity that his first few videos on Youtube had brought him.
Another good reason to invest in video marketing is that it builds trust – with videos people can see that there’s a lot more depth to whatever business you are running online. There’s a lot more transparency and people are more likely to understand and engage your business if they like you. Of course not everyone out there is going to like you and they are probably people that you wouldn’t want to deal with anyway. However for those people that you are looking to deal with, videos can prove invaluable in helping them better understand your business and create trust which would go a long way in encouraging them to actually make purchases from you as well as invite you to events and specific gigs.
Some of the great things that can be said about video marketing is that it’s very leveraged – you only need to do a particular video once and you can keep using or re-purposing it. If you have them on Youtube or any other video sharing sites (Youtube is the biggest among video sharing sites), you can continue to get views indefinitely. The Youtube algorithm actually works in such a way that that the more views, likes or comments you have on your videos, the more likely it is to show your videos whenever people are making relevant search terms for it. It’s an exponential process and what’s more is that you can rip the audios off it and re-purpose them as podcasts.
Another good reason to do video marketing is that fact that it’s very shareable. Videos a lot more shareable compared to other kinds of media. People love to share videos! It might be something or something useful, whatever the case; people are more likely to share videos quickly compared to most other things.
Doing Video Marketing
Now how exactly do you go about doing video marketing? Well it doesn’t need to be complicated in fact it’s actually lot easier than most people think. For one thing, you can do a talking head video and for this you can use your mobile phone or a flip camera. A good flip camera will typically cost you no more than 150 dollars.
You can do a video of yourself talking about important subject matters in your market. If you are not too keen about getting yourself in front of the camera then there are other types of videos that you can come up with.For one thing, you can do interviews and take a video of somebody else asking them questions to create quality content that you can publish online. If you are both in front of the camera though it’d be much better as it will grant you a lot more authority if you are say, sitting next to an expert in the field and being seen as somebody of equal stature.
You can also have yourself interviewed by other people (that is if you don’t mind getting in front of the camera) or come up with slideshows using Power Point presentations. You can go for animations with your voice or any type of robotic voice. There are websites like www.goanimate.com that can make the process a lot quicker and easier. Indeed there are a lot of simple yet effective ways to do video marketing and these are but a few of them.
Content ideas for video marketing
Alright so you’ve decided to invest in video marketing seeing the massive opportunity that it offers for your business, but what type of video content should you put out there? Well for one thing, you can give comments about what is going on in your market. If someone has just released a news or press release concerning your market, you can talk about what you do and how it all ties to your business. You can comment on recent events or somebody else’s videos or blog posts. Take a commentary position or acts as a reporter taking a journalist’s perspective and use it to go out there and create the video content you need.
You could also use frequently asked questions or FAQs to generate great video content. Look for FAQs being asked in forums relevant to your business or on other people’s blogs that are on the same niche market as yours. What are the FAQs that your business encounters on a regular basis from potential customers? Take note of all of them and create video content addressing each and every one of them because by answering all of these questions or concerns in your videos, you instantly build rapport with viewers adding value and touching their lives in a manner that you wouldn’t be able to do any other way.
Another great idea for creating quality video content is to go for “Should Ask Questions”. Simply put, what are some of the questions that people should be asking you about your business that they aren’t? What are some of the hidden truths in your market that no one else seems to be talking about? If you succeed in putting them out there as your video content, it will provide you and your business massive credibility and trust among your prospects.
3 Steps to video marketing
Now that we’ve established the significance of video marketing and some great ideas for quality video content that you can put out there, let’s tackle the important steps that you need to take in order to succeed in video marketing. First off, you need to be consistent in your video marketing efforts. Consistently put out videos out there and It doesn’t matter if you are putting out one a week or one a month, just commit and have it done on a consistent basis in order to gain some momentum. If you become too lax and inconsistent in your efforts, you’ll likely end up losing your moment and motivation as well as your Youtube channelsubscribers as they become bored and eventually unsubscribe to your channel.
Think about it – if you are putting out new videos online once every two weeks, that will leave you with 26 videos by the end of the year which is pretty good having 26 videos out there that will stay out there being seen by viewers and bringing you business as well as adding credibility and authority. Let’s say you increase that to just one video per week, now that’s 52 videos at the end of the year. 26 compared to 52 is a huge difference and it’s not that much work on your part. You don’t really need to spend countless hours creating videos for your marketing efforts and as a matter of fact, 5 minute videos would do just as well.
Step two, do it consistently. Make sure that you are putting out new video content for your web marketing efforts on a consistent basis as mentioned earlier. Step three, I bet you can’t guess – do it consistently. Its importance cannot be emphasized enough and well you probably get the point by now.
Some closing remarks in video marketing
Now let us leave you some important questions that you can ponder about as you go about your web marketing efforts:
- What can you do with videos today?
- How can you get started in video marketing?
- What are your FAQs and “Should Ask Questions” in your market for your products or services?
- Where and when can you do it? If you are in the service base business can you make a video as you visit a client’s house or when you report to job site?
- Can you make a video providing a dramatic demonstration of your products and how it compares to others?
- What can you report about your industry today?
- What is going on in your market that you think people should know about?
We are seriously in the gold rush days of video marketing. It’s now more important than ever, for online business owners to go out there and implement video marketing for their business if they are to succeed in the highly competitive world of internet marketing or web marketing. Investing in video marketing doesn’t have to cost you much and as a matter of fact, you can set up your own Youtube channel for free. Video marketing can provide tremendous results for your business – leverage in online marketing that you can have fun with and no online business owner should miss out on!
