The ROI Case for Video Marketing vs. “Doing Video”
August 27, 2012
I was talking with a potential client last week and when we started talking about video as a possible option to help him market his business, he slumped and said, “oh man….spend a ton of money on a video? why????”
That’s when it hit me….and I finally understood. My clients think a few things that I need to clear up:
1. video = tons of money (for no real return, they silently believe)
2. it’s HARD
3. it’s really really expensive.
You’ll notice that I put the money part down TWICE. The reason? Not enough marketers who recommend video truly understand HOW to use it EFFECTIVELY as a marketing tool (meaning: the return on investment is not explained well – or even at all).
Why is this? I am guessing at the number of ad and marketing agencies who regularly farm out video have only used it to make :30 spots and not TRUE CONTENT. OR…they are just video production houses who just want to make video content and have no true understanding on how to market the video content and show true ROI to their clients.
Eureka!!
A fabulous idea is born…. when you understand what good content and video content truly is AND how to promote it, it will become clear that as we progress in on-line marketing, video is one of the only true tactics that will effectively do a few things for your business:
1. Builds credibility and scalability. Your face and your message connect to the viewer — your clients get to know you and using video to do this is effectively like adding hours and hours of SELLING time to your week. It’s really hard to fake stuff on video — like a human lie detector, people intuitively know when you’re scamming them. In this case, don’t use video. For all of the rest of you legit folks, read on.
2. We learn better by watching than reading a bunch of dense text. It’s a proven fact that Americans now would rather watch than read. Over and over again, the numbers on video view instructions for a complicated process or product far outpace any written materials on websites of thousands of businesses. We just like it. That’s all.
3. Video can do a number of things well and why not take advantage of 1 and 2 when you’ve got no time and need to generate more sales? Video can:
- attract new clients and customers – utilized correctly in a variety of sites and campaigns, video content done for this purpose is like offering honeysuckle to bees.
- once you get the audience, you’ll need to engage them. Video is also #1 on the hit parade of all marketing tactics in doing this – create the right video for the target audience you’ve worked so hard to attract and they will begin to engage with you and even SHARE the videos with their networks — that’s the exponential effect that video sharing through social media can have on your business.
- nurturing your target clients and customers to up-sell and bring them more VALUE.
- and the Grand Prize of all the work of bringing in the new clients — CONVERTING them. Whether it’s sales or up-sells or referrals – video is unsurpassed at helping you connect on your CALL TO ACTION.
If you’ve made it this far in the post: here’s a freebie. WHERE DO I START??
#1 place? What part of my business is MOST CONFUSING and takes the most time for me to explain. Start here with your video thinking cap firmly in place. This topic should generate at least 5-10 videos, even for the most straight-forward businesses.
Tally-ho!!
Why video?
February 17, 2012
I know most of you – if you’re anything like my clients – are overwhelmed by the new social media marketing options. And that’s on a good day. So – let’s really throw you in the deep end — VIDEO.
Before you get scared — you can do it. It’s NOT painful. You won’t lose consciousness. AND – best of all – you can do it YOURSELF.
But why, MJTVgirl? Why are you killing me with more “to do’s” on my already huge marketing to do list?
Well, because. It’s literally 50x more effective at getting your website to the top of the Google search engine. That’s why. And – it’s a great way to broaden your reach, engage your clients, customers and potential customers; AND (breathe) it’s really helpful in starting and engaging brand new people in your conversation.
So….want to get started? Check out my video on video….of course 
Top Tips for Using Video To Attract New Clients
February 13, 2012
Creating videos for your website is one of the most powerful things you can do to organically elevate your website presence in the search engines AND engage with your customer base. According to SEO experts, a video on your website is at least 50 times more likely to be clicked on and watched straight through than an article or a chunk of text.
Why? Because we’re lazy. Let’s face it – there are a lot of people out there who have long-ago abandoned the newspaper in favor of TV news. And – we’re used to it. We watch and multi-task – reading is a much more absorbing task. Can you do more than one other thing (like eat cereal) when reading? Doubt it.
Now, the best part for you – the business owner — it is a SUPER efficient means of reaching prospective customers, of promoting the presentation of your products or services. It combines the advantages of “classic” TV advertising with the Internet’s most important characteristic, interactivity. Also – with the cost of video cameras at an all-time low – heck, you can even use your phone in a pinch, video is now in play for just about everyone.
Some Do’s and Don’ts
Think of your videos as a way to get more impact, more bang for the buck in terms of SEO as well. But don’t get too bogged down in technology just yet. The biggest secret on video marketing? CONTENT is KING. Creating content your customer will want to watch, read, and interactive is still the single most important part of making video for your business.
When writing or creating the content for the video, it’s important to take into account a list of search engine words – for placement in the title, the content and as tags for the video. This will help the video “get seen”.
Also – when crafting the content – the subject needs to mirror the needs of your perfect client. Then – give ‘em the benefit of watching. Do they want to know tips your company has as part of it’s expertise? Do you happen to know that your perfect client ALWAYS asks the same questions? Use this as fodder for writing – and titling – your video.
A word about timing. PLEASE don’t make the video too long. Long enough to accomplish the goal. That’s usually between :30 seconds and 2 minutes. Really. Too long will defeat your whole purpose. (OK…sometimes, if the content is very informative, you will need more time. Consider breaking it up into multiple videos.)
Tracking will now come into play because you want to make sure the videos are doing what they have been designed to do. Are they available to drive more hits? More sales? More conversation? What are you trying to accomplish? Happily, yoday’s technology offers you many opportunities to track traffic and analyze results. Take the time to measure the impact that your videos have had on the prospects and to measure their performance. Search for tools that can tell you how much of your video was played before the visitor closed it, how many prospects actually decided to pay your site a visit after watching your video add on a different website, how many of these visits converted into sales, and so on.
Many experts advise to use the videos on the first page. It’s like handing out your business card. The first page recommends you, and we all know that first impression counts. Don’t tuck your marketing video away, on some page that a visitor might not even get to. Make it visible. Anyway, give your site visitors the opportunity to skip your video. Maybe they’re not in the mood for watching it, and the last thing you want is an annoyed visitor.
Optimizing Videos for Search Engines
- Optimize not only for video search engines, but also for content search engines. A good approach would be to use meta tags for the content (text) of the page where your video is placed.
- Give relevant names to your videos. It’s highly improbable that your video will show up in the SERPs if it is called “12032002.mov” rather than “XYZ- antivirus-demo.mov”.
- Use keywords in the video titles and their descriptions. Video search engines will find it much easier to index your video files and link it to your web pages.
- Use anchor text if you link to the video from other pages of your Web site.
- Make sure the video files you submit have the proper extension.
- Make it short. Say in 2 minutes what would take a normal person 10 minutes to read on paper (or on a Web page).
- SEO professionals recommend creating separate video site maps, which can be submitted to video and content search engines alike. Both kinds of SEs will index these site maps.
- Remember to include RSS feeds. Metadata can be inserted here.
- Research, measure, test, report and optimize.
Promoting a Video
- The keyword for the success of any online marketing video is “submitting“. The best choices are video hosting sites like YouTube, Yahoo! Videos, or Google Videos. The main advantages are that your videos will be hosted for free and they will not take up any of your site’s bandwidth.
- Share your videos. If you really want to make yourself known, allow users to be able to link to your videos. Viral marketing videos are the best way to make companies (and, subsequently, their products/services) known across quite vast Internet user communities. They carry a company’s name across the Web at far greater speeds than any other marketing tool in existence.
- Don’t forget to add such phrases as “Tell a friend” or “Visit our Web site” at the end of your video.
The final word.
- Use video to drive home a point, offer a tip, show how a product can be used – or simply to communicate.
- Marketing videos should not be hard sell – the more informational, tip-based, or entertaining the information, the better they will work
- Use videos to differentiate your business from your competitors’, to make yourself known and stand out of the crowd.
- Finally – have some fun and have a sense of humor. If you’re engaging, your clients will engage right back!
- NEXT: Using video on MOBILE
mary jo cranmore
