Video Marketing strategies

Hi Kevin here again with the first post in a series of 3 or even 4 on Video Marketing.

Video is the new advertising King of marketing. Almost any web promotion these days has video at the core of its promotional advertising.

The old adage that a picture speaks a thousand words has never been more true than it is today. The explosion of internet based Video sites has been due to the increasing streaming speeds available now online. Increased streaming allows faster processing and faster downloading, so people have adopted video with this new capability. It is so popular that Google has now began to list these individual video segments in its listings for a given search term. So if you have a video posted to YouTube (www.youtube.com) or to Google video (www.video.google.com) then there is a chance that it will eventually become more popular by its listing via Google. Natural search traffic is always the best and there is growing evidence that Video is gaining rapidly in popularity for search engine terms.

The most popular video style is the basic webcam based commentary style video that most people can make from the comfort of their webcam in their bedroom. These can be funny, informative or just plain wacky. But they are effective as the conveyor of a message.

People use this type of presentation to build a social identity online with friends and acquaintances across the globe. So they tend to use this to show people their life through a lens. Or to open discussions via forums on a particular topic that is of interest to them or their group of friends.

Marketers use these types of video presentations to present product reviews, site reviews and to present a product for pre-launch to generate interest. This is very powerful stuff and because it’s cheap to produce its use is extensive.

As far as marketing goes video is a solid form of advertisement but it needs to be structured and supported by a goal based strategy. The end result for us as a marketer is to get traffic to our website, nothing more. But the type of video we produce has to be of interest to our audience or the type of customer we are targeting.

So from that perspective we need to provide a solid information rich content filled “how to” style video that has value for our audience. It is this type of information video that people want and the more that you do and the more you put out there then the more traffic you generate.

However one important piece of information that you must remember is that whilst your video should provide a solution to a problem, it should not provide the entire solution. Your product or your website should do that. So make sure that whatever your video is it’s informative but leaves them wanting more. Work on the 90-10 rule. Provide 90% of the solution in the video and leave the last but all important 10% for your website or affiliate product to provide a total solution. Then provide them a link to the solution and dirct them straight to your website or affiliate page.

One other type of video along this same line that you should be making is one that builds relationships with your list in a more personal way. One method of achieving this is a personal page on your blog where you describe your life and virtues to your blog readers in the form of a video diary. Now these need not be very detailed or too personal but they do add to brand loyalty especially when your personal experiences are mirrored by those who are seeking your council, i.e. your customers.

There are lots of places to distribute your video and not just YouTube which you should use but the other smaller video sites and you should target them all over time.

One important point to make here is that although the content of your video is the most important thing, do not over look the quality of the video you produce. Poor quality or amateur video will harm your credibility no matter how great the content. Good professional looking video makes a very good first impression. So try and use good lighting and apply graphics and music or other enhancement that make your video shine above the rest.

That’s all for now but I will be expanding on the use of video in other posts over the coming weeks and months.

Have a great week.

Technorati Tags: Market research, promotional advertising, search traffic, social identity, Traffic, traffic generation, Video marketing, video presentations, web promotion