Inside Edge – Aug 2012

Give your Digital Presence a Boost with Video Marketing

Online videos are a great medium to showcase your products and services, especially now since so many users browse the Internet on their smart-phones and tablets, which offer a rich video experience.

The great thing about using videos for marketing is that you can crunch in so much information that engages three cognitive channels – audio, images and text. Video content drives action to improve conversion across all points of the sales cycle; from getting found on search engines to lead nurturing through to closing the sale.

The sooner businesses get video content out to customers (via their websites, landing pages, brochures (via QR code), social channels, emails, blogs and other marketing channels), the sooner they will realize how clients will become engaged with video content to drive marketing objectives.

How can video marketing on YouTube benefit your business? 

• You can use YouTube videos to promote your own business, products and for branding your business.
• Over half of the traffic on the Internet is now video, so video marketing gives you access to tons of valuable back-links.
• YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Online videos can increase your exposure.
• You can create, optimize and share short, informative and entertaining videos. A “viral” video can become unstoppable once set in motion.
• Social media sites and video go hand in hand and most sites encourage video posting and sharing.

Leverage Video Marketing Using YouTube

Video is extremely powerful – not just because of the sheer number of people who view video sharing sites every day, but because it can be much more persuasive than the written word.

A fully optimized YouTube Channel containing engaging video content will not only provide a powerful, ‘followable’ link to your website, but it will also greatly increase views and drive more traffic to your website. If you have customers online, you should be on YouTube!

 Optimize Your Video Marketing Campaigns

Professionally produced, high-impact promotional videos can keep your visitors glued to their screen the instant they arrive on your site. This can also help increase your conversion rate, which of course means more sales.

Hence, you need to optimize your videos to become an integral part of online marketing strategy. Here are some ways to achieve this:

• Trend your video content for current social themes. What are people searching for on YouTube/Google? Relate your video to what’s popular, and watch your viewer count go up.
• Add custom metadata tags to each video. This will help with search engine optimization, adding information about videos that can be picked up by search engines crawling the Web.
• Integrate videos with e-commerce. Explanatory videos showing step-by-step how to make a purchase or a reservation, or to send a query using the website can greatly benefit websites which have booking engines (like hotels) or shopping baskets (such as online retailers).
• Video marketing must be aimed at leads and conversions. Add calls-to-action, so viewers can be compelled to take some type of action at the end of the video.  Get them to sign up for your newsletter, go to your e-commerce page, leave a comment about your video or visit your blog.
• Re-direct video viewers to your website, by including your URL in the video. Add a text box to your video, where you can display your website address. For effective branding, have your company logo displayed prominently somewhere on the screen.
• Integrate with social media marketing. When your audience starts sharing and spreading them all over the Internet with social bookmarking, Facebook sharing and Tweeting, your videos will go viral.

Remember, YouTube is always adding new features. It’s a good idea to stay updated on the latest enhancements and use the ones that best suit your business.