Using video marketing effectively is something that has been a need for small business owners and marketers for several years, but is now at an all time high. In fact, the statistics predicting how popular and powerful video will be online are absolutely staggering.
So it goes without saying that learning to market with video in the coming years will not only be a good idea, it will be essential for online success.
The problem is that most small business owners don't know how to use the video medium to drive traffic, create credibility, or even get their message to their customers.
If this is you, then here are a few simple ways to use video marketing effectively:
1) You need to know how to make a video. If you have a Mac, making promotional videos is easy. Simply use iMovie to drag and drop pictures, video, and audio in place. If you don't have a Mac, use the free screen capture software called 'CamStudio' and a microphone to create simple videos about you business.
2) Use the power of the big boys. Once your video is made, use the power of sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, etc. to help your video get ranked on search engines. Using the bigger sites is important to help you show up in Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. so be sure to make those a top priority.
3) Optimize your video. This is SUPER important. Make sure that you use a title, tags, and description that all have the SAME keywords that you want to be ranked for by the search engines. If you don't do this, you will be hurting your business before you even get started.
4) Use local search terms. It is much easier to get ranked for local based terms like "Chiropractor Salt Lake City" than it is for general terms like "Best Chiropractor". For best results, be sure to choose keywords that say what your business does, and where it is located.
5) Put a "Call to Action" in your video. To use video marketing effectively, you absolutely MUST have a "Call to Action" at the end of your video. This means that you specifically tell the watcher of the video or commercial what they should do next. Things like, "Call now", "Come on over" or "Visit us at..." are all examples of using a "Call to action".
If you want to be more advanced, there are video marketing tools being developed all of the times, but if you just engage these 5 steps to using video marketing effectively, you'll be on the right track.

Video Marketing: Efficient and Effective
Video Marketing is possibly the most effective marketing strategy that you could use right now. Think about it: your customers can see and hear what your product or service is about.
This works especially well when there is something you want to explain or demonstrate about your product or service, or if you want to communicate a personal message to your potential clients.
If you've seen the power of video marketing in action and definitely want to get amongst it, but lack skills, software, equipment or time, then you can always outsource this to a well-priced Video Marketing firm, preferably one that has a variety of good testimonials.
Video Email Marketing is the New old-school Direct Mail
A video email marketing campaign is in some ways the same principal as old fashioned direct mail - a personal delivery of your message right into your customer's inbox, for them to read at home or work, at a time that's convenient to them.
However video email marketing uses new technology to speed, leverage, and automate delivery - plus provide more information in the form of audio and moving images plus text - that is available just using plain printed direct marketing.
Video Testimonials
These days, it's just not a testimonial unless it's a video testimonial. People stopped trusting those non-video testimonials on websites long ago - they're too easy to fake.
However, a good video testimonial offers the all-important social proof - proof that an actual human has been happy with the product or service they are endorsing.
The internet has been all about social proof and peer referrals these days, specially since everyone has got used to Web 2.0 properties and uses them like mad. (think Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.)
YouTube: the new search-engine
Google is still number one, sure, but Facebook is #2, and YouTube is #3 - though they can swap places on any given day.
And as YouTube is actually a search engine in it's own right, it's worth just as much time targeting YouTube in your website's SEO (search engine optimization) efforts as it is to concentrate on Google, since people are spending so much time on YouTube these days.
And it's growing! (no wonder Google bought YouTube...) Video SEO has even got it's own term these days - VSEO.
Google Loves Video - Apparently...
Although all we marketers can do is speculate, by running various tests and observing what happens - because Google doesn't publicly divulge most of their their ranking algorithm criteria - experts believe that if you have video on your page, you will get an extra search engine results brownie point or two.
Which helps your rankings.
Video Marketing does not have to be expensive
Video Marketing does not have to be expensive. In the old days - sure, specially if you went the whole hog and shot on 35mm, with lights, multiple cameras, a sound recordist, hair, makeup, and an expensive edit, with possibly even some animation and special effects, done by rows of mac boffins - oh - and an original score - then, yes. It was, and still is, big bucks to make films.
Advertising agencies regularly spend a ton of client money making them expensive television commercials, costing into the millions in some cases - but these days, there is an alternative.
Nowadays, even bootstrappers and SMEs can afford video marketing.
YouTube video quality is improving, but right now, footage shot on an iPhone on a 2 megapixel camera is still perfectly acceptable - though this of course depends on your market, what you're selling, and who it's for.
Message over Medium
Your valuable and authentic content, that has a message, or conveys information - is way more more important than the camera quality.
Case in point: Mobile phone video footage is often broadcast on the global television news, if some person at the right place and the right time got an exclusive piece of footage of an important event that the network news crews didn't capture, with all their fancy equipment.
The point is: If you want to connect with your customers with video marketing, over-producing your video may actually have the opposite effect on your customers.
Don't risk putting your customers off by overproducing a video that could alienate your potential clients rather than making them feel a bond with and ready to do business with you. You got to keep it REAL.
Overspending is not justified online
Spending big bucks for broadcast quality video may be overkill for internet video marketing and video email marketing purposes.
You want your customers to watch your video marketing and think "Wow! I was just looking for something like this in a search engine, and look what I found! These guys seem like the perfect thing for me right now! I think I'll even forward this video to my associate!"
One of the best case scenarios for video marketing is that it goes viral - that the recipients think your content is so good and so relevant or interesting or entertaining - so valuable, in other words - that they forward it to friends and associates all by themselves.
Mistakes made by companies using video marketing
A lot of companies who spend a lot of money on video marketing and don't do it right.
I have seen well-meaning companies mailing out physical DVDs as a video marketing tool - often of a lengthy and sometimes boring presentation, filmed with one camera at the back of the room and inferior sound.
As a result, their prospect loses interest - even if they did view the video.
Too often, the gap of time between the customer requesting the information and then receiving the physical DVD in the mail means that their interest may have waned, or their desire for information is no longer at the peak it was when they requested the information.
A better solution might be to edit your content to under ten minutes, post it on your website, and offer clients a chance to sign up and view the entire presentation.
This means you can deliver your video marketing information at the exact time when the customer is available to view it and their desire is at it's peak, and they can review the material and respond to your call to action immediately.
Automating your Video Email Marketing
Video email marketing can be automated, which has the following benefits for your company:
save on manufacturing and shipping costs
save on staff processing costs
the prospect gets the content instantly
streaming content is secure and very cost-effective
automated content delivery using an autoresponder saves time and money
grow a mailing list of interested leads
Keepin' it REAL
What video marketing done correctly should do is bridge the gap between a complete stranger watching your video on the web, and someone who may want to do business with you - right now! Keepin' it REAL.
That's what works today.
We're in the era of authenticity, where BS artists will no longer be tolerated.
Video marketing shows your customers some very important non-verbal clues that will give them a 'feeling' about you and your company. They can come to their conclusions about your company in private, without you being there to hassle or hard-sell them.
These days, people don't like feeling that they are being 'sold to', however they love purchasing - the difference being, they want to gather information and make their own self-empowered decisions on what to purchase.

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