Take a look at these amazing facts about YouTube…
• If YouTube were a country it would the #3 populated in the world
• YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet
• YouTube gets 1 billion views a day
• 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
For a marketer, these statistics are hard to ignore. What’s even more interesting is that although YouTube is certainly the largest online video website, it’s actually only one of dozens of popular sites including MetaCafe, Viddler, Vimeo and more. Add to that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace that also let you upload videos and you can see that video is more popular than ever.
Savvy marketers have picked up on this trend and are using video marketing to drive enormous amounts of traffic to their websites. And more website traffic ultimately means more sales both online and offline.
Why is video marketing so powerful? According to some studies, people remember only 10% of what they read and 50% of what they hear and see. Additional research shows people are 3-4 times more likely to respond to video than the written word.
As if that information weren’t enough, according to a users view study done by Kelsey Group, after viewing an online video: 55% of consumers visited the web site, 30% went to the store and 24% made a purchase. Can your other marketing efforts boast those type of results? Most can’t and don’t!
And here’s the icing on the cake…I’ve seen video listings show up on the first page of Google in as little as an hour. That is truly amazing!
What can you use video for?
• Testimonials
• An introduction to your website or company
• To explain difficult subjects in a way that viewers can see for themselves
• The ability to better demonstrate complex problems and solutions
• To answer frequently asked questions in a more personalized manner
The best part is that if you want a way to dominate page one on search engines like Google, then video is one the best, fastest and most effective way to do so. And guess what? You can upload videos to most of these video websites for FREE!
But hold on you say, if it were that easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? There are 7 main reasons:
1. Most business owners don’t know how powerful video can be. Now that I’ve shared some of the facts with you, consider yourself informed.
2. Many marketers familiar with other types of marketing are unfamiliar with how to make an effective video – one that is compelling enough to get and keep a prospect’s attention. An easy place to start is simply answering some of the most frequently asked questions your customers ask
3. No call to action – One of the most important things that gets left off most videos is the call to action. What do you actually want your viewer to do. Be sure to include words like call, click or visit.
4. Not optimizing your video so it gets noticed by the search engines – this is where it becomes as much art as it is science. This is where you want to engage the advice of an expert. Extensive keyword research, competitive analysis and various other methods are key. If you want to really dominate page one this is a critical step.
Each page on Google has room for about 10 search results. I have been able to capture as many as 6 out of 10 spots on page 1 for my keywords time and time again. It just stands to reason that I now have a 60% chance of being clicked on than if I only had 1 listing. Now that’s page one domination!
5. Not having a video marketing strategy – You need to decide what you are trying accomplish before you start. Are you trying to drive traffic, sell something, brand a product or service. If you start with end result you want and work backwards, you’ll improve your results dramatically.
6. Sending video viewers to the wrong place – You can do everything right to this point and then sabotage your efforts by sending viewers to the wrong place. You must strategically prepare your website before sending traffic there. In simple terms, if you are selling apples, don’t send them to the fruit stand page, send then directly to the “apples for sale page”. In other words, don’t send viewers to your home page and make them search.
7. Not utilizing or including social media marketing websites in their video marketing distribution. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and other Web 2.0 websites are great places to show off your videos. These sites are not just for teenagers. Your customers are already there so you need to be there too.
Need help implementing this or other local business marketing strategies? We can help! Our “done for you” approach has been perfected to get you maximum results for your business with as little as an hour a month of your time invested. Sound interesting? Call us and we’ll show you how it has worked for other business owners just like you.
