Tag: Video Marketing

Online Video – Engaging Ads Are Paying Off

As our lives get more entwined with digital and related games, and services and apps come out at a rate greater than anyone could possibly keep up, the ability to reach audiences is becoming increasingly fractured. In order to engage mass audiences and compensate for this fracture, marketers seek many slices of many pies to meet their numbers.

However, there is one channel that is massive and growing at a phenomenal rate: online video. In the U.S. alone, there are 190,000,000 unique people who watch online video each month. The key word there is ‘unique’. That represents 77{2bbd478b6aadf2a9bb5e10dcf35d17c0d0772390afbaf5ac8145fb1096668903} of the adults in the U.S. These 244,860,000 (that’s million) people watch 35,000,000,000 (that’s billion) video ads.

This poses a critical question: how do marketers capitalize on this massive, engaged and growing audience?

Presentation by Rami Kalla on Converting Video to Sales on YouTube

Guest post by: Shauna Stacy, Hummingbird Media, LLC

The latest AZIMA meeting featured a presentation titled “Lights, Camera, YouTube: Converting Video to Sales.”  Presenter Rami Kalla, the owner of Tempe-based Point in Time Studios, offered an overview of the opportunities of using online video, shared a number of success stories from businesses who have chosen to capitalize on them, and spoke on the basics of the popular site YouTube.

To start, Rami shared a number of statistics regarding online video. One of the most impressive: Customers are 64 to 85% more likely to purchase a product or service after watching a video. Previous speaker, Jon Wolske of Zappos, indicated the same affect in March 2012 when he discussed the positive impact of adding videos of products on Zappos.com.

Video also appears in 70% of top online search returns. This means that creating video content for your product or service, and making it easy for prospects to find, could dramatically boost your online visibility and conversion if done well. Rami continued with a brief history of online video, emphasizing top video site YouTube. In addition to being the top video site, with 800 million unique monthly visitors, YouTube is a critical piece of the Google suite, and – ultimately – a big piece of the SEO puzzle.

Those planning to jump into online video were urged to do the following:

  • Focus less on the elusive viral video and more on your audience. Where are they searching? What do they want to know?
  • Focus on quality over quantity.
  • Realize that quality does not always mean exorbitant cost, and vice versa.
  • Start small and build from there.

The presentation also included a demonstration of the Will It Blend? and Swagger Wagon videos. They make for fun research, if you have a few minutes to spare. Finally, he dove more deeply into YouTube specifics, including earned versus paid media, keyword and SEO basics, Adwords for Video, and conversion analytics. Like other forms of online content, there is no magic, single step to creating success in online video. Once you build a baseline, and take the first step, you can continuously improve with evaluation and persistence. You just have to take the first step.

How to Get the Most out of Online Video

Guest Post: Submitted by Gate6

These days, video is an incredibly popular way to promote a brand, drive web traffic, educate an audience on a subject and benefit your SEO.  YouTube has become a phenomenon in and of itself with many of its videos going viral – becoming extremely popular in a very short period of time.  And Forrester Research recently reported that videos are roughly 53 times more likely than traditional web pages to receive an organic first-page ranking on Google.  Clearly, it makes good business sense to capitalize on this hip medium, but how do you know what to do and what to avoid?  These expert recommendations will help you create videos that make a big impact.

Choose the Right Title

The title of your video seems very obvious and basic, but it’s a critical element and should not be taken lightly.  Make your title interesting, engaging and specific so people actually want to watch the video.  For example, if your video teaches viewers how to train a dog to sit, instead of naming it “Dog Training 101,” you’d be better off naming it “How to Teach Your Dog to Sit in Five Minutes or Less.”  Be as enticing and specific as possible.  A video named “Top 3 Secrets to Building Better Websites” is more likely to be clicked on and watched than a video titled “Website Design Fundamentals.”  Your title, in addition to being engaging and motivating, should also contain the keywords that people are likely to be searching.  Come up with a catchy, keyword-rich title for your video and you’ll vastly increase your viewership and success rate.

Make it Creative and Original

These days, people expect videos to be unique, fun, funny, entertaining, exciting, controversial, thought-provoking or somehow outside the box.  No one wants to watch a talking head on a screen drone on about some topic or watch a flat PowerPoint slideshow set to bland music.  Figure out what you want to tell people, and then come up with an original video idea to powerfully deliver your message.  Once you have a basic concept, continue to brainstorm ways to make it even more unique and compelling.  Ask yourself if people will really want to watch a video like this.  Spend time watching successful, extremely popular videos on the internet.  Be sure you devote plenty of time to your video concept and be as creative as possible to ensure the highest level of success.

Tell Viewers What You Want Them to Do

Many videos (and many marketing attempts in general) forget to tell the viewer what to do after they watch the video.  So they watched your 90-second dog-training video on Vimeo, now what do you want them to do?  Share it on Facebook?  Tweet it?  Post a comment?  Call your office for a free quote?  Visit your blog?  Take an online quiz?  Successful online videos always end with a clear and strong call to action that encourages the viewer to continue engaging with the brand.  Your call to action at the end of your video is a tremendous marketing opportunity so be sure to include it.

Video is a fantastic, fast-growing digital medium that can help you increase brand awareness and connect with your target market.  Incorporating these three critical elements will help you get the most out of your online video efforts.