Video Marketing In All it’s Glory

Americans viewed 12 billion videos in May 2008. In 2006 sites such as YouTube took off allowing users of all ages and web expertise to upload millions of videos from around the globe in all types of topics. Billions of searches later, we find that video marketing is a real important form of marketing online. When you are speaking to a consumer about experiencing a place, product, message, etc. what better way to show them through visuals?

Marketing your video online is the key business differentiator for web companies that want to communicate their product profile and benefits within the shortest possible time and do it effectively. There is nothing else that comes close to the effectiveness and persuasion power of a well designed video message.

This doesn't mean that putting up a 10-min video tutorial on your site will automatically get you to double-up your conversion rate of new registrants or that you will instantly sell more of your products. There is more to effective video communication than just slamming some video content up on your web pages.

There are several reasons that in today’s marketing world, video is the best way to go. The average attention span of a web user is measured in seconds. Once delivered to you on a red carpet by a major search engine search query, or by a recommendation link on a review blog, the new web visitor applies only a very limited effort and time to see whether she can make sense of what you are communicating/selling/proposing and to decide whether your content, style, look and approach are a good fit for what she was actually looking for. If you can engage her interest right there and then, and offer a fast, highly visual way to let her discover what your "message" is, you have done bingo. See, at any given point within those first few vital seconds on your site, the new web visitor is on the verge of clicking away and abandoning that flimsy but unique opportunity to open up a relationship, possibly a conversation with you and your products.

Other notable findings from a May 2008 study include:

• 74 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The average online video viewer watched 228 minutes of video.
• 82.2 million viewers watched 4.1 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer).
• 54.8 million viewers watched 703 million videos on MySpace.com (12.8 videos per viewer).
• 6.8 million viewers watched 88 million videos on Hulu.com (13.0 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 2.7 minutes.

Fast forward to today:

• 89 million viewers watch 5.5 billion movies each month on YouTube.com
• 9 million viewers watch 348 million movies each month on HuLu.com
• 25 million viewers watch 232 million movies each month on Yahoo.com

Tips for a Better Video Message:

• Put Your Video on your Home Page (or at least a link to it)
• Be Up Front About the Length of the Video
• Add Audio
• Create Buzzwords Around and Within the Video
• Post Your Video on Sites that Allow Free Video Posting

Video Marketing is much more than posting videos and waiting for consumers to watch them. Videos we post online need the same optimization a web page needs to be found through the search engines. On sites such as YouTube you can create keywords that are associated with your video which can be used to reach and download your video. The key to video marketing is to be savvy with where you post to begin with. Most videos are reached through buzz in social networks and through viral avenues. Keep in mind sites such as YouTube, MySpace, AOL, IGoUGo and Facebook.