“Your” Tube
Have You Considered Online Video Marketing?

by Mark Regan

When was the last time you watched a video on the Internet? If you are like the majority of us, it was not very long ago. In fact, watching online videos has become an increasingly popular activity for Internet users. Whether people are viewing videos of vacation hot spots, home improvement demonstrations, or their favorite artists, online video has become main stream. It is here to stay and, as someone eager to reach your target audience, that should be great news to you!

Why Think Video Marketing?

If you have not yet tapped into the online video marketing world, now is the time to do so. Recent statistical reports show that this is a promising area that no business should idly pass up. In fact, comScore, Inc., a company specializing in Internet marketing statistics, recently reported that 14.3 billion online videos were viewed in December 2008 alone.

In America, 150 million Internet users watched an average of 96 videos per person in the same month. An increasing number of people are using the Internet to access videos on a wide variety of subjects. In fact, the report indicates that roughly 78.5% of all U.S. Internet users watched videos, and they ended up watching more than five hours of them apiece. 

How to Use Them to Your Advantage

At this point, many people are watching videos online, but you are not quite sure how to use them to promote your service or product. With that in mind, you also have to realize that any place with that many consumers is a place that every business should want to be, in order to get its message out there.

There are effective ways to use online videos in order to reach your audience, no matter what type of business you have. For example, restaurants have a large opportunity to reach diners through Internet videos. People do a lot of research on restaurants before they ever leave home. Providing a video that truly highlights the business can help seal the deal, convincing them to choose your place. You could also consider posting any television publicity footage you have, along with interviews with the head chef and/or owner, and a food guru offering expert cooking tips. Another option is to ask some of your regular diners to take part in a video montage that features their restaurant reviews or testimonials.

Moving Forward

Research shows that the average online video lasts about 3.2 minutes. You can either create them yourself or obtain the help of a marketing professional. When it comes to posting them online, it is a good idea to add them to places like YouTube.com and other such video sites, as well as your own website. To help draw traffic to them, you will need to use good search engine optimization (SEO), which will ensure that the videos come up when people conduct keyword searches.

Many people take it a step further and monetize the videos, allowing advertising messages to be embedded into the videos. While this is probably not something you want to offer to others, it may be something for you to consider doing to other people’s videos. You may be able to advertise your product or service on select videos that you think your target market is likely to view.

One thing is for sure -- video marketing is on the rise, and is an important medium in this technological information age. Test it on your own or work with an online marketing professional to see how it can help you to reach your audience.

Sidebar

Looking to create a video to put online? Keep these tips in mind:

• Shoot for around three minutes per video.

• Try to inform, entertain, or feature well-known people in the video.

• Use good SEO terms in the video title, description and tags, to help consumers find it.

• Add your videos to places like YouTube.com, as well as to your own site, and to as many video sites as you can find online.

• Videos are more personal than text on the screen, so keep it friendly and positive.

• Make sure your business name and Web address are present.

• Include a call to action that will prompt the viewer to want to do something.

• Log onto YouTube.com and study the videos of your competitors or those in your field.

• See what you like and do not like about what they have done.

About the Author
Mark Regan is the Associate Director of Internet Marketing at Intelident Solutions.  He specializes in optimizing online businesses to attract, convert and retain their customers.  Based in Tampa, you can follow his blog at www.FlatWorldMedia.com/blog . Or you can reach him directly at mregan@intelidentsolutions.com