Earlier small to medium sized business marketers could not help but look wistfully at the commercials made for the products of big companies. Those companies could afford to spend millions of dollars on the marketing campaigns and broadcast commercials on television, taking the major chunk of customers with them. Even if small to medium sized businesses could make inexpensive but creative videos of their products/services they had no way of marketing them effectively, as they could not afford to pay for television spots which was the only way to reach the masses.
The Effectiveness of Video Marketing
Custom videos are powerful. When done right they can duplicate you, yes duplicate! Why do you sell more than anyone else? Your presentations, your message clarity, confidence in your knowledge, and your passion about your products and services.
But, don’t get to caught up in the perfect take…look at all the videos that go viral today. They are made by real people doing the things they love. So if you or your staff want to start recording videos, how to videos, educational videos, sales videos, product videos or general videos like about us, category videos, or customer support, be real. Your passion is something they can relate to.
The development of Internet changed all that; it began with providing a level playing field to all kinds of businesses, whether they were big or small. For example, the small business could have as attractive and useful a website as the big one and it also had a fair chance of appearing among the top of major search engines’ results. This could be achieved through many effective online marketing strategies like article marketing, email marketing and social bookmarking. All of these are still used with varying degrees of success. But the world of Internet is rapidly evolving and new developments take place almost on a daily basis.
A fairly recent development is the increasing use of videos for marketing on the web. In fact videos have become a rage as far as Internet marketing is concerned. An important reason why videos serve as powerful marketing tools could probably be that they offer users with a lot more convenient way of absorbing information. More Internet users would prefer to watch a video than read a long article. The success of YouTube has led to the creation of hundreds of video distribution sites most of which offer their services for free. So now even small to medium sized business owners can shoot inexpensive but creative and interesting videos of their products and services, and upload them on their own websites as well as the many free video distribution sites like YouTube where they can be potentially viewed by hundreds and thousands of global users who visit these sites every day.
Making your Product/Service Video Infomercial
Many online business owners may think that making product videos is not their cup of tea and they would invariably botch up the whole thing. To this let me clarify, I am not talking about creating a multi-million dollar commercial. What we aim to do here is simply create what is called an infomercial. It would involve shooting your product or service as it is being used, that’s all. All that you would need is a camcorder, (you may also use a mobile camera as nowadays they can also produce high quality videos), an interesting script and maybe a good speaker/presenter. Apart from showing the products being used you should also try to emphasize the benefits that your products would bring to the users and how it’s better than other similar products available in the market. Make sure you plan out the shoot in advance so that you know beforehand what kind of video you are aiming for – nothing botches up a video more than lack of planning. Spontaneous on-the-set improvisations do work but without a concrete overall idea of how things should be you would need a lot of luck to get it right.
The simplest way of shooting an infomercial would be take your equipment and presenter to a well-lit location and then shoot them as they introduce the product, use them, express satisfaction and talk about their benefits and advantages. Think about it, if you present all this in the form of an article most users may not go beyond a couple of paragraphs, but with an interesting video you have a better chance of keeping them engaged till the end.
You may record the audio on the spot or separately. The latter is recommended because that way you would be able to ensure high quality and clear audio. You can later sync the audio and video in the editing session. If you are willing to spend a little more, then you can also jazz up the video by adding titles, nice transitions, graphics, 3D animation and special effects which show the product in a very impressive light.
Adding Videos to Your Site
After you’ve been able to convert your raw video to usable ones comes the question of how to distribute them on the Internet. You have two options; you can upload the video on a free video distribution site like YouTube and then embed it to your site, or you can host it on your own domain. The latter would ensure that you have total control of how your video appears. If you host it on YouTube, there might be ads running at the bottom and many other distractions in the form of related videos. When you host it on your own site, you can eliminate all such undesirable features and also place it on a custom page which would be designed to persuade the user to order the product. But even if you are hosting your infomercials on your own site, you should also upload them on the major free video distribution sites. In fact you could set up your own channel on YouTube where you can regular upload videos of different products and services. It would provide you with extra exposure and that’s always a good thing!
Selling products online is a great idea for sellers, as well as consumers. But a big hurdle lies in the fact that consumers cannot examine products on the Internet the way they can do when shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. By providing them with a video of the product you will be helping them to have a better idea about the same, you can also introduce yourself and your company in the video, this would build trust, all this would greatly improve their chances of conversion. Video marketing can help your ecommerce site achieve great success; if you are not confident about handling video marketing on your own you can take professional assistance from an ecommerce services provider. A professional would help you create effective videos and also put together a powerful video marketing strategy that would bring considerable returns.