50 Benefits of Web Video and Video Email Marketing

By Will Franco

DIFFERENTIATING BENEFITS

Web video and video email marketing can differentiate you from the competition in many ways.

1. Stand Out from the Crowd – While everyone’s ramping up their budget to send plain text emails, you can send video emails to gain the competitive advantage.

2. Be Remembered – It has been proven that the combination of audio and visual stimulus increases retention. (more…)

Video Marketing – 3 More Tips To Improve Your YouTube Social Media Impact

In a previous post on how to improve your YouTube Social Media Impact we talked about how YouTube has many of the same powerful features of other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. People can follow your business by subscribing to your channel, interact with you by commenting on your videos and your channel, become friends, share your videos with friends, etc. (more…)

Video Marketing – 3 Tips To Improve Your YouTube Social Media Impact

YouTube is not only a free video sharing site or the second top search engine, it also is a social media site like Facebook and Twitter. People can sign up to follow you, comment on your videos, comment on your channel, become your subscribers and friends, share your videos with friends, etc. So when you’re using YouTube in your business, you want to make sure you tap into this use as well.

Here are 3 tips to improve your YouTube social media impact.

Make sure your profile on your channel is complete.

This should be the first step you take BEFORE you post any videos. Write your profile consistent with your other profiles on your other social media sites, such as Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. Here is what you definitely need to have in your profile:

• A professional photo that looks the same as your other social media sites. You want people to get to know you and what you look like in a professional capacity.

• A well thought out brief description of your business with your marketing message and benefits you offer as well as your free giveaway.

• Your website address.

• Personal details and interests. You may be hesitant to share your personal details and interests but you should share what you feel comfortable sharing. People like to do business with people who they feel are real and who they relate to.

Invite viewers to subscribe to your channel

Within your profile description and information box of each video, invite your viewers to subscribe to your channel. We are so used to being given direction and most respond to that. Give them a great reason to do so. Once they are subscribed, they’ll get notifications every time you post a new video. This is where offering many how to videos becomes powerful and a great way for you to become an expert in your niche.Invite viewers to share your videos on their blogs and with others

Invite viewers to share your videos with others

Again, within your information box of your video, invite your viewers to share your videos with others. Most people know they can do this if you haven’t set the option to keep them from doing it but giving them permission takes away all hesitancy they may feel. It also gives them a gentle reminder.

Of course, make sure you have your contact information on each video (more about that in future posts) so that once your video is shared, the new viewers can find your business and YouTube channel if they are interested in learning more.

Consider giving them a great reason to do so by offering them something of value as a gift for sharing. Have them send you an email if they’ve shared your video to get their gift. That gets them actively emailing you and gets them into your marketing funnel. The more active someone is in connecting with you, the greater chance you can develop a relationship with them.

Video Marketing – 3 Essential Steps To Get Found On YouTube

Because YouTube has become the 2nd most used search engine behind Google, it’s become an important component in driving free traffic to your website. But to do this you want to describe and post your YouTube videos for best results to even be viewed.

Here are 3 steps you need to pay attention to and have in place before you post your video on YouTube.

Have a great headline

When you upload, your video to YouTube, the name of your video is automatically entered in the headline space. Don’t just keep that name though! You want people to watch your video don’t you? Even though the name may be a good description of what they’ll see, you also want to entice people to view it.

Use strong keywords and power words in this headline. assume you posted a promo video for your dog training video series. You could say this:

Dog Training Promo Video

Pretty descriptive but kind of ho hum and boring. Besides, they are at YouTube so stating that it’s a video is redundant, don’t you think? Change it to this:

Dog Training – Teach Your Dog To Heel In 3 Easy Steps

See the difference?

People love tips, steps, techniques and this headline speaks to that. It also includes a strong keyword – dog training – as well as the power word, “your.”

This headline is also searched by Google so spend some time and come up with a good one.

Use good keywords

YouTube calls these tags. One way to search for good keywords is to use Google’s Keyword External Tool.

Keywords should be pertinent to the content of the video. Don’t use words not related just to get a viewer’s attention. They will see right through that and having them click off your video within seconds is not what you want them to do! You want targeted traffic looking at your video. In this case, you want people who have unruly dogs who need help training them. These are the people who will most likely buy your program.

Use these keywords in your information box

Google and YouTube search this information box as well so make sure that within this area you entice the viewer to watch the video by telling them the benefits they will receive. In this context, you will sprinkle your keywords throughout. But don’t just type your list of keywords! You want this to be readable and make sense.

Think of this information box as an extension of your website and use good copy with links back to your site.

For great ideas on how to do this for your business, you can look at our YouTube channel – YouTube.com/HowToSellYourVideos to see how we do this. Two other great marketers who do this well are Lou Bortone at YouTube.com/lbpromo and Jessica Swanson – YouTube.com/JessicaSwanson.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Free Video Sharing Sites to Host Your Videos

YouTube, and other appropriate free video sharing sites, are hands down one of the most important and economical strategies in your marketing. However, there are some good arguments against using YouTube, or other free sites like Vimeo, Vidder, etc., as your primary video hosting site.

The first thing to consider is their logo is displayed on the video, which hurts your branding efforts. You’re technically promoting the other sites AND your business at the same time. It sends a confusing branding message – even if your logo is on your video. Granted, the logo may disappear as the video plays but if you get the cursor near it, it usually pops up again. It also is prominently displayed on the screen image when the video is not playing.

But that is only one item of concern.

Secondly, embedding a video from there not only promotes YouTube or other free site, it makes yours look less professional. Sure, you’re getting free hosting and bandwidth, but that may be subtly tarnishing your image, and that could potentially lead to fewer sales and less clients

If you don’t take your business seriously enough to invest in hosting your own videos, how seriously do you think your customers or clients will take you or what you’re selling? They may feel you don’t deliver quality products and be hesitant to buy from you.

Since there are many affordable and easy options for converting and hosting your own videos on your site, using free video sharing sites such as YouTube to host your videos isn’t a good investment in your business.

Again posting to these sites is a great marketing tool…just don’t rely on them to be your primary host. Host the videos that show on your site on your own server, and then let your YouTube video lead viewers to you.

And now I invite you to learn more by visiting HowToSellYourVideos.com to get started right away using videos to grow your business.

Kim Miller is a successful video producer and publisher whose company, Panorama Studios, specializes in producing and selling special interest, educational and how-to videos. She is co-author at the HowToSellVideos.com blog, your source for advice and resources to successfully produce and sell your own videos. Visit the website for your FREE “How To Sell Your Videos” kit.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Using Video for Content Marketing

From Mequoda Daily April 5, 2010 article by Chris Sturk

In a digital world, words may not be enough.

Content marketing doesn’t have to be just about the written word. It involves any type of content and the sharing of that content with some amount of it being free. The free aspect is designed to show consumers the value of your content before ever asking for their money.

Within the digital world, this content should be created to live harmoniously along multiple mediums.

Video as content

Google purchased YouTube in 2006. They saw the immense potential that YouTube had then, and still has now.

Let’s not forget that Google is the most popular search engine in the world. I don’t know about you, but many searches I’ve been conducting lately have retrieved video content on the first page of rankings. It seems that more cross-pollination between Google and YouTube is taking place.

So what does this mean for the current state of online video?

For starters, if you aren’t using video, and feel that it can fit with your content, you should seriously consider it. Using video will open new audiences of consumers who are primarily engaged by video content. This may include younger generations, adopters of video-ready devices like smart phones, or simply those who prefer to have more of their senses and emotions catered to.

Also, just because it’s video content, it doesn’t mean that it has to be extremely produced. With the help of programs like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker you could create video content comprised of images, slideshows or even PowerPoint presentations.

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A new means of marketing

We have all been victims of horrible television commercials for years. In fact, I have drastically cut down on watching TV because the advertisements were so mind-numbingly brutal that I lost all interest. If companies want to continue with screaming “messages” at their audience, they can do so. But I feel the days of that working consistently in a successful manner are over. I do not like to be spoken at, or in most cases screamed at, in order to buy a specific product. Show me the value and then I will consider it.

This is what content-based videos can do for marketers. If you have a product worth investing in and you understand the fundamentals of internet marketing that we discuss at the Mequoda Daily, then chances are with the depth and reach of the internet you will be able to connect with the correct audiences.

And unlike television commercials, online-based video content can engage the audience member. The video can be interacted with and the viewers can feel like they are engaging in an actual relationship with a company, opposed to being screamed at to buy something.

Video content and Google

If you do decide to enter the world of video content, be sure to treat the content as you would blog articles or other website content you’d like to have found by search engines like Google. By this I mean:

1. Make sure you optimize the video for keywords
2. Have a catchy, preferably keyword-rich title
3. Add keyword-rich copy to the page the video is on
4. Tag your videos with keyword phrases
5. Brand the video with your logo and link to your site if you’re primarily using video hosting sites like YouTube
6. Add descriptive meta data
7. Keep the video to an appropriate length and make it full of great content

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