Video Marketing Concepts

Video marketing is fast becoming a highly popular source of e-learning and traffic generation method utilized by savvy internet users all across the internet.

A common question often found on forums is “How do I make and put videos on my website to promote my products and services online?”

Well, the answer is actually pretty simple.  If you have a decent video/web camera, able to shout “lights, action, camera”,  you are on your way to making a great video that can act as traffic magnet for your website.

First things first, in order to produce a good video, you need to get the right tools.

(A) A video capturing device such as a video camera or web camera.

Remember, love the camera and the camera will love you back, don’t be sacred of the camera, it is your friend in your video marketing endeavors. Hand phone video cameras might be handy, but they may not make a good video capturing tool when used for e-learning or product promotion purposes.

(B) A good microphone is essential as you need to be heard clearly.

Always test the voice quality of the microphone, a word of advice though, don’t be too thrifty and use the microphone that comes free with your sound card, the sound quality simply isn’t there. If you are using a mini-dv camera, you can easily attach the microphone directly from the video camera right to your clothing. Just make sure viewers can’t see the unsightly wire that connects the microphone and the video camera.

(C) An on-screen video capturing software (Optional).

If you are creating video presentations showing users how to make use of certain features of a product or service using the computer screen, then getting this software is required. You can easily download a free copy from camstudio.org.

But before you start shooting, here are a couple of important video marketing concepts to get you on the right track.

EFFECTIVE VIDEO PRESENTATION

Ensure that there are sufficient lighting in the background so that you and the featured product can be clearly seen. Beware that too much lighting can lead to over-exposure while insufficient lighting can lead to shadows, so the best thing to do is to do a trial video shoot and make sure you look natural.

Do not babble or speak too fast, remember to speak clearly so that everyone watching can understand what you are saying and what your product or service is all about. A good salesperson needs to be able to speak clearly and present their product or service in a manner that everyone viewing it can understand and enjoy.

Remember the KISS (Keep it short sweet and simple) concept. Don’t use big words or technical jargon in your video presentation.

Have FUN while showcasing yourself or your product. No one wants to see a sour face on camera. So make sure you SMILE. The better you come across on camera the more people would want to buy your product or services.

PROPER EDITING & OUTPUT

Once you’ve finished recording your video, review it and make sure it’s what you want and something that you’ll feel proud to have on your website. In my book, your videos are a direct representation of you or your business on the internet.

Next, transfer the recorded video to your computer to begin editing. If you are a PC user, simply use the free Windows Movie Maker software and if you are a Mac user, you can use iMovie to edit your video clip to your heart’s content.

For simple editing purposes, there is no need to get too fanciful and buy one of those high end video editing products. There is no need to spend that kind of money, it is both expensive and requires a long time to learn if you are not tech savvy.

Once you have finished editing and are satisfied with the results, you can now output the edited video to a web file. If you a PC user, then output the file to a WMV file and if you are a Mac user,  then output it to a .MOV file.

UPLOADING TO YOUR SERVER

Finally, you are ready to upload your edited videos for the whole world to see. If you don’t have enough server space to host these videos yourself, perhaps you can use popular video sharing sites like Youtube or video.google. You can easily upload your video to these sites at no cost at all, it’s totally free.

Upon successful submission, you can easily obtain either an URL or a HTML code to embed the file to your website so visitors to your site can see your newly uploaded video presentation. Embedding the video to your website is as easy as cutting and pasting to an HTML page.

WEB VIDEO PROMOTION

Now comes the time to promote your video clip for traffic generation purposes. For starters, make sure your videos are tagged with highly searched for and relavant keywords related to your video topic. This will make it easier for viewers to effectively search for similarly related videos of interests. Video tagging is fast becoming a norm in today’s fast pace internet arena.

Next, actively promote your videos by sending your video clips to your friends, family and business associates. Include links of your videos in your blog and newsletters too.

Let them witness the hard work you have put in put into making your video and ask them to pass it on to other friends, making it a viral marketing tool as well.

Reckon pretty soon, you’ll notice an increase in the number of visitors watching your video and eventually more and more traffic coming to your website.

With these video marketing concepts in mind, turn on your video camera, smile and begin shooting, have fun doing so and reap the results of video marketing.