But firstly, here are some key stats to quickly point out regarding video marketing. The numbers don’t lie. According to Social Media Today:

 72% of consumers prefer to watch a video to learn about a product or service.

 78% of consumers watch a video online at least once a week, and 55% do so once a day.

 Viewers retain 95% of a video’s message after watching it.

 93% of business retain a new customer when they post a video on social media.

 Companies that use video in their marketing experience 49% faster growth than companies that don’t use video.

I’m hoping you find the above-mentioned statistics impressive indeed.

Video is actually easier and more affordable to produce now than ever before. And here are five video marketing types that you can easily apply to effectively grow your business and brand awareness – and as a result achieve very healthy sales:

(1) Testimonial Videos

Customer reviews are important in all industries, but a testimonial from a real customer can carry far more weight than an ordinary review.

Testimonials tend to consist of more detailed information than reviews. They give you an opportunity to highlight the specific things you did for a customer and the specific ways they benefited from your product or service. You can also encourage customers who provide testimonials to talk about their experience with your company, including customer service and tech support.

In other words, testimonial videos provide potential leads with a detailed look at the customer experience at your company – and they can help to overcome many of the most common objections from people who may be considering spending money with your business, so you can make more sales.

(2) Product and Service Demo Videos

People need to understand how a product or service works – and how they will benefit from it – before spending their money on it. I don’t think I need to explain why because I’m sure you feel that way too. If you don’t grasp the significance of a product/service or how it can be helpful to you, then you are not going to be spending your money on it.

Hence, demo videos are a cornerstone of any effective video marketing strategy. Product demo videos are straightforward, but here are some things to keep in mind:

 If the product requires assembly, include a demonstration in the video

 Show the most common uses for the product

 If there are alternate uses, include those too

 Consider adding some instructions about caring for or cleaning the product

If you sell a service, the rules are slightly different. Your video should include:

 An overview of the service

 A step-by-step review of what the service includes

 A service walk-through to let your target market know exactly what they will be getting if they spend money on your service.

Demo videos should be posted on your website as close to the point of sales as possible. You may also want to put them on a dedicated landing page, your blog and your social media pages.

(3) Brand Story Videos

What is the story of your brand? Today’s consumers want to identify with the brands they support. You can help them identify with you by sharing a customer-centric brand story that lets them visualise how you can be helpful to them with what you offer as a business.

In other words, you are not telling your origin story so much as you are telling the customer’s journey in such a way that is entertaining and compelling. This has really become an increasingly popular kind of marketing tactic these days.

When creating a brand story video, your job is to make your customer – that is the person watching the video into the hero. To do that, you will need to:

 Identify the most common problems you solve

 Create a story arc to show how your product or service solves the problem

 Encourage the viewer to see themselves in whatever success story you are presenting

Another way of looking at this kind of video is as a pre-testimonial that is sort of a fictionalised version of what a customer’s life could look like if they purchase your product or use your service.

(4) Personalised Sales Videos

This idea won’t work for all types of businesses, but it provides a way to hook potential new leads rather than to just send a lead a generic one-size-fits-all video, you can send them something personalised that would make them feel like it is something especially just for them.

Personalised sales videos should:

 Address the prospect by their name.

 Point out the specific ways your product or service can be helpful to them.

 Include information that will help the prospect overcome any objections they might have in terms of buying your product or using your service.

Bear in mind that this type of video does not need to have massive production value. It should feel like you or your sales person is directly speaking to the prospect, giving them valuable information that will help them understand the benefits of doing business with you.

The message that a personalised sales video sends is that you care deeply about your customers. If you are willing to produce a personalised video before a prospect is even a customer, it gives them the feeling and impression that you will be providing a high standard of customer service after they spend money with your business.

(5) Frequently Asked Questions Videos

It is fair to say that we all know about FAQ, right? It’s the section on every website where customers’ most common questions are asked and answered. Nowadays, they are also a great way to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to gain visibility in the internet search results, as questions and voice search go hand in hand like milk and cookies go together.

Every question does not need to be answered at once when it comes to FAQ videos. Instead, you should consider doing a series of short videos that answer one question or several related ones in an entertaining way.

You can be creative with this type of video. For instance you could do a whiteboard video or even an animated video illustrating the answer to your FAQs. There is no reason that an informational video cannot also be entertaining.

Conclusion

It is safe to say that video marketing is not going anywhere. You can definitely put videos together these days without spending a lot of money and once you have created a video you can post it anywhere you post content online including your website, blog and social media business pages as a way to effectively be growing your business and brand awareness – which therefore will of course help bring you great sales.

Surely, if you try the above five methods, you can mix them up with cool video technology like virtual reality or live video. Your focus should always be on producing the type of video marketing or web video content that is most likely to convert new leads into paying customers.

To find out about our Online Marketing Services that we are providing to help local businesses move forward, simply visit our services website via the link below.

The post Five Video Marketing Types to Grow Your Business And Brand appeared first on Market Business Online.

Firstly if you want to know more about producing, optimising and using local Video Marketing strategies to boost your business, there’s a related post via the link above.

Now let’s discuss video marketing traffic generation and the following are 2 key methods:

Method 1  –  Generate Video SEO (Free Traffic)

As they say online, you need highly targeted traffic to effectively generate leads, customers and sales. With that in mind, let me outline how to achieve high converting free traffic with videos….

Implement the power of video SEO:
You can acquire free organic traffic by ranking your video on the internet search engines like Google. This is what’s known as video SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). It’s about optimising your business for relevant keywords on the search engines. So, when people search on Google (using your business type keywords), they can find your relevant video and offers. This is what we call targeted free traffic that can highly turn into leads and sales….

Discover relevant local keywords:
The point is to research on exactly what keywords your target market will search for online to find you. Then rank your videos for those keywords to acquire free organic SEO traffic. You can use ‘Google Keyword Planner’ to do your marketing research on relevant search phrases.

Using a local Dentist as an example…. 

People searching on the internet for a Dentist could use keywords such as Emergency Dentist (+ Area Name), Need a Dentist (+ Area Name), Top Dentist in (+ Area Name), Dentist (+Area Name), Best Cosmetic Dentist in (+ Area Name). Following this example as a guide, you can use ‘Google Keyword Planner’ to find relevant keyword phrases for your own Video SEO rankings. Don’t just rely on keyword research tools. Because sometimes a keyword may appear in a keyword research tool as if people are not searching for it, but in reality that’s not the case. Therefore I strongly recommend you also ask your customers what keyword phrases they searched for on the internet to find you.

Acquire video SEO high rankings:
You usually need to do 2 important things to highly rank on the search engines. (1) Add and keyword-optimise your video inside your Youtube account – known as ‘On Page’ optimisation. (2) Then add and promote your video on other industry relevant websites, social media sites, video platforms, classified sites, authority sites etc. This marketing process links your video viewers back to your website – known as ‘Off Page’ optimisation.

Prepare for unpredictable results:
Video SEO offers both short and long term free traffic which can sometimes be unpredictable to achieve – depending on your keyword competition. Try optimising (as much as possible) for low and medium competition keyword phrases. Also optimise for those with decent amount of search volumes. Remember, you can discover relevant keyword phrases by asking your customers what phrases they searched for on the internet to find you and by using ‘Google Keyword Planner’ tool. The less your business competition for a keyword phrase, the sooner your video ranks high on search engines (like Google). Thus, the faster you start getting free traffic that convert into paying customers.

Method 2  –  Generate Video Adwords (Paid Traffic)

You can also generate highly targeted traffic through video advertising. A great way to achieve this is with Google Video Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click). Your video ad could appear on Youtube or across the Google Display Network (GDN). You only pay when people click or view your video. You have to set up your Video Adwords campaign through your Youtube account and as you may not already know, Google own Youtube.

Pay to start getting fast results:
The best thing about this paid traffic method is that you get to generate targeted traffic fast! You would just need to set up your ad with an affordable daily budget for quick ongoing returns. In fact, you can set up your video advertising campaign on a particular day and possibly start seeing results on the same day. Unlike video SEO, paying for traffic could provide predictable results. Advertising through Google Video Adwords is also dirt cheap. So, for even one single video ad campaign you could in no time be getting quality leads, customers and sales.

Regularly be testing your ads:
Make sure you test, track and do more testing on your ad campaigns. This way, you get to discover what’s not working in order to make improvements leading to more successful campaigns.

Laser target the right viewers:
Google Video Adwords actually offers you the ability to supremely laser target your traffic including demographics, interests, categories, locations etc. So, take full advantage of these resources when setting up your video advertising campaign via your Youtube account.

Be focused on maximising ROI:
Ensure you use relevant keywords and a well scripted professional marketing video together with this top quality traffic method. You will therefore regularly generate a very healthy ROI (Return On Investment). Remember, this method is very cheap and provides the opportunity to boost your sales fast!

There are 2 main types of Google Video Adwords: They are called TrueView Discovery Ads and In-stream Ads.

TrueView Discovery Ads – This displays your video commercial on Youtube search result pages or other websites within the Google Display Network. You will only pay each time someone clicks on your video to view it. No clicks, no pay!

TrueView In-stream Ads – This streams or auto-plays your video commercial inside another video. In other words, your video ad appears and plays automatically inside another video that’s hidden in the background. Viewers have choices: (1) They could keep viewing your video ad and link directly to your offers. (2) Alternatively, viewers could ‘skip’ your ad and watch the main video hidden in the background….

You will only pay each time your video is viewed for more than 30 seconds or viewed entirely – whichever comes first. People clicking on your video (during play) will be sent directly to your chosen website landing page. But the great thing is when someone views your video (in less than 30 seconds of play or skips it during play), it’s free of charge! So, you could very easily be getting free publicity for your business through your ‘In-stream’ Ads.

My Final Words….

Applying local Video Marketing is indeed very valuable in terms of generating business. And when you effectively implement these 2 traffic methods for your video, you can certainly ramp up your sales. See further information from the link above. Feel free to leave a comment.

The post Video Marketing Key Traffic Methods to Skyrocket Sales! appeared first on Market Business Online.

I wrote previously about the key benefits of Video Marketing and reasons why local businesses need to embrace it. You can access the article through the link here. But if you would like to discover ways of producing, optimising and using web videos to grow your business, then see the 2 key parts below:

Part 1  –  Script High Converting Videos

Produce your video script with high conversions in mind. Whether you would do it yourself or get and instruct someone else to do it for you, getting this part right is crucial. There is no point having a professional looking video that will not convert targeted traffic into sales. In producing your script, for example….

Create a short character message/story:
This should be about your local business service that emotionally connects with your target market. Make it sound like you are talking or relating directly to them about their needs. You see, people buy on emotion and use logic to justify their buying decision.

Highlight the needs of your prospects:
Your video script should communicate what problem your prospects deeply need fixing. Confirm you have the solution to their problem with your offer. Highlight the key benefits of using your service. Give specific reasons why you are the best choice locally to do business with…..instead of your competition.

Add to your script a clear Call to Action:
Always script the end of your video with a clear ‘Call to Action’. In other words, telling your prospects what action to take e.g. ask them to contact you, click a link in your video to make a purchase, link to your website for more details and so on.

Include highly complementary visuals:
If you add images, photos, sketch scenes, animations etc. (inside your video), ensure they are highly complementary or relevant to your script. This way, you create a message that’s not only engaging, but very easily connects emotionally with your target market.

Provide human voice for your script:
Include a human voiceover or a spokesperson inside your video to narate your script. Because this gives your video more perceived quality, boost your credibility and provides interactive personal touch. Your video will also be more attention-grabbing to viewers. And studies have shown that using this approach even provides better conversion rates.

Keep script and video duration short:
Try not to make the duration of your video too long. Having a web commercial or marketing video of 1 minute duration is usually long enough for high conversions. This equates to approximately 125 – 150 words of script.

Route to web-video marketing success certainly requires a powerful script!

Just to re-emphasise, your video script should sound like you are speaking or relating directly to your prospects’ emotional needs. Really trigger their pain points. Then offer your relevant solution to fulfil their needs. Make sure your solution for your prospects is benefit related. In other words, highlight the WIFT (What’s in it for them). And remember to conclude your script with a clear ‘Call to Action’. By creating a (well scripted) video, you will surely be on the road to make very healthy sales.

Part 2  –  Upload & Optimise Your Video

Once you already have a video for your business, you now need to upload and optimise it live for exposure across the web. And more importantly, you require the best online marketing platform for your video.

Upload and optimise on Youtube:
There’s no better platform to upload and optimise your video (for marketing) than on Youtube. As they are currently in the top 3 biggest search engines in the world. If you don’t already have an account, you need to visit Youtube.com to set one up for your business. It’s very easy to do. You’ll find tutorials on Youtube about how to easily set one up. Search on their site using the keywords ‘Set Up Youtube Account’.

Make video keyword-optimised:
Make sure your video uploaded on Youtube is (local keyword–optimised). This means your video-page “Title, Description, Tags etc.” must include keywords relevant to your business industry, locality and offer. Imagine what keyword phrases your prospects will use to search (on the internet) for your type of business? Put yourself in their position. You can do some research to come up with relevant keywords that are 2 or more words long using ‘Google Keyword Planner’ research tool.

Let’s use a Plumber as an example…. 

A local Plumber can optimise their video on Youtube for keywords such as Emergency Plumber (+ Area Name), Plumber (+ Area Name), Blocked Drain in (+ Area Name), Need a Plumber (+ Area Name), Best Plumber in (+ Area Name). I hope these examples give you some ideas to come up with the right keywords for your own local business. Also ask your customers what they searched for online to find your business. Because your customers can provide you with some valuable keywords.

Choose a captivating thumbnail:
Once your video is live on Youtube, they allow you to choose 1 thumbnail out of 3 provided. A thumbnail is a small clickable image of your video that will appear on websites or the internet search results. Select the most eye-catching thumbnail within your Youtube account in order to stand out and effectively attract viewers across the web.

Paste in your video embed code:
Youtube provide ‘Embed Code’ which allows you to paste your video on your site and across the web. This is a very easy process. Search on their site (for tutorials) using the keywords ‘Embed Youtube Video’. The fact is having videos on websites massively increase conversions. So, put your local business video marketing message out there to as many web pages as possible.

Conclusion…..

If you are not using Video Marketing to grow your local business, there’s no better time to start than right now! There are of course other key strategies for success using this medium which we have not covered in this post. If you need help, please feel free to get in touch. We can certainly set everything up for you if you would rather avoid the burden of doing it yourself. To learn more about the key benefits of using videos and why now, visit the highlighted link above.

The post How To Use Local Video Marketing To Generate Business! appeared first on Market Business Online.

It’s no secret that video is hot! In fact I was recently dining at a local restaurant and had a chat with the owners about Video Marketing for business….

They were literally blown away – seeing how this can hugely increase their bottom line. So I thought I should share with you the key benefits of using videos in your business and why now! But firstly, here is a short (2-minute) video…

More Powerful Than Written Words

Statistically, a 1 minute video is worth 1.8 million words to a person (Source: Forrester Research’s Dr. James McQuivey). Now imagine how much time-consuming and effort it will take you to personally write 1.8 millions words?

The point is using videos is a very effective way to quickly and easily feed information to your target market. And it’s also regarded as the most engaging medium out there. So, it leads to higher conversion rates than other types of marketing media.

Videos Get More Buyers Attention

Videos are highly attention-grabbing and therefore people are more likely to buy from you. In fact, 64% are likely to purchase from an online retail site after viewing a video and visitors viewing videos stay on a site an average of 2 minutes longer than those who don’t view videos (Source: Comscore).

In addition, 85% of people in general are more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video (Source: Internet Retailer). As videos provide images, pictures, sound and so forth, they are extremely captivating. They also present a much more entertaining, memorable and educational message to your target audience.

Videos Highly Increase Sales

Whatever type of business you run, you would want to generate more customers and of course more sales. With that in mind, video marketing increases sales by up to 40% (Source: Invodo). The percentage increase in some cases is even higher.

Search Engine Major Effect

Videos stand out from the crowd (of competitors) on the search engines. As they appear in thumbnails. For this reason, they produce high conversions in terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)…

For example, imagine your video ranking on the 1st page of Google? The point is a video thumbnail is easily seen and eye-catching to consumers.

So by having a video showing up on Google search results, you will highly stand out from your competition. Thus you will gain a lot more customers.

Youtube Major Effect

Unless someone is living under a rock, they are already aware of Youtube. You see, over 1 billion unique users are visiting Youtube every month. They are in the top 3 biggest search engines in the world…

100 hours of videos are uploaded on their platform every minute. Over 6 billion hours of videos are watched on their platform monthly (Source: Youtube). So, video marketing is here big time and why not get your slice of this huge pie?

Future Traffic Boom

Videos will provide 79 percent of all consumer internet traffic by 2018 (Source: Cisco). Therefore if you are not using online video to market your business, you are potentially missing out on a lot of traffic. And now is a good time to start.

The Viral Impact

Videos are shared 1,200% more times than text and link combined (Source: Simply Measured). Besides, 92 percent of mobile video viewers share with others. (Source: Invodo). Imagine your video being shared by people and it goes viral? This means more traffic to your offers for free and more sales.

Boosting Brand Awareness

In the UK alone, branded video content reaches almost half (46%) of all UK internet users. And you know what? More than half of those people (54%) will actually click through to the brand’s business website and a different 54 percent will land on the brand’s Youtube channel, if they have one. (Source: Econsultancy). The opportunities here are endless, you can even have a branded video easily appear on Google search engine results.

Reduces Your Bounce Rate

Online viewers spend 100% more time on websites with videos on them (Source: MarketingSherpa). In other words, having videos on your web pages will reduce your bounce rate. A bounce is when someone visits a website and quickly exits. The longer visitors stay on your web pages, the better your bounce rate and the more business you are likely to generate.

My Last Words….

As you see, the above are key reasons why Video Marketing is important. Start giving your local business a huge profitable boost. We do offer this as a service and can save you the time or commitment of having to do it yourself. If you would like us to help out, get in touch.

The post Local Business Video Marketing Benefits and Why Now! appeared first on Market Business Online.