At some point, every marketer will want to get in front of the camera. Even if they don’t want to, they will need to. They may be tired of writing, or they may feel the need to connect visually with their audience for whatever reason.
The great thing about video is that it is quick and easy to shoot a decent amount of footage in a short amount of time. There are some best practices that should be observed to ensure that you get the most of your video marketing efforts. Here is a basic rundown on how video can fit into your marketing strategy.
Keep It Simple
Some marketers like to use fancy digitally created backgrounds and introductions. These can be fine, but simple is usually better. That means a white background, or even using your office as a background, a simple introduction, and basic editing.
Keep it Steady
Your videos need to be easy to hear, and they need a steady picture. If you must use a handheld camera, then ensure that your audio is crisp and clear. Unless the camera is bouncing uncontrollably to the point of making your viewers experience a bit of motion sickness, most will tolerate some movement on the picture. Most viewers will absolutely not tolerate poor sound quality.
Keep It Short
Long videos may be tempting to do. You have all of this great information that needs to be shared in this video, but your viewers don’t really care. Most people online have their attention pulled in multiple directions at once. It is best to keep most videos under five minutes.
The most important reason for this is that if you lose your viewer, you won’t get them to see the call to action. It rarely makes sense to put a call to action, like an opt-in for updates or a click to a squeeze page, in the beginning or middle of a video.
You want the beginning and middle to provide value with very little marketing language. The end is your chance to get a lead or conversion through a call to action. Keep it short and direct and you will often improve your conversion rate dramatically.
Get It Transcribed
Getting videos transcribed accomplishes two tasks. One is that it gives you more content to put in your video description or on your website if you embed the video there. The other is that it allows your viewers the choice to read your content instead of listening or watching it.
It is important not to put the transcription on both a video site and your website if you embed videos from a third party website like YouTube. In this case, write a description for the video sharing site, and use the transcription for your own website since that is where most conversion activity will actually take place.
Remember The Virtues Of SEO
Video is an SEO winner in two ways. The first is that content and media rich websites raise the quality score for algorithms like Panda. They keep visitors on your site longer, help to reduce bounce rate, and make for a better overall experience.
The second way is that videos on large file sharing sites like YouTube are easy to optimize for search. Optimizing the title, tags and descriptions to suit your targeted keyword will help them rank better.
Try doing a search for “make money online” or “make money from home” sometime and note how many videos show in the results. These are extremely competitive keywords, but videos almost always show up highly for these terms and terms like them.
The overall domain authority and nature of the websites makes them SEO goldmines. Getting extra traffic to your videos allows for more chances at scoring a conversion, so remember to do SEO for your videos as well, not just your websites.
Be Yourself
The concluding point is that it is important to be yourself. People are becoming quite savvy online, and they can tell when someone is not being genuine. If you are genuine and provide legitimate value, you will become your own brand, connect better with your audience, and grow your business in new ways that traditional blogging and marketing doesn’t usually allow.
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@JulianaPayson is content curator of the InMotion Hosting News Blog, and has produced a popular video of their own “What Is Web Hosting” to assist web professionals in explaining needs to their clients in order for them to buy webhosting. If you have great content you wish to collaborate with, please get in touch with Juliana via Google Plus.
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