In recent years, web video has become the fastest growing new trend in online marketing. Through the use of web videos companies can now cut straight to the focus of their marketing strategy without necessarily having to take some of the more traditional online routes. Also, given their low cost of production and overall effectiveness, web videos can help generate a much greater return on investment than other promotional strategies. But before you can begin to take advantage of the web video trend, there are a few things you will need to know first.
The main thing to keep in mind when producing web videos is that, just like any other marketing campaign, it’s all a competition, wherein those with the best laid strategy come out on top. With organizations of all backgrounds and sizes moving to the internet for its low cost promotional benefits, chances are that you won’t be alone in whatever niche you are trying to fill. Before your videos can come out on top in search results, you will need to produce the best possible videos, of the highest quality, that meet a clearly defined need with a clean and concise message. In order to meet these goals there are a few techniques you will need to learn to properly produce and market your web videos.
With the shortening attention span and dwindling patience of today’s audiences, users are looking to acquire information at an ever more rapid pace. While this rapid transfer of information is one of the key benefits of using web videos, yet another way to help play to these needs in your viewers is through the use of thumbnails and load timers on all of your videos. While using thumbnails will allow your viewers the chance to get a prior sense of the video’s content, using load timers will give the viewer the ability to track the loading progress of a video, hopefully working assuage impatience. Another frequently overlooked tool in your web video marketing arsenal is the ability to use your videos as a means of data collection. This can be easily achieved by using your videos to offer samples and freebies, with a prompt for the viewer to fill in their email address and other information.
One of the most important things you can do to ensure that your web videos receive optimal online exposure, is to take full advantage of emergent video SEO techniques. Like traditional SEO methods, this involves using carefully selected keywords to help define your videos for search engine results. These select keywords will need to be used in a number of key locations, such as in the title of your video, in the META description, and, if you are embedding the video on your company’s website, should saturate any surrounding text. Making sure to use keywords in each of these specific locations will greatly improve your search engine results, helping to ensure that the broadest possible audience has the opportunity to view your videos. On a similar note, connecting your videos in a series, to be viewed one after the other, and providing full text transcripts of your videos will also help improve your search engine results, thus drawing in more viewers. Also, take advantage of video sitemaps to help Google and other search engines to index your videos for better exposure.
Keeping in mind to combined these simple tools and techniques when producing and placing your web videos will help to ensure that your videos reach the broadest possible audience and receive the attention they deserve. With the low cost and high effectiveness of web video marketing, there is no reason you too shouldn’t be able to tap into these benefits, drawing in more viewers, boosting sales, and seeing a drastic return on your investment.