This is an example of using video to promote a product.  Regardless of how you feel about Google the company, or Chrome the product, this ad stands out.  Isn’t that what marketers want, to stand out?  Ask yourself what you find unique about this video.  I found myself considering,

Google Chrome Video Brings A Smile – Can Inspire

This ad educates the viewer on their product in an unconventional way.  So here is the big question, how can you be educating your prospects and customers on your products in an unconventional way?

Don’t get me wrong, being “different” just for the sake of being different, isn’t good enough.  Different with a meaningful purpose, is what I see here. Edutainment. Here’s the video (see it here if you can’t see it below):

What Do You See in This Video? Any inspiration?  Or just an anomaly you observed in the course of your day?  Chime in below with your thoughts.

Need some inspiration? As you know, I’m a big fan of list building.  I’ve been working on a landing page video project with these guys and am very impressed (look at the video on that page alone).  I’ll be sharing more in the future on this.  In the meantime, if you get to speak with Joshua, let him how you found him.

Technorati Tags: internet marketing videos, marketing with video

For quite some time, YouTube has been the leader when it comes to online video sharing.  Most know that, but have you looked at YouTube lately? Really, beyond the changes they made in recent months, have you seen some recent market data for online video, and just how dominate YouTube is?  In this post, I’m going to share market numbers with you, my own conversion numbers after implementing some of the strategies and techniques presented in Julie Perry and Paul Colligan’s course, YouTube Secret Weapon, a potential problem for some with this course, and lastly, a 25% (limited) discount code.

Review of YouTube Secret Weapon-Conversions Up 296%

I’m a big believer in market research.  The only thing worse than being in a market where you only hear the echo of your own voice, is being there enthusiastically.  That is why I wanted to share with you some of the market trends I’ve learned when it comes to online video, specifically YouTube.

Online Video – What are the Trends?

Information from a recent comScore press release (screenshot below):

• March 2009 video views were up 11% from February 2009
• Google Sites represent 41% of the views, or 5.9 Billion, 99% of views took place on YouTube
• Next closest market share holder is Fox Interactive at 3%
• Google Sites, average videos viewed per viewer 59.  Next highest was 10.2.

For online businesses social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are exploding but it is obvious (numbers don’t lie) that video is a great opportunity to connect further with your audience.

My Video Review (HD):

Conversion Numbers from YouTube

For marketing purposes, video is a great way to convery your message, but what does it mean in terms of traffic to your site, and targeted traffic?  While I was very pleased with what I learned from Julie and Paul in YouTube Secret Weapon I decided to hold off putting a product review together until I had some tangible evidence of my own.

While additional traffic is nice, I wanted to know if that traffic resulted in conversions.  Were people who visit this site from YouTube.com engaging further by joining and opting in for the Marketers FAQ special report?

Here is a screenshot of data from Google Analytics highlighting referral sources over a 60 day period (with non-essential information blocked out):

The left column is the source of traffic, with Google, Twitter, and YouTube circled.  The middle column is number of visits sorted by most to least.  The right column is the conversion rate for each source.  Those are the percent of visitors who chose to join the site by opting in for the special report.  YouTube out performs Google by a factor of almost 3 (296.8%). While I was hopeful for improvement, I did not expect this type of increase.

YouTube is now the #2 converting source of traffic for the site. This is a result of applying a few of the strategies learned in YouTube Secret Weapon.

Important Note: I hesitated, because I wasn’t keen on becoming a video content publisher.  However, with recent changes at YouTube, I learned that using the sites social features I could engage and get traffic without producing one video. This served as a great starting point, now I see the site as too valuable, and have made YouTube a Part of the Sites Social Marketing Strategy.

More About YouTube Secret Weapon

You might be wondering what is included in this course by Julie Perry and Paul Colligan, (alot…) I don’t want to take too much time to list everything, here are a few items:

• 2 DVDs.  Broken down in to an easy to follow list of contents (I watched on my computer).
• Bonus Webinars (multiple). Just when I thought they were done with one bonus webinar, they came with another one, these online replays deliver great value.
• Tools. They have partnered with some key providers of proven software tools to make both video distribution, and interaction with other YouTube users faster and easier.  This saved me research time and they are affordable.
• Julie is a Pro. As you’ll see on their site, she has testimonials from top online marketers who called her their YouTube Secret Weapon (clever…).  This shows through in the product.

You can get the full scoop over at the YouTube Secret Weapon site, and meet Julie in person (you guessed it, in a video).  At the moment, you will need to optin to the site to get all the details, so keep that in mind.

Potential Issue with YouTube Secret Weapon

No product is perfect, and while I had a hard time finding issues with the product, there is one that might be a problem for some.  It was recorded via webinar, and as such the audio quality isn’t top notch.  There are no lapses in audio, and no content is missing as a result of doing it this way, it is just that the audio quality is not studio grade, it is telephone grade (sounds like a phone recording). Wasn’t a big deal for me, but it might be for some. If that is important to you, you’ll see what I mean when you review the course (call me picky :-p).

Special Offer for MarketingProfessor.com Subscribers (Coupon Code)

I spoke to Julie on the phone, and am excited to announce, I was able to negotiate a special, but limited, offer.  25% savings on the course for the first 10 orders.  I thought that was kind of her, I hope you do too. If you have joined the site, you probably have a message from me in your inbox notifying you of this deal, if you missed it, here is the YouTube Secret Weapn coupon code to use (lower case):

mpdeal

Put that in the “Coupon Code” box in the order form, hit validate, and it will apply the discount (to the first 10). Here’s the YouTube Secret Weapon Page (watch video, optin).

Final Analysis on YouTube Secret Weapon

If you have read this far, you must be serious.  With the direction the market is heading with online video (especially YouTube), combined with the conversion results I’m now experiencing utilizing the strategies I learned from Julie, makes YouTube Secret Weapon an easy choice. I strongly encourage you to get a copy, learn, and implement what she teaches so you can enjoy similar results.

Talk About It: Are you using online video?  Do you have a YouTube account?  Driving any traffic to your site?  Questions or feedback on Julie’s course?  Submit your comments in the form below.
(FYI: Julie on Twitter, MarketingProfessor YouTube Channel)

Technorati Tags: product reviews, video marketing, video marketing strategy

Internet Video Marketing Tips- Subscribing to Youtube Channels a Double-Edged Sword

With the growth of video, YouTube has done a decent job to include new features with the growing demand for online video. One of those such features is the ability of YouTube to notify its viewers of new videos by a producer through the subscribe feature. The option to subscribe is found on every YouTube Channel, it looks like this.

Subscribing for Viewers

By subscribing to some one’s channel on Youtube, you will get updates from YouTube automatically whenever the channel is updates with a new video. This is great because you will be among the first to know when fresh content is available, and be the first to view it.

If your subscriptions provide value, this can be a great opportunity to interact with comments and ratings. Commenting will drive interest to your channel, giving you more social traction on YouTube, and with it more subscribers to your channel.
In addition, subscribing tells the channel owner that you appreciate what they are doing and that it is adding value, and, under the recent activity feed for the channel it can show that you have subscribed to the channel (if you prefer to hide that info, it is configurable in your account privacy settings).

Each of these touchpoints is an extension of your channel and your brand.

Subscribing for the Video Producers

The main benefit here is twofold:
1.) Whenever you upload new content, your subscribers are notified, driving more views of your video, and more traffic to your website. It works much like an opt-in list, they opt-in, but YouTube delivers the message.
2.) As you get more subscribers you are creating social currency, that is others who see that you have subscribers will be more interested in subscribing to your channel themselves.

Important Update: In recent testing, I find that the delivery speed to my subscribers is far from instant, in fact days (or longer) after uploading a new video, notifications drop in their YouTube inbox. Not really efficient, especially if you have time sensitive information. Not a big deal for everyone, but something to be aware of.

It’s All In The Content

As a publisher, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’m not real polished on camera (no additional comments here , what others have indicated is that the content is helpful and valuable. While I’m hopeful to improve the productions going forward, what I cannot do is deliver flat content (though it will likely happen from time to time). My point is, while it is important to engage the subscription feature as both a viewer and publisher this doesn’t make up for good content. Leverage the benefits YouTube channel subscriptions provide, and as a publisher, create valuable content, you’ll help grow your channel, and very well may help your brand.

You can visit the MarketingProfessor.com YouTube Channel here.
Your Turn: Got a YouTube Channel to Share/Subscribe to? Questions or additions for this post? Engage in the comment boxes below.

*Image credits to ST33VO

Technorati Tags: easy video marketing, internet marketing videos, internet video marketing tips, video marketing strategy

What Does Your Internet Video Marketing Channel Look Like?

Tune Your Channel So You Can Be Found

Title – Name it Well, Hint: Keywords

Description – Be Yourself

Tags – What Do Searchers In Your Market Search For?

Technorati Tags: easy video marketing, internet marketing videos, internet video marketing tips, video marketing strategy

YouTube continues to be one of the top media destinations on the web, acquired by Google back in October 2006, YouTube is the premier destination for video content online.  In the last year, Google has made significant strides to improve the service for its strong and loyal user base.  In this post I’ll share Internet video marketing tips that YouTube users and consumers alike can use to boost traffic and interest.

3 Internet Video Marketing Tips for Social Networking on YouTube

Important Note: You don’t have to upload any videos to benefit from what YouTube has to offer.  Using the social networking features, can set you apart, resulting in targeted visitors to your site.

Be Friendly

YouTube is yet another social network. With features like friending, rating, favoriting and more, as with any social network, used effectively these Internet video marketing tips can boost exposure while fitting into your social marketing strategy.

Rate

I recently used YouTube to research how to shoot HD video screen-cams.  I plugged in a few keywords, and was amazed what I found!  There were several videos on the very topic, walking me through how to do it step by step.

Make it a habit to rate any video you watch to the end. It seem the rating is anonymous and is an opportunity to give feedback to the publisher.  For the helpful video I found, I rated it 5 stars.  Remember, while some may not be video experts, they may have expertise to share so, don’t be too harsh, rate not video quality alone, but the quality of the information shared.

Favorite

For me, I knew I would need that video in the future, or need to share it with someone else at some point.  That is where favoriting comes in.  Like bookmarking, if you like a video and know you’ll refer to it in the future, favorite it by clicking on the link below the video.  This will show up in your recent activity feed, and let the producer know that you found it valuable.

Add A Friend

As with many social networks friending (in one form or another) is a core feature.  This is also available for YouTube users.  At the moment it is a bit of an innocuous button on the left hand side of a YouTube users channel page.  Once a friend request is accepted, you can now message them inside of YouTube. From one of my friend requests: “Becoming friends makes it easier to keep track of what your friends are favoriting, uploading, or rating, and makes it easier to share public or private videos.”

What Are Your Thoughts?

There is much more to YouTube than this and truthfully, these Internet video marketing tips for YouTube are designed to get you moving in the right direction, and only scrape the surface when it comes to using YouTube effectively as a part of a social marketing strategy.

Discussion: Have an account at YouTube?  What are some ways you are using YouTube for marketing?  How have you observed others using it to extend their reach?  Chime in using the comment boxes below.

*Image credits to fczuardi

Technorati Tags: internet video marketing tips, social marketing strategy

Internet Video Marketing Tips… 6 Tools to Supercharge Your Video Marketing

Search The Tube: Video Search.

Have you ever wanted to see what videos are out there for a given topic to share with customers, prospects, or friends? This site makes it easy to search YouTube videos. Results pages serve up more videos per page, and you don’t have to click to get more information, as each video thumbnail includes a link to a popup player, video details, and embed codes. More results and less clicks is time saved.

Go to:

http://www.searchthetube.com

Overstream: Video Subtitles.

I’ve been using a classic small business marketing tool in videos for some time. Microsoft Powerpoint is great for several reasons, one being that communicates visually what is being said audibly, reinforcing your message. Additionally, anyone who watches without audio will also get the message. You can also achieve this “double message” effect in your small business marketing videos by using video subtitles. Do you want to reach a foreign language audience, or have a non-English video? Consider subtitles in your video marketing. Overstream gives you that ability and more with an editor to place subtitles on videos hosted on one of the top video hosting sites.

Go to:

http://www.overstream.net

Memories on the Web: Video slideshow.

Internet video marketing tip and an idea…Did you just get back from a tradeshow or a conference? Take all those photos, create a slideshow, and share with your attendees. Conclude your video with a call to action. This software is a free download, and it installs on your PC. You can insert photos, videos, and audio while introducing pan-zoom effect on pictures which you can sync up with the multiple audio tracks it supports. When it’s ready, you can “publish it to your video host with a single mouse click” (according to the site).

Go to:

http://www.codejam.com/slideshow/mow.htm

Overlay.tv: Video Links.

Video marketing is great, but what if you could give viewers the ability to click a link, right on the video? This site allows you to enhance existing videos by enabling video commenting, overlay links (to product or other web pages), as well as consumer products as an optional way to monetize your videos.

Go to:

http://www.overlay.tv

Veeple is another interesting service doing similar things.

Go to:

http://veeple.com

TubePress: Video Galleries for Blog.

Show off YouTube videos on your small business marketing blog. It’s origins are on Wordpress, and on their more recently announced a version (Pro, $10) to support other PHP environments. It comes with a widget that plays videos in a popup window, as well as an entire gallery that plays them on the gallery page.

Go to:

http://tubepress.org

If you are an online entrepreneur, or a small business marketing professional serious about online marketing, video is likely part of your efforts (as well it should be). It has never been easier for small businesses to incorporate video into their marketing strategy. The 6 tools presented here as internet video marketing tips are designed to help you save time, while extending both the functionality and reach of your online marketing videos.

Talk back: Was this post useful? Have you used these tools?  Have others in mind?  The discussion begins now.  Share your thoughts below.

Image credit: angelrravelor

Technorati Tags: internet video marketing tips, marketing with video, small business marketing, small business video marketing, video marketing, youtube marketing

In fact, some numbers suggest that roughly 50% of viewers will be drawn to your site because videos are highlighted on the homepage.  Delivering your message through video marketing engages an active audience that is looking for information instead of the traditional passive advertising outlets such as radio, TV and billboards.

In one month alone (March 2008), 74% of the total U.S. Internet audience watched online video making it a powerful channel to drive to your site.  Below are seven easy tips to increase your website traffic with videos so you too can be part of the monthly 11.5 billion online videos viewed.

Include the URL
When developing your video, make sure the site name or URL is within the video.  Whether it is included at the beginning or end, the inclusion will raise awareness of the website or brand, and likely get you more website traffic.

Share!
Take advantage of the video sharing websites to increase exposure such as, YouTube, MySpaceTV, Google Video, Yahoo! Video, Blinkx and Revver to name a few.  You are able to add your website link when your video is published which will add to your number of backlinks and it’s well known that link building will also increase your listing on search engine results.

Make it viral
A significant portion of viewership, over 50%, can be driven through distribution of a video by word of mouth.  Constructing a video that people want to pass on to their friends, colleagues and networks can add reach of your video to blogs, forums, wikis and beyond.

Draw attention
One of the easiest ways to increase traffic with video is to title it with a catchy name.  Craft a title that will draw interest, resulting in more website traffic.

Direct the interest
Have an icon or banner on every slide of the video that directs the user to your website, if for a specific product – then have the link go to the product page, just make sure that more information is easily accessible.  If you use a video sharing service that supports annotation, annotate the video with a URL directing them to the page with more information.

Keep it short
Make the average video duration under 3 minutes.  In a fleeting attention day and age, the quicker you can deliver the message in a dynamic and engaging way the more likely the viewer will watch the entire video which can result in more website traffic as well as a better chance of the video being passed on to others.

Specify keywords
Choose specific keywords to describe your video as opposed to general terms – that way your video can target real potential customers instead of those that are only browsing.

Technology today makes it easy for you to create videos on your own or outsource to a video production company, however you go about making your videos just remember the importance of identifying your URL, sharing your video, making it dynamic and appealing, being concise with your messaging and labeling the video so search engines are able to easily optimize the keywords.  These simple tips will help increase website traffic to your site – happy video marketing!

image credits to Patrick Boury

Technorati Tags: increase website traffic, more website traffic, video marketing

Many have come to realize the impact of incorporating videos and strategically placing video ads, but the same principles for video development and placement that apply to other mediums don’t necessarily transfer to online video marketing.  So let’s debunk some of the most common myths about video marketing.

Doesn’t replace TV
One of the most common myths that some believe about video marketing is that the Internet will replace TV.  TV inherently is the medium that reaches mass audiences.  The rule with television media buying is to maximize frequency to reach the highest number of people.  Taking it beyond the one sided communication channel of TV, the Internet is different because it is the medium that engages so viral videos aren’t the same as TV commercials.  Why? Well because the online video reach is only as good as the engagement of the viewer.  The content, message and presentation of the online video is dependent on the success of the exposure, the frequency that TV naturally provides.  But we know that most online video viewers will share videos with others, actually 57% of online adults admit they pass video links on, since this increases website traffic, energies should be towards making dynamic, interesting video content instead of expecting a ho-hum TVeske spot to produce great results.

Can’t just recycle
Another myth about video marketing that seems to be common is that it’s okay to reuse a company’s 30-second TV spot for their online video.  While in short it may increase website traffic, more is expected from the online video community because they are searching for authentic, relevant information – not generic commercials.  The name of the game is engaging material so think about who your audience is and speak to them directly.  The majority of adult internet users seek news content through online videos, if you’re looking for ideas to shape your video around – start there – think newsworthiness.

Don’t mistake tactics for strategy
The myth that a digital strategy is simply posting a viral video seems to be what many businesses hang their hats on.  While viral video is an online tactic to increase website traffic, it still lies within a strategy.  Your video will be passed on if the content must be surprising and catchy.  Videos online are viewed the most in the first three day of being posted, and as mentioned, we know it is very likely that viral videos will be passed on to people’s friends, family and colleagues – the trick is to give the campaign strategy longer legs to give you more website traffic.  What happens after your video is viewed – has your content motivated the viewer to take a next step? Are they intrigued enough to complete a survey, participate in a blog conversation, etc…the viral video should be one part of the overall campaign strategy, not the sole strategy.

Overkill does hurt you
Another popular myth that happens way too often is the improper over-submission of online videos in an effort to increase your video SEO rankings.  Yes it likely will increase website traffic, but most search engines are wise to attempts to abuse of their systems and doing so can hurt your search rankings longer term.  Your time will be better suited establishing clear objectives for your online video marketing. Develop keywords accordingly, and post to relevant sites instead of taking the very time-consuming road of posting your video everywhere (unless of course, you are using a service which automates this process to relevant video sharing sites).

Newness always
The last myth that can be easily avoided is believing that once you’ve posted online videos you don’t need to stay fresh with new video content to get more website traffic.  Not only do businesses need to be relevant, they too need to remain fresh.  Not just for SEO reasons, but because of what was mentioned earlier – the average shelf life of online videos is 3 days.  So after that, it’s on to the next.  To stay in front of potential customers and increase your SEO rankings, remember to stay current.  Don’t get complacent – you don’t want to give your competition the chance to outmaneuver you.

Because 74% of those with high-speed connections watch or download videos, online video marketing is all about engagement – the job of successful companies is to continuously court and nurture new relationships with potential customers – and that takes time to strategize, understand your audience and speak to them appropriately and dynamically.  Take advantage of knowing the truth about the common myths of video marketing and get started being a more powerful online marketer.

image credits to Yaniv Golan

Technorati Tags: increase website traffic, more website traffic, online video marketing, video marketing