Nowadays, it’s easier than ever for businesses – big and small – to make videos and post them online. From using newer digital cameras or handheld camcorders to simple webcams, the video-making equipment and hosting (like free video hosting site YouTube) are cheaper than ever before.
Why Use Online Video
You can draw attention to your business and reach new customers through online video. Show off new products through demonstrations, discuss special upcoming events, raise awareness about your charity of choice or profile your favourite employees with online video on your blog.
Videos are also easy to optimize for search engines when posting them on YouTube using title tags, comments, links and through the video itself. Use text and voiceovers in your video, and make it interesting! The more people like, comment on and share the video, the better ranking it will receive when someone searches for the terms used in and around your video.
A More Affordable Way To Advertise
Are you having an open house to introduce yourself to the community? Do you want a more “hands-on” approach to dealing with your customers? Why pay the money for a temporary advertisement when you can have an online video that lasts and literally speaks to your target audience.
Not all viral hits are goofy videos of cats playing the piano or eating spaghetti. Some of the most memorable viral videos that are shared for years to come among friends through blogs, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter are simply advertisements for everyday products, such as:
The Dove soap commercial that showed a woman being transformed over a time-lapsed video from normal to full makeup with styled hair and final airbrushing on a magazine cover as a part of its “real beauty” campaign.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U
The award-winning Blendtec video series that came out a couple of years ago was an advertisement for a blender. In one video, a man put an iPhone into the blender and subsequently obliterated it, showing how powerful the blender was. In other videos, lighters, rakes and full pop cans have been destroyed. And it worked – the company saw a massive jump in profits thanks to the video series.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLreo24WYeQ
More recently, IKEA’s “behind the scenes” herding cats commercial, when the company let 100 cats loose in one of its stores and filmed it (okay, maybe most viral videos do involve kitties to come extent) and an inside look at the filming of this commercial now has 1.2 million views on YouTube.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7vXP3tHzhA
So consider using online video to advertise and draw more customers to your business. Those who have already jumped into the online video scene will tell you that it’s a worthwhile and not too expensive investment.