10 Reasons to Use Online Video for Your Small Business
Posted by | Tommy Liu | August 13, 2009 | 5 Comments
For those of you that don’t know, online video has been on a strong incline in the past couple of years and continues its growth even in a down economy. People are going out less and staying home more which often leads to surfing the web more. Also, with Wi-Fi in more places along with all the portable devices available today that can go online the Internet is more accessible than ever. Everyone is online and your business should be too.
Here are a ten reasons why you should use online video to market and advertise your business:
Cost Effective – You can buy an HD camera to make videos yourself that can easily be uploaded to the web for around $200, granted you don’t need any editing. Even then, there are plenty of low cost options for inexpensive editing software but may come with a learning curve. If you don’t have time to direct and edit your own masterpieces you can get a clean, professional business video for a low price for a :60 video. This is a far less expensive alternative to a TV spot and can reach a targeted audience. Larger online video campaigns requiring creative, online video production and social media marketing are also a very cost effective way of reaching an audience. The most effective videos are funny, informative, unexpected and memorable.
Fewer Restrictions – Speaking of TV spots, they can be heavily regulated by the FCC, but not so much for online videos. Content can be up to your discretion 
. The length of the video is up to you as well. You can have a video over 3-minutes or exactly 53-seconds if you so incline, like this one.
Reach – Nearly 152 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 111 online videos each this past April. 152 million! Watching about 111 videos a piece! The total amount of views there is roughly…a fajillion. The point is that there are a lot of eyeballs that you do not want not seeing your product/service.
Visual Learners – Remember the saying “actions speak louder than words?” Well, that definitely applies to online videos. Why just talk about your products and services when you can just as easily demonstrate them? I can’t speak for everyone, but when I come across an article and in the bottom corner it reads “1 2 3 4 next page” I’m very likely to not read it. However, if that same article was broken down into a 4-minute video then I’d gladly give it a gander. Not only can you demonstrate your product, but also your expertise. Again, you can write out in long text how to replace a car battery, but being able to see you do it offers viewers more assurance of your capabilities.
A Great Sales Tool – According to comScore, the number of online shoppers who watch online retail product videos before buying a product grew 40% from January 2008 to January of 2009. Shopping online can make people wary since you don’t get to examine and inspect the product first hand, so the next best option is to watch an in-depth product video on it, which eases shoppers’ minds.
Stimulating Multiple Senses – Online video allows you to take in information both visually and audibly. There have been cases where the visuals were so tantalizing I practically tasted the product. That’s tackling three out of five senses. Not to shabby for only one medium, not to mention there’s no extra cost for hitting the extra senses.
Sharable & Engaging – An online video can be uploaded to multiple video sharing sites, and with the embed code it can be placed in various locations such as blogs, social networks, forums and more. In a lot of these locations people can leave comments and discuss the video generating buzz. Depending on the content and presentation, this will hopefully compel people to pass the video along which means free advertising and publicity. Score!
Long Lasting – Once uploaded to the web an online video can live forever, continually promoting your business, which in essence means the video can pay for itself and then some. Other marketing mediums like TV, radio and magazines require you to buy spots. After your budget is gone so is your ad. But your online video ad conveniently sits in YouTube, Facebook, Digg and so forth for FREE.
Competitive Advantage – Even with all its great numbers, online video is still relatively new as a marketing tool. Only a handful of companies are integrating online video into their marketing mix. Therefore, you can be ahead of the curve, take advantage of its benefits and gain an edge over your competitors.
Video Search Optimization – Video can help your search ranking! Most video sharing sites allow you to tag your online videos and proper tagging will help with your business’ search results. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that YouTube (the #1 video sharing site) is owned by Google (the #1 search engine). I’m just sayin’.
So if you’ve ever considered online video advertising this is the time. Don’t wait until everyone else is doing it first and be apart of the crowd. Stand out. Get Spotted.
As always, feel free to ask questions, or leave a Tomment.
Supercool Creative is an ad agency specializing in online video creative & production, video seeding and integrated social media campaigns. Supercool Creative provides superior production quality, targeted viral marketing and relevant social media campaigns. Contact us: Supercool@Supercoolcreative.com.
Tags: local business > Online Video > online video advertising > online video marketing > small business > smb > spotzero > supercool creative > tommy liu
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5 Responses to “10 Reasons to Use Online Video for Your Small Business”
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This blog is brought to you by Supercool Creative & SpotZero. Thanks for reading!
August 20th, 2009 @ 6:02 pm
[...] more than my confirmation to convince you. Fair ’nuff. Given the success of my other post, 10 Reasons to Use Social Media for Your Business, I thought I’d keep the ball rolling with 5 reasons why you should use social media to market [...]
August 21st, 2009 @ 8:08 am
These are great examples of the benefits of using online video to promote business. In particular I like your point about engaging the different senses. If you write something then the only way someone is going to get to know you is by visual-literal and if you do a podcast then only auditory. Either way you are leaving out the segment of your audience that only learns best using one or the other modality.
A good video on the other hand can engage can engage the audience on both levels simultaneously.
Another benefit is that if someone is reading your article and they are really interested in it but they have to drive somewhere there is little chance of them successfully bookmarking it and actually making it back to that article. If you have a video on the other hand, thanks to the ubiquity of phones with video capability, the person can pop in earbuds or plug it into their stereo on the way to their appointment.
Tommy – thanks for commenting on my article over at Talentzoo.com
http://www.talentzoo.com/news.php/Seeding-Viral-Video/?articleID=2620
Best Regards,
Eric
August 21st, 2009 @ 10:00 am
@Eric Thanks. Great point about the portability of video. Will definitely include that in the next list of reasons to use online video. I look forward to future articles on TZ.
August 24th, 2009 @ 1:52 pm
Tommy,
Terrific post. Yes, online video is certainly all around us and should no longer be considered “nice to have” but essential in telling your story effectively. One item I’d like to add to your list is interactivity. Online video should be an engaging, lean-in experience. Adding clickable objects directly into the video or “hotspotting” any element in the video allows the content owner to extend the storytelling capabilities of the video. Add outstanding click through rates because you are adding relevant interactivity and you have got an incredibly powerful medium.
Ed Lee
http://www.veeple.com
August 24th, 2009 @ 3:52 pm
@Ed Lee Great addition. Interactivity is what the Internet and social networking is all about.