Video Marketing Part-6

How Do I Begin? 

Now that you have learned the many benefits of advertising using videos on the internet to generate more business, you are probably asking yourself how to begin using this new media.  This depends upon whether you want to self-market your video on your website or if you want to use an internet advertising agency to self-market for you. 
 
The one way a business knows if its advertising is succeeding on the internet is through statistics.  If, for example, you are advertising on Google, you will be notified of the number of times a person clicked onto your ad each month and will have to pay accordingly.  Google will then share some of that revenue with those websites that allowed them to place the ad on their site.  This is the way that internet advertising works.   
 

It is important for you to know how many people click on your ads for many reasons.  First of all, if you are advertising on several different sites, and the stats for one site are much higher than the others, you may want to consider changing advertising strategies.  If Google is using your ad on a blog and it is getting no activity, this may mean that you owe them no extra money, but it also means that no one is interested in your ad on that website.    By keeping track of your statistics regarding ad views, you can ascertain which sites are worth more advertising and which sites are not.   
 
If you are planning on self-promoting your own video on your website, you most likely have a stat counter that tells you how often people visit your site.  After you have added your video, see if there is a difference.  Chances are, there will be.  There are also software programs that allow you to find out how often your video is viewed on your site.  If you see that it is being viewed over and over, but your site stats do not reflect the number of video viewings, chances are that you have a clever ad.  You may want to market it elsewhere.  If you see that very few people are bothering to view your video advertisement on your website, you may want to try a different video that will attract more attention.  This is one way you can ascertain how good your business video is. 
 
If you decide to promote your video on a free space such as YouTube, you will be given statistics.  Each video shows the public how many times it has been viewed and they are even rated.  People may even make comments on them.  If you come up with something truly unique, you may find that your video gets featured as “most popular” and gets something like 10,000 views a day.  This does not necessarily mean that you will get 10,000 new customers, but chances are that you will get a few new people on your website.



So where you begin is up to how much money you want to spend, if any, and how much advertising you want to do.  If you have a large company and have a substantial budget for advertising, you may want to begin by hiring an agency that specializes in video ads to come up with something clever for your video campaign.  If you hire someone to make a video for you, you can purchase the rights to the video so that it cannot be used elsewhere without your permission.  Some companies will want to retain the rights.  This is something that should and can be negotiated with whatever company you decide to hire to create your video. 
 
If music is played in your video that is not within the public domain, you may have to pay for a license to use the music.  This is called a synchronization license and can be obtained from the publisher.  The publisher will charge by the number of seconds the song is used in the ad as well as how often the ad is used.  This means that in addition to paying your internet advertiser each time someone views your video, you will also have to pay the publisher.  The amount of such a license generally depends upon the popularity of the song.  You can either try to negotiate this yourself or have an attorney knowledgeable in copyright and licensing laws to negotiate the fee for you. 
 
Once the video is completed to your satisfaction, you will present it to your internet advertiser who will advise you on where it should be featured and how often.  If you are currently using an internet advertiser such as Google, and are finding some success with banner ads, you may want to continue with the same websites.  You will want to find out the difference in how many people view your video ad as compared to your banner ad to see how effective this advertising is.
 


There are different types of video ads.  Some pop-up and just start playing the minute you hit on the ad, and others have a “play” button.  You may want to set up the option to have the potential customer play the video instead of it just playing to see if they are truly interested in the video and the ad. 
 
You will still have to have some sort of written advertisement so that people know what your video is.  You can have a video still and something that says “If you want to learn more about how to get designer shoes at the best prices on the internet, click here.”  At that point, the video will play.  The good thing about video advertising, as opposed to print advertising on the internet, is that the customer will most likely not hit the ad by accident. Many websites, in order to gain profit from ads that they receive from Google and other sources, use little tricks to get people to hit on the ads.  This is not what you want.  You are paying for the advertising so that you can continue to develop your business and increase your profit, not support various websites.  Make sure that the websites that you are advertising on are not doing this.  Such tricks include moving objects that get close to where the customer is trying to click to see the information.  They click, go into the ad and get annoyed.  This does nothing for your business. 
 
If you want to start just by putting a video on your company website, just do it!  You can either have an ad agency that specializes in this create a video for you, or you can make your own video.  Again, this depends upon your advertising budget.  But there are many companies out there that are hungry for this sort of work and you may be surprised that the cost is not as high as you may think. 
 

Depending upon your website, you may want to make a homemade video.  Sometimes these can be more entertaining than the slick, professional videos and people generally like to watch them.  Consider the popularity of YouTube, which features many homemade videos as well as the old program “America’s Best Home Made Videos.”  There can be something more refreshing in a homemade video and may actually generate more trust within your customer. 

Still, another way is to use a clip from a film.  You may not want to go as far as the “Psycho” clip that the shower filter company used, but there are thousands of films in the public domain that are available.  If you can find something appropriate that advertises your company, why not use it? 
 
Come up with a plan on how much you want to spend, whether or not you want a professional to make the video or you want to make it yourself and where you want the video to be placed on the internet.  This all depends on the budget.  But even those companies with a low advertising budget will benefit tremendously from advertising by video on the internet.  It is just simply more entertaining.