Video Marketing - An Essential Tool
- By Trevor Richards
- Published 10/6/2011
- Marketing
- Unrated
With the advent of websites such as Youtibe, video marketing has gained more and more popularity amongst advertisers. With the attention span of internet users being so short it is hardly surprising that most people would prefer to watch a short, snappy video than read a 'lengthy' print advert. The benefit of such websites is that there are very few barriers to entry and as such it is a level playing field for the user base, regardless of the advertising budget. Now an amateur film maker has just as much opportunity to reach a wide audience as an established advertising agency or film studio.
Video advertising has become one of the most viable methods of viral marketing. By distributing videos on sites like Youtube and Vimeo users are able to elicit an immediate response after watching the advert in video form. If the video is effectively entertaining or unique this reponse may take the form of sharing the link amongst friends which produces a snowball effect, resulting in a simple video advert receiving multiple thousands of views in what is a relatively short space of time. This form of advertising is underutilised by most and it is only quite recently that advertisers and marketers have latched onto the power of viral marketing. There is also the issue that not everyone has the ability to view these videos.
There is ongoing debate as to the relative effectiveness of video marketing, with some arguing that a video will not 'go viral' unless it has the significant budget required to produce a video that will be impressive enough. Others are a little skeptical and are simply not willing to experiment with their own videos, opting instead to stick with more traditional marketing channels.
With the increase in 'on demand' television and internet television, the audience for TV adverts is greatly reduced so it is clearly in the interests of marketers to exploit this growing online audience. One of the biggest benefits of video marketing is that they can generate large volumes of traffic and reach the top of search engine results in as little as 48 hours. At the moment Youtube is synonymous with online video, however the potential for social media marketing of video is relatively untapped.
In many ways video can be a lot more effective than trying to position your website competitively in search engine results. The 'viral effect' can depend heavily on community submissions as well as social tagging. If your company is thinking of investing in producing videos for the web then it is important that you don't fall into the trap of simply thinking that it will 'go viral'. You need to have the capability and creativity to produce a video that will entertain, inform or suitably persuade the viewer otherwise the money spent on production will be wasted.
There is no doubt that internet video is revolutionising the way that marketers promote their products and it is important that companies keep up with developments as their advertising must not get lost in advertising channels that could soon become redundant.
Video advertising has become one of the most viable methods of viral marketing. By distributing videos on sites like Youtube and Vimeo users are able to elicit an immediate response after watching the advert in video form. If the video is effectively entertaining or unique this reponse may take the form of sharing the link amongst friends which produces a snowball effect, resulting in a simple video advert receiving multiple thousands of views in what is a relatively short space of time. This form of advertising is underutilised by most and it is only quite recently that advertisers and marketers have latched onto the power of viral marketing. There is also the issue that not everyone has the ability to view these videos.
There is ongoing debate as to the relative effectiveness of video marketing, with some arguing that a video will not 'go viral' unless it has the significant budget required to produce a video that will be impressive enough. Others are a little skeptical and are simply not willing to experiment with their own videos, opting instead to stick with more traditional marketing channels.
With the increase in 'on demand' television and internet television, the audience for TV adverts is greatly reduced so it is clearly in the interests of marketers to exploit this growing online audience. One of the biggest benefits of video marketing is that they can generate large volumes of traffic and reach the top of search engine results in as little as 48 hours. At the moment Youtube is synonymous with online video, however the potential for social media marketing of video is relatively untapped.
In many ways video can be a lot more effective than trying to position your website competitively in search engine results. The 'viral effect' can depend heavily on community submissions as well as social tagging. If your company is thinking of investing in producing videos for the web then it is important that you don't fall into the trap of simply thinking that it will 'go viral'. You need to have the capability and creativity to produce a video that will entertain, inform or suitably persuade the viewer otherwise the money spent on production will be wasted.
There is no doubt that internet video is revolutionising the way that marketers promote their products and it is important that companies keep up with developments as their advertising must not get lost in advertising channels that could soon become redundant.
Trevor Richards
Trevor Richards is writing on behalf of Fluid Creativity, a supplier of web design Manchester, UK.
View all articles by Trevor Richards