Image via CrunchBase
By Catie Foertsch, Yes! MediaWorks
You probably know that your business website ought to have video, but you may be stuck on what kind of video to make. Here are some simple steps to help you get started.
Step #1: Who is your target audience?
You don’t write your website content for everyone – you write for a specific, targeted audience. In the same way, you don’t want to make video for everyone. Start by defining the specific audience you need your video to connect with.
Step #2: What’s your message?
Each of your videos should have a single message. On the pages your visitors land on first, you may need a video that explains ‘what it is and how it works,’ or ‘we are experts at what we do’ or ‘three ways our product saves you money.’ On pages people land on next, you might need to establish credibility. Testimonial case studies are perfect for creating credibility because they let your prospects look at your product through the eyes of a happy customer.
Another way to create credibility is to videotape a seminar or presentation, and then break it up into short chunks that demonstrate your expertise. In most cases you won’t want to post the whole seminar, because your website visitors expect short, pertinent videos.
Is it important for your website visitors to understand that your company is passionate about excellent customer service? A video featuring the people who will provide that service can do that for you. Are product details important? Create brief product demo videos.
Step #3 Where is your target audience?
Video is sticky – it keeps people on your website when they otherwise might skip off to another site before they have a chance to understand if you’re a good match for them. It’s a very good idea to use video where people first enter your site, to keep them engaged.
It’s also important NOT to tuck the rest of your videos out of the way, where they’ll be difficult to find. Place them on the pages that are most visited, to give the largest number of visitors the opportunity to watch them.
Step #4 Spread Your Videos Around
Even though you may be creating videos specifically for your website, you’ll be missing a big opportunity if you ONLY use them on your website.
- Consider also placing them on YouTube and properly optimizing them to make them easy to find. Not only is YouTube the second largest search engine on the planet – but Google also loves YouTube videos and will routinely place YouTube videos on the first page of a Google search. Google ranks YouTube video 53 times higher than a similar text page, according to a Forrester research study.
- Have a Twitter account? Tweet about them to get people to go to your site and watch them.
- On Facebook? Put them there as well.
- Send links to specific prospects and customers. Give them to your sales people to use in their sales presentations
Video is the most effective tool you have for engaging your prospects and customers. These steps should get you thinking about how your company can use video to engage your prospects and customers on your website, and on the web.
