There is no question that you need to market your business. Whether you are a national brand, small business or local restaurant, you need to let your customers know what you are all about. Do you make a unique product that can make your customers life easier? Perhaps you have been rated the best in customer service for the last 4 years. Maybe you have the best tasting pizza in the city. No matter who you are, or what you sell, online video is the best way to tell your business’s story.
Working in the restaurant industry for many years, I came across countless marketing tactics that cost a bundle but didn’t deliver a return on investment. We would often place coupons in local newspapers only to have a handful come back. Direct mail campaigns were costly, and literally 98% of whatever we sent would be thrown in the trash (Direct mail only has about a 2% success rate). Even if we wanted to distribute bounceback material in our own restaurant, graphic design and printing costs would cost hundreds, and have no guaranteed return.
Obviously television and radio are effective ad formats, but for a small business they are both way too expensive and target an unecessarily large audience. Now imagine you had the visual power of video combined with the ability to geo target exactly who saw that video. You could even get as specific as having that video seen on certain websites by people that were on computers within your businesses postal code. It is reality and your business should be considering it.
There are many benefits to using online video to promote your business, but I have decided to list out what I think are the most significant.
- You can literally show your business instead of trying to talk about it with print.
- Video is the most efficient way to deliver a message. You can show in a 1 min video what it would take several pages of text to explain.
- Distribution is mostly FREE! (At least for now…)
- Because of Google, your video will be seen by people who are actively looking for what you are selling.
- Online video is affordable (You can certainly find a production house that will fit your budget).
- Your video is online forever. Unlike with a newspaper ad, or direct mail piece, your video remains online indefinitely.
- You can share the video yourself. A good production house will send you code that will easily let you embed your video on a website, Facebook or even send through email.
- Online video has been proven to increase conversions. It is informative, engaging and persuasive. It will make your phone ring more.
As you can tell, I’m a big fan of online video. To get an idea of how big an impact web video will have, look how Television replaced Radio in the 1950’s. History has a sense of repeating itself, and look for online video to replace static web content. It’s more visual, more engaging and why would you read the page if you can just watch the video?
Keep Watching,
Christopher Stasiuk
