.
When peopletalk about online video they typically talk about videos like
this one,the Minnesota wedding entrance choreographed to the
Chris Brown balladForever.
The video was published July 19, and it already has over 15 millions views.
That'swhat you call a viral video. It's the stuff marketers dream of -- 15million people reached with no money spent on distribution orproduction. Businesses that achieve that kind of reach profitenormously. If you have any doubts,
checkout what it did to Forever's itunessales.
Of course, the chances of your companycreating a video that reaches 19 million people in three weeks areessentially zero. It's not going to happen, so don't bother.
Mostmarketers understand that truly viral videos are almost impossible tocreate -- and they use this as a reason to abandon video altogether.
That's a mistake.
Videodoesn't need to be viral to have an impact on your business. In fact,any robust
inbound marketing content strategy should include a videocomponent, designed with assumption that none of the videos will "goviral." Instead, businesses should put time into video for at least sixother reasons:
(1) Video Gives Your Company Voice -- It's onething to read a paragraph about a company, but it's a completelydifferent thing to spend four minutes listening to
a company's founderexplain the vision and purpose of the company. Video adds a personaldimension to company websites, which are typically heavy on impersonaltext.
(2) Videos Are Marketing Annuities -- Like a blog post,
videos are annuitites; once you've published yourvideo and it passes its intial burst of traffic, you'll continue to get traffic and banding value indefinitely.
(3) Videos Build Company Culture -- Videos are fun and they showthat your company can have fun. They serve as morale builders within thecompany, and recruiting tools outside the company.
(4) Video IsAnother Channel for Your Content -- Effective inbound marketing contentstrategies need to be executed in multiple media types. Some forms ofinformation are best communicated in blog posts; some in photos orgraphics; some in webinars; others in video. If you're not using oreven experimenting with any of one these channels, you're missingpotential customers.
(5) Videos Are Easier to Produce Than YouThink -- If your company is in a
content mindset, videos will be easy to produce. Don't getsucked into production details. Just plan the video, schedule time to shoot it, and make sure the shooting doesn't drag on. It doesn't need to be perfect.
(6) More Video, More Likely to Have a Big Success -- Justlike venture capital or movie production, onlinemarketing video is porfolio business. No successful moviestudio bets their year on a single film. They spread their resourcesacross multiple films, and hope they'll get one money-maker out oftheir portfolio. You should approach your marketing videos the same way.
Does your company use video for marketing? Why? What else should be on this list?Webinar: How to Use Online Video for Marketing
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