Clicksharp Marketing

How small businesses can create, promote and optimize video content to add value to their overall marketing strategy.

To download this white paper in PDF format, please click here.

Major corporations awoke to the potential of web-based video a long time ago. Among the most popular channels on YouTube, one can find heavyweights of the entertainment and media verticals, such as Universal Music Group, CBS, Nintendo Wii and National Geographic. Other industries, however, are also well represented by such global brands as Chrysler, Absolut, Philips, Nike, and E*Trade. Each has visibly made online video, whether professionally produced or user-generated content, an important part of their brand marketing agenda.

Just a $2 billion dollar industry in 2007, eMarketer has predicted a torrid pace of growth and a valuation well over $9 billion by 2012. Moreover, as a category, by that year Rich Media & Video will roughly double its share of total online advertising spending in the United States to nearly 19%. This would place it number two behind search engines among all major targets for online advertising dollars. {1}

Contrary to the widely held belief that online video only resonates with younger demographics, this format also engages adult consumers. Among adults aged 25 or older, almost half (48%) of females and roughly two out of three males (66%) view online content at least once a week.

Video is, quite simply, where the growth is. But how can a small business join the party?

Often times, all it takes is a digital camera, a computer, and a little bit of creativity.

1. Establish a content development strategy.

Who do you want to watch these videos, and what would you like to tell them? Think about which promotional strategies have been most impactful in the past. Interview your employees, your best customers and your most trusted vendors. Go to YouTube and see what other kinds of videos people have uploaded addressing themes germane to your business. For a service provider, there’s nothing quite like a lively testimonial from a satisfied client. If you sell a product, showing it in action is a great way to convey its value.

This is the most important part of the process, the base off which all your potential will be realized — or squandered. Take the time to put every good idea on the table, and then see if it meets the following criteria:

• Can I get my message across in ten minutes or less?
• Am I adequately promoting the product without being too pushy?
• Does the video convey a message which is consistent with the corporate strategy?
• Is it plausible that a viewer would watch it and be compelled to share with others?
• If the viewer does not become a customer, will the video still impart some value?
• Would the video be different from what’s been in done in past?

If you want to embellish your video content, you can try your hand at any of the editing programs available on the market. Also consider the possibility of screencasting, especially if a major part of your business is executed or delivered via computer.

For Mac, try IShowU for screencasting, and for mixing and editing, iMovie will more than suffice. For Windows, Camtasia Studio and Windows Movie Maker are good equivalents. These programs tend to be user friendly, and ideal for a small business owner or marketing manager who is too busy to take a course in advanced video production.

2. Syndicate your video content far and wide.

Founded by Brett Wilson and John Hughes just two years ago, TubeMogul is an online video syndication platform intended to “empower online video producers, advertisers and the online video industry by providing publishing tools and insightful, easy to interpret analytics.” {3} On an internet cluttered with tools, widgets, and social networks offering the same old things, TubeMogul is a tool to keep on your short list of go-to resources.

Once you’ve set up an account, the next step is to create and consolidate accounts with all the other major video websites. Currently, TubeMogul supports the following video hosting/sharing sites:

After inputting the necessary login information (using StupidVideos prudently, if at all), you’ll simply upload your video to TubeMogul, and they’ll take care of broadcasting it to all the other sites. This can take several minutes, or significantly longer on slower connections (and depending on the size of your video), so while it’s uploading you’ll input the metadata: a title and description for your video, plus relevant tags to help position it for various search engine queries. Do yourself a favor and create a spreadsheet where you can consolidate all this information. You may find you want to retrieve it at a later date, and if you’re uploading multiple videos, there may be some overlaps in this information.

You can be almost certain that, no matter how large your distribution list may be, search engines will provide you access to an even wider audience. All the aforementioned sites have some sort of search function which sorts through their own index — and then of course, there are the “at large” search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN Live, and the like. When inputting this metadata, aiming for these bigger search engines will cover you on the individual sites as well; here’s how you can use the three main input categories of TubeMogul to optimize your position:

TITLE. Many of these video sites automatically map the specified title of the video as the title for the web page on which it is presented — and it is this page which gets crawled by the search engines and tentatively appears in search results.

• Think of a good title for your video which, first and foremost, will appeal to would-be viewers. Then ask yourself: “are any of the keywords interchangeable?” If so, try running them through SEO Book’s invaluable Keyword Suggestion Tool — this will give you an idea of whether people actually search for that term, or a better alternative exists. (Note: like all market research tools, the results are not to be taken as indelible facts. Simply use them as a guideline.)
• Google only pays attention to the first 66 (give or take) characters of your Title. It’s OK if you exceed that number (Yahoo! and some others will still pick them up), but try to get as many high-quality, complete keywords into that first 66 characters. (Hint: Don’t want to waste time counting? Read up on the LEN function available in most spreadsheet applications including Microsoft Excel.)
• Keep in mind that as a small business, your company and its brand names tend not to be highly trafficked keywords. They might still find their place in the Title, but ideally not at the expense of other more valuable keywords.

DESCRIPTION. Here’s where you elaborate on the title, put your video in context, maybe sign your name and drop a link to the company website. (Note: in most or all cases, these links are “nofollowed,” meaning that a user can click through, but search engines won’t pay attention to this particular link in determining your search engine rankings. That’s done to prevent spammers from putting up a video and then dropping hundreds of links.)

Similar to the Title, the Description will often be mapped to the description tag of the web page where your video appears. This is what (usually) generates the two lines of text underneath the Title when a search result is shown in Google. It’s a helpful strategy to optimize for important keywords in the Description as well, and in this case Google will pay attention to roughly 155 characters. In general, though, you can speak more naturally here. Do remember, however, that often times when a person is looking at an array of search results, the description is a big factor in whether or not they will click the link.

TAGS. These will usually get mapped to the corresponding web page’s meta keywords tag, which is of limited value for search engine optimization. It’s better to think of the tags as a catch-all field for all the important terms related to your content, including perhaps a few that didn’t make it into your Title or your Description. Terms gleaned from the SEO Book keyword tool (see above) can certainly be useful here. Just don’t overdo it; fifteen or twenty ought to do the job.

And just like that, TubeMogul has everything it needs to syndicate your content to the most important video sites.

3) Get social!

Many of the TubeMogul partner sites include a social component; YouTube is a perfect example. Small businesses can create channels where all their videos are consolidated; visitors can subscribe to these channels to be notified of forthcoming videos. The marketers can also join groups populated by their target market or other industry professionals. By reaching out to individuals and groups, the account’s “friends” list expands, creating new options for targeted marketing communications.

An especially powerful feature on YouTube is the “video response.” If you come across a video with content that is in some way complementary to your own, this is a very intuitive way to guide qualified visitors from the first video to your own. For example, if a forward-thinking car enthusiast uploads a video about his classic 1968 Corvette for sale, an equally innovative car mechanic might shoot a quick video of his garage, with some footage of Corvettes and other thoroughbred muscle cars, a few smiling mechanics, a quick message to his clientele and a thumbs up.

The social component of web-based video marketing can also be taken to other social sites with a small business focus. Google’s Local Business Center allows account holders to upload videos and place them next to user reviews. Merchant Circle, a more reviews-focused site, directly embeds YouTube videos without the need for messy code. Briz.com makes it easy to align your video campaigns with other content driving your customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives.

Just like all other content on the web, the value of videos increases a hundred fold when they’re used to proactively engage people.

4) Bring your videos back home with you.

Just because your videos are now live on a dozen or more sites doesn’t mean you can’t keep squeezing value out of them. Your own company website or blog, for instance, is an ideal place to embed your content (e.g. YouTube shows the embed code right under the description, which can be pasted as raw HTML directly into most web pages). This presents your video in a little player module, allowing the user to watch the video without even leaving your site — this way they process the information in the context you choose.

Example: a May 2008 study published by FindLaw indicates that when choosing a lawyer online, consumers visit an average 4.8 websites before making a decision. This number drops to 1.8 when the site offers a video. {4}

If you’re promoting video content about your flagship product or service, would you rather it be seen on a third-party site like YouTube — or on the site of you the owner, next to detailed specifications, customer testimonials, special promotional discounts, press releases and related PR, and so on? It’s a no-brainer.

Video sites and search engines will drive a lot of awareness, but the best viewers of your content are the ones who came to your site to begin with. They’re well-qualified, already have a relationship with you, and if they’ve bothered to click “Play,” they’re probably more likely to stick around and watch the whole thing.

5) These are your numbers. These are your numbers going “crunch.”

Here’s where TubeMogul will once again come in handy. After you’ve let some time pass and some views accrue for your video content, go back into your account and from the Dashboard, choose Track Videos. You’ll see a list of your accounts with all the sites for which you provided logins. Click on one of these and you’ll be treated to a chart showing the daily, weekly, or monthly accrued views and comments for your videos. You can add other individual videos or entire accounts to the graph, to see the impact that each has had on your entire video marketing effort.

You can email yourself the reports, and even schedule daily or weekly updates. The data can even be exported to a spreadsheet, so you can drop it into a line graph and impress the CEO at your next presentation.

YouTube’s Insight module takes this step one further. While you’ll have a smaller base to draw from, since it won’t incorporate data from the other sites, the upside is still tremendous. On your My Account page, under “Performance and Data Tools” click on YouTube Insight. If you thought TubeMogul was cool, you’ll be impressed with what you see: geographical origins of viewers, age and gender demographics, and some interesting data on popularity trends. This is the kind of data that usually costs an arm and a leg, but it’s free to anyone proactive enough to put it to use.  (Jake Matthews of 10e20 wrote a great post on optimizing and analyzing video with YouTube Insight.)

As always, the analysis of your content’s performance is worth little without subsequent execution. Was your content viral enough to sustain itself after you first spread the word? Did you succeed in reaching the right target? Are visitors to your channel being compelled to subscribe?

Now you know a little bit more about how to make your next video even better.

___________________________

About the author:

Paul Burani experienced the thrill of viral video success en route to the 2007 Super Bowl. After the fun was over, he thought to himself, “Let’s go again!!” — and founded Clicksharp Marketing.

Clicksharp Marketing is a digital marketing agency based in New York City. In addition to working with video and other social media, Clicksharp helps New York’s growing businesses find new channels of customer engagement and retention via Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Visit Clicksharp’s YouTube channel.

Other useful resources for using video for small business marketing strategies:

• A Small Business Marketing Success Story: A small business can have millions of dollars in revenue and dozens of employees, or it can be a one-man-band, turning passion into a living. This month’s small business marketing success story is about the latter.
• Video Marketing for Free Traffic: Forget the silly videos you’ll find all over YouTube of kids running into fences and demonstrating the newest dance move. Instead, consider making a video tightly targeted towards your niche.
• Guide to Video Marketing on YouTube: Youtube is the largest video sharing site to date, with the most traffic and the highest amount of users on it making Youtube the definitive place for getting your videos published and marketed.
• Annoying Video And Audio Marketing: If you force video or audio into my little space, I will leave your site quicker than a very quick thing, and, believe me I’m far from being the only one. Here is a list of guidelines and thoughts for wannabe video moguls.
• How to Create a Viral Infomercial: Looked at a certain way, consulting is merely a fancy word for instruction. If you sell this service directly, offering sample-sized portions of your core product is an excellent way to build brand equity and engage your target audience.

References

1. “Standardizing Online Video Ads.” eMarketer: April 30, 2008.
   http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006219&src=article1_newsltr
2. “Online Insights: I Want My Online Video.” Burst Media: January 1, 2008.
   http://www.burstmedia.com/assets/newsletter/items/2008_01_01.pdf
3. “TubeMogul: Empowering Online Video”
   http://www.tubemogul.com/about/aboutus.php
4. “Law Firms Find Business Through Online Video.” FindLaw: May 21, 2008.
   http://company.findlaw.com/pr/2008/052108.video.html

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 @ 3:18 pm on the category SEO, Small business, Video, Viral marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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