Internet Video Marketing: The Newest Online Trend

Since email marketing has become somewhat of a difficult marketing venue, due to spamming, it was only a matter of time before a new way to market emerged: Internet video marketing. Internet video marketing, at present, is the best marketing tool available because our culture is visually oriented.

If given the option, most people would choose to watch a small video clip as opposed to reading boring Web content. When done properly, video marketing can be a very effective tool that will help you grow your business and increase sales to a point where you are happy. Just remember, effective doesn't necessarily mean expensive.

One of the biggest Internet video marketing mistakes is making a video just to make a video. The Internet is not the place for a "monkey see monkey do" mentality. This will do more harm than good. There is a lot more to an effective video campaign than just putting together a video so you have something to add to your website.

When Internet video marketing is used properly and effectively it can be a great tool to help improve your lead generation and sales. Some Internet websites have reported that streaming videos have increased their conversion rate by as much as 33%. A statistic this good cannot be ignored.

One of the main advantages of using videos for marketing, is that a video gets to the point much quicker than the traditional text format approach, so don't make your customers sit through a 30-minute video on the history of your company, chances are they aren't interested.

However, Internet video marketing is not as easy and clear-cut as writing a blog post or a news story. Here are some tips and tricks so that you can use Internet video marketing to its fullest potential; reaping the rewards of increased sales and improving your leads.

Don't take the video you just made, put it into a video directory and wait for the video to bring prospects to you. It doesn't happen that way. If marketing was that simple there would be less time spent doing it. It is important to optimize using more than just the video search engines. Utilize the content search engines; they are there, so use them.

Name your video. It is highly unlikely that your video will show up in the search engine if its name is "32541859.mov" rather than something like "Internet-Video-Marketing.mov." Use keywords in your video title and description. Your video will be found much easier by the search engines in order to index it properly.

Make your video short, zippy and professional. It should only take you 2-3 minutes to say what it would take someone 10 minutes to read on a website. If you grab a customer's attention within the first 30 seconds there is a good chance they will watch the entire video. It also increases your chance of making a sale.

If you are linking to your video from other pages on your website, use anchor text. Anchor text, which is the visible text in a hyperlink, carries a lot of weight when it comes to search engine algorithms because the linked text is usually relevant to the landing page. Include RRS feeds allowing viewers to subscribe.

RSS feeds are an automatic way for your customers to receive content, as opposed to having to do a manual check. Double-check to make sure that the video file you submit has the proper extension. A good marketing video with the wrong extension will not lead to an increase in sales if your potential customers can't view it.

Submit your internet marketing videos to the venues computer turn to for videos, such as YouTube, Google Videos and Yahoo! Videos. One great benefit to submitting with one or all of these is that your video will be hosted for free, keeping your website bandwidth for your customers. Currently with 6.1 million YouTube registered users; that is a lot of potential customers in one place you have the ability to reach.

Online marketing is being redefined by video marketing. Businesses are communicating with their customers in ways that weren't heard of 10 years ago. Yet in another few years, it is quite likely that new ways of marketing will be developed and used, possibly even replacing the newest trend of today: Internet video marketing. But until that time comes, learn the basics of how to video market successfully and enjoy the ride to the top.