Video Marketing Online and Offline
In addition to the persuasive power of combining audio and moving pictures, videos currently rank more easily in search engines that static text and pictures, this probably has something to do with Google owning YouTube.
There are a number of production levels that may be used to get into the video directories, in ascending order of complexity:
- Simple text slide-shows with background music, you may be able to find an automatic web page to video tool out there. A couple of online tools that creates nice video montages from your pictures are One True Media and Animoto.
- Text slide shows with voice narration, adding the human element.
- Screen recordings with voice-over, a good choice for those with a face made for radio or those marketing under multiple pen names. This format is popular for tutorial and webinars. The most popular tool for such productions is Camtasia.
- Mini camcorder talking head videos, a number of successful marketers use a simple $150 Flip camcorder or a webcam for all of their recorders, often candid at your desk presentations (iJustineReviews is a fun example). Seeing that youtube has standardized on Hi Def, it’s probably worth investing in a HD camcorder.
- Quality camcorder productions suitable for broadcast TV, with edits and effects. One recent professional production spoofing viral videos is the Jen Aniston’s Sex Video.
Distributing Your Video
In some cases a video may be played only on the companies web site, although if meant to reach a broader audience or to earn some backlinks to a site it’s best to distribute the video to directories like YouTube. There are a number of similar video sites that will expand your audience. Each video directory has their own submission guidelines, many don’t accept outright advertisements, adding some redeeming qualities to videos, perhaps some instructive or entertainment content can help your videos be accepted.
You can find a slightly dated (2008) list of 186 video sharing sites here.
Automated Online Video Syndication
Those producing a lot of videos will probably want to use one of the mass distribution services that automate much of the process of submitting videos to multiple sites. TubeMogul provides free syndication to about 28 major video and social sites, they also offer powerful premium video advertising services including pay per video video distribution through media buys that reach 97% of the internet users as well as view analytics. A paid alternative is TrafficGeyser, the monthly charge is $97/mo after a 1 month trial period, some criticize TrafficGeyser for not supporting some of the more important sites that TubeMogul works with.
Getting on the Air Waves
Big time video marketers capture huge audiences with infomercials aired on paid commercial TV. Some years ago infomercials could be produced on a shoestring, these days they tend to be big budget undertakings. A low-budget talk show style infomercial may run about $20k, while a high-end production with a 12 person cast and about a week of shooting can total $75k, the Shamwow infomercial produced by the product owner and spokesman Vice cost about $25k. Distribution cost can range from as little as $10-$50 on tiny advertising cable channels, a network station airing may cost $1000-$5000 while a national spot can cost $10,000 per airing. You can get an insider’s view of infomercial production in the CNBC documentary As Seen on TV, here’s a lite tutorial showing the steps in creating and implementing a direct marketing campaign. Spot On Media offers a primer on TV media buys, breaking down the costs to CPM (Cost Per Thousand) their examples range from $0.20 to 0.75 depending on volume, CPM is commonly used in setting the cost of internet banner ads, which are similar TV costs, (remnant CPV popup window ads can be found for as low as $.0.02 CPM).
Low budget TV commercial production services are available Cheap TV Spots creates 30 second spots for $999, FYI Media Services offers 30 second productions for $599 and a few air time placements with 30 seconds costing under $5 and 1/2 hour costing about $35 to $150. Global Vision’s home made looking site offers to create 30 second spots with your provided media for $375, they also provide some insight into the TV time buying process.
Some Direct Response Television resources: The Response Guide Directory of producers, one example all-in-one media production and distribution service is, TVA Productions (Studio City CA). An example call center and fulfillment service for those marketing a typical infomercial product is Moulton Logistics (Van Nuys Ca & South Carolina). The VisualNet directory lists some 115,000 companies involved in Video and Television production. For those who play it safe, here’s a source of legal forms associated with infomercial production. And finally, one decent book, titled “YouTube® Online Video Marketing for Any Business“, Second Edition, Que, 300 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0-7897-4726-6, covers all aspects of creating and promoting a video on Youtube.