5 Video Marketing Tips for Your Website

by Lisa Wirthman.  Lisa is a freelance journalist covering women, business, policy and social good.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, consider this: one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words, according to a report by  Forrester Research.

Videos are great for concentrating large amounts of information into an easy-to-understand message. It's such a popular medium that YouTube now has 4 billion daily video views, with about 60 hours of video uploaded to the site every minute.

Video marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach online viewers. In fact, consumers who view a video are 174% more likely to purchase a product, reports Retail Touchpoints. With statistics like these, why wait? Here are four video marketing tips to help you incorporate video into your website.

Keep it Short

You have just eight seconds to capture viewers' attention –- less than the attention span of a goldfish -- so make those seconds count. Get to the point quickly with a specific message that will help you reach your target viewers before they tune out.

As a general rule, it's helpful to keep all videos under three minutes to ensure that you don't lose viewers before you have a chance to complete your pitch, advises Vidyard CEO Michael Litt.

Collect Feedback

Online metrics such as social media shares can help you understand which messages your target market likes best. YouTube and other video hosting sites offer many great analytics tools that enable you to see the demographics of your viewers, whether they're watching to the end of the video, and what day and time they're most likely to watch.

Before you post, you may want to send out a secure version of your video to trusted contacts to see if your message is both engaging and clear, advises ReelSEO.

Be a Storyteller

Successful video marketing campaigns use storytelling techniques to create videos that are both timely and memorable. Creativity is the key to engaging viewers with videos, whether you use a popular song, a clever parody, or spoof a famous ad.

Blendtec, for example, mixes plenty of humor into its popular Will it Blend? storytelling videos. Founder Tom Dickson dons safety goggles and a white lab coat before using the company's appliances to blend everything from iPhones to glow sticks. The video series boosted Blendtec's sales of consumer blenders by over 700 percent.

Tell a Bigger Story

Instead of using video marketing to talk about your brand, talk about what your business does for others. Describe your product's impact on the planet, for example, or the way it improves people's lives.

Building emotional connections by promoting a theme that goes beyond your brand can make a big difference in how viewers react to your site. “Emotions drive decisions, prompt actions, and change mindsets, leading to strong loyalty and a deep personal connection with a given brand that can extend beyond its rational attributes," writes Debbie Williams, author of “Brands in Glass Houses."

To make those emotional connections through your site, try these tips from Williams:

• Use words that provoke feelings or share a philosophy, rather than simply describing your product.
• Create a movement that others want to join to show that you really get your target audience and its needs.
• Be true to your mission and fearless about what your product represents.

With only a few short seconds to grab viewers' attention, video marketing is an effective way for sites to tell big stories in a small amount of time. Add in the potential for increased social sharing, customer loyalty, and online purchasing and you have a scenario that any entrepreneur or small business owner can enjoy.

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