If you’ve been around me very long, you know that I’m all about using video to promote your business.But what should go into the video? In this episode, lists the key elements that must be present if you want your video to generate leads and sales.
From how the video is made to how long it should be, he covers the essential ingredients to the perfect online marketing video !
Note from Eric: Below, you will find a word-for-word transcript of this video. I provide this as an aid for the hearing-impaired and for those who might just want to read it rather than watch the video. This conversational style is not reflective of how I write. Be nice! Hey I am with spellmann.topzonedev.com. And today we’re going to be talking about . Now I know I’ve made another video about making videos but this one is going to go a little deeper into what should be in your video.
Times are changing and there are so many things that you can put in it, it will blow you away. First of all keep in mind what the purpose of your video is. It‘s to generate leads and sales.
Whenever you make any video for your website, whenever you make any video to put on Facebook or just to host on YouTube you wanna make sure that you’re doing it in such a way that it’s going to somehow generate those leads and generate sales. And we’re going to talk about how.
The purpose of these videos is content. Now I’m going to be one of the people that tells you differently than the most in the sense that I don’t believe that your video should just be blatant advertising. You don’t just wanna go out there and say “Use me!” I mean think about it.
Look at all the videos I have done. You watch every single one of them, there is no blatant advertising. The closest thing I ever get to that is at the end when I say “Hey give me a call or check me out on facebook”. That’s it. Each video should have content. Useful, usable content. And in fact I tell a lot of people and you may think
I’m crazy for doing this but if you’ve watched very single one of my videos and did what I said, you wouldn’t even need to hire me! But one of the coolest things I’ve discovered is that these videos generate more business for me than just about all my other advertising combined. So, your key is to put content out there.
How long should these videos be? Well it depends. Remember, everyone on the internet has ADD and they’re lazy. You’ve got to know your audience. They’re not going to stick around.
They’re clicking on things as fast as they can and they’re scanning them. The neat thing is, because they are lazy they would rather watch something than read something. So if your website has a big video right in the middle where they can click on, trust me they will click on that rather than having to read all the text around it. I’ve seen it.
And if you look at your internet statistics, you will see that the most clicked on item on any page that has a video is the video!
If you’re just going to be making a quick “Heres who I am heres what my business is about”, I would probably make it 3 minutes. If this is going to be the first video that people see when they come to your home page.
Make it about 3 minutes; it doesn’t have to be longer than that. Keep in mind they’re going to decide whether to go deeper based on that video. So really all you need is to give em a feel for who you are.
Now if you’re teaching something, kind of like this lesson here, I’m ok with it going 8-12 minutes long. But you really don’t want to go too much longer than that. And yes I know one of my videos goes 20 minutes long.
And I probably shouldn’t have done that, probably should have broken it up into two. But we’ve discovered that most people usually have something come up, even if your videos are most interesting ones in the world, they usually have something they need to do after that amount of time. So try to keep videos that you’re going to be teaching something down to about 8-12 max!
Be Yourself! And that’s really the key here. People connect with people, not companies! Remember that. People use your company because of you, not because of the name of the company. And so whenever you have a video, whenever you’re in front of them talking to them, you connect with them. And yes, film your mistakes.
People are ok with that. It makes you look authentic, which is more important than polish. Some people think they have to start the video completely over even if they make 1 mistake. I mean heck you see the extra word I have up there, am I going to re-make this video?
No. I’m going to keep going. People understand that. They want authentic. They want who you are. So even if you say a few “ummmms” or whatever, that’s fine. As long as you come across, as long as your personality comes across, authenticity is more important.
The more amateur the video, the more people are probably going to watch it. But if you get a supermodel and she says it perfectly from a script, well that’s what we see on National TV. No big deal. Big yawn! Okay.
Let your personality come through, that is the key. People do business with you because of you and because of your personality, which is unique.
Content. I’m telling you the key is your content. So whenever you start a video keep in mind they’re going to decide within the first few seconds whether they’re going to keep watching that video.
So open with a grabber. It might be a really cool statistic or it might be showing them something that’ll just grab them and make them wanna keep watching.
Pack it with useful content. I can’t stress this enough. You’ve got to actually give them some meat. It can’t all be fluff. You’ve got to give them something that they can actually take with them and use.
Always always always have a call to action in your videos. And in fact if you watch my videos, my call to action is always at the end to go to my website or go to my facebook page and comment or engage. So always have a call to action in every video that you do.
It may be to go download something, it may be to watch another video, it may even be to generate a lead. But there always needs to a call to action. And then of course tell them where to get more. This is the most important part. In the video itself, keep in mind the video will stand alone by itself.
They may not be watching it on your website. If you’re hosting it on YouTube, they may have just randomly found it on YouTube. So make sure that your website is always on every single video. That way they can find out who you are and how to get more information.
Do not stop. Don’t stop whatever you do. This takes time. One video is not going to make you famous. Yes it does happen for some people on the internet but not for most. It’s only after you have a bunch of videos that people start getting used to it and they start understanding what you are putting out there.
It takes time. Do what I do. Create a schedule. Every week I make my videos. And I do it at the same time. It’s actually on my schedule. That way it gets done. And I try to never let anything interrupt that. Your audience will grow. It will take time. It will grow though and spread. And speaking of spreading, spread it everywhere.
These videos, especially if you film them and upload em to your YouTube channel, they can be put on facebook, they can be embedded on your site, they can be tweeted theres so many different ways to get them out there. They can be even embedded in an email newsletter like you see me do. So spread it every where.
Well as always, if you have any questions drop by my website ericspellmann.com, visit me on my facebook page and just ask away. I am ; I’ll see you in cyberspace.