By John Eberhard
Videos are a powerful way to market your business.
There are several different types of videos you can make for your business.
- Testimonial videos. These are more powerful than written testimonials because the viewer can see your client or customer.
- Company talking heads. This is where you show company executives or staff talking about the company or its products or services.
- Explainer videos. This is where you have a voiceover talking about the company products or services, and then you have either still images or video footage illustrating what the voiceover is talking about.
- Educational video. This is where you make a video educating the public on some topic related to your business.
Video Quality and Equipment
Video quality has come up a lot in recent years. I recommend making videos in HD (high definition) format, which means the resolution of the video is 1920 pixels wide by 1080 tall.
There are plenty of good quality cameras out there that will produce HD video and won’t break the bank. The Canon T series is one example. I do not recommend using a webcam camera, or a phone to shoot your video. The quality difference is really noticeable.
It’s important that your video be well lighted. You can often get away with shooting it in a brightly lit room, without any video lighting. But it is better to invest in some lights. There are some excellent videos on YouTube about 3 point lighting, such as this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Sov3xmgwg
A ring light can get you pretty good results, but make sure it is not reflected in your glasses if your wear glasses, which looks really silly.
I think it makes a big difference to have lapel microphones and record the voices, not in the camera’s sound but in a separate system. They sell hand-held digital recorders you can use for this purpose. I have gotten into using Adobe Audition for recording the sound, then marry that sound track up with the video in editing.
Editing the Video
It’s important to edit your video together after you shoot it, and to insert an intro or opening screen, as well as a call to action screen at the end. The call to action is where you tell the person to do something, usually to call you or email you or go to a specific webpage. If you are trying to sell something with the video, do NOT fail to include a call to action screen at the end, long enough for people to write down the information. I also like to edit out any long lags between talking.
I used to use Adobe Premiere Elements to edit videos, which costs only $99. I now use Adobe Premiere Pro which is considered the industry standard. There are many training videos on LinkedIn Learning on Premiere Elements, Premier Pro and any other software you can imagine.
Where to Post Your Video
Once you have your video done, it’s important to utilize it in the most number of ways possible. Here’s how:
- Post it on video sharing sites. The top is YouTube, which has the second most used search engine after Google, so you definitely want it posted there. Create a YouTube channel for your business. Second would be Vimeo.com.
- Post on your site. Once you have a video uploaded to YouTube, you can go to the Share button and select Embed, get that code and then post it on one of the pages of your site or your blog. You can have videos that are about specific products or services and then post that video on those pages of your site. You can make a page that is specifically for videos, or for video testimonials. It’s also smart to post some videos on your home page.
- Post on social media sites. On Facebook you can just post the YouTube URL and it will post the video, but if you upload the video file, it will start playing (without sound) as the viewer scrolls through his feed, giving you more of a chance to grab his attention. He can click on it to hear the sound.
- Send out an email. You can create an email that links to the video either on YouTube or your site, and send out to your email lists.
- You can use a video for a background, with text in front of it, with no sound, say at the top of your home page. But be careful with this because these files are big and it can slow down your page loading, which is a big deal today with search engines and can hurt your rankings. I would not use a video background longer than 30 seconds.
Good luck with video marketing. Call us for any help you might need.
