The Video Marketing Blog

7 Things You MUST Do to Maximize Your Video ROI

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Making one or more videos to promote your business is, as everyone knows, a very smart thing to do. But making videos is only half the process. The other half is using them correctly so they help you get found, and so they reach as many people as possible. Here are seven things you MUST do with your videos, to get maximum bang for your video production buck.

1. Put your videos on YouTube. A study by Forrester Research showed that Google likes to show YouTube videos on the first page of searches. In fact, according to Forrester’s study, Google preferences YouTube videos by a factor of 53 over plain text pages. (But - this is only true for properly-optimized videos.)
2. Properly optimize your videos – wherever they are. Google and the other search engines are video-blind. They cannot ‘see’ a video – all they see are words. So for your videos to show up in searches on any search engine – not just Google – you must properly optimize your videos with the correct words – keywords and phrases - regardless of where you’re hosting them. Here’s how to optimize your videos on YouTube.  
3. Put your videos on your website. Studies show that websites with video keep visitors on site longer than websites without video. And the longer people stay on your site, the higher the likelihood that they’ll buy from you.  Also – don’t make your videos hard to find by parking them on a seldom-visited page, or making them very tiny and putting them ‘below the fold’ so people have to scroll down to find them. Place your videos on the most visited pages on your site, and place them above the fold so people see them as soon as the page loads.
4. Make sure the videos on your website are properly hosted. In today’s world, people don’t only watch online video on PCs. They also watch them on smart phones and iPads and other devices. That’s why it’s really important that you NOT host videos on your own server. Hosting your own video, or using a hosting method that is Flash-only, means that many people won’t be able to see your video. They’ll just see a big empty hole on your web page. So host them on a service that’s figured out how to have videos play on all platforms. There are many of these services, including YouTube, Vimeo, Brightcove, Vitomy, and Wistia.
5. Give your videos to your salespeople to load directly onto their laptops and iPads. Why? Because you’re taking a gamble if you expect them to play your videos during sales presentations from YouTube. Make sure your salespeople have a backup plan when they’re playing your videos via YouTube during a sales presentation.
6. Use your videos on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Video is extremely social, because people love to share video. So make sure you use all your social media channels to spread your videos. And don’t be shy about asking people to ‘share’ – if they like your video, they will.
7. Send your videos to individual prospects and clients. If you’ve got a prospect that’s interested in the product you made a video about, don’t be shy about sending them a link to the video. It’s a great way to foster engagement. Same with clients – don’t hesitate to send them links to your videos, and then engage with them by asking their thoughts.

 Here are two more great tips:

• If your company issues press releases, be sure to include video. Press releases with video are read more often than press releases without video.
• If you use email for marketing campaigns, include video in your emails. Studies show increased engagement and increased click-through rates with video.

All of these things are designed to put your videos to work for you, connecting with people through search engines, the Internet, social media, and direct contact.

After you’ve done all these – see if you can think of other ways to boost your video production ROI!