Online Video - Now It's Affordable

Published Date: 04/08/2009

How do you reach the widest possible audience when, like most typical small businesses, you have a limited marketing budget?

Networking can be effective and fun. It’s a given that people buy from people they like and trust, but how much time do you have for face-to-face networking, how many people can you meet? And how many canapes can you manage?  

  

For most small companies, the internet has democratised the way we pitch for new business. It can be a very cheap way of marketing ourselves, helping us to reach a much wider, or indeed a more targeted audience for our products and services – for much less money. So we spend money on SEO and we invest in pay per click advertising, all in the hope and expectation of driving our website up the Google rankings. And we might just make it to No1. Hooray! But what then?

  

Consider for a moment the primary function of your website. It’s the shop front to your business. Many people visiting your site will already be in buying mode, researching new suppliers. And what do you give them? “Sprockets & Widgets Ltd was established in 1984…”, “We’re committed to excellence in our delivery of corporate governance…”, and if they’re lucky, your visitor will get a fancy bit of Flash animation, or at least a (stock photo) picture of a smiling customer service representative taking a telephone call. Impressive?

  

Look at it another way. Someone is thinking of buying from you and they come to visit you at your premises. Would you plonk them down in reception and give them your corporate brochures before sending them on their way? Or would you show them around aspects of the business they would be interested in, introduce them to key people, and explain a little more about what you have to offer? Well, video can do this for you. Anyone visiting your website who is potentially interested in your product or service, can get access to your company overview, meet your team, and see demonstrations of your products or services. And they can do that from anywhere around the world 24/7.

 

When you think that you can create really professional videos for your website for about £600, and when you consider the huge recent improvements in streaming and player technology, it’s not surprising that small businesses are taking advantage of this new medium to dramatically improve their level of online enquiries and sales conversions. Imagine watching a sympathetic solicitor talking a young couple expertly through a conveyancing transaction. It’s just a 1 minute film, but you’ve not only met the solicitor, you’ve seen what the solicitor does, and how well she does it. How else could the solicitor get that message across so succinctly? And remember, people can watch her video 24/7. Another example. You’re going through Yellow Pages looking for a plumber. How do you decide? Will you get ripped off if you choose the wrong one? Now suppose you can go to a plumber’s website, watch a video, and actually meet the plumber online. And you discover that he’s not a hairy gorilla with a clapped-out van and a hammer that ‘fixes’ everything (excuse the stereotype), but an enthusiastic young professional you could introduce to your mother. You get the picture.

Hotels and universities have been putting videos on their websites for several years and in America, where consumers seem to be a couple of years ahead of us, the use of online video has exploded. There, the internet video company Turn Here creates over a 1,000 videos for small businesses every month with prices averaging around £700 per video. It’s not surprising that video production companies here in the UK are repositioning themselves to meet the increase in demand.

Online video isn’t a fad, the latest internet craze. It’s come of age and it’s here to stay. In the space of just a couple of years, we have become literate in the use of YouTube, iPlayer and Vimeo – we’re becoming used to watching video content on our computer screens. And this is just the start. There are already gadgets on the market that enable you to connect your computer to your TV screen and the government is driving for a new improved broadband service to be available by 2012. All of this suggests that before too long we will be able to watch internet video in full HD quality, on our TV screens.

 

So what does this mean for small businesses? Is it possible that, with all this new technology available, potential customers will really be content to look at reams of text and still pictures on their TV screens? Or would they like to get an overview of what the company is about by meeting their key people and finding out what they have to offer? It obviously depends on the company’s central proposition, but in all probability, most websites will evolve to become mini-TV stations, allowing companies to communicate more openly and transparently with their customers, and helping them to win new business.

 

If all of this sounds like it belongs in the distant future, remember that professional quality online video is here now. Video has already proven to be highly effective in delivering results, and best of all, it’s affordable. Fortunately though, it is yet to become mainstream. So there’s still plenty of time to steal a march and make an impact online for those forward-thinking businesses able to recognise its opportunities.

More information on this article can be found on the Spectrecom website

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