In today’s fast-paced world, video is ubiquitous. From cell phones to still cameras, most electronic devices have the capability to capture video. Length, quality and special features vary across devices, but it’s still video. And with the surging popularity of public video-sharing websites such as YouTube, virtually any newsworthy event can be e-blasted to the entire world in a matter of minutes – or even faster. Whether rudimentary or polished, silly or sophisticated, videos can captivate even the most finicky attention span. In fact, people are so fascinated by this newly accessible and personalizable technology that they’ll watch almost any kind of video. Just think about all of the video links you’ve received in emails over the past month. This is the message we need to heed in business – Videos Get Attention!
Let’s start with the basics. Every business should have a website. Period. Today, a website is the equivalent of a business card. Would you ever consider not having business cards? Of course not. Now that we’ve established this marketing mantra, let’s talk about the value of having video on your website.
The importance of video is obvious in these examples of uses on a business website:
· Promotional video – the perfect vehicle for telling everyone about your latest
and greatest product or service;
· Training video – more compelling than a boring training manual;
· Client/customer testimonials video – enhance your credibility with real-life feedback from people who know what you do;
· Product demonstration video – join the infomercial bandwagon;
· Before-and-after video – a great way to show dramatic results;
· Video message from business owner/president – words on paper lack the clout and personality of an owner’s first-person video;
· Website introduction video – with millions of websites just a few keystrokes away, it’s a challenge to grab and keep a visitor’s attention unless you make an excellent first impression with a great video story.
As you can see, there are many ways videos bring a website to life with your unique stamp, helping to distinguish you from the competition. With the ease of creating video today, you can quickly and inexpensively express your message using motion, color, audio, graphics, images and people – which would otherwise take pages to convey. The more personality your website has, the more likely visitors are to stick around and read about your products and services. Think of video on your website as the equivalent of going to a party wearing a great shirt or dress that makes a statement. Naturally, people are drawn to personality-driven websites the same way they’re drawn to personality-plus people.
If you’d like to know the next steps for creating a video “personality” for your website, email me so we can cover it in detail in the next newsletter.
Blessings,
Chris.
