Making Ecommerce Product Videos That Sell

Lights! Camera! Action! To get the most from your ecommerce product videos, it's important to make them engaging. Take a look at these important tips to help your online business boost conversions with your product videos.

It’s time to pull out your director’s chair and make some killer product videos for your ecommerce site. Regardless of your experience or access to technology, follow these tips to make your videos a selling machine.

1. First, keep your videos short. No one wants to sit and watch an epic telenovela about why your products are so amazing. Keep it less than two minutes and try to make it flashy. 
2. Next, demo your product. Remember, you’re trying to sell with these product videos. The goal here is to essentially turn your product description into an interactive and engaging video. Thus, make sure that you’re showing off what the product can do and why customers should purchase. 
3. Along the same lines, it’s important to show the benefits of the product within your video. Don’t sit there and go through a laundry list of technical features. Instead, explain why those features are beneficial to the user and put them into a lifestyle perspective so customers can see how it will enhance their lives. 
4. Fourth, include product close-ups. Have you seen those restaurant commercials on TV where they have extreme close-ups of the food? You know, the ones where they splash the lemon juice that makes everything fantastic? Your job is to do the same thing – your product video will complement your product images, so make sure that you zoom in and show your products in a good light.
5.  Last but not least, always, always optimize your product videos when you post them to YouTube or distribute them elsewhere. Make sure you have a keyword-rich, engagin headline. Also be certain to include your tags and relevant keywords.

 Following these steps will help your videos appear higher in organic search results and help more people find them. Hopefully this is helpful in making your ecommerce product videos a selling machine! If you have any questions, we’re always happy to help.

Qualification for a YouTube Branded Channel

Since its inception in 2005 YouTube has grown from an obscure video sharing site to the go-to for companies, individuals and other groups to show off their best video content. As of 2011 the site offers a number of different options for video creators, including the Partner Channel where popular users can get paid through advertising, and the Brand Channel which serves as the "YouTube home" for companies and their brands. But as you'll see the question may not be whether you qualify but whether you can pay for it.

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1. So Who Qualifies?

   • If you have a company, business, organization or brand and want to promote it on YouTube, then chances are you qualify to have a YouTube Brand Channel. The only way to know, though, is to ask. Before you can begin to set up a YouTube Brand Channel you'll need to contact a YouTube representative and let them know a bit about your business and what your goals are for your Channel.

   The Application

   • The first step in contacting YouTube is filling out the application that's available on YouTube's "Advertising" page. Fill in the required fields including your name, company name, website and phone numbers. The form also asks you to give them some idea of your advertising goals, so give this some thought before you fill out the form. If need be check in with the other marketing people at your place of business or have a look at your business plan to get a reminder of your business' core values and marketing approach. The more professional and organized you present yourself the better. Once you've filled out your form it's a waiting game. Someone from YouTube should contact you within a week.

   The Costs

   • Extra exposure for your business with a professional look is not free. If you want to create a Brand Channel prepare to pay. While YouTube does not publicly post a price sheet for Brand Channels know that they're not cheap. The Brand Channel itself may be free but according to other bloggers who have been there you have to buy advertising on the site in order to have the Brand Channel which could be several thousand dollars or much more. The only way to know for sure what it will cost your business is to talk with a YouTube representative by following the steps detailed above.

   Other Options

   • So you've talked to a YouTube representative and perhaps determined that a Brand Channel is out of your scope or price range. Before you despair know that you do have other options which still could lead to increased profits for your business. A good way to start is with a regular YouTube Channel which is free and open to anyone. By posting regular videos and promoting them on your social media sites, your company newsletters and in any other marketing chains you currently have, you could slowly develop a following. Once you've created a body of work and have a collection of subscribers you can apply for YouTube's Partner Program which allows you to get paid when users view ads alongside your videos. Over time all of this could lead to enough revenue to allow you to afford a Brand Channel for your business.

Courtesy : Nicole Vulcan

Business Benefits for Having a YouTube Channel Read more

YouTube is not only a popular website for individuals to share their favorite videos; it has also emerged as a marketing tool for businesses. Many businesses actively promote their products or services by creating a YouTube channel that includes a company's branding, video advertisements and interviews with executives and employees and ways for customers to interact with them. A YouTube channel, effectively used, can help a business improve its search engine rankings and increase awareness of its products.

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2. YouTube's Reach

   • One of the major business benefits of creating a branded YouTube channel is that YouTube can help generate traffic to a company's website, which can help increase sales. According to Alexa, a Web analysis company, YouTube is the third most popular website in the world (following only Google and Facebook), with about 490 million people globally visiting each month, watching about 2.9 billion hours of video monthly. Businesses that create effective, compelling videos and upload them to their YouTube channel, including links to their business' website, can drive traffic from YouTube to their site.
   

   Search Rankings

   • Building an effective YouTube channel, frequently updated with fresh and interesting video content, can also help a business improve its search rankings, according to a July 2011 article by Search Engine Journal. Specifically, video content that uses the right keywords and tags that are relevant to that company and its products can help a company's "organic" search rankings, which are the results that appear in a search engine because they are the most relevant to the terms a person is searching for, not because of paid advertising. In addition, YouTube is the Web's second largest search engine -- trailing only Google. Companies with YouTube channels can pay to have their videos ranked higher in the rankings when a person searches for videos using specific keywords.

Courtesy : Erik Arvidson

4 Principles To Improve Your Social Video Strategy

Finding a way to unleash the power of video in social can be essential to your brand's long-term success. In fact, according to Cisco, social video will account for 69% of consumer Internet traffic by 2017.

However, cracking the code to video success on social networks can be mind-boggling: from allocating budgets to measuring results, to finding the right audience on the right platforms.

So what might be helpful for you to know before your next campaign? Here are some tips to help you win in one of the most competitive advertising landscapes.

Apply traditional planning principles. With more than 1.3 billion Facebook and 271 million Twitter users globally, social can deliver as much scale as traditional reach channels. Combined with industry-standard audience insight, this provides brands with the unique opportunity to effectively distribute their video content and connect with potential new customers.  Planning your social campaigns on reach & frequency (as you would in other channels) will ensure cost-efficient delivery vs. traditional video channels.  

Go native. The ultimate driver of your video advertising should be to deliver the best possible experience to your audience. The new Facebook and Twitter video solutions provide high-impact premium video experiences in native environments.  As a result, advertisers that use native video formats are seeing campaign performance up to 5X better then many leading VOD channels. 

Personalize content. As marketers and advertisers place more and more emphasis on how to engage with their audiences, a one-size-fits-all communication strategy is convenient, but not always effective. Instead of sending out just one video to a broad audience, experiment with bespoke messaging for specific audience groups. Test lessons provide scope for future creative and targeting strategies.

Tell a story. A brand’s narrative is not limited to 15” or 30” video spots, and social video solutions allow for improved storytelling through depth of content and lasting customer experiences.  Engaging content and use of sequential messaging delivers best results.

The combination of sight, sound and motion, with the addressability, measurement, and scale of platforms like Facebook and Twitter, means social media has the potential to be the most powerful brand-building medium yet, delivering as much scale and performance as any other traditional reach channels. 

courtesy : Ruth Aber