Video-Advertising for an Offline and an Online Business
The key here is the perception that videos are expensive to produce when compared to print and somehow that outlook will make people to see the video at some point instead of tossing it out. It is not only that, people feel at ease to pass it to other people adding to the chance of its being viewed by more people. The studies reveal that because videos use sight, sound, and emotion their converting rate of prospects into buyers is high and more creative material could be crammed into a video when compared to prints that could be very much limited. It is easy to make customers familiar with what is on sale before they set foot at the place of business where the service or product is on sale and the end result is dealing with a well informed customer that will require little or no attention.
Videos could also replace live demonstration and presentation by sales people to a good extent making it much easier to sell to a customer that is partially informed and anyone at the place of business could tend for such customers, which could save the business money and time on closing sales. It is possible to do it in a large scale, whereas using sales people is not only expensive, but also it is time consuming until each area is independently covered.
The most common use for video is direct marketing where it is mailed to a targeted list, which might have a one-time cost attached to it as targeted list is expensive, but the list could be used repeatedly. Or the other alternative is to target a given general residential or business area that would not have any cost other than the delivery expense, which is not that high; in fact it is similar to delivering print ads like brochures.
The other common use for video marketing is what is known as “video direct-response” where other mediums are used to advertise what the business is doing and the ad in most cases could be accompanied with a video offer to further demonstrate what the business is doing. This method is clear-cut, because the prospects are famliar and the advertisers contact them if they request for the video. The same kind of campaign could be conducted for existing customers that are on record informing them of new products and services, with all the detailed demonstration to make them familiar with the new introductions or improvements.
Overall, it is a fact that video marketing works much better than anything else, because all presentations and demonstrations are conducted via video. When used for direct marketing, the area covered and the number of prospects reached could be high resulting in attracting more business, and in most cases, a second demonstration might not be required.
The cost is proven to be lower than the other mediums when seen from the amount of sales that will be generated through such advertising method, and to bring down the cost the production could be done in-house, requiring professional help if special effects are required. For the most part, the production of the video is a one-time expense, and using the video repeatedly for a long time is possible even if there are new developments, making the only recurring expense to be the videocassettes used and the cost related to the delivering process.
When we come to what is taking place online, it has the same effect, because the communicating level with the prospects is much higher and richer than text or banner ads as so many vital information that cannot be crammed into the other methods of advertising could be put into a video. There is no doubt that it is becoming the best method of advertising and in the near future, especially as the video viewing capability is improving, it will slowly replace banner and text ads, or not using video for marketing purposes could mean losing business.
For now because DSL is not yet widespread, the video viewing capability might not be common place yet, and even if it is, DSL is not fast enough for delivering quality video content. Cable is better, but as the number of users of a given neighborhood increases it could get clogged too, affecting the quality of the video until the cable providers do something about it, which obviously could take time. Consequently, the possibility of improving the quality of video-watching capability is there. Streaming media is also picking up where streaming down all sorts of live entertainment and broadcast, or those saved on a server down to a computer is possible. Viewing all these contents requires a high-speed connection, which is improving as the number of households that are using DSN or cable is always on the rise.
In spite of the few setbacks, one other key development that is coming into the picture is interacting with the video ads, where advertisers have started demonstrating their products much more better than ever by using newly developed technologies. The experience of interacting video could come close to interacting with the products live, because most of the key utilities of a given product could be tried and examined by simply clicking on the video, which means it has evolved to more than watching a video passively like the earlier days. Prospects could do different things with the ads and the level of education they get from the ads put them in a better position to make informed decisions.
Video marketing, whether it is used offline or online has that special capability of informing the prospects much better than anything else in the marketplace currently. Because the content and the interaction could come close to as being at the location in real-time, and that is possible because so many relevant material could be crammed in one video film that could last for a long time. It is a proven method of saving money for the advertisers, because it is possible to eliminate repeat demonstrations or live presentation. In addition, there is enough proof that it has more convincing power when compared to the other methods, because it is more involving. The same is applicable for the consumers since whatever decision they make will be an informed one and, most of all, they can make the decision in the comfort of their own home or work place, which is free of any kind of unwarranted external pressure.
