Should Video be Part of Your Internet Strategy?

 

Here are just 6 statistics about video from the 50 statistics on the article from Insivia “50 video marketing statistics that you need to be aware of for 2013” see more

  1. According to ComScore, 45.4 percent of users viewed at least one video online over the course of a month and the average user spend over 16 minutes watching video ads in a month
  2. 86% of colleges and universities have a presence on YouTube, according to the University of Dartmouth.
  3. 90% of users say that seeing a video about a product is helpful in the decision process.
  4. 75% of executives watch work-related videos on business websites at least once a week.
  5. One minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words.
  6. According to Online Publishers Association, 80% of users recall a video ad they viewed in the past 30 days.

Using video is an effective way to engage with your customers, members and prospects.

Video engages people in a way that photos and text alone can’t. For small
business owners and nonprofit managers, using video in your marketing
can bring faces, voices, personality, and heart to your operation, while also
demonstrating your authenticity. To top that, on sites like Facebook, video
posts generate 100% more engagement than text-only posts.

Here are five reasons to add video to your marketing mix.

  1. Tell your story quickly:  People don’t have a lot of time, so you want to get your message across quickly. Video can communicate a lot of information in a short amount of time.
  2. Put a face to your business or organization: A video helps bring your business or organization to life, and it makes your communications more personal. Putting people on camera makes you and your team real to your customers and members.
  3. Get your readers to remember your message: Let’s face it: In general, we remember little of what we read. Our retention of a message is much better (estimates are three times better) when it includes pictures, sound, and motion. Your readers can only take action if they remember what you said.
  4. People enjoy video: People like to read, but they really like video. We watch TV, go to the movies, stream video content to our computers and mobile phones, and more.
  5. Creating your video is fun and easy to share: You can create your own videos or work with a partner.  Share your video is available on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, your own website and blogs.  Videos hosted on these sites can help your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts as they give sites like Google and Bing yet another  piece of content associated with your brand to crawl and serve up to the masses.

Some Examples

Welcome to your business.  Put a personal face on your business. Use this on your website, facebook page, play it at a trade show, share at a business networking meeting, ad to your blog.

Demo of a product or service.  Show how your product is made, how you carry out your services, add value to the product by showing the quality and details of how it is made.  Excellent for artists, artisans, creators of all types.

Tourist destination.  Show your area, environment, activities, experiences.

Fundraising.  Show the issue or problem and what you are doing to be part of the solution.  Touch the heart of the viewer and get them engaged so they want to take action.

Tour a Property.  Show a property for sale, destination, features and

There are lots of ways to make a video and a variety of approaches.  Create your plan, shoot and edit the video – on your own or with a partner.  Contact me with any questions on how to get started. 

See Eckova Film and Media Production for more details about creating video.

Stories are Powerful for Fundraising

Stories are a powerful means for reaching the heart of your audience.

Tell Your Story
Tell Your Story

Stories are a powerful means for reaching the heart of your audience.

This article has some excellent ideas on how to identify YOUR story and then how to use that story to effectively market your organization. The Rule of Three’s For Nonprofits – Nonprofit Marketing & Fundraising Storytelling Made Easy” In Marc Pitman’s article he discusses these key methods with some excellent and practical suggestions:

  1. Identify three authentic qualities about your organization;
  2. Identify three natural channels of communication; and
  3. Feed the three qualities into those three channels three times for the next three months.

I would add to the channels of communications a few more to the specifically Internet based communications. He mentions the website and ezines.  I would add blogs, articles in online ezines, your own enewsletter, participating in online forums, profile listings and participation on FaceBook and LinkedIN, and starting up a twitter profile. A video – or a series of short “story” videos can be a part of telling the story – on your website and on YouTube.

Your donors are often participating on the Internet and all these locations give you added channels for getting your story heard and seen.

Videos – Important for your organization?

Videos are an important method for getting your message out to a broad audience.

Video as a means of presenting your organization have become increasingly important.  This was always an effective method of presenting a message but in the past it was limited to specific occassions or limited audience presentations.

Now however video has become mainstream and is an effective part of the marketing mix.  Videos now can be used to reach out to a broad audience.  If you want to educate, inform, activate, promote your cause – videos are now a mainstream method for helping you do that.

Peering into 2009: 10 Predictions for Online Video – This has some interesting insights on past and upcoming scenarios for video — So, what’s in store for web video in 2009? Here are ten things that you can expect to see over the next twelve months.

See more examples of how organizations have used video.