Internet marketing using video online title with web site background

How to market your business online in south Africa.

•Business marketing using YouTube Adverts,Social Media Marketing,Google Adwords, Email Drops, Facebook, Remarketing.

Marketing strategies for small businesses in South Africa.

Marketing with corporate video online.

Business small and large can over-come their competition by using affordable video marketing to achieve branding and advertising success through online media. Deciding to market with video is about one of the most important decisions a business will make.

It is especially important for the early accepters. This is because once other businesses and marketers realize the power and success of video marketing, the prices tend to go up. It is always the way of business that when there is a lower demand, the prices are low. As soon as there is a higher demand, the costs go up. At this point in time the use of video marketing is very rare. This means that not only can businesses make huge gains over their competition, they can do so on a very small budget.

Online Marketing With Video. Shows laptop with website video 1.

In a strange irony, it is the lackluster use of video for marketing in South Africa that could be the silver bullet for many businesses to over take their opposition. Not only will they likely succeed at a higher rate, their competition will not have a clue as to how it happened and how they saved the business marketer money by not competing.

This however will change over time so “time is of the essence” as they say.

You might even want to reach for the big one and say “Carpe diem”.

It’s time to out flank your enemy. Here’s how it’s done:

YouTube as a platform.

While many, if not most, businesses have a YouTube video and probably a YouTube channel with that one video, the effectiveness is low. The only reason this would be acceptable would be if the video on YouTube is embedded into the company’s website. The video is then effective as a tool to increase retention time on the website and to “warm the customer up” by allowing them to get to know your business in their own time.

If, however, the purpose of the video is to bring in new clients, then this is not the way to go about it.

As long as the video is tailored to target the correct audience in the right way, this video should be used to deliver its most possible benefit.

That would be to be as an advertisement, or as the Americans call it, a “commercial”. This is the process of using the same “pay per click” style of advertising that Google offers.

There is however a difference.

1) The first difference is that the set up for the YouTube advertising is slightly different and a bit trickier.

2) The advertising is way more targeted.

3) It is much cheaper (For Now).

Video marketing on other platforms

While YouTube is not the only video marketing platform, it has many benefits which other platforms don’t. The first is that it is cheaper. This may not seem initially like a big deal but after your business has spent a small fortune on marketing, this starts to matter …a lot.

Other platforms also have restrictions which can seem problematic for business marketers. These include length of time for the video which, on platforms like Facebook, can be as low as 15 seconds. While a lot can be achieved in 15 seconds, it can feel very restrictive.

There is also the issue of format. The shape, aspect ratio, and bit rate of each platform must be taken into consideration when panning your video production.

There is also the issue with a video advert being “skippable”. This is where a viewer can skip the advert after 5 seconds. This is something not available on Facebook. If you are watching a video on Facebook and an advert comes on, you will have to wait between 15 and 20 seconds before you can continue watching your preferred video. While this may seem great because people are forced to watch the video and to take notice of your company, if the viewer has no interest in your product or service, your business can be seen simply as an irritation and you will be paying for this advert to be played.

If, however is your marketing is intended for everyone like a soda (cool drink) advert then this can work. If it is for a very specific target audience, then you may have two problems. This first is that you could alienate viewers who may have purchased your product or service later and more importantly you would have paid for ineffective advertising as that advert view will not bring new customers, clients or purchases.

ROI or return on investment is all about having the right eyes seeing your marketing. The ability to make an advert which is un-skippable is available on YouTube but you can choose this option as opposed to being forced to use it on other platforms.

The video production

The decision to use video for marketing can come at a range of different stages. It could be that your SEO (Search engine Optimization) expert told you that it would help your website SEO. It could be that your marketing company has suggested it. It could be that you were sitting watching a YouTube video with a cold one in hand and realized that you were watching your opposition advertise on your “cat doing funny things” video you were enjoying so much. Whenever your “epiphany” occurs it will have a different outcome. If it happened through instruction by a professional marketer, then chances are you will be on the track of most structure. It would include a clear path to the idea, the design and creation of the video. If, however, it came as an “idea out of the blue”, there will be some hurdles to overcome.

The first hurdle will be the temptation to make an “about Us” video. While this is a necessary video for on page embedding and for the potential client to learn more about your company, it is not a marketing video. A marketing video has a very specific structure and purpose. The two can easily be confused with each other and can result in very poor results from online marketing. The second hurdle will be the insight into what wording, visuals and exact structure to use for the advert. The third hurdle will be the translating or converting your ideas into a visual product. The final hurdle will be the implementation of your marketing plan.

Starting the journey

The first decision to make would be based on your available budget. The most obvious route would be to go to a successful marketing company and pay them to take your business through the entire process from concept to implementation. There would however be a significant cost different compared to going straight to video production and self-implementation. As with all things though, price or budget limitations can force business to take decisions that fit the available money.

Assuming you have a limited budget, the path of least resistance would be to speak to a video production company who are experienced in the creating of budget video productions which have been used to market companies online. The experience and knowledge of the video production companies can go a long way to make up for the shortfall in budget for a marketing company.

Some video production companies in Johannesburg, and around South Africa, have had to take their clients through the entire process from start to finish. A good place to start is to look at which video production companies are actually walking the talk.

Are they advertising on YouTube?

It would make little sense to work with a video production company who would not invest in the process they are proposing that your company be involved in.

Whether your business is a large successful company or a start-up, the marketing must fit within the budget available and actually bring results. Advertising is not intended just to be a tax wright-off. While it is important to be able to take the knock of an unsuccessful marketing campaign, it should not be the intention. Many marketing campaigns fall flat, so you should not feel alone if your company does not achieve crazy success but the target should be to reach as many potential customers for the lowest amount of money spent.

This may seem like the un-reachable in the beginning but through some trial and error and careful adjusting as the campaign moves on, the results can be just what your company needs.

The steps to successful online video marketing

1) Describe your perfect client or customer.

2) Figure out what their pain point is. (What they need)

3) Figure out how to answer that pain point.

4) Turn that answer into a concept for the video.

5) Shoot the video as professionally and cost effectively as possible.

6) Place the advert (commercial) onto YouTube (or other platforms) advertising campaign.

7) Watch the response via YouTube stats.

8) Monitor responses by call to action such as emails and phone call.

9) Adjust campaign and targeting to correct any poor results or bad ROI.

10) Repeat from step 7 over and over until you get results your business needs.

Complete Social Media Marketing.

The final step is to incorporate all the other online marketing tools such as: Google AdWords, Email Drops and Remarketing. These are completely different ways of marketing to YouTube adverts and many do not involve any video production at all. They however do make up part of the online marketing ecosystem. They work differently and have different results but can work well to supplement your video marketing.

Disclaimer.

As no results or success can ever be guaranteed, we hereby make it clear that we as Absolutely AV and the author of this article, make no claims of your success or potential success. No success is guaranteed. No form of success is intended to be implied as such in anyway whatsoever. It is always advisable that you obtain professional advice before embarking on any marketing campaign.

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Feel free to contact us about all your video marketing.