Video Marketing: How To Get Jump Started For The New Year!

Let’s have a little me time shall we?

After all, you need to get yourself a Christmas present, right? Let’s make it something that will last throughout the New Year! Something that will help you grow your business and add another important layer of marketing to your social media marketing program.

I’m talking about video equipment and software so you can quickly produce and distribute video content across all your distributed platforms. And guess what, as much as businesses seem to talk about video marketing, not many are really doing it. If your businesses does it, you can really put yourself in a very strong competitive postion in several ways:

1. Search results- Search engines love video and it gives your business an opportunity to get a double listing if you are already ranking for your keywords
2. Authority in you market- In the attention economy you need to be able to get and hold attention with information and education marketing. Adding video to your mix gives you an entirely new dimension to engage your customers.
3. It’s cheap and easy- That’s right. Once you get the hang of making videos, and you have the right set up, doing new videos are a snap. All you need to do is create a quick script and you are off.

Equipment (your Christmas Present)

For simple video production capability you will need 5 basic pieces of equipment and two types of software for the complete package:

• An HD camera- if you can find it, get the Kodak Z
• A light weight camera tripod
• A green screen for background (Optional)
• Basic three stand lighting set (Optional but highly recommended)
• Lapel microphone (optional but recommended)
• Screencast software for your computer (Here’s a great post in Mashable with reviews and links)
• Video editing software (see reviews of top options here)

We recommend going to B&H Photo to buy your equipment as they seem to have the best prices and availability. The total cost for all this equipment can range from $600- $6,000 depending on what type of camera you buy, lights etc. But for $600 to $1,000 you can have a great quality video set up that will make you proud.

What to do with your new equipment?

Here is the first thing you should do to get your video marketing started. Launch a video campaign that drives people back to your site (to sign up for something so you get a lead). What should the videos be about? How about answering the 10 most frequently asked questions you know your top customers have when they are searching for solutions that you provide? Just make them 30 second to no more than 2:00 minute videos. After you do those, make another 10 that are questions your top prospects should be asking. This gives you a great opportunity to give your own perspective and differentiate your product or service. Then put some simple royalty free music in the background and your logo and web address on the video using the video editing software…and you are ready to publish.

We use both Traffic Geyser and Tube Mogul to distribute our videos…they make it easy to distribute videos to all the video distribution platforms including Your Tube.

That’s it. You have everything you need now to start 2010 off with a great new marketing tool that will generate more leads and more customers while making you an authority in your market. Have fun!

What do you think?