Video marketing campaigns have previously been dominated by large global businesses that have huge marketing budgets.   But now, thanks to the Internet, small businesses can also benefit from the power of video to reach their customers and drive their brand recognition.  Interacting and engaging with customers through the use of online video is an important part of social media marketing or the Web 2.0 phenomenon and this article examines why it should be adopted by all business of any size.  It gives examples of a handful of different video sharing opportunities including You Tube, Brownbook.net, My Space and blip.tv and suggests how you may like to use the channel of video to communicate directly with your customers.

Why online video is vital to your marketing strategy

• To demonstrate and show off what your product or service is – Brownbook.net does exactly this with a video showing its users how to use their DIY website creator service http://blog.brownbook.net/2008/12/17/web-site-creator-demo/
  
• To provide information and explain things about your business:
  Hobby Box used its listing on Brownbook to add an informative video http://www.brownbook.net/business/2234317/the-hobby-box
  PatientsLikeMe uploaded a video of them speaking at a conference onto blip.tv – http://where.blip.tv/#976819
  
• To show the personality behind the company, what the company is all about and how you want your brand to be recognised.  Miamism uses Brownbook.net’s video uploading feature to give a great insight into their business  http://www.brownbook.net/business/31014168/miamismcom—miami-beach-real-estate-resource
  
• To demonstrate your knowledge and expertise such as financial planner Andrew Horowitz did on Business Week http://feedroom.businessweek.com/index.jsp?fr_story=36a57b3b6982001f5af806073a86811a604be482
  
• To offer added value services to customers.  This wedding planner produced an online video wedding planning guide and put it on My Space http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28696203&searchid=897faf39-3848-4cca-a2fb-9506a217cb2b
  
• To create or upload an online advert, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jywlZG74o
  
• Videos can give the customers a new shopping experience where the shop is brought directly to them at their convenience.   Visual representation is highly effective in assisting us with our purchasing decisions as it makes the business more tangible and provides us with the information we need to form perceptions about the company
• Google seems to like videos and thus ranks them highly.   Furthermore, according to Google, “America streams over 10.1 billion videos online” per month and “76% of US internet users view video online”
• Online videos do not require huge marketing budgets as with the advent of mobile, internet and camera technology most people have the ability to produce a video and then upload it to the net
• Use videos to spread word of mouth – Sarah Warren, Head of Marketing from Brownbook says “Business should encourage their customers to give them video testimonials, it’s very powerful to have a real customer telling others about the great service they got from you.  Businesses listed on Brownbook can not only upload their own videos but they can also direct their customers to their listing and ask them for a video review.  And lastly, businesses can get in touch with professional organisations and experts to ask them to review their products and services using video like here http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=46822858”

A business may chose to produce any number of the styles of videos mentioned above to engage potential and existing customers in order to ultimately generate more sales.  These online videos are part of the creation and development of an alternative online world in which consumers and businesses buy and sell.

Brownbook, You Tube, My Space, blip.tv, are examples of just some of the places where you can upload videos or photos to market your business.  Marc Lyne, CEO from Brownbook.net said: “We have made some tweaks and added some new features to the latest version of Brownbook, but the video and photo facilities are already proving to be popular with users.

Video gives small businesses a cost-effective and powerful way to reach the widest possible audience. It enables you to personalize your messages and reach a large, global audience.  So, get filming.

As im sure most of you are aware Brownbook has been busy launching its new customization features and the DIY website creator.  We also want you to share your Brownbook success stories with us. Plus we chat about advertising during a recession.   See the full newsletter here.

As much as I hate to admit it, it seems we’re in or entering a recession.  And that can spell bad news for small businesses.  I recall hearing anecdotes along the following lines from various people throughout my life:

“ah, but it’s the best time to advertise”
“if you can make it now, think how you’ll do when the boom returns”
“it’s the best time to start a business”
Etc, etc.

(You know the sorts of things, and you can even picture the people that say them, right?)

But someone actually sent me more than just anecdotal advice just yesterday, and here it is, research that backs up the claim that businesses that maintain or increase the ad expenditure during recession have significantly higher sales during and for three years following.

Now that sounds like common sense, right? But let me add another twist.  How about if its nothing to do with how MUCH you spend, just HOW you spend it?  The ‘how much you spend’ model is very traditional and in simpler times when all advertising was created equal maybe it WAS just a case of spend more and get more.  BUT, today we have more choice, and more ways to promote our businesses.

You can see where I’m heading right? What if you didn’t spend more, but you just took advantage of new ways to find customers and promote your business online?

I’m constantly amazed at how few of the ‘regular’ local businesses are really taking advantage of the many opportunities to attract customers online.  If only I had a magic wand that I could wave to make them all aware of Brownbook.net.  Seriously, I meet with a bunch of local business men and business women in my home town for breakfast once a week and I am amazed at how web-unaware they generally are.  Up ’til now they’ve had it good, but what about when times get tight?

What this means of course is that its not necessarily the businesses that spend more on advertising in a recession that will win, but its also those that spend wisely AND embrace new methods of attracting customers.  And you know, over time I actually think it’s the latter that will overtake the former.

Its a bit like the old adage, work smarter not harder – perhaps I can coin it “Advertise smarter, not harder”