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Marketing Your Business With Videos – 7 Tips To Video Marketing Online

As you likely know, marketing is all about getting your prospect to take the action you want him/her to take, whether that’s opting onto your list, following/liking your page, and/or purchasing your offer. To do this, you have to make sure to get his/her attention and convince him/her to do this. While text and audio can do this, your best bet in achieving this wanted action is via video marketing.

I hear you asking, “Why is video marketing more effective than text and audio?” The reason why is because, most humans prefer seeing something rather than reading or listening to something. Video is usually more engaging and can be more informative than text or audio.

This is all the more reason why most people will respond better to video than to text or audio. This is a major reason why many marketers are using video on their websites, especially when a prospect first visits a website.

Tips to video marketing:

Provide Value: One thing is that, you must be sure that the video provides value to your prospect. Don’t just put up a video so that you’ll have one on your website. While you may have the prospect’s attention at first, if it doesn’t provide value to your prospect, he/she is not staying on your website for long.

Keep It Interesting: Related to this, make sure to not just sell in your video either. It’s okay to present an offer or a request (such as signing up to your opt-in list to the side of the video in return for a free gift), but be sure to provide some useful information and some enthusiasm within the video. If you don’t, chances are that your prospect will lose interest and leave, likely to never return to your website again.

The length of your video: While video is more engaging and enticing than text and audio, this doesn’t mean you should have it play for more than a few minutes, as longer videos can drive prospects away.

Successful video marketing involves videos that get straight to the point with useful information and the requested action rather than filling them with fluff to make the videos longer.

Video quality: Additionally, it is vital that your videos play properly and play quickly. Ask yourself if you would stay on a website that takes forever for a video to load and play. Of course, you would answer “no.” After all, we are all busy, and time is something you cannot get back.

As a result, keep your videos to a minimum in terms of file size so that they load faster. You should also be sure that your Web hosting has enough bandwidth so that the videos you post onto your site can play without any pauses or issues.

Headline and video play: You can play your video immediately upon a prospect visiting your website so that your prospect knows something interesting and informative is on your website or you can set it up for manual play only.

You only have between one to three seconds to make an impression on your prospect to stay on your website or you risk him/her clicking away from your site.

Always have your benefit written headline clearly visible on the page with your video. If your video won’t load that quickly, your prospect will read an interesting headline and stay on your site to watch your video.

Place your video on YouTube: Keep in mind that your website is not the only place to place your videos. YouTube is the most popular and visited video site on the Internet. Video on YouTube can help you to drive traffic to your website.

Add in the fact that Google owns YouTube, and you can not only place higher in YouTube’s search engine by submitting quality, informative videos, but you can even rank higher in Google’s search engine via good videos that appeal to your target market.

Video on other social media sites: Putting videos on sites such as YouTube and other social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc.) is another option instead of directly on your website. Just point your prospects to your video links, and when they click on those links, they’ll be directed to the videos on those respective sites so they can see what you have to offer.

Therefore, don’t forget about video when you are thinking of and testing marketing strategies in your business. Text and audio certainly have their place, but tests have shown that video has the most conversions and results amongst all main media.

Video is more engaging and interactive, which is exactly what you want your prospects to do, whether that’s signing up to your list, liking/sharing your site, and/or purchasing your offers. Keep the above information in mind when you create videos, and your business is likely to greatly benefit from your video marketing efforts.

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Starting A Photography Business? – 11 Reasons Why You Should Not!

We are always confronted with the positive if not the encouragement to look at why we should open or think of starting a photography business. Sometimes it is suggested by those around you and often it’s a personal whim. I thought it would be beneficial to perhaps look at the ‘other side of the coin’ and answer why some people should not be starting a photography business even if you’ve got enough money to do so.Here are eleven reasons why you should not be starting a photography business. For the sake of easy reading I’ve placed these in bullet point fashion,- If you believe that your fantastic photo ability on its own will attract an abundance of customers, think again because there are some great phoographers out there and there will always be one that you can learn from- If you like to avoid conversation with strange people or just people in general you are unlikely to survive running your own photography business- If you think that the term customer service is a useless cliche and is an overrated term, then starting a photography business is not for you. The ‘best of the best’ keep on surprising their new and existing customers with little extras they simply were not expecting. As a result their customers become loyal and won’t go anywhere else- Being pleasant in unusual circumstances or when the subject is getting tired and irritable is essential – do you have that skill?- Living on a budget while you struggle to make ends meet but still do all of the above is not for the faint hearted – discipline and staying powere is also essential- Someone who jumps in without learning anything about starting a photography business and equally important, making it profitable is bordering on stupidity (this one is for the cheap skates who blame everyone else except themselves when it all falls down)- Not having enough cash flow to see the early period through before the business becomes profitable. Some of you are clever enough to have another job while they build a clientelle if they don’t have enough cash in the tin- Not deciding on what photography business(es) they would like to specialize in before they start- If you’re aren’t sure whether you enjoy photography or not- If you suffer from any kind of depression regularly- If you have difficulty in understanding why ‘the customer is always right’ then starting a photography business is not a good look for youNone of these points are intended to be offensive just factual. I apologize if any of this information struck a nerve but better you think about this now than too far down the track – right? Starting a photography business is a big move.

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Working in the IT Sector

Over the past two decades IT recruitment has become a huge industry in and of itself. The growth of computers and digital infrastructure in the modern workplace has been profound and this has driven a greater intake of qualified professionals for development, maintenance and implementation of IT systems across organisations of all sizes and scales.Today, it is believed that over three quarters of those in employment make use of IT as part of their job role’s central duties. This is particularly so in administrative roles, where 90% of managers, professionals and secretarial/admin staff cite the use of computers and computer systems as central to their daily activities.This use of IT systems is supported by the 900,000 people in the UK who work directly in the IT sector as well as the 600,000 people working in IT or telecoms in other industries. Overall it is estimated that one in twenty (5%) people in employment work in IT, working in roles that are often unseen by other members of staff but which are vital to the continued performance of everything from individual workstations to network security and cloud data storage systems.Despite the wide range of IT-based qualifications in existence, recruitment to the sector places more emphasis on experience and ability than academic education. In fact such qualifications are generally earned on-the-job rather than in academic study prior to employment and as such, most IT-related degrees have a heavy emphasis on vocational studies.Often selection is based upon the individual’s knowledge of a network system, a programming language, or other such case-specific disciplines within IT. However existing familiarity with the proposed system is not always vital. Like any other industry, the candidate’s personal ability in technical and analytical skills. Of particular importance, according to the 2008 TARGET jobs report on IT, are skills such as problem solving, analytical thinking, flexibility and adaptability, as well as perseverance and motivation.The key to successful progression and advancement in IT though is communication – the ability to make technical issues and other details understandable to outside departments – and the ability to understand how IT relates to the company’s overall strategy and can affect profitability. Whilst these are almost exclusive to the ability to actually work with the complexities of IT systems in practice, they are vital to progression to the management and consultancy roles which make up the upper end of the IT sector.

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