You hear it all the time these days. Use this or that online tool and you will generate new business. Who doesnt want new business? Who doesn’t want new business that costs relatively nothing to obtain.
YouTube, and video in general, is the new next frontier online. Its kind of funny that YouTube is the new hot topic of online marketers seeing as its considered the second largest search engine nowadays. While many consumers regularly use YouTube to search for anything and everything, not many businesses leverage the service. And by leverage I mean properly tagging and describing your videos to help generate leads and business. Sure you can have a bunch of videos on a YouTube channel but do your videos get viewed and generate conversions? Here is a great story on one such conversion.
I had the pleasure and honor of driving military personnel around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway prior to the 2010 running of the Indianapolis 500. Hare Chevrolet had 3 new Chevy Silverado Indianapolis 500 edition trucks participating in the military parade lap and I got to drive one of the vehicles. It wasnt by accident that I was chosen. It wasnt even due to some sales contest that most companies run to award spots at events like this. I was chosen so I could chronicle the event on video. Here is the video I shot and the link if video won’t play.
Notice a few things about the video? It was shot with a Flip video camera. No big production. No fancy camera. Just a video camera the size of a cell phone. This helps your video feel real, not like some staged shoot with scripts and fancy lighting. Notice the title of the video. It isnt titled “My drive around the Speedway” “I drove on the yard of bricks!” or my favorite “vid032.mpg” The title has wording that allowed the video to show up easier when people typed in certain search phrases. You may be saying to yourself, Chris Ive heard all of this before what about the cool conversion story.
A few weeks back Hare Chevrolet salesman Mike Tallman stopped me and asked if I still had pictures from the military parade lap before the 500. I had taken pictures before the actual lap and posted them to our Facebook page. He stated he had a guy online who was interested in purchasing the vehicle and wanted all of the pictures we had chronicling the trucks trip around the speedway so he could make a display with them. I put the pictures on a thumb drive and set them on Mike’s desk in anticipation of his customers arrival.
I saw Mike later in the day and told him I had also uploaded the YouTube video of the
parade lap to the thumb drive for his customer to keep. Mike told me thanks but the video wasnt needed as his customer already saw the video on YouTube. Mike told me his customer was from New Hampshire, had seen my video on YouTube and decided he had to have one of the trucks that were driven during the parade lap. Re-read that last sentence. A man from New Hampshire saw a 5 minute video online and made up his mind to purchase a new Chevrolet Silverado from us because of it. A Ford truck driving, New England Patriots loving, YouTube searching man from New Hampshire drove 15 hours and around 1,000 miles to Indianapolis to buy the truck. You can read his review on the Hare Chevrolet blog.
Here are a few reminders on why and how in regards to online video.
—Keep it short! This 5 minute video was the longest I have ever posted. The scene was too inspiring to not keep the camera rolling. Keep your videos under 2 minutes.
—Keep it real! No not like those old Dave Chappelle skits. Use a Flip video camera. Rocky Walls with 12 Stars Media can set you up with a great custom branded Flip camera that comes with a monthly editing package for a nominal fee. You need to check them out for your online video needs.
—Tag your video properly! Do (or pay someone) to do some keyword research, then tag and describe your videos with them. YouTube is the second biggest search engine on the internet, treat it as such and you will be rewarded. SEO is practiced by numerous people on their sites but not their videos.
—Leverage your opportunities! This isnt about video as much as online marketing in general. Use your unique opportunities or experiences to tell a story, not just to brag to friends. Stories sell widgets and selling widgets makes you money. Sell your widgets with the best medium to tell stories, video.
About Chris Theisen
“Rocky does a great job on all that he does. He is very professional, but at the same time personable, creating each project as if it was his own."
"12 Stars understands online video better than any other company I've worked with."
God bless that Pats fan.
My thoughts exactly Steven, except for very different reasons from you.