How's this new economy treating you? The government tells us the great recession ended in 2009 so you’re probably reading this on your private jet on the way to your private island.
Social media posts are probably making your phone ring off the hook, aren’t they?
And the Yellow Pages…and billboards. I mean, WOW, why change what worked for so long, right?
But humor me for just one day; just one trip to the grocery store or the mall or anywhere that will cause you to sit at a few traffic lights.
On that trip, look around at everyone in their cars and do a quick count to determine what percentage of your neighbors and fellow-citizens have their faces buried in their smartphones during every red light.
What do you think they are doing? You and I both know they are on social media and probably looking at a video on social media or on their favorite news sites.
(See "Grow Your Sales With Video Marketing" from last year.)
The world is overwhelmed, easily-distracted, entitled, with the reading comprehension of a 5th grader. (Please don’t shoot the messenger.)
While email and direct mail still work, isn’t it time you branched out to see what else could work and has already been proven to work at an accelerating rate?
Might it be time to add video to your sales growth strategy?
Making videos used to be hard. But making “good-enough” videos is easy and getting easier by the month. It’s so easy your competition will beat you if they do even one video in a market segment with none. (“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!)
- More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month.
- 6 out of 10 people prefer online video platforms to live TV
- Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that's almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50% more than last year.
- In 2015, 18-49 year olds spent 4% less time watching TV while time on YouTube went up 74%
- 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
- More than 50% of YouTube views come from mobile devices
- On average there are 1 billion mobile video views per day
- But only 9% of U.S. small businesses use YouTube
- YouTube is localized in 88 countries and across 76 languages.
- YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-49 than any cable network.
- Searches of “how to” videos on YouTube are growing 70% year over year
To make videos “back in the day,” i.e. 2006, you needed:
- Two Apple computers—MacBook Air and 27” iMac ($3,100+).
- Video software ($99 to $299).
- HD Cameras (Samsung HD—$159, Kodak Zi-8—$209; Nikon D5200 DSLR—$1,200).
- Olympus stereo microphone—$49.
- Tripods—standard and Joby Gorillapod ($79 and $22).
- Video software—$250/yr.
- Flash conversion software—free to $347.
- Online hosting—Amazon S3—cheap to use, took me a month to learn and become proficient.
- Premium website for creating, converting, storing, embedding and submitting video to the top 20 video sites—$3,000/yr.
Now you can get a Logitech HD webcam for $70 at Sam’s Club, use the built-in camera on any new computer, or just bust out your smartphone and record straight to YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook Live. YouTube even has free tools to edit, annotate, and monetize your channel if that’s your goal.
When you add video to your business profiles it:
- Increases number of business profile views more than 100%
- Increases number of profile clicks more than 30%
- Increases number of calls generated by more than 18%
Video drives a wide range of customer actions:
- Increases number of visits to advertiser sites by 55%
- Increases physical store visits by 30%
- Increases incidence of purchase by 24%
Video on social media sites can drive more traffic to your site. Video on your website can inform and convert more visitors to prospects, and prospects to clients. Video for your clients can educate them, upsell them, retain them, and encourage them to send referrals and testimonials.
Even an average video will help you beat your competition that is too lazy, vain, or distracted to leverage video.
For example: of the video results for the phrase "short sale san diego experts" on 12/7/16, the top video is also the most recent one, and guess when it was made: 8/2/13! Three years, four months since someone made a decent video that got ranked on the first page of the search results for this profitable phrase. (Tell me that’s not ripe for the picking.)
If you change the phrase to be "san diego short sale expert" the #1 video result is from 1/20/11 with 10/21/13 being the most recent!
“But Wes, I’m no good in front of a camera…my office is a mess…I don’t like my freckles…this humidity is wreaking havoc with my hair…”
Fine. We’ve all gotten a little tongue-tied when the camera got turned on, so do instructional video where only your computer screen is recorded.
There are so many affordable programs like Camtasia (PCs and Macs) or Screenflow ($99 on a Mac). Camtasia is owned by TechSmith and offers Jing for free, which will enable you to make 5-minute “how-to” videos all day long and zoom.us is free as well.
While the free options have some limitations, they are great for getting started, and getting started is key to growth. Failure-to-launch is the #1 cause of failure in business. Period.
The #2 cause of failure is being invisible.
Let me ask you something. If you were arrested for being in sales, for being a marketer, for being an Entrepreneur…would there be enough evidence to convict you?Your potential clients are looking for help.
They are turning to video to find that help. Your clients want to see your video.
It’s time for your video debut.
Today’s the day you take Action! ~✯~
