Why online video is great for smaller businesses
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Many people are talking about 2010 being the year of online video advertising. Indeed, according to industry analyst, comScore, 2009 saw online videos viewed in the UK around 5 billion times, up nearly 47% on the previous year. Added to that, online advertising overtook TV advertising expenditure for the first time. Viewing video online is still growing rapidly and 80% of Internet users have watched video adverts.
So why is this so important to small and medium-sized businesses? For a start, online video advertising levels the playing field. Where television advertising was only accessible to large corporations, online video advertising is more affordable than ever before, so it’s accessible to businesses of all sizes.
The bottom line is that online video advertising could dramatically increase the amount of business you get via the Internet. The audio-visual nature of video communicates your message much more effectively than just text or still images alone, building trust with your audience and delivering a strong call to action. Again, comScore recorded that 52% of people who viewed an online video advert went on to take action by visiting a website, a physical location or purchasing something online.
As well as appealing to prospective customers, search engines like video, too! Businesses with a greater depth of online content and rich media (which includes video) are more likely to rank well with the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, and a video attached to your listing will certainly help your business stand out from the competition. You can also help yourself appear more often in the search engines by ensuring that your video is as widely distributed as possible. Don’t just stop at adding your video to your website: make sure it’s included in the top video websites like YouTube, Yahoo, Myspace and Metacafe, and features within your listings with online business directories.
Getting started with online video advertising, however, can be daunting for the busy proprietor of a small business. That’s why Scoot, one of the UK’s leading online business directories, has introduced its Online Video Montage product. Scoot will do it all for you: produce a 30-second video montage with professional voiceover, add it to your listing on scoot.co.uk and distribute it to the top video websites, some of which are mentioned above. You can also add the video to your own website. Click here for more details.
