Youtube videos in place of PPC/CPM advertising?? (need insight)

[LightHouse]

Have any of you created videos specifically for video sites (youtube, vimeo) specifically for grassroots advertising? (rhetorical, I know some of you have but who is it? )

Ideally, If you have a service, how well does a how to video work out, but then pointing to your service as an alternative if you make it look a bit harder to the DIY'er in the video?

Has anyone seen measurable results or good conversions on things like this?

 

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[DennisD]

That's the tactic geek squad uses: Teach people how to do something, but instead of them going through the trouble they'll just call you for the service.

I assume you in particular have your eyes on creating a 'how to transfer your data from website to another'. and that by the end of it, they'll be so overwhelmed by the process that they'll just have you do it instead. It's a great idea, but I'd be careful about one thing:

I'd make the videos as easy to understand as possible. Don't artificially inflate how difficult it is. It's just like pirating content: the people who want something for free will FIND A WAY to get it for free. People who don't want to pay $50 for a service will figure out how to do it themselves whether they have to watch 1 tutorial or 20. The people who don't want to take the time to actually go through the process are the people that will eventually pay you. The video will drive your conversions up.

As for traffic, I wouldn't say the video would be a REPLACEMENT for PPC advertising. It should be used in conjunction with PPC to raise conversion rates of your paid traffic. If you can establish yourself to be an expert in solving their problem more of them will convert after they've reached your site, but I would never RELY on video to pull in more traffic unless you did massive amounts of SEO towards the video.

IF you plan to have the how-to video on your sales page... make sure your PPC campaign uses a LOT of negative keywords. filter out the words "Free", "Support", and the like... Things that indicate they're looking for freebies or to contact another company's customer support.

 

[LightHouse]

That's the tactic geek squad uses: Teach people how to do something, but instead of them going through the trouble they'll just call you for the service.

I assume you in particular have your eyes on creating a 'how to transfer your data from website to another'. and that by the end of it, they'll be so overwhelmed by the process that they'll just have you do it instead. It's a great idea, but I'd be careful about one thing:

I'd make the videos as easy to understand as possible. Don't artificially inflate how difficult it is. It's just like pirating content: the people who want something for free will FIND A WAY to get it for free. People who don't want to pay $50 for a service will figure out how to do it themselves whether they have to watch 1 tutorial or 20. The people who don't want to take the time to actually go through the process are the people that will eventually pay you. The video will drive your conversions up.

As for traffic, I wouldn't say the video would be a REPLACEMENT for PPC advertising. It should be used in conjunction with PPC to raise conversion rates of your paid traffic. If you can establish yourself to be an expert in solving their problem more of them will convert after they've reached your site, but I would never RELY on video to pull in more traffic unless you did massive amounts of SEO towards the video.

IF you plan to have the how-to video on your sales page... make sure your PPC campaign uses a LOT of negative keywords. filter out the words "Free", "Support", and the like... Things that indicate they're looking for freebies or to contact another company's customer support.

Rep+ and yes that's exactly what it is for only a bit more focused on each type of site. I am not replacing PPC nor using it on the PPC landing pages however. I am going to create a separate post to have the video in and also the written instructions if people want to skip through.

The thought isnt to trick people into thinking it is woefully hard, because the reality is, i'm not the only one making videos or have this information. I just want to lay it out in a way that focus on the fact that you can use a service and its cheap and easy vs trying to go at it yourself. In order for the video to be successful it has to be well made and informative for the DIY'ers because, like you said, they will find a way regardless. And that is fine!

I am testing each traffic method with this single service, so I am going to have to figure out youtube SEO as well. But it will be marked up with microdata on the post and im going to see about microdata promoted content in the SERPS along with it.


On PPC negative keywords, I think a lot of people miss that with adwrods, i know i used to. You never think about the things that trigger ads and was money. IE "immigration websites" or " site emigration usa" etc. All money wasters!

 

[DennisD]

While you're testing, Another thing to look into is trueview (basically PPC for Video.) You only pay when somebody actually watches your ads. This is best for video explanation ads ( on my homepage, Dennis Duty, Marketing Consultant right next to 'what we can do for you' is an example). You wouldn't want to use a tutorial video with advertised youtube videos.. but rather something catchy + informative.

video converts really well (which is why we're seeing so many video sales pages)... it's basically the closest you can get to a full human experience without an in-person meeting.

Something that most web people AREN'T doing that they SHOULD BE DOING is exactly what you're talking about: creating video tutorials. It really bugs me that nobody else sees the opportunity here.

1) Affiliate Marketers use video ALL THE TIME to pre-sell. Pat Flynn at Smart Passive Income makes a KILLING with his Market Samurai webinar replay, and with his bluehost affiliate: 'How to set up a blog in 5 minutes.' I'm talking 10k/month in affiliate sales at least. Imagine if he actually OWNED the service he was selling? He'd be making a lot more than 10k/month

2) Youtube vlogs/personalities/tutorial centers/howto stations all make their money off of advertising. How can they? Because advertisers actually spend money on it. Why? because there's ROI to be made. If a company put together it's own media outlets and publishing platform, they can be ultra-profitable.

3) All over places like the warrior forum and DP you see tons of tips and technique to intigrate video to make tons of money. But they're all techniques using CRAPPY services so you can make a video in 20 mins. I know for a fact that these technique work, but they won't work for long. Users want GOOD, well produced videos...

Sorry for the disorganized rant.
It's something I've been thinking a LOT about for like.. 6 years... But the bottom line is I think there's unlimited potential for your biz to grow via video promotion... so keep it up and let me know how everything performs.

as always, let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

 

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[LightHouse]

While you're testing, Another thing to look into is trueview (basically PPC for Video.) You only pay when somebody actually watches your ads. This is best for video explanation ads ( on my homepage, Dennis Duty, Marketing Consultant right next to 'what we can do for you' is an example). You wouldn't want to use a tutorial video with advertised youtube videos.. but rather something catchy + informative.

video converts really well (which is why we're seeing so many video sales pages)... it's basically the closest you can get to a full human experience without an in-person meeting.

Something that most web people AREN'T doing that they SHOULD BE DOING is exactly what you're talking about: creating video tutorials. It really bugs me that nobody else sees the opportunity here.

1) Affiliate Marketers use video ALL THE TIME to pre-sell. Pat Flynn at Smart Passive Income makes a KILLING with his Market Samurai webinar replay, and with his bluehost affiliate: 'How to set up a blog in 5 minutes.' I'm talking 10k/month in affiliate sales at least. Imagine if he actually OWNED the service he was selling? He'd be making a lot more than 10k/month

2) Youtube vlogs/personalities/tutorial centers/howto stations all make their money off of advertising. How can they? Because advertisers actually spend money on it. Why? because there's ROI to be made. If a company put together it's own media outlets and publishing platform, they can be ultra-profitable.

3) All over places like the warrior forum and DP you see tons of tips and technique to intigrate video to make tons of money. But they're all techniques using CRAPPY services so you can make a video in 20 mins. I know for a fact that these technique work, but they won't work for long. Users want GOOD, well produced videos...

Sorry for the disorganized rant.
It's something I've been thinking a LOT about for like.. 6 years... But the bottom line is I think there's unlimited potential for your biz to grow via video promotion... so keep it up and let me know how everything performs.

as always, let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

I like the video on your site. Where are you getting the graphic/text videos done from? In house or outsourced? I wouldn't mind testing that as well.

I see a lot of people doing video, but a lot of the video sucks. Unfortunately since i'm not a video guy I can't say mine will be better in ver. 1 or ver. 2 but i can guarantee it will be simple and easy as possible to follow. It may not just be the prettiest for some time.

In my time giving preso's at this forums meetup in AZ and talking to other people I am extremely overly technical, over time I have worked my way to figuring out how to explain things so everyone can understand. I think that is key for a larger market esp if the process you are laying out isn't something particularly interesting or something people want to waste tons of time on.


I checked out your site, i like the services page, cant stand the 3" video though, haha. I've seen a lot of people adapt a 5"-6" Vimeo for the front page since its frameless and more attractive.

I'll let you know how the initial video does. I got a cheap but nicer mic yesterday and also configured the software needed. So i just have to set up the environment which will take the most time. then put everything together.

 

[DennisD]

I like the video on your site. Where are you getting the graphic/text videos done from? In house or outsourced? I wouldn't mind testing that as well.

It's all done by me personally at this point. Once I have enough clients to justify hiring somebody, I have a couple people from college with the skills to take direction accurately I plan on bringing on.

I see a lot of people doing video, but a lot of the video sucks. Unfortunately since i'm not a video guy I can't say mine will be better in ver. 1 or ver. 2 but i can guarantee it will be simple and easy as possible to follow. It may not just be the prettiest for some time.

For what you are looking to do via video tutorials I'm sure it'll get the job done. If you're doing screen capture stuff on a PC I recommend using Camtasia. My experience on a Mac was limited to using snapz pro, which was good for my purposes but I am unsure of it's usefulness as a tut recording software.

In my time giving preso's at this forums meetup in AZ and talking to other people I am extremely overly technical, over time I have worked my way to figuring out how to explain things so everyone can understand. I think that is key for a larger market esp if the process you are laying out isn't something particularly interesting or something people want to waste tons of time on.

Yes 'Dumbing it down' is essential... anything overly complicated you can always throw into an 'advanced' video if you want. Putting your personality into the presentations is difficult to do (It's why I started my 'vlog'... for practice doing this) but if you can accomplish it... you win. I remember learning Visual Effects from tutorials by Andrew Kramer of VideoCopilot.net... and they were just as entertaining as they were informative. I could watch his tutorials with somebody who knew nothing about video and they'd be thoroughly entertained.

I checked out your site, i like the services page, cant stand the 3" video though, haha. I've seen a lot of people adapt a 5"-6" Vimeo for the front page since its frameless and more attractive.

I'll let you know how the initial video does. I got a cheap but nicer mic yesterday and also configured the software needed. So i just have to set up the environment which will take the most time. then put everything together.

I actually couldn't figure out how to make the embedded video bigger The website's theme had videos that appeared in the featured slider hardcoded in there somewhere... I actually think I might know how to get around it but it's not at the top of my priority list. Excited to see your first video. I hope you don't have to do 30 takes to get it right!

 

[LightHouse]

It's all done by me personally at this point. Once I have enough clients to justify hiring somebody, I have a couple people from college with the skills to take direction accurately I plan on bringing on.

So you are doing all the animation stuff? to me, it seems like that stuff is sort of hard to do? I mean i have adobe premier and i can't even get a video in and chop it. As technical as I am video is something i've never dug enough into to understand.

For what you are looking to do via video tutorials I'm sure it'll get the job done. If you're doing screen capture stuff on a PC I recommend using Camtasia. My experience on a Mac was limited to using snapz pro, which was good for my purposes but I am unsure of it's usefulness as a tut recording software.

I got camstudio, after a few issues getting it working which seem very common, itll do the job. No point in spending $300 on camtasia if i don't even know if the strategy will work.

Yes 'Dumbing it down' is essential... anything overly complicated you can always throw into an 'advanced' video if you want. Putting your personality into the presentations is difficult to do (It's why I started my 'vlog'... for practice doing this) but if you can accomplish it... you win. I remember learning Visual Effects from tutorials by Andrew Kramer of VideoCopilot.net... and they were just as entertaining as they were informative. I could watch his tutorials with somebody who knew nothing about video and they'd be thoroughly entertained.

I didn't think about this, I'm glad you mentioned it before I started recording, i'll def try to make it somewhat entertaining. The other thing I want to see is how easy or cheap I could get a short cool intro done for branding purposes. Not a top priority though.

I actually couldn't figure out how to make the embedded video bigger The website's theme had videos that appeared in the featured slider hardcoded in there somewhere... I actually think I might know how to get around it but it's not at the top of my priority list. Excited to see your first video. I hope you don't have to do 30 takes to get it right!

The video dimensions are hard coded in the video embed code, should be pretty easy to change out. They make plugins that will make a youtube video frameless as well. Making it a bit more like a embedded Vimeo video.

I'll definitly post it when I am done. Right now i am writing the post for it which is the written version, and will also guide me through making the video in steps. Thank goodness i can pause video or make it in pieces and stitch it all together! I'm predicting quite a few takes!

 

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[DennisD]

So you are doing all the animation stuff? to me, it seems like that stuff is sort of hard to do? I mean i have adobe premier and i can't even get a video in and chop it. As technical as I am video is something i've never dug enough into to understand.

To me it's not difficult.. but I don't represent the norm. I was kinda the 'star' of my school/workplace when it came to using Adobe After-Effects. The only people I've ever MET in person who can surpass my AE skills were from the VFX houses.

I didn't think about this, I'm glad you mentioned it before I started recording, i'll def try to make it somewhat entertaining. The other thing I want to see is how easy or cheap I could get a short cool intro done for branding purposes. Not a top priority though.

Haha I once tried drinking when doing a video tutorial... It DID loosen me up quite a bit but the tutorial itself suffered as I'm sure you can imagine Usually I'll go through it twice.. the first time I'm stiff, and the second time I'm a bit more natural. Gluck with everything.

(sent you information on doing an opener/closer, and some free resources/tutorials if you want to take the time to learn Adobe after effects yourself.)