

Table of Contents


Introduction
Chapter 1: Video marketing – An Overview

Chapter 2: Video marketing made Effective

Chapter 3: Let your competitors do your video marketing homework for you

Chapter 4: Video Marketing Essentials 

Chapter 5: Different Types of Video Marketing

Chapter 6: Article-to-Video Marketing: Is It Right for You?

Chapter 7: Video Creation Tools: Things to know 


Chapter 8: Slideshow Creation Tools: Are They Right for You?

Chapter 9: Personality-Focused Videos

Chapter 10: Marketing Videos on Social Media



Conclusion































Introduction
Video marketing is not actually new. Regardless of what you’ve heard and regardless of how much hype there is in video SEO, video conversions, or video sales pages, video marketing as a whole is not exactly a new phenomenon.


Video has always been around. In fact, its marketing potential has always been apparent to a lot of online marketing professionals. You only need to go back to the days of RealPlayer to understand the hype surrounding video marketing even back then.

The truth is video marketing’s promise has always been well known, but what makes today so different is the fact that we now have the technology to deliver on these promises. People have always been talking about how awesome video marketing could be, but it was all just theory. It was all just speculation, opinion, and the facts were not there. The technology was just simply lacking.

Thanks to four major changes, video marketing has become the killer app. It’s always been the once and future king of marketing, but now it is probably

wearing its crown thanks to the rise of high-speed yet cheap wireless data transmission. You can actually watch videos on your mobile phone without having to spend an eternity waiting for the video to download completely.


We also have high quality decoding and coding technology that is standardized. In other words, regardless of what device you are watching a video on and regardless of which website you’re viewing, the images will be crisp and the sounds will be crystal clear.

Another technological breakthrough that we have now, involves the price of storage. You have to understand that the video that you’re watching has to be stored somewhere. It has to reside on a series of hard drives. That’s not free. Thanks to modern technology, storage prices have really crashed through the floor. On top of that, the service that people offer to host websites has become cheaper and cheaper.

Given this combination, video marketing has come to its home. It has finally arrived, but here’s the problem. It is quite ironic. The challenge to video marketers nowadays is that video may have been the victim of its own success. The problem now is that there’s so much video out there that most of them simply don’t have an impact. They don’t get people to convert to buyers. 


Fact: most YouTube videos have very few views


Have you ever been searching for stuff on YouTube and noticed that there are a huge number of videos that have very few views? That is the fate shared by the vast majority of

marketing videos on YouTube and other platforms.

You have to wrap your mind around the fact that video marketing is both new and old. Depending on how you navigate these factors, you will either succeed or fail. Either your video is going to convert people into buyers or they’re just going to sit there on YouTube getting zero views.

What’s new?


It involves three new technologies that has really turbocharged its effectiveness. First of all, you can use software to create video. You no longer have to patch together or shoot video content by

hand. There is all sorts of software that can help you edit, enhance and even automate the creation of video content.

Also, video marketing content is increasingly plugged into a larger marketing infrastructure. These are the blogs, social media platforms, so on and so forth. 

Finally, there are tools out there that would enable you to upload the video that you created without you manually going through all sorts of upload steps. With a few mouse clicks and a few key strokes, you can massively distribute your video.

Sounds awesome right? Well, don’t get ahead of yourself. A lot of marketers think that it’s all about technology and that as long as they have the right tools, video marketing will pretty much take care of itself. Absolutely wrong. How come?

You have to pay attention to the old elements that sill remain alive in video marketing. Lose sight of these and you're going to fail. These factors remain. You have to build a brand. You have to create a human connection with your prospects. Most importantly,

you still have to walk people through the KLT (know-like-trust) buying process.

Without these old elements, all of your videos, as awesome as they may seem on the surface, simply won’t be able to do the job. Sure, you may get sales every once in a while, but that’s not the kind of income you’re looking for. You want videos that close the deal on a consistent basis, but that’s just not going to happen if you disregard the old rules of salesmanship.

These old rules worked in the past, they’re working now, and they’ll continue to work long into the future. This training steps you through the mystery of the effective video marketing so you can set it up to maximize your ROI. This training is based solidly on the interweaving of the new and old factors that make up video marketing.


The bottom line actually hasn’t changed all that much. Just like with any other type of marketing, return on investment is crucial. This training has a slight twist however. I’m also going to dwell on, to some extent, the concept of return on effort. Your job is to spend as little time doing something while getting as many dollars out of that activity as possible.





























Chapter 01 - Video marketing – An Overview

What exactly is effective video marketing? What’s the big deal? Well, it really all boils down to conversions. You can try video marketing, but that’s not going to put food on your table. You have to do “effective” video marketing. There is a difference.


Effective video marketing is all about conversions. The video has to play a role in getting the viewer to whip out their credit card and buy something or click on an ad that pays

you or enter their email address or zip code into a form. Whatever the case may be, the video convinces whoever is watching to take action that somehow, someway leads to you making money.

Clear enough? Well, video can do this in one of two ways. Either it converts the viewer directly or the video is part of the conversion process. Maybe it happens immediately or it can take some time. Whatever the case may be, video plays a role.

What’s so powerful about a video anyway?


When you’re watching a video, you’re actually seeing many different signals being flashed to you in the time span of fractions of seconds. You may not even be aware of them, but all these

signals are being sent to you and subconsciously you’re putting these signals together.

If you’re watching a video spokesperson, you’re paying attention to their facial expression, their demeanor, the way they say their words, and how quickly they’re talking. These and other non-verbal signals paint a picture.

It all leads to the question, “Should I trust the person or not?” which is very much related to the question that everybody asks in the back of their minds, “What’s in it for me?” Video enables marketers to answer those two questions in a very powerful way and it can be traced to the power of the human voice.



 The power of the human voice


When somebody is talking to you, they’re making eye contact. They’re also talking to you with their voice. You’re not just hearing sound signals, but these

sound signals pack a lot of value. You read in all sorts of meaning depending on the tone of voice, the emotions that you detect from the voice, and how quickly the person is talking.

It’s easy to tell whether somebody is confident or if somebody is basically tripping over themselves. It’s easy to tell whether somebody actually is an expert or if somebody is somehow just playing some sort of role. These are the things
that you really cannot quite put your finger on but you know it when you see it and you hear it. A large part of this turns on the voice component.

The two factors that I outlined above combine to produce the secret to video marketing. What is this secret? It’s very simple: presence. Whether you have some sort of explainer cartoon or you have a slideshow with a voice-over or you’re presenting a video spokesperson looking directly in the camera, it all goes back to presence. Either the video gets front and center of the viewer so as to trigger the old sales rules, or it doesn’t.



The old sales rules still apply


As awesome as video may look, please understand that it still follows the same old rules. What are the old rules of salesmanship? They’re very basic.

First, you have to get people’s attention.

Second, you have to filter them by interest. Not everybody watching your video is in your target market. Not everybody would want to buy. Not everybody has the problems being solved by the product or service you are promoting. Many people who view your video are just doing it out of curiosity. Maybe they have nothing else better to do. You need to weed those people out.

The video has to be clear in so many ways that it’s only for this type of person. That’s how you get interest. Also, the video has to be set up to filter people based on their interest quickly and efficiently.

Next, the video has to speak to the viewers’ needs. Basically, the video is saying, “Now that I have filtered you by your interest, you are watching this video because you have this problem. I understand that you have this problem and here are the most common solutions to those problems.

But, here are the problems with those solutions. I have something better. I have something that is cheaper, faster, more convenient, more effective, and more scalable.”

Finally, the old rules of salesmanship direct us to call the prospect to action. You can’t just tell them about a solution, get them all pumped up, and then leave them hanging. You’re not going to generate sales that way. You have to call them to action, but

here’s the trick— you can’t just say, “Click here to order now.” That’s not going to work because everybody’s doing that.

Instead, you have to tie the call to action with the benefit. For example, “If you want to regain the beautiful and active life that you used to have before addiction, fill out this form and claim your new reality.” Do you see how that works?
Basically, you pack the benefits into the call to action and you do it in way that triggers an emotional reaction. Who wouldn’t want to get their old life back? Who wouldn’t want to live a life of freedom? Who wouldn’t want to get out from under the crushing weight of addiction or whatever problems people are facing? Video has to incorporate these old rules and it has to do it seamlessly, quickly, efficiently and in a compact way.

Video and the rule of eight


What complicates video marketing is one reality that a lot of video marketers are completely clueless about. They don’t even know that

this exists. This is called the rule of eight, some would say it’s the rule of seven, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s all about multiple exposures.

Let me ask you, when was the last time you saw an ad for the first time, clicked it, and bought something? I would venture to guess that those times are very few and far between. The truth is most people would want to see an ad enough times for them to at least feel that it’s familiar enough for it to be worth taking the risk of clicking.

They click, they see what it’s about, and then they don’t buy anything. Then they see the ad again and again, and then eventually, they click through and then some of them would convert.

The great thing about video is that you can override the power of the rule of eight. Basically, when you’re promoting a video, the vast majority of people in 
your target market probably would not bother with it, but once you get a certain percentage to click through and the vast majority to bounce out, you would then have a few watching the video all the way through and then converting.

In other words, its low click-through rate is more than offset by its amazing power to get people to dwell on the content. And the more they dwell on the content, the more they get branded and they can keep coming back. They also

start changing how they feel. Their feelings start to change regarding your ads.

You’re no longer some sort of mysterious or unknown quantity.

Instead, they feel that somehow someway, they kind of know you. You’re not exactly a stranger. This gives you a tremendous competitive advantage. The more ads you show, the higher the likelihood that eventually they would click through and make it all the way through the conversion process.




Chapter 02 - Video marketing made Effective



To succeed with video marketing, you have to start with the basics. You can’t just automatically assume— I know how to make videos and I know what my audience members want to see, so let me just get to the good stuff and tell me where to distribute my videos.


If that’s how you define video marketing, you’re setting yourself up for failure. You really are. You have to understand that effective video marketing starts at the root. In other words, you have to start at the beginning and the beginning of marketing of course is niche selection.

Which market are you going to target? What kind of problems are you going to address? What kind of industry are you going to be in? You have to start with the basics and most people do this in the worst way possible. How? Well, they read a book that says you should be marketing this niche.

They have no clue what the niche is about, but since the book that got them excited about video marketing talks about that niche, they jump all over it, or they have a friend who is successful in a particular niche so they just copy and paste their friend’s business.

What do you think happened to these people? That’s right. The vast majority of them failed. You have to find your own way. You have to be systematic and methodical in selecting your niche from the beginning. Otherwise, you are probably not going to make it. You have to take ownership of this process.
You have to build your business from the beginning. You can’t just copy and paste certain sections. That’s just not going to help you all that much.

 How to do video niche selection


Here’s the process that I use. This is step-by-step. It’s very actionable. You can do it right here, right now.

List down all your personal

interests. These are the topics that you yourself would love to talk about even if

you’re not getting paid. That’s how passionate you are about them. This is a

stream of consciousness exercise so just write down everything and anything

that comes to your mind, but don’t edit yourself, don’t second guess, and just

write it down.

Just come up with a huge long list, as long as you are truly and sincerely interested in those topics.


Step number two, identify the niche behind the topics. Looking at the topics that you have, identify them. Are they insurance

related? Are they related to the finance industry? Are they related to marital products? Are they related to health and fitness? Whatever the case may be, come up with the niche categorization for what you’re interested in.

Next, you go to Clickbank, JVZoo, MoreNiche, CJ.com, and other affiliate marketing platforms. Look for those categories. Are there lots of offers for those categories? This is very important because you don’t want to create tons of video targeting a niche that has very few products in it or the affiliate offers don’t really pay all that well.

So, once you see that there are offers for some of the niches and not others, cross out the niches that don’t have much affiliate program interest.

Step three, filter your list based on commercial value. Now that you have a fairly clear idea of what niches you’re interested in and you’ve filtered out ones that don’t have any affiliate interest, use Google AdWords’ keyword planner tool. Type in the niches one by one. Look at their keywords and most importantly, look at the CPC or cost per click value of the keywords.


On average, how much do advertisers pay for clicks on keywords related to these niches? Cross off on your list the niches that pay too little. This tells you that the commercial value is on the low side.


Step number four, find the

search volume for your niches. Again, using Google keyword planner. Just plug

in the niche related keywords for the niches that are still on your list. Your list

should be shorter by now.

Once you see the estimated traffic volume, delete niches that are too low and delete niches that are too high. Why? You don’t want niches that are too competitive. In other words, everybody is targeting those niches. This is the first step for demand determination.

The next step is to enter your keywords into YouTube as well as Google Search. What are the numbers coming in? Are there too many videos targeting that niche? Now “too many” here is relative. Depending on your niche, “too many” can be a hundred thousand or it can be ten million.

Whatever the case may be, it’s all relative so again, take off the items from your list that have too much competition.

The final step is to do a trend analysis. Now that you have a clear idea of the niches that you want to target, enter their keywords into Google Trends. Do you see the demand or interest for this going up over time or do you see it flat lining or even declining? Cross out niches that have flat-lined or have declining trend patterns. 

By this point, your niche list should be very, very short. In fact, there should be only one or two left. Once you have filtered down your list, go to YouTube and enter the keywords related to those remaining niches.

Reverse engineer your competitors and create better videos


After you’ve looked up your niche competitors’ videos on YouTube, you should view as many of their videos as possible. What do they

have in common? What do they talk about? How do they present the information? These commonalities give you a head start. You’re going to do the same. You’re not going to come out of left field talking about something completely different.

Instead, you’re going to be talking about what they all have in common. However, you’re going to create better videos. This is the key. I’m going to cover this in further detail in Chapter 3, but I just want to give you a quick heads up. You’re going to come up with whatever it is your competitors are doing on average, but you’re going to create better videos. 

The bottom line



Your mindset should be clear when it comes to niche video marketing. You’re either going to dominate or you shouldn’t do it at all. That should be your mindset. The key here is victory or death.

Because if you’re not going to play this game to dominate, then it’s not worth playing at all because let me tell you, you’re going to suffer from low return on effort. You’ve put in all this time and just get very little in return. You probably would be better off investing your time doing something else.


































Chapter 03 - Let your competitors do your video marketing homework for you


A lot of people think that if they started late in something, the best has already been taken. They think that if they were the last player in the market, the market is basically spoken for. Nonsense. In fact, it’s a golden opportunity.


Do you understand how hard it is to break into a new industry? If the niche is very new, the early players basically have to throw a lot of spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks and it costs money to throw pasta on the wall. It costs money and time to experiment with video after video, to get the sentiment of your target market.

This is why a lot of them fail. This is why a lot of the videos that you see, and I’m talking about the successful videos in your niche, tend to look alike or talk about the same set of topics. They’ve already done your homework for you. This is survivor bias. In other words, what you’re seeing are the most successful models.

You don’t see the ones that have tried and failed. You don’t see experiments that were discarded. All you see are the videos that made it. It’s a free gift to you because you just need to build your video marketing business on the stuff that’s already working.




Reverse engineer


How do you reverse engineer your competitors' videos? In the discussion above, I gave you just an overview of how reverse engineering works. It really all boils down to getting your competitor to do your

homework for you.

It’s all about taking full advantage of the survivor bias. Now in this discussion, I’m going to step you through the process that I use to reverse engineer my video competitors.



Answer the following questions


Instead of laying out steps, I’m going to just step you through the questions that you have to ask.

These questions actually filter your video ideas. They really go a long way in guiding you as to what the next step is.







What is the video for?


Ask yourself when you watch a video— what is it marketing? Is it a supplemental or incidental video regarding content or is it the meat and potatoes? In

other words, it’s the product itself. Is the video getting you excited about looking for a solution, or excited about a specific range of solutions for a problem, or is the video pushing a specific product, brand, and model directly?

This is the difference between supplemental or incidental marketing, which is basically opening your mind to possible solutions, and direct product marketing, which is basically reviewing or describing a specific product that you’re supposed to buy.



What type of video marketing am I looking for?


There are many different types of ways to market. You can market by offering videos, so when you watch a video, it’s really a review of a specific product. The great thing about reviews is that people who read reviews or watch review videos are actually already interested in the

product. They just need to be sure that they’re making the right decision, but unfortunately that’s only one type of marketing. Videos involving consumer guides.

Basically, you identify a problem, and then you describe different solutions to the problem. This video has to be followed up by another video that talks about a narrower range of solutions and then ultimately, it must talk about the solution that you are promoting. Otherwise, you’re not going to make any money.

Other videos focus on lifestyle. So basically, you have a video spokesperson talking about the common concerns of people who use a particular type of product. For example, make up. This person would talk about the importance of the right blush or the right eye shadow. This person would then discuss the different categories of products that are available and then drill down to specific products.

Pay close attention to the type of videos that predominate your niche. If it turns out that most of your competitors are targeting your niche through product review videos, then this is the clue you need to offer mostly review videos.

What video format do they use?


What is the “industry standard” in your niche regarding narration? How do your competitors present the problem, position the solution, and present the value? Some would come out and say it, others

would try to scare people and then come up with solutions, and others would 
talk about the existing solutions and then knock them down one by one because of their shortcomings.

What they’re really doing is making the most common solutions look bad so they can make their proposed solution (and this is the affiliate product that they make money on) look better. So, pay attention to the format. You have to watch video after video to see how your competitors position their sales pitch.




What are the prevalent video standards in my niche?


Another key question you need to ask involves video standards. How long do videos in your niche run? How long are videos in your niche

normally? On average, how long should the video be? What are the dimensions of the video?

What are the common distribution platforms for my niche?


You can tell that some marketers are on many different social media platforms because they actually have graphics for

Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook right on the video itself. This tells you that they can be found on all those other platforms. Pay close attention to this. Remember, you’re reverse engineering your competitors.

You’re going to get a head start by copying what kind of themes and topics they’re talking about, as well as how they present the material, and you’re also going to copy where they distribute the material.

Come up with something better


Your job: Come up with something better! Now, here comes the hard part. I’ve stepped you through the easy part. I’ve stepped you through figuring out what your competitors are doing

and basically copying and pasting their 
topics and themes so you get a clearer 
idea of the standards that you’re going 
to shoot for.





So far so good right? Well, you cannot stop there. Why? If you did and you produced videos that are essentially just like theirs, I’ve got some bad news for you. Your target audience really has no business watching your videos. Absolutely none. Why? You are giving the same exact stuff that everybody else is giving out. Why should they go to you?

This is why you need to come up with something better. This is crucial. This is what will make your video marketing campaigns succeed or fail. Don’t drop the ball with the following tips.

Make it longer


One obvious way to deliver better value is to make your video longer. Now, there’s a warning that comes with this. If you drag it out, you probably will run the risk of boring your viewer.

A bored viewer is not a useful viewer. So, if you’re going to extend the length of your video, it better be packed with real content. The length must be due to the fact that you’re adding more value.





Load it with


information

Why are people watching your video in the first place? They want to learn something. Maybe they have a problem and they’re trying to solve it.

Maybe they’re trying to wrap

their mind around a concept and they want to learn more. Pack your video with more information than your competitors.



Make it easier to understand


The problem with packing a video with a lot of information is that eventually, people would get information overload. Bad idea. When you’re packing

information into a video, you can do it in a non-intimidating way. You can do it in

a way that doesn’t turn off people. How? Present it in an easy-to-understand format.

Maybe you can create diagrams. Maybe there’s a nice little outline that flashes from time to time. Whatever the case maybe, just because you put a lot of
information in a video doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be boring or feel heavy.

Instead, by pacing the video properly and including a lot of graphic tools or even sound cues, you can make the video light and easy as well as a joy to view. It is possible.


Make sure the information is up to date


One of the easiest ways you can blow your competitors away is to just offer updated information.

A good example of this is SEO. People go to YouTube for SEO and
they usually type in the year because the last time I checked, the SEO tips of past decade are not going to help you that much today given the fact that Google’s search engine ranking software evolves faster than the common virus.

Make it clear to the potential viewer that you are offering the latest and greatest information regarding your niche. Make this apparent in the title of your video itself.


Use better graphics


YouTube enables you to choose a graphic thumbnail for your video. Pick a graphic that will get clicks, but don’t take this too far. Don’t put scantily clad woman when your video is actually about dog training.

People are going to give you a lot of thumbs down and your video might sink like a rock in the rankings because you tricked people. Still, find the most attention-grabbing graphic or screenshot from the video itself as your thumbnail.

Offer better sound


I can’t even begin to tell you how many otherwise high value videos on YouTube completely drop the ball because their sound quality sucks. This happens a lot with marketing videos.

I love watching these videos because I learn something new, but sometimes the sound is so horrible that I just have to close the video.

They’ve lost a potential sale. They’ve lost a potential convert and it’s because they neglected something as basic as sound quality.


Offer a better call to action


I can’t even begin to tell you how many









awesome videos there are on YouTube that really pack a lot of attention, connect with me emotionally, and really get me all excited

about a solution to a problem I have. However, the video ends without them telling me what to do.

So here I am excited about possibly solving my problems using a certain

technique or using a solution, but I’m not told of the product. I’m not told where to get it. I’m not told to click a link to buy it right here, right now.

What do you think happens then? That’s right. The person who made the video doesn’t make a sale even though I’m excited to buy whatever and put dollars in his/her hand. Ridiculous right? Well, this is exactly the position you put yourself in if you don’t use a great call to action.

Similarly, there are lots of great videos out there that do a really good job sharing information, opening people’s minds, and shaping their opinion, but the call to action is so boring, so basic, and really so generic that you feel that it’s just another sales pitch. You’re all excited and then your sense of urgency drops like a rock when you see, “Click the link at the description.” or “Google this website.” Weak.

You have to use a better call to action. You should speak in terms of benefits and you should imply some sort of emotional payoff. Which would you rather click, “Click this button”, “Click here”, “Order now”, or “Start living the life you’ve always dreamt of living by firing your boss today after signing up for this video marketing course”? Which would you rather click? It should be obvious.

There has to be some sort of direct tie with the benefit or ultimate outcome you’re looking for. You’re not just looking for your skin to clear up if you’re considering on buying an acne product. There’s more to it than that. You want to feel more confident. You want to feel more beautiful or handsome.

You want to be appreciated and acknowledged. Right now, you feel like you’re just another face in the crowd. In fact, you may be such a pizza face that you’re trying to hide yourself from the crowd. Your call to action must speak to that reality.

Make your video look more professional or amateurish


Now you’re probably scratching your head with this tip. You can easily get why videos should look professional, but why

    amateurish? Well, it all depends on your niche.







If your niche is all about patched together or impromptu “grass roots” solutions then you need to steer clear of the slick, smooth, corporate packaging.

This is supposed to be hand-made. This is supposed to be purely personal. So sometimes, an amateurish video converts better because that’s what your target audience members are looking for.



Chapter 04 - Video Marketing Essentials

In the previous discussion, I’ve walked you through the process of reverse engineering your competitors and then making your videos better. The next step involves following the essentials of video marketing to make your videos more effective. How come? Well, if you follow these tips, your videos will probably be more visible on YouTube.


When people search for your niche, they’re more likely to find your videos. These tips mostly turn on visibility. They are aimed at getting you eyeballs for your videos.


Mention the keyword in the video itself


A lot of newbie video marketers on YouTube screw up by just packing their description as well as their video file name and video title with their target keyword.

That is spam. Don’t do that. You can mention your target keyword in your title once and then maybe a related keyword in the subtitle. That’s it. Don’t overdo it. Don’t stuff the description or title of your video with keywords.

What you should do is you should mention the keywords in the body of the video itself. So, when you’re doing your video presentation and your target keywords are “metal military figures”, say that phrase from time to time. It has to flow naturally. It has to be a natural part of the video conversation you’re having with your viewer.

Why do this? Does Google even know? Well, it does. Because when you upload a video on YouTube, it automatically transcribes it. This happens after a few hours. So, you upload a video and then after a few hours, there will be a transcription.
Now you’re out of luck when the transcription is in another language.

Sometimes Google’s algorithm does this, but often times it’s in English. So, with this transcription, Google can determine whether your video actually talks about the keywords that you put in your description or title or filename.


Put your keyword in your title. This goes without saying. This should be obvious. If you have a target keyword, put it in the title. It has to be natural, but try to put it as close to the beginning of the title as possible.

Write attention-grabbing titles


Now you may be thinking that this makes a lot of sense. You might even be thinking that this is obvious. Well, it’s not that easy. Remember, you’re already going to be putting your target keyword in your title and

sometimes it’s very hard to come up with attention-grabbing headline when you have an awkward keyword.

So, you might want to play around with this for a long time. Ask a lot of people and see if you can come up with a nice compact title. What makes this even more difficult is that you cannot use really, really long titles. It would be great if you can do that so you can basically just write a mini story, but you can’t. 

Use LSI keywords in your description





LSI keywords stand for latent semantic indexing keywords. These are keywords that are thematically related to your target keyword. So, when you find the most related keywords

to your target keyword and you put it in a description that makes grammatical sense and flows naturally, you’re creating context.

When Google’s powerful search engine’s video search algorithm processes your description, it gets an idea on the context of your video. It’s not just some random video that popped up. It has a specific context.

Put a call to action in the description


Your description must not only describe the video with your LSI keywords, but it must also call the viewer to action. If your video does a great job and you talk about your

description, when they look at the description, they should be called to action.

Maybe they could click a link to join your mailing list.

Maybe they could click a link to read more materials on your blog. Whatever the case may be, call them to action because otherwise, that’s a failed opportunity. That’s a missed opportunity.

Call the viewer to action in the video itself


Don’t drop the ball on this. Your description should call the viewer to action, but your video itself should also call the viewer to action.

Maybe it’s an audio signal or maybe it’s a video sign. Whatever the case may be, call them to action. Get them to do something.

Excite the viewer about all your social media accounts in the video


As much as possible, tell your viewers that you can be found pretty much on all
major social media platforms. Show icons of your Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and Facebook pages.

When you do this, you create the impression that your viewer can actually get more content from you and can interact with you in so many different ways. You’re not just on YouTube.



Ask the viewer to ask a question or otherwise engage with your content


It doesn’t hurt to ask the viewer to share, like, or comment on your video. Even if the easiest ways to do this is to ask the

viewer a question.

For example, you published a series of night club guides where you hop from country to country. At the end of your latest video, you can say to your viewer, “Which night club, which city and which country would you want me to go to next so I can shoot a video?”

You can ask for requests. You can ask for comments and feedback. You can ask if people had a problem. Whatever the case may be, when people engage in your content, YouTube tends to rank your video higher because engagement indicates that people are actually paying attention to your video.



This also increases the likelihood that people would watch your video all the way through. Viewing duration also plays a big role in how well your video ranks.






Don’t lose sight of these video marketing essentials because they’re crucial in making your video more visible. However, for you to reach this stage, you must first create videos that have completely demolished your competitors by packing a lot more value.

























































Chapter 05 - Different Types of Video Marketing

It's very important to make sure that you have clearly reverse-engineered your competitors. If it turns out that they are cranking out a specific type of video, you need to follow suit.

Like I said, you don't have to copy and paste exactly what they're doing.

If you did that, people really don't have much of an incentive or a reason to watch your videos because you're cranking out videos that are the copies of your competitors’. Why watch your stuff when they can watch your competitors that are probably better known? They probably have better brands.

Do you see how this works? You have to come up with something better. Still, you need to focus on what they are doing so you can offer something that your audience is already familiar with.


You're not creating something completely new. You're not creating some sort of new market. You’re not doing any of that because, oftentimes, when you try to do that, you fall flat on your face.

With that said, you have to pick apart the type of videos your competitors are producing in your niche. Understand that marketing video types have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. To recap, you're going to be focusing on a specific type of video to find the answer to this by reverse-engineering your competitors.

What are the available types?


Article to video

 VideoScribe and other whiteboard video creation tools

Slideshow creation tools Slideshows with voiceover
Personality-focused videos

The list above includes most common types of marketing videos found on YouTube and other platforms.


Your plan of attack should be pretty straightforward. You are going to zero in on the type of videos most of your competitors are offering. You’re not going to do something completely different.





You're not going to approach this completely from left field because while that approach sometimes works, most of the time it doesn't work. Most of the time, you just end up wasting money.

So, you're going to build on what they're doing, but you're going to also make sure that the type of marketing videos your competitors are producing best fits your conversion strategy. Are you converting through a direct link? Are you converting through your blog?

These are different ways of conversion. These are different conversion platforms. You have to make sure that your platform fits the type of videos you will be using to promote.

Also, you have to make sure that the video type that you choose enables you to build a brand efficiently. I cannot insist on this enough. I’m telling you if you're not building a brand, you have a commodity. That is a paraphrase from Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad.

He’s absolutely on spot because if you don’t sell a brand that people can identify with and read in all sorts of values, you're not really offering anything different from your competitors. You’re back to the problem I described above you where your viewers would say, “Well, why should I go to your website when I can get the same stuff from other websites that I already go to?”

You really don't have an answer to that, and that's why when your content is a commodity, people don't have a real reason to click on your links, buy stuff from you or otherwise do things that put extra dollars in your pocket.



Chapter 06 - Article-to-Video Marketing: Is It Right for You?


One of the most common ways people produce marketing videos involves turning text articles into videos. This is a software-driven solution. Basically, they would take an article that they wrote, maybe it's a blog post, perhaps it's a resource article; it doesn’t really matter.


They would feed it into the software, and the software would basically create a slideshow based on the keywords of the text. Of course, there is an editorial manual override. You look at the pictures that got associated, and you can switch things around.


Still, it is a video slideshow. So, you get a text scrolling at the bottom and then some images and, basically, the software just pairs graphics with your text. Pretty straightforward.

Advantages


The most obvious advantage to this way of creating marketing videos is that it's very quick. You only need to have an existing article. You can outsource it. You can have it spun by using software. Whatever the case may be you just have text, and

you just plug it into the software.

Also, you can automate this pretty easily using an add-on software animation tool that schedules desktop software. Whatever the case may be you can crank out an insane amount of marketing videos using this technique.

Disadvantages


I wish I could tell you that this solution is brand new. Unfortunately, it’s been around for a few years and a lot of people use it. In fact, “use” would be a too charitable word. The more appropriate word

would be “abuse” because people crank out an ungodly amount of videos, and then they just mass upload all that stuff to YouTube.

As you can well imagine a lot of that stuff is very forgettable because when you're operating on a grand scale, you probably are not going to meticulously check each video to make sure that it has the right impact. You probably are not going to be very careful regarding the matching of the right text with the right pictures. You probably couldn’t care less about that stuff.

Instead, you just want to create as many videos as possible, spam as many different keywords on YouTube as possible and call it a day. This stuff is very easy to forget and lacks a personal touch.

As I have mentioned previously one of the main reasons why video marketing is so powerful is because of the opportunity for a personal connection that it makes possible. Well, you're not doing any of that. You're basically just sharing slideshows, which is paired with some sort of subtitle.




Suggestion


How do you improve this type of video marketing? How do you build on this?

Well, first of all, you need to focus on quality over quantity. I know it’s very tempting to just scrape or put together or gather or outsource a tremendous
amount of content. Believe me I can see the temptation.



However, you need to overcome that and focus instead on the very best script you can find. This script must be video centered. A lot of people automatically think that if they see a very informative article online then this automatically means that when

those words are scrolling, people will respond favorably.

No, a script actually involves fewer words. They’re spaced apart. They’re in plain English. There are just so many variables involved. It's not even the same ball park.

So, you have to get high-quality conversational scripts that are packed with value. This takes time, and this can take some money. Regardless of what you do, step up the quality of your script.

Next, you have to personalize the video. So, while the vast majority of the video involves graphics with subtitles from the article that the video is based on, you should also include portions where there's a voice over or there’s a snippet or segment or clip of actual moving video.

Finally, even if you really try to “pretty up” this type of video content, I would suggest that you use it only as supplemental content. This should not be your meat and potatoes.

By supplemental, I’m talking about it paving the way for eventual conversion, it opens people's minds, but it is not the centerpiece of your video marketing campaign.You should use it really as filler regardless of how good it is.


Chapter 07 - Video Creation Tools: Things to know



If you’ve ever spent some time on YouTube looking for tutorials, you've probably come across quite a number of white-board videos. This usually involves some sort of hand manually drawing pictures. These are usually black and white.


These are very popular because although it is computer generated, the fact that there's a hand drawing gives it some sort of manual look. There’s still that human component that people are drawn to.

Regardless, animated video using whiteboard tools are very popular precisely because they're effective. While you can create these without a voice over, the more powerful ones have a voice track. These are usually used for explainer videos or for product reviews. 
Advantages


The big advantage of using VideoScribe and other whiteboard video creation tools is that they make whiteboard videos much faster. You can do a hand animation using your actual hand,

but that's going to take forever.

These are just basically pulled from stock art, and the software does it itself. It creates the illusion that it's drawing these pictures, but the pictures are actually preloaded.

Another great advantage to these videos is that they can easily be enhanced by voiceovers and music. You can easily tell when editing these videos where you're going to insert those audio elements. In fact, these videos can feature such a nice mix of graphics and audio that they can be offered as “meat and potatoes” marking videos.

Simply put, you can use these to convert the viewer. Of course, a lot of it turns on the quality of your script, but the quality as well as the setup is good enough to convert the viewer. In addition to voice overs and music, you can also enhance it with video clips and other elements.

It is no surprise that VideoScribe automated video creation tools make great explainer videos or short animated ads.

Disadvantages


The big disadvantage with VideoScribe is that it ships with a library of cartoon images. Sadly, most of the people who buy this software don't bother to customize the cartoon library. Accordingly, a

lot of people create videos using the same library and they basically look very similar to each other.

It can get quite ridiculous. I remember watching a video explaining the history of France, and the images in the whiteboard video were the exact same images that I saw from an earlier video on SEO. This kills branding.

It makes the video look generic or, let's say it, downright cheap. Which begs the question if you're going to use VideoScribe, you're going to have to customize it heavily. In other words, you're going to have to invest in custom cartoons.

Also, whiteboard animation videos don't really leave much to the imagination. You can't coast on the quality of the pictures. It basically lives or dies based on the quality of your scripts.

The best type of VideoScribe videos have a lot of manual input. That’s how you maximize quality. However, you can still automate using VideoScribe. In other words, you basically just plug in the audio, plug in the library and just let VideoScribe work its thing.


However, here's the problem. The more automated or generic-looking your video, the less likely you should use it.


Try not to fully automate. You still have to step in to make sure the quality is decent.




























Chapter 08 - Slideshow Creation Tools: Are They Right for You?

Another type of marketing video involves software that takes your audio, pictures and video clips, and turns them into a slideshow and exports them into popular formats like MP4. They do this in a very automated way.


Basically, you just load the audio track first and then the pictures and then you move things around. After a few minutes, and you're happy with the result, you export to MP4.
Advantages


This type of software can be batch processed. You can repeat it many times over. You can keep using the same audio, but play around with the different pictures and video snippets, or you can use

the same pictures but play around with different audio. The problem is the more you repeat, the lower the quality.

Another advantage of this type of marketing video is that it’s a faster way of creating videos than custom-shot footage.

Finally, you can easily enhance the quality of these videos by hiring professional voiceover artists from places like Fiverr or buying high-quality video snippets.

Disadvantages


While you can crank these out on a fully automated basis, if you want to build a solid brand with your videos, you better do it manually. There are really no two ways about it.

Also, if you're lazy, it’s very tempting to just crank out videos on an automated basis. Basically, it rewards laziness with lots of low-quality videos. If the name of your game is just simply quantity over quality, this video can help you.

One of the bigger disadvantages of this package is the fact that you're recycling the same pictures over and over. While you can technically switch pictures, if you're lazy, you probably wouldn't want to do that. Instead, you just recycle the same pictures with a different voiceover over and over again.

Now, if you were to step in and try to do this manually, it can burn a lot of time.

It also takes a lot of labor.

Also, there are many packages out there. Many have different learning curves. Some are very intuitive. Basically, it’s just lining up the right picture with the right part of the audio. It's very easy to edit.

Others, you have to play around with the time stamp, and it can get quite confusing.

Solutions or workarounds


If you're going to be using this type of video, I suggest that you use them for supplemental purposes only. You should also look for royalty-free video clips. There are quite a number of them available

online. I would suggest that if you are serious about branding, you need to hire a voiceover artist.

The good news is Fiverr offers a wide range of voice over artists who can speak for different lengths of time depending on voice quality. So, of course, the higher quality, the more you should pay.


















































Chapter 09 - Personality-Focused Videos




I don’t want to sound biased here, but if you really want your marketing videos to deliver a punch and increase your chances of converting your viewers, you definitely need to check this out. I recommend personality-focused videos

because they go a long way in really delivering the strategic advantages you get with video.

Video is powerful because it creates presence. When that presence is paired up with a direct human-to-human connection amplified by the richness and intimacy of the human voice, you have yourself a potent cocktail of persuasion tools.


There are no two ways about it, but there are serious disadvantages with a personality-focused approach to video marketing. Still, with everything else being equal, this is the best type of video for marketing purposes.

Advantages


If you're looking for a brand-centric approach to video marketing, this is it. Since your face is your brand, and your personality is your brand, this approach goes a long way in creating a direct

personal connection with your audience.

As much as technically possible, you create that human-to-human interaction. The viewer can be put in a position where he or she can say, “I get you. I understand where you’re coming from. I feel you.”

If you're able to do that, it's so much easier to build trust. It's so much easier to get people to go to where you need them to go.

Also, if you are going to be putting your face on video, you get a competitive advantage since many of your competitors focus on slideshow, automated text to video tools and other volume-based approaches to video marketing. Very few of them would actually put their face on video for whatever reason.

Disadvantages


The moment you put your face on video, things can get too personal. Whatever you say, whatever you do and whatever stuff you write will eventually come back to your face. In other words, people can put a

face to text or can put a face to ideas.

It’s easy to see the advantages to this. You know, you create a brand in a very direct and personal way. You connect with people in a very human, intimate and sincere way. So far, so good.

However, the problem is what if you say something out of turn later? What if you tweeted something while you’re in a bad mood? What if you were suffering from a bad day and you said something that you should not have said? What happens to your brand then?

A lot is riding on your brand, and it's very easy for people’s brands to go up in smoke just because they did the wrong thing at the wrong time, and that got the attention of the wrong people.

Also, if your brand becomes too personal, what happens when it's time for you to cash out? I know people who have built up businesses that make five thousand dollars a month, and they turned around and sold that business for six figures. This is going to be a problem if your brand is your face.



For example your website is Joe Blow, and you have Joe Blow videos on YouTube. Everybody loves Joe Blow. What happens if Joe Blow goes away or takes a permanent vacation from the business? It may be very hard for you to unload your business

at that point.

Also, highly personalized videos are more expensive to make. This goes without saying. It takes a lot more time. You probably are going to be nervous at first. You're going to go through take after take after take.

Furthermore, you're going to have to invest in video editing. You can do this yourself, but people try to put in a lot of time. You can also hire somebody off places like Fiverr, but depending on the length of the video, it can cost you quite a bit of money.

Regardless, you need a solid script and great narration skills so you can basically read the script in a very human and casual way. It shouldn’t be obvious that you’re reading a script.

Your eyes shouldn’t be just focused on the screen, and it's obvious that your eyeballs are slowly moving as you scroll through the script, and then you go back to the first line like a typewriter, and then you go down and hold back to the first line. That's awkward!

Ideally, your “script” should just be a couple of lines and you speak improvisationally. You basically just have a screen in front of you with the major

ideas that you'll be talking about. Since you know these ideas like the back of your hand, you only need to be reminded of them for you to just speak naturally.

That takes quite a bit of practice, and it takes quite a bit of skill to do that.

Enhancements


To really take this video marketing type to a whole other level, you need to make sure that you produce only enhanced videos.

First, invest in branding

elements like a small audio snippet or animation that ends with your brand or logo. This makes your video look more like the kind of stuff you would see on TV in news segments or special interest segments.

You can get a high-quality logo as well as great opening music or even opening introductory animation from places like Fiverr or freelancer.com.

It's also important when you are doing personality-focused videos to call the viewer to engage. You basically tell the viewer, “I need your comments. What do you think about this question? When did this happen to you? Please share in the comments, like this

video and share it on Facebook.


That’s how you deliver on your personality. You can’t just say, “See you next time.” You're wasting your golden opportunity when you do that.































































Chapter 10 - Marketing Videos on Social Media

When you're marketing videos on social media, it's a bad idea to use article-to-video tools. That’s just not going to happen because on social media, people will follow your brand. People will talk about your brand. Your brand starts developing a reputation.


If you crank out a tremendous amount of low-quality article-to-video garbage, whatever work, time, effort and sacrifice you put into building a solid brand goes up in smoke. Don't do it. Don't even think about doing it.


How come?


If you still need to be persuaded why you should steer clear of fully automated videos, it really boils down to the following three factors.

Your video must provide something extra. In other words,
you’re sharing stuff on social media.

This video must say something different from your blog post or article. It can’t just be a word-for-word dictation of the stuff that you’ve already written.

Your videos must enhance your written content


Not only should your video offer something extra, and we're talking about something in addition here. It should also do so to enhance your written content.

In other words, when people are getting value from your written content, this value is taken to a whole other level because now they’re seeing your video. They get the “aha” moment. They go, “Ah, okay, that makes the article even more powerful.”


It must create a tight fit between your text and video content


Your video shouldn't just present information like your article didn’t exist. If anything, it has to mention your article, your blog brand, your

social media accounts and then, in turn, your text content should talk about your video as well. This is called the cross mention.

This way, when you include content in each format, people become aware that you have content distributed all over the place. You have content on social media. You have content on SlideShare. You have content on Quora.

When they interact with that content, they quickly discover that this content is something different. It talks about the same stuff, but there's added value there. You’re not just distributing the same stuff across the board.

In other words, you’re rewarding the audience for the time and effort they took to seek out your material. You’re giving them something of value. It's a reward. You give them an incentive.




Also, the more they engage with your materials, the more incentivised they feel because they know that you are paying attention to them. In fact, you could say in your video, “Leave a comment, and I will create a video based on the most popular ideas.”


That's how you get your audience to become emotionally invested in what you do. To a certain extent, they become co-creators with you. To a certain extent, they become co-partners in what you're doing, and there's no better vehicle to get this across than video.

















Conclusion



The information I shared with you here enables you to take your video marketing results to the next level. You have to make sure you customize it to fit your circumstances however.


Only you know your niche backwards and forwards. At least
that’s how well you should be familiar with your niche.

The bottom line is the more you do something, the better you get at it. So, keep experimenting, stay hungry, stay curious and, eventually, victory will be yours. I wish you nothing but the greatest success!










1


