If you own a brick and mortar business in today’s economic climate, you are probably trying to figure out how to best get your product or service in front of your local customers.
So, you have gotten your website ranked highly on search engines, but you still do not have that noticeable increase in customers you were told you would. SEO, or search engine optimization is only one part of using your internet presence to its maximum benefit. Once people go to your site, you must create a reaction in your new visitor that in essence is, “Wow, I think that doing business with this company is a No Brainer”.
How do you do that? On home page of your web site, the first thing you need to create is “TRUST”. You can do this by listing any business organizations you belong to, like the BBB, with a link to your rating. Use the textual content to describe why your way of doing business is different and better that other people in your local area doing the same thing. Have testimonials on your front page, in a sidebar, so visitors see it without needing to scroll down the page… What is the best type of testimonial? Video of your best customer saying how happy they are with your product/service is the best way to capture the interest of a new potential customer.
If the advertising department of your local cable service or TV station has contacted you to do a TV ad, bear this in mind, total cost versus effectiveness. A TV ad will cost you money for, the production, and every time it is aired. If the spots you choose are considered prime time, they will cost a lot more. Television advertising is called “interruption advertising”, for good reason. You are watching your favorite show and your viewing is interrupted by a commercial. Even if you might be interested in what is being sold, chances are you will not remember the contact information anyway. It costs a lot to show your business to people that mostly do not care about what you are selling and paying a lot of money to do it. A short three minute testimonial video, or a video of you talking about how your business approach is so much better than other people doing the same thing in your city is so much more effective both in cost and in exposure. Your only real cost is the original video production. Depending on your market location, this cost can vary from as little as six hundred and fifty dollars to several thousand. In smaller cities located away from major urban areas, the cost is in the lower end of that range, In Los Angeles; the costs are at the upper end of the range. But the good thing is, that is really the only cost, one time that is it!
The video is placed on YouTube and embedded on your website, where it works for you 24/7. The best part is that the people that watch it are watching it because they found you in a search for your product/service, and the video simply helps to set you apart from other businesses. You are not interrupting their favorite TV program, and you are only being found by people that are interested in what you are offering.
Internet video advertising is truly a “NO BRAINER”. When combined with an effective SEO campaign, it can really help drive customers to your business. Once they find you, they want to stay and spend money with you…
