Video offers you the chance to REALLY engage with your clients and customers

With the growth of sites like YouTube, more and more businesses have started to include video clips on their websites. Could this approach work for your own business and how complicated is it?

Over the past few months I've been playing around with video on my various websites to see whether it REALLY makes any difference. I've been using audio clips for years and so I was interested to see if it would have any impact.

I'll be honest, I procrastinated around this for a while. Back in 2005 I'd seen some great software which would allow you to put video clips on your site and the person demonstrating it had set things up so they had a bright white background. I thought the white background looked really clean and so I tried to recreate it.

After a few failed attempts I threw in the towel.

Then I saw someone else using a green screen and superimposing backgrounds from around the world or what looked like offices or TV studios. Again, very impressive and I tried to do it myself. Disaster. I spent so long 'researching' the software, the tools and the set-up that I never got round to doing it.

I convinced myself that unless I could get it looking really slick that I shouldn't do it. (I also convinced myself that I needed to shed a few pounds first, get my hair cut, grow my hair, buy a new outfit, decorate the office and generally find any excuse whatsoever NOT to do it)

What made we pull my finger out and do it was that I shared the platform with Frank Furness (www.frankfurness.com) at a conference and he told me that he gets LOADS of traffic to his site from his YouTube channel.

Hmmm....interesting, so I set up a YouTube channel myself.

OK, YouTube only works when you have videos to share, doesn't it? It was time to DO something!

My business partner and I bought a new video camera, set up a tripod and started recording 2-3 minute business and marketing tips. I found Windows Movie Maker on my computer and started playing around with the tips, editing, putting in captions, etc.

The lighting was crappy. The background was a corner of my office. We stumbled over words and just about made it through, but I figured that it was better to do something than not do it at all.

I uploaded the clips to YouTube and embedded them on our website, set up emails to let our clients and prospects know that they were there...and waited.

The only comments were along the lines of "Lighting's crap" - yes, we know.

I was almost on the point of giving up on video altogether and putting it down to being another internet marketing fad (even though I particularly enjoyed watching other people's videos).

Then something interesting happened.

I was doing some outbound calling to people who'd opened an email about a course we were running. They were directors of small businesses. Where before I'd been met by the gatekeeper or asked, "sorry, who did you say you were?" the reaction was "Oh hi Hannah, how are you?" and I could hear the smile in their voices. It was like they were speaking to an old friend.

Let me be clear. With most of these people we had never spoken or met before, and yet they felt they knew me.

Wow.

In fact, double wow.

Even though until this point I'd had no feedback, these video clips were making an impression. Interestingly enough the quality of the videos didn't seem to matter too much and in some ways it made me and my company even more real than if we'd had a slick, overly produced video.

There are a few conclusions you can draw from this:

• It's better to get something out there and start than do nothing
• Even if you're getting no feedback, it doesn't mean that something isn't working
• People like engaging with people and seeing/hearing you helps them get to know you

So, you're going to be seeing an awful lot more of me in the future! (Plus I've bought a new laptop with an excellent webcam so the quality's a lot better!!)

If you want to check out what I've been doing on www.MarketingHelpForCoaches.com go back to the home page and have a look at the introduction video.

Members can now watch video tutorials showing you how to make the most of your membership at http://www.marketinghelpforcoaches.com/members/department88.cfm

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