How to make online videos that sell

Creating online videos is a very powerful way to help sell your products or services online. The reason is, that more than anything else, it creates an emotional connection with your products and helps people get to know, like and trust you.

I guess the problem most of us have is actually getting started when we don’t have a clue about making one.

Over the last couple of weeks a guy by the name of Andy Jenkins has been spruiking the advantages of online video advertising, giving away lots of free tips in (I have to admit) a rather compelling series of ‘how to videos’, called (eeek!) The Video Boss.

Unfortunately, he’s removed the four videos he created – so I can’t send you over to take a look, but there are some key takeaways which are worth sharing.

In his first video he talked about the reasons why you should consider making videos for your business. The one I really liked (and we use a bit in our agency) is video Search Engine Optimisation to take advantage of Google Universal search.

The idea is to build links to your video page on YouTube. There’s a lot less effort required (ie. fewer links needed) to get a strong ranking in the top five positions in the Google search results compared to a normal web page.

In the second video he gave away some really handy tips about how to make videos cheaply using software tools most of us have, like Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple’s Screenflow.

In his third video he showed you how to share your videos to get maximum reach. Key takeaway? If you’ve produced a video, get onto Tube Mogul – where you can post each video you create on 15 video sharing sites in one go (but first you’ll need to sign up to the 15 video sharing sites!). Then you get some nice reporting showing you how your video is performing on each.

Of course, over the weekend I thought I’d give it a try using Andy’s instructions. It sounded so simple.

Sadly it ended, well… badly; my video was too long, it was boring and doing the voice-over was painful. I think like any great movie, it all comes down to the script. And mine sucked.

There’s no doubt Andy knew it would happen to all us newbies who tried to give it a go, which meant we were ripe and ready for his big pitch (video number four), the monster training course (value – USD $1,995).

It worked, all spots sold out in less than 24 hours. I wasn’t one of them though, with two kids and a harried partner, I don’t have time these days…

Now you need to put your name on a waiting list to be admitted… Really Andy? What are you up to here? I think it’s one of the greatest marketing ploys I’ve witnessed in a long time. I mean, it’s an online course… how can you have too many people joining it?

The other thing I’ll be missing out on this week will be Ed Dale’s “Coming home seminar” which I think will be pretty awesome and very cutting edge. The guys from website buying and selling portal will be there among many others.

I’ve been watching Ed and his internet marketing antics out of the corner of my eye for a couple of years now, and I think his approach to internet marketing is quite fascinating. There’s an element of GRQ (Get Rich Quick) but on the whole his techniques are worth checking out.

If you’ve got the bucks (about $1k) and the weekend to spare, I reckon you’ll get a lot out of it.

For more Online Sales expert advice, click here.

Chris Thomas heads up Reseo, a search engine optimisation  company which specialises in creating and maintaining Google AdWords campaigns and Search Engine Optimisation campaigns for a range of corporate clients.