By Shane Mills

The other night, a friend asked me how he could increase the conversions from his company’s website quickly and easily.

I thought about it for a moment and said, “Video”!

There are several reasons why I said that. Let me explain the reasons and then I’ll give you some tips on how to make it work for you in any situation. 

• First of all, you can use video on a website to promote yourself, your service, your product or even someone else’s product for that matter.

• Video is the closest thing to making a face-to-face presentation without actually being there in person. It’s better than audio and it’s certainly better than a brochure.

• Video has the numbers. The internet has surpassed television in viewing hours per week. And around 70% plus of the time spent surfing the internet is watching videos.

• Video converts like crazy. In our experience, video has a much higher conversion rate than a content based web page. As much as 4-1.

• Video is easy. It’s not hard to make a video and use it effectively on the internet…
 
So how can you make video work for your business?

Glad you asked!

If you already have a business here’s what you can do. Grab a video camera and talk about your business. Don’t make the mistake and oversell your business. Just talk about your business like you would talk to a friend. Don’t worry about getting all “Hollywood”. Just be normal.

For instance, if you had a business selling widgets you could say something like:

”Welcome and thanks for stopping by our website. We’ve put this video together to help you understand a little more about what makes a good widget good and a bad widget bad”.

Then you could go through the process of how you make or buy your widgets, the quality control measures you have in place and even the people who are standing by to take your phone call. If you have a good idea of what makes your widget unique then talk about it.

It might go something like this.

“Most widgets have springs made from regular steel. We found after months of field tests that regular steel cracks from repeated use and that’s why we decided to use Super-Dooper steel to guarantee our widgets will last a minimum of xx years. If they don’t, we’ll give you your money back. Now that adds about 5% to the price but they’ll last three times longer than widgets with regular springs and you’ll have a 2/3 less downtime swapping widgets which means you’ll end up saving thousands of dollars in the long run.”     

Do you think that will get their attention? Of course, it will.

All you have to do then is load that video onto your website (or YouTube.com) and let the video act as your 24 hour sales person. You would then place some small and inexpensive ads pointing to your widget video website page.

Even if there’s nothing unique about your widget, the fact that you’re walking someone through the process of being in the widget business will get you ahead of you competition.

Imagine it from your customer’s point of view …

They’re looking for someone to do business with and your competitors will all be sending out messages like “buy from me” and “we’re the biggest and best”. But, present them with a video educating them about widgets and all of a sudden you’re the one with instant credibility.

Can you see the possibilities?

Here’s another example …

One of the nicest, intelligent and most sincere men in business I’ve met is Fred Marfleet. Fred owns a global cost reduction franchise business called Expense Reduction Analysts. I looked at the “ERA” website the other day and saw a good example of how to use video to establish rapport with potential franchisees.

Now, you have to know that there are two sides to the “ERA” business. The first is getting “franchisees” or associates or business partners, and the other side is doing the business that generates income. This video is aimed at franchisees. 

Although the links to the video are a little clumsy you’ll get the idea when you watch it. Heres a link to the “ERA” website http://findextraprofit.com/Video.aspx     
  
Now when you watch the video don’t worry too much about the professionalism of the footage. In most cases you don’t need it to be that slick.

Here’s one more example of using video to sell a product …

This example is interesting because it’s a great offer followed by a fairly hard sell. I’m a sucker for this type of stuff and love the buying process. Some people might be put off by it though because it is such a hard sell.

Anyway the guy’s name is Mike Filsaime and he’s an internet marketer. Here’s the link to see what I’m talking about  http://The7FigureSecrets.com/ 

You’ll see from watching his video that it’s just Mike sitting at his desk pushing his product. What I’d like you to take away from watching the video is understand that video doesn’t need to be fancy to be effective.

Here’s another way you can increase the conversions from your website. Let’s say that sell widgets and you have prepared a small report (white paper) about widgets. Instead of just saying “click here” to get my free report, why not do what Mike did and set up a video camera and film yourself sitting at your desk talking about what’s in the report. Once the person can see the value in your offer a good percentage will happily give their name and email address to receive it.

It’s important to remember why it’s good to capture your prospect’s details. It allows you to send additional relevant and useful information about your product or services increasing your chances of them doing business with you. 

Imagine how easy and powerful this simple concept can be in increases conversions and building rapport at the same time.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an accountant, a lawyer or real estate agent this is an amazing simple way to start the relationship with potential clients and customers and yet so few people do it.  

Now you might be thinking all this sounds a bit too hard but it’s not. You can get a “web” person to put video on your site for next to nothing and they’ll know how to make sure the videos play correctly etc.

The other thing is quality and knowing what to say. You can see with the Mike Filsaime video that the quality was good enough to get his message across. Have a look at the videos on Google and YouTube and you’ll see that you really don’t need super HD quality to have a popular video.

Knowing what to say is easy. First of all don’t put on a “radio voice” and don’t just sell your business. Just talk about what makes your report or business unique and if you’re selling widgets, talk about the characteristics of the widget. And, then somewhere near the end you might mention that if they would like to find out more they can call your office or subscribe to your newsletter.

If you’re a real estate broker you might use video to introduce yourself if you’re new and talk about why you love real estate and how you are going to help sell a property through superior marketing. You might also use video do a monthly report and send it to your list of potential clients. 

If you’re an accountant you might use video to talk about taxation strategies and how you have helped xx number of people save xx% tax by using your strategies. You might use case studies or even talk about your financial predictions for the coming year.

If you sell fire extinguishers and you know that your product has a longer extinguishing time why not show a side-by-side demonstration. 

The possibilities are endless and very exciting… 

And check this out. This has nothing to do with online website conversions but can you believe that this video has had almost 89,000,000 people watch it in less than two years. I did the math and that’s about 122,000 per day.  

It’s kinda funny too, so only watch it when you’re not busy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg