Why You Suck - You’re Not Using Video For Affiliate Marketing
Posted on June 4th, 2008 by Jason under Guest PostDerek Salyers is the author of the Click Consultants blog where you can Learn Affiliate Marketing. He has been promoting affiliate programs for over 2 years and works full-time from home doing so. Make sure to check out his blog today and discover the world of affiliate marketing.
If you’re not using Video on your affiliate websites yet, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to convert your visitors into cold hard cash!
Did you know that according to NetRatings in January 2008 87.49% of Internet users in the US are on a broadband connection? This number is expected to hit over 90% by mid 2008! The even greater thing is the US isn’t the only country seeing these types of numbers of growth in broadband connections! Canada and the UK are right behind with most of their users now using broadband as well!
The simple fact is most people are lazy! In fact, so lazy that most would prefer to watch video over reading text any day of the week! Why do you think more people watch the news instead of picking up a newspaper? Watching video is easier, it engages us more, and it captures our attention, and most importantly holds it!
With video becoming ever so increasingly easy for the average person to use, edit, and upload now is the time to start testing the waters and adding video to your affiliate landing pages! With popular camcorders like the Flip Ultra or Creative Vado it has become extremely easy to make videos, transfer them to your computer, and quickly edit and upload them!
If you’re anything like me, a cheap-ass, you’re already thinking, isn’t hosting video expensive? Have you been living under a rock? There are tons of free sites out there that will host your videos for you and allow you to easily embed them into your sites! A few that quickly some to mind are Youtube, MetaCafe, and Revver.
Why Should I Use Video?
Videos Build Trust
Video can help build trust with your visitors. It can create an instant connection that text or images simply can’t create!
Think about it for a minute… Would you rather see a screen shot of a program you’re about to purchase or a video showing highlights and key points of the software? The answer is an easy one and requires little thought! The video would allow you to instantly realize what the program can and will do for you or your business.
Video Keeps Visitors Attention
Video is able to keep people’s attention span a lot longer than text can. Unlike text, video allows you to show emotion and also allows you to capture your audience by sight and sound by using music or sounds in your videos.
Don’t Cost Much to Get Started
The cost of adding video content to your sites isn’t much. Most digital cameras allow you to also record video. Also, with the rise of video devices like the Flip or Vado, which range in price from $99 - $149.99, it is pretty cheap to get started. Also as I said above there are tons of free sites to host your videos that won’t cost you a penny. Also most devices come with free editing software and both the Mac and Windows comes with a free program for editing video.
Search Engines are Getting Smarter
Search engines are becoming increasingly good at indexing and displaying relevant videos with normal search results. In fact, I’ve been seeing Google results where I’ve typed in a search query and the first result is either an image or video related to that keyword!
This is only going to increase as search engines get better at indexing and tagging videos. Why? Because as we said above, people love videos so it would be commonsense for the search engines to include video results on their search results pages.
Conclusion
Video allows you to easily build trust, increase conversions, engage visitors, increase traffic, and more. In fact there are so many advantages to using video that I’m not even able to list them all in one blog post! Using a well thought out, planned video alongside text and pictures on your landing sites can take a campaign and increase conversions like you would believe.
There are millions of affiliate sites out there, yet very few are currently using video to engage their visitors. Video is still pretty much in it’s infancy and will only continue to grow. Eventually more and more people will use video on their sites. In fact, this may be sooner than you think!
Now is the time to start testing video on your landing sites and to see for yourself what adding a short 30 second video to your site can do for your sales and conversion rates!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Thanks Derek for the guest post.
For all those that are skeptical - Derek makes $23,000 a month before taxes so he might just know what he’s talking about.
I agree about videos. They tap into the laziness that resides in the typical American consumer. People don’t want to have to work for information. They want it spoonfed to them.
Flimjo’s last blog post..The Net Fool’s Outrageous Blog Contest Winners
Wow I never thought like that. I will surely see what all he talks. Thanks.
Agent 001’s last blog post..Backup and Restore your Blogger Posts
Blogger Unleashed is a perfect example for a successful blog that uses video, a lot.
Rajaie AlKorani’s last blog post..Blog Goals For June 2008
Always good to hear from Derek. He is a buddy of mine and a true inspiration in the aff marketing field…
Moneybites’s last blog post..Jumping Into Affiliate Marketing
$23,000 per month is no joke.
Flimjo’s last blog post..The Net Fool’s Outrageous Blog Contest Winners
I’m glad you all have enjoyed the post. If anyone has any specific questions about using video please leave a comment and I’ll be glad to answer!
Derek Salyers’s last blog post..Blog Income Report - May 2008
Video sounds like a great idea but obviously it shouldn’t be used in place of text. The surrounding text will be what search engines pick up as they obviously can’t view videos. How much of your video is just a repeat of the surrounding text?
Hey egk, You are absolutely correct! Video should never ever replace text. Instead it should compliment your landing page text. I would say approx. 50% of the video will contain stuff that could be found in the text.
The thing to remember, is that you don’t want to just sit there and read some text, you want to keep it simple, short, and sweet! You want to touch on the highlights, features, etc…
The reason I say about 50% is because you’ll also want your video to include things that aren’t in the text for those that watch the video and then also read the text. If you just include the key features in the video and stuff like that, if they read it again in your text it will only help to make those key benefits stick in their head.
The other 50% you want to make the video likable, this could be by using comedy a little, or something unique or bizarre, or whatever. You’ll have to test and see what works. Just reading your text and putting it into a video won’t entice your visitors to watch it which is the goal!
Derek Salyers’s last blog post..Question and Answer
and of course above all of these benefits, it increases you online presence as well as backlinks….
Melvin’s last blog post..I Don’t Just Get It
Yes, nowadays video is in great expansion.
Aleks’s last blog post..Funny picture - King nap
I did not know that video could be so good! Thanks Derek! And $23,000 a month is really good!
well dont you think that creating a video can take up a good amount of time? A video well made should take the time required to create several blog posts. However, this is just my idea, and surely a video will help your post, but the time should be a consideration.
Sadek Jake Alam’s last blog post..How a Creative Vado can Make YOU Money Online (Through Metacafe)
Thanks for sharing the video.,