Even though the Donald’s over-inflated ego, TV show and ridiculous quaff of hair always get in the way of his message, I think he was spot on in his recent blog post, The Power of Video Marketing.

Online video marketing isn’t about pitching consumers with shotgun-style Television commercials which they habitually block out – it’s about engaging potential customers with information relevant to THEIR search!  If nearly 85% of online users watched video in March, as a savvy business professional, why would you want to miss out on such a large target market looking for your products and services?

Video can be used in many ways:
- Online Video is a must for Search Engine Marketing landing pages – independent Berry studies have shown a 50% boost in conversion rates when video is placed on SEM landing pages compared to those campaigns without one
- Web Video should be properly tagged with keywords relevant to your business so people can find it and distributed to all the major video sharing websites
- If you have several products or services, you need a ’say-it-all’ internet video as a 24/7 pitch for your business, and several shorter (15-sec) videos for each line of business

The old adage of “a picture is worth a thousand words” could never be more true than in today’s consumer driven online world.  People are constantly being bombarded with media they didn’t ask for.  If online video is available to you at a low-cost with this kind of ROI – internet video that  delivers the right video content to a potential client searching for your business at the exact time they want it  – then what have you got to lose…

Our thirst for online video consumption is at an all-time high  Trends consistently show large-scale growth in this internet medium.  If there was ever a time for you to have a professional video produced for your local business, it’s now!

People aren’t just watching video for fun – the viral kind.  People are using video to learn about brands, products and services.  They are using it as one of 8 medium the consult before making a purchase decision.  Utilize online video to accelerate your leads by engaging potential customers with a 60 second online pitch.

Data from the comScore March 2010 Video Metrix report shows more than 180 million U.S. internet users watched online video in March, up 3.5% from February alone!  Total video views soared to over 31 billion, with 42% of those views happening on Google properties, more specifically, YouTube.

comScore-march-2010-video-metrix

Other notable findings from March 2010 as quoted by comScore.com include:

• The top video ad networks in terms of their actual reach delivered were: Joost Video Network (by Adconion Media Group) with 38.0 percent penetration of online video viewers, SpotXchange Video Ad Network with 19.9 percent, and BBE with 19.1 percent.
• 84.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• 135.3 million viewers watched 12.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (95.6 videos per viewer).
• The average Hulu viewer watched 26.7 videos, totaling 2.6 hours of video per viewer.
• The duration of the average online video was 4.3 minutes.

The growth of online video is presenting tremendous opportunities to those businesses that take advantage of it.  Link Here.  The article states, “If you are an online advertiser, there is no better time to take advantage of online video to drive consumers to your website.”

Youtube emphasizes search in its new design. Link Here.  Youtube continues to move towards a search engine design and feel more and more which is good news for advertisers.  Will Youtube eventually move to a Google Adwords type model with sponsored links in searches?  Maybe.

ReachLocal Grossed $147 Million in ’08, Projects ’09 Growth.  Link Here.

Pay for call or P4P models are growing rapidly in the yellow pages industry.  Link Here.

Gmail passes AOL to become the 3^rd largest email service. Link Here.

Emarketer posts article, “Some advertising shines in dark times.  Link Here. Among the advertising mediums that are shining:

• Online video spending +34% in 2009
• Mobile spending +39% in 2009
• Internet Yellow Pages +2.9% in 2009

CBS Sports and ESPN are swooping up local domain names, too, similar to what Marchex was reportedly doing this past spring. Link Here.

SEO expert Brad Geddes says that the meta tag descriptions remain very important, despite recent reports.  Link Here.  Geddes also says that title tags remain the most important on-page SEO tactic you can use.

A woman is sued for $50k for a simple Twitter Tweet.  Link Here. An apartment complex is suing the woman, claiming libel, for her tweet, “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”.