Causality Productions Founder Ed Kelly featured in Small Business Opportunities Magazine.

Video Advertising for Small Business

Video Advertising and Small Business: An online movement toward video has begun. Are you ‘watching’?

By Ed Kelly

At one time, many of us considered advertising online an extraneous expense. Advertising on the internet was something that we did half-heartedly, never truly expecting to see much of a return on investment. We added content to our websites and even bought a web page banner or two, but we quickly forgot about this investment and moved along to what we considered to be more important advertising avenues. Thinking this way made sense at the time, when the digital age was still in infancy. If only we could go back and do it over again with the knowledge of today.

While time travel is out of the question, for now, what we are left with is taking advantage of the newest online trends to position ourselves in the most visible and accessible areas in the online world. Of course, the subject of social media now comes up in every marketing meeting. Your Facebook updates are well thought out marketing strategies and your LinkedIn page is connected with all of the right people…but now what? What will be the next big online movement? The answer is simple.

Video Advertising

For many small businesses, having a professionally produced television commercial has been something completely out of reach. A local hair salon, pizza place or gym could rarely afford to pay the high cost of hiring a full production crew to spotlight their business. Add to that the cost of buying air time on local television stations to show their commercial, and the investment quickly skyrockets. To the owner of, as an example, ABC Daycare Center, the investment could never be justified.

Why should she spend thousands of dollars on a commercial that might only increase her new sales by 5%? Even if she beat the odds and secured an additional 10% of sales due to the commercial, as a small local business, the income from those new customers wouldn’t be enough to cover the original investment. And worse, as part of the television package that she must buy, the commercial would air in areas outside of her core demographic. That means she is forced to pay for advertisements that never bring in additional customers…after all, would anyone bring their children to a daycare center located over an hour away from their home? Not likely. So the two major reasons why our fictitious daycare center decides against having a commercial produced is the high cost, and the lack of focus on where the commercial airs. Herein lays the foundation of our next online movement, video commercials for small business.

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (which forecasts and tracks the impact of visual networking applications online), “By 2017, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic.” Think about that; 69% of all consumer internet traffic. That means, in less than three years time, most people visiting a website will expect to see some form of video. Why has video increased online so drastically and in such a small amount of time? The reason is simple. As of May 2013, 63% of adults use a mobile device to get online {PewResearch}. That means that most people are only seeing a portion of a website, and not spending time reading text on their smaller mobile screens.

It is much more convenient to view a video on a mobile device than to read through pages of text. The days of simple text and graphics on a website have come to an end. When a prospect views ABC Daycare Center’s website the expectation is to see a well produced video explaining why this daycare center is better then all of the others. What if ABC doesn’t have video? They may not only lose the opportunity for the sale, but may actually hand the sale over to a competitor who does have video. It has been found time and time again, people are more likely to watch a commercial then to read text on a website. If one website has video and is being compared to a website that does not, which one will be more competitive?

Another integral part of this online movement toward video advertising is that the cost of producing commercials has fallen drastically over the years. It is now very possible for every Mom & Pop store to be able to enjoy the benefits of having a commercial online. At one time, having a commercial produced and aired could cost tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, production alone could cost $5,000. Now though, the cost of a high quality, professionally produced online commercial can be as low as $500, making video an easily attained marketing solution for any small business.

ABC Daycare Center can now afford to have a commercial produced. The commercial airs not on television but on the daycare center’s website, Facebook page, YouTube channel or other social media outlet, which means the people who may need their services are the ones who are seeing the video. With this lower cost solution available, and the fact that the video will be seen by the right people, the opportunity for ABC Daycare Center to receive a high return on investment is much more realistic.

This same line of thought will occur to the owner of a local restaurant, insurance agency, grocery or realtor. Millions upon millions of small businesses will be looking to add video to their online marketing strategy. Yes, the next big thing is here.

About the Author

Ed Kelly is Founder of Causality Productions, a company specializing in online video advertising for small business.