Videos are everywhere these days, there`s no escaping them and chances are, you don`t want to. After all there`s something about videos that just makes it easier to assimilate information.

Part of the reason that people are using video marketing so much is that it just works. You might be surprised at how well. Being able to see what you are talking about will create a special bond with your visitors and can be a great way to turn plain visitors into clients.

I would suggest studying how to make a good quality video and then start your own video marketing campaign. It`s a great way to go and something that can really help boost your business. If you appear in your own video, you`ll find that people respond even more to the fact that they can finally see the real you.

Video marketing is not going to disappear anytime soon and you should definitely embrace it if you want to continue attracting new clients.

Small business owners don’t get a lot of chances to place their products in front of a thousand people in video and film through product placements. This type of marketing is usually reserved for the big corporations who have the kind of money it takes to make that happen. But can small business owners take advantage of product placement opportunities?

Well, they certainly can’t call up Tim Burton or Quentin Tarantino and get in on the next big movie. But I think that small businesses can get in on the product placement action another way.

Video marketing makes product placement more affordable and more accessible to small business owners. You may not get your product or service in front of hundreds of thousands of people who view movies or read books, but you can get your product placement in front of thousands of video watchers on YouTube and other video sharing sites. There are two ways that I think you can go about this:

1. Piggyback Ride - The piggyback ride is just like it sounds. You find someone who is making a video for creative purposes and ask to put your product or service into their online video for a price.
2. Create Your Own - The second way to go about product placement is to create your own video that isn’t an advertising video, but is rather a creative output of some kind. You can even hire a firm to create and produce a creative video for you. It’s an entertain or educational video and you have your product placed somewhere in the video, prominently displayed, as a subtle way to advertise it without shoving it in people’s faces.

Both of these approaches require some kind of branding and if you do it effectively then you can spawn searches for your product or have people visit your website because they saw your product in a video online and wanted to learn more about you.

David Meerman Scott at Web Ink Now wrote a good post on why online business is important. He says:

If you’re selling camels at the Riyadh camel market, then keep marketing the same old ways.

But if you’re not selling camels in Riyadh, then you need to stop making excuses and implement ways to reach your buyers directly with great online content.

That’s funny, but it’s true. Ironically, David himself missed an opportunity to increase his own brand exposure. I wanted to embed his video here on this blog, but he’s got that feature turned off. He could have included his name and URL in the credits of his blog and allowed others to embed the video on their blogs and websites, giving him greater exposure. Of course, the flip side is by not doing that I have to link to his blog instead. But not everyone will. Some people would prefer to play the video and if they can’t do that then they won’t blog on that topic, or they’ll go find another video to use to make their point.

At any rate, thanks to David for pointing out the importance of doing business online for (almost) everyone.

Kudos to Search Marketing Standard for a great article on using video to influence online reputation management. Grant Crowell goes into great detail about how video has been used online to influence search rankings in politics and celebrity publicity. This information can be used by anyone, and particularly small businesses, to manage reputations online.

Of course, online video can be a two-edge sword. That video of you dancing drunkenly in the parking lot of the church at your sister’s wedding could appear in the search results as well, so you do have to be careful. But by uploading videos of your business meetings, customer interaction moments, and other events you’d like to highlight, could be good for your business and help you to manage your online reputation.

Let’s say a potential customer wants to research your CEOs name to learn more about what you are up to in order to make a decision about doing business with your company. The customer Google’s your CEOs name and in the top 10 results are your company’s website, your CEOs personal blog, the company blog, a third-party review at a local search directory, and three videos uploaded by your marketing department. Video No. 1 could be of your CEO receiving an important industry award and his acceptance speech. Video No. 2 could be your CEO speaking to your company employees at the annual picnic. Video No. 3 could be your CEO leading a group of customers on a company plant tour.

These are all opportunities for you to present yourself in a positive light and provide positive public relations for your company. And the best part is video marketing online is a lot less expensive than TV advertising.