Hi everyone – Adam here. Just a quick note today. This is a guest post from Mitch O’Conner. I’d love to get your feedback and thoughts on having guest posts, so feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments to send us an email. On with your regularly scheduled post!

Back in 2010, the Small Business Marketing Forecast found that around 45% of all small businesses that took part in the survey had plans to boost their video marketing budgets for 2011. That 45% increase was the first time that the SBMF showed such a marked change – nearly double the previous years’ estimates. And 2011 is shaping up to be the year of the video. YouTube has never been more powerful, and online video has never been more accessible. Faster Internet speeds have provided the technology necessary to support such growth, and more people are turning to streaming online video for information than ever before.

So, it makes sense that your small business should be leveraging video to drive more leads and boost sales. But how? Do you need to make a viral video of a cat saying “hello” and prominently distribute it wherever you can? For the most part, videos never need to go viral to provide a solid ROI for your business. In fact, there are four major ways that you can easily leverage video for your small business.

Use Videos to Get Signups for a Newsletter

One of the best ways you can use any of your tools is to inspire leads to sign up for an email newsletter. These videos tend to be the most fun to make, as you can make a video about almost anything related to your business, then add a slight pitch at the end asking viewers to sign up for your newsletter. One of the best techniques for this strategy is to offer a series of videos. For example, you might be a party planner that helps people organize their own parties. You could offer a video series on how to make ten easy womens Halloween costumes. Then, do the following:

1. Make all ten videos right away, offering the best one on your website (be sure to distribute it on YouTube as well).
2. Make each video the same format, but only include your newsletter pitch in the first one.
3. Promise to send the rest of the series in your email newsletter, which the viewers can sign up for where your first video is hosted.

When you do send your newsletter, you can pack it with promotional offers to accompany the video. But beware of sending the videos out over too long of a period of time. Viewers can lose interest in your content very quickly.

Use Videos to Send Leads or Gain Conversions

You can also leverage video in the form of reviews or quick tips, which subtly contain product pitches to get conversions. Avoid structuring your video as a review – this is overdone. Instead, create “quick tips” videos that contain your products or services as a part of the solution to the problem the video is addressing. For example, if you sell web development services, you can make videos like:

• 5 Ways to Get More Traffic
• How to Create a Landing Page
• How to Build a Website in 10 Easy Steps

The video should never offer enough information for the viewer to perform the service themselves, but rather act as a way to get viewers excited about the task and the ways in which your service can complete that task. Your pitch can be almost anywhere within the video (closer to the start of the video is better), and it should be advertised as an alternative. In other words, your viewer could write high quality content for their new website themselves, but you offer those services as well to save customers time and money – this should be clear from the video.

Use Videos to Make Direct Sales

There are also ways to use video to make direct sales, which don’t require the viewer to take any further action besides interacting with the video itself. You can include a hyperlink at the end of the video that users can type into their address bar to buy your product. However, this only works well with highly branded and easy to remember URLs like Google.com or Overstock.com. If you want to link to a deep page, or have a less easy to remember domain name, include an active link below the video where it appears online. Some video services will allow you to embed a link in the video that users can click. For the most part, this is the best way to make direct sales using video.

Use Video Site Partner Programs Like YouTube

If you don’t sell any products, you can still leverage video to make money by taking advantage of partner programs offered by sites like YouTube. Although the cost per impression is nothing to write home about, there are YouTube members that make a decent living creating video content for the site. YouTube’s partner program provides a payment to creators based on how many people view their content (usually a fraction of a penny per view).

So, the more viewers you have, the more money you make (subscriptions do nothing but theoretically boost your views). Most partners will boast around $10 to $20 per day. However, the top viewed channels on YouTube can bring in a very good wage. For example, in 2010, the highest viewed channel on YouTube (Shane Dawson) was grossed around $315,000, with 361.5 million upload views. If you do the math, that’s about $0.0009 per view.

You don’t have to be a professional videographer to make high quality video for your potential and existing customers. Thousands of web developers make interesting videos with a low quality camera, a passion for their subject, and expert knowledge of the material. Just like written content, your media doesn’t need to be flashy or cutting edge. It does, however, need to be honest, approachable, friendly, and helpful in order to be successful in boosting sales for your small business.

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