Video marketing is one of the best methods for both getting your sales message across, and driving traffic, but many people who try it fail really badly!

The problem is that people focus on all the wrong things, fall flat on their face with virtually nobody watching their videos and then give up! Sound familiar? Well don’t worry, let me show you what you’re doing wrong, and how to solve the problem immediately!

Success breeds success

Let’s say you’re searching YouTube for video tutorials on using Google’s Adwords. You enter your search term, click the search button, and among the results you see these 2 videos. Which one would YOU click on?

I bet you picked the first video right?  Well most people would and it’s not hard to see why.  At this point we have very limited information about each video – a small screenshot, a title, a short description, the username of the poster, the age of the video and how many views it has had.

Now while all of these will affect our decision in some way, that last piece of information – how many times the video has already been viewed, is what will make most people click on the first video.

Whether conciously or subconciously, we realise that both videos have been online for roughly the same amount of time and yet one of them has been viewed many, many more times.  We assume (rightly or wrongly) that since it has been more popular it’s probably a better video, and we follow the herd and click on the link.

So, the answer to getting more views is getting more views right?  Well hold on, it gets a little more complicated than that!

YouTube rankings

Ever noticed what YouTube shows you after watching one of their videos?  That’s right, links to more videos!

YouTube want to keep you on their site as long as possible, since that allows them more opportunities to show you advertising and generate them revenue.  So after watching a video (and in the sidebar while viewing) you’ll see links to “related video”, essentially other content which YouTube believes you’ll also be interested in watching.

So how does YouTube determine which “other videos” to link to?  Well again, they use the number of views as one of their factors, but others include number of comments, and user ratings.  So not only does a video need lots of views, but also lots of comments and a high user rating in order to attract more viewers – a classic “chicken and egg” situation.  To get more views, you need more views!

There is a solution

So the reason most people fail at video marketing is because they spend hours crafting the best video they can produce.  They buy a new camera, editing software, lighting, a book on “video production” and pour their heart and soul into their masterpiece.  Then they upload to YouTube and wait for that torrent of traffic which never comes, and give up thinking nobody likes their video!

The problem of course is that they didn’t get traffic to their video, and with no traffic they get no views, no comments and no ratings.  When their video appears in search results they get no clicks, because nobody wants to click on a video with only 12 views!

So how do we set the ball rolling, and give our videos the boost they deserve?

Step 1 – send visitors

Whenever you upload a new video you YouTube you should send traffic direct to the video.  Make a blog post and link to the video, post the link on Twitter and Facebook, send an email out to your list…

Your subscribers, followers and readers already know you, trust you, and are interested in your niche so they are likely to be interested in your video.  That initial rush of visitors will bump up your views, which will start to attract more “cold” visitors direct from YouTube.

Step 2 – ask for interaction

Don’t just direct people to your video – ask them to join in the conversation.  Ask a question and tell them to reply in the comments, and ask them to rate the video.  That will start a commotion around your video, get the conversation started, and increase your rankings on YouTube and the liklihood of your video showing up in the “similar videos” lists driving yet more traffic.

Step 3 – embed

Your view count increases from views on YouTube and on embedded videos, so embed your video into your blog, landing page, website, in fact anywhere you think your visitors will be interested in watching it.  Set the video to autoplay and you increase your views with every new video, and more views means more traffic!

Got any more tips of your own on getting more eyeballs on your YouTube videos?  Then leave a comment below…