Newbies’ Guide to Niche Marketing

Many users of MySpace tout the potential for advertising to be one of the most useful features of this online community. However, there are quite a few pitfalls to advertising on MySpace. Most importantly those who advertise on MySpace run the risk of finding themselves in violation of MySpace’s terms of service and facing the consequences of these infractions. In addition advertising on MySpace can appear very unprofessional to potential customers. Finally, those who advertise on MySpace may become guilty of spamming. This article will take a look at these three advertising pitfalls and provide advice for avoiding these potential problems.

Violating the Terms of Service on MySpace

One of the most serious potential problems with advertising on MySpace is violating the terms of service outlined by the administrators of MySpace. This is significant because members who are found to be in violation of these terms of service can have their websites deleted and may be banned from the community. The terms of service should be reviewed carefully to determine which types of activities, in relation to advertising, are permitted and which activities are prohibited. Special attention should be paid to the section of the terms of services which specifies member websites are not to be commercial in nature. It might be necessary to contact MySpace directly for ask for clarification of this section and additional information on what constitutes a commercial website.

Appearing Unprofessional

Another potential pitfall to advertising on MySpace is appearing unprofessional. MySpace websites can be created very quickly and easily through available templates. This may result in some members becoming overly anxious to start advertising immediately. When this happens the members may be sloppy in their design and may create a website with many errors which does not present a professional appearance.

Additionally, MySpace is a rather relaxed community where members often use slang or abbreviations haphazard. This practice can also create an unprofessional appearance which may alienate some potential clients. Also, MySpace members must consider the comments left for them by other members of the community. The individual who maintains the website should understand the comments left for them are considered by others to be a reflection of them. Therefore those who do not think highly of the comments left on your website are not likely to think highly of you or your business either. For this reason care should be taken to maintain a lee of control over the comments left for you. This can be done either by not allowing comments at all or by only allowing comments that receive your approval to appear on your website.

Engaging in Spamming techniques

One of the most dangerous pitfalls those who advertise on MySpace might encounter is spamming. Before advertising care should be taken to review MySpace’s policy on spam to ensure the advertising techniques you are using are not considered to be spam by MySpace. This is important because those who are found guilty of spamming may have their account and website deleted. They may even be banned from creating a new account in the future.

Also, potential customers are not likely to think highly of a business that they view as engaging in spamming techniques. These customers are likely to purchase products and services from other providers who they believe run a more honest marketing campaign. Spamming can therefore be a very costly mistake for business owners.

MySpace is an online community where members can create personal websites and meet new friends or reconnect with old friends. It can be a lot of fun and can also provide excellent networking opportunities but there are some precautions which should be taken by all users of MySpace. These precautions include being aware of the ability for individuals to misrepresent themselves online, knowing how to avoid being harmed or scammed and understanding the terms of service on MySpace. This article will discuss these three key concepts which are minimum precautions MySpace members should take to ensure their MySpace experience is pleasurable.

Beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

The Internet provides an excellent opportunity for unscrupulous individuals to deliberately misrepresent themselves. This misrepresentation may be somewhat innocent such as lying about interest or activities for the purpose of being more attractive to someone you have a crush on or it can be more series. Those with criminal intent may lie about a number of factors such as their age, sex and location in order to lure another member into a harmful situation. There have been numerous stories which made national headlines about young users of MySpace being abducted by individuals they met online. Although these cases are considered to be somewhat rare, they do exist and members of MySpace should be aware of the potential for this type of activity.

Those who want to do physical harm to another may deliberately misrepresent themselves but there are other potentially harmful reasons why an individual on MySpace might pretend to be someone else. This can be done to gain the trust of other members before conducting a financial scam which will result in a significant loss of money for the MySpace members who are duped in such a scam.

MySpace members can avoid both physical and financial danger by exercising caution in their interactions with other members of the community. This includes emails and instant messages but care should also be taken to avoid posting sensitive information on MySpace pages as this information can be viewed by the general public unless the profile is made private.

Know How Much Information is Too Much

One important precaution MySpace members should take is safeguarding their personal information. This information includes, but is not limited to, the following pieces of information:

* Full name
* Social security number
* Credit card numbers
* Bank account numbers
* Physical address
* Phone number
* Place of birth
* High school attended and year of graduation
* Names of children and location and date of their births

Some of the items on the above list such as social security number and bank account numbers are pieces of information most people are aware they should not divulge to the general public. However, other pieces of information such as high school attended and year of graduation or names of children and location and date of their births may seem harmless. Unfortunately this is not true. These seemingly harmless pieces of information can be used to research an individual and it might be possible to deduce where a person lives from this type of information.

Understand the Terms of Service

Finally, members of MySpace should familiarize themselves with the terms of service provided by MySpace. This information is important for a couple of reasons. First it will help MySpace members to understand their rights as well as the security features which exist in the community. Members who are aware of these facts know their course of action if they are harassed by other members of MySpace. Additionally, being familiar with the terms of service on MySpace is important because it helps members to understand which actions are permissible and which actions are prohibited. This is important because it can prevent a member from inadvertently breaking the community rules and running the risk of being banned from the community. If after reviewing the terms of service you have questions, contact MySpace directly for clarification.

Craigslist can be a very valuable online community for those who are looking for a variety of options including jobs, products, services, personal connections or housing opportunities. Users of this community can find all of the above listed opportunities and can also meet others and network or discuss important issues. However, because Craigslist is an online community there is always the opportunity for scammers and predators to be lurking on Craigslist.

Craigslist has approximately four billion page views per month and approximately ten million visitors each month. The majority of these visitors likely have no harmful intentions but there is a small percentage, as on any online community, who may be seeking to harm others either physically or financially. There are, however, a number of very worthwhile reasons to use the Craigslist community for finding more information on career possibilities, meeting platonic friends or romantic partners or purchasing products or services. This article will take a look at why Craigslist is so useful but will also offer sage advice on how to protect yourself while using Craigslist.

Why Choose Craigslist for Online Searches

Many might wonder why Craigslist is so appealing. While there are other websites which focus exclusively on job searches, product purchases or meeting potential platonic friends or partners, Craigslist is unique in that it provides one convenient location for all of these types of searches and more. Craigslist might have started as a small operation focusing exclusively on the events going on in the San Francisco Bay Area but has since mushroomed into a much larger community with websites specific to different geographic regions.

The different websites focusing on specific geographic regions makes Craigslist an excellent resource because the users can communicate with those in their area directly instead of having to search through a larger database to find information on people, products and events in their area.

How to Protect Yourself on Craigslist

Craigslist is not anymore dangerous than other online communities. As with an Internet gathering place, the biggest problem is the ease in which individuals can disguise themselves and trick others into believing they are trustworthy when they are not. This applies both to individuals who seek to physically harm others as well as those who have intentions to scam others out of money or tangible items.

One of the best ways to protect yourself on Craigslist, or any online community, is to safeguard your personal information. This means information such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbers and other similar numbers should not be given out unless the individual is positive who will be receiving the information and that it is being transmitted over a secure server. This is important because this information can be used for identity theft or other fraudulent purposes.

Care should also be taken to avoid giving out personal information such as full name, address and phone number. This is especially important because such information could be used by someone with malicious intent to locate an individual. While name, address and phone number are obvious pieces of information which should be safeguarded, it is important to note other pieces of information could be used to find a person. For example a person can be identified and located by supplying seemingly harmless information such as a first name, where high school was attended and year of graduation. Determined criminals can use this information to deduce the last name of the person which could lead to finding their address and using this information to harm or harass the individual.

The concept of Social Bookmarking developed from the idea that regular Internet users would automatically bookmark their favorite websites on their own PC as a way of making sure that they kept all their favorites in the same place.

But, what could they do when they were not at their own PC? How were they to find or access their favorite websites then?

So, according to Wikipedia:

“Social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public……”

So, the first important thing to note is that these bookmarks are ‘usually public’, so that if you do decide that a website is a favorite of yours, then other people can see that, and they can check it out too.

Furthermore, when the first social bookmarking sites became popular, they did so by coming up with a different way of classifying the site that people were listing, according to a relatively informal system of tags, rather than the more traditional ‘folders’ system that most people were using on their home or office computers.

So, a user could (and still can) add a favorite to their social bookmarking site list of favorites, and then choose their own tags for that site.

This tagging system allows sites to be found by social bookmarking site members by searching on a chosen tag, and the sites often include information about how popular a particular site is as judged by the number of people who have already bookmarked it

Some sites even provide web feeds (RSS) for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags, so that subscribers can automatically become aware of how many new viewers a site has, or how many sites have been added to the tagged group in question.

Some of these social bookmarking sites have become very popular indeed, with the more established sites like Del.icio.us and even relative newcomers to the ‘game’ like StumbleUpon having achieved Google Page Rank of 8.

Now, there are many sites already out there on the web where you can access fairly exhaustive lists of Social Bookmarking sites (here are 55 to be going on with) so there is no point in wasting time with a similar list here.
The important thing is not a long list of site URL’s. The important thing is to really grasp and understand what these sites can do for you and your blog.

The first thing that you must do with these sites (using the list of 55 above) is to register for an account with each.

Then, every time that you make a new posting to your blog, you simply submit the post to the site in question.

Your posting and site address will generally appear on the home page of the site in question immediately after you submit it.

How long it then stays there is entirely dependent on the popularity of the bookmarking site itself, and to at least some extent, also on the time that he posting was submitted.

Will this drive masses of traffic to your site?

Well, it is certainly possible.

It is certainly feasible that someone might see your post and add it to their favorites, and the more people that do that, the longer your posting is likely to remain visible.

This is a particularly important factor on Digg, for example (remember that we added the Digg plug-in to your blog?).

If enough people ‘digg’ your story to keep it on the top pages, then it is almost impossible to imagine just how many visitors that this can drive to your site or blog!

I have literally seen websites use their whole allocated monthly bandwidth in one day as a result of a story really making it big on Digg!

But, in the vast majority of cases, the truth is, no, using social bookmarking sites is not likely to generate masses of traffic for your site.
But you should still do it for the simple reason that what it will do is create incoming links for your blog, and these links, as I have mentioned many times before are one of the two most important factors that help you achieve good search ranking.
These bookmarking sites are also very popular with the search engines themselves, and the spiders tend to visit them many times a day, so by making sure that your site is featured, you are making sure that your blog is going to achieve maximum levels of what is sometimes called ‘search engine love’.

The downside is that, at the time of writing, there are no sites or software programs freely available that can ‘mass submit’ to all of the social bookmarking sites that you might want to have your blog appear in.

Thus, it can be a fairly tedious job making the submissions. A couple of tools that, whilst far from perfect, may nevertheless help you in your task, are OnlyWire, which claims to be able to submit your site to 22 social bookmark sites, and Socializer, which is supposed to work with over 40 similar sites.

So just how effective is using video advertising on the internet to generate more income for your business? Ask Henry.

Henry purchased a bed and breakfast in Massachusetts a few years ago. It was a charming old Victorian home that needed quite a bit of work. He invested most of his savings into fixing it up and getting it ready for what he was sure to be a bevy of guests. Unfortunately, after a few months, Henry found he was not getting the guests that he needed to make a profit, let alone do the continued repairs on the old home.

A friend who was computer savvy, helped Henry by creating a website for him. The website was done in a professional manner and featured photos of all of the rooms in the lovely old home. His friend showed Henry how to try to promote his website on the internet. He invested more money into making sure that his bed and breakfast was listed in certain websites that featured bed and breakfast inns as well as Massachusetts hotels. This did manage to generate a bit of business for Henry. He found that he was getting more business by way of the internet than he was through the many travel agents with whom he did business. And definitely much more business than the print ads that seemed to cost a fortune in travel magazines.

Business was getting better, but it still wasn’t as good as Henry had hoped. Although he wasn’t a greedy man and not out to make a fortune, he wanted to earn a decent profit. Henry was a widower and he had invested most of his savings in this business. He had always wanted to run a bed and breakfast establishment. He had a pleasing personality and the customers liked him. In addition, Henry liked the idea of having people in the building. He was lonely since the death of his wife.

Henry was always a fan of television and he had seen the short BBC series “Faulty Towers” a number of times. It was a funny English program that featured John Cleese as a rude proprietor of a bed and breakfast. Unlike Cleese’s character, Basil Fawlty Henry was amiable and went out of his way to treat his guests with respect. He made sure the meals were good and he was hospitable and friendly to all of his guests, Still, he was rarely ever filled. The “Vacancy” sign was usually lit.

Henry began using the computer a bit more often as well. His friend instructed him on how to navigate the internet and with his friend’s help, Henry began expanding his web page. He included letters from pleased guests and a message board.

Another friend who was even more savvy with the computer was familiar with the new trend in video advertising on the internet. She thought that she could do wonders with Henry’s website and make it even more interesting. While Henry’s website certainly was professional and pleasant, it feature only photos of the building and the rooms as well as the rates. There was no photo of Henry on the site.

Henry’s friend, Joan, was inventive and had a camcorder. She often filmed videos for different websites where she was paid for tutorials. She was also an active participant on You Tube. She thought it might be fun to film a video ad for Henry’s bed and breakfast. It could easily be added to the website and may even bring in more business.

When Joan approached Henry with the idea, he was a little reluctant. He didn’t want to be shown in front of the camera. He was an elderly, kind looking man with a nice grin, but didn’t feel like “movie star material” as he put it. Joan explained to him that it was better to be an average person with a pleasant demeanor and honest face in advertising.

Henry agreed that he was no “Basil Fawlty.” Joan had never seen “Fawlty Towers” but was curious. Henry loaned her a copy of one of his tapes so she could watch one of his favorite programs.

That is when Joan got a wonderful idea.

Joan knew that in order to get permission for a clip from Fawlty Towers, she would have to get permission from whoever owned the rights of the show for a license to show a clip. She had an attorney friend who was able to work this out. The rates were negotiated and were within Henry’s budget.

She then came up with a brilliant idea for a video featuring Henry’s Bed and Breakfast. Henry was a bit apprehensive, because he would have to appear in the video, but Joan assured him that he would be a natural.

Joan was good with editing and filming. She began the advertisement with a very short clip of Basil Fawlty telling off some of his guests. Then the ad for Henry’s hotel appeared on the video. The over voice, which was Joan’s said “You can settle for less in a bed and breakfast, or you can visit the Massachusetts Willow Inn. She then featured Henry, who was more comfortable seated than standing. He was pictured in front of a warm fireplace and several guests were sitting in the main sitting area sipping drinks. Henry said that although “Fawlty Towers” was very funny, it was not funny to be treated poorly when on vacation. He then went on to explain that his guests enjoyed clean, cozy rooms, good food and a hospitable environment.

The video then featured some of the guest rooms and the dining area. It ended with a video shot of the outside of the inn with the voiceover saying “Instead of staying at Fawlty Towers, enjoy real bed and breakfast comfort at Massachusetts Willow Inn.

Henry was thrilled with the video. Never a technical whiz, he was surprised to see how easy it was for Joan to complete such an advertisement. And she did it all on her computer. Then she uploaded it to his website.

The results were immediate. People loved the advertisement. The idea of comparing Henry to Basil Fawlty proved humorous and entertaining. Henry began to receive a lot of calls from people who wanted to visit his bed and breakfast. The video advertisement, although simple and not very costly, had certainly done wonders for his business.

But that wasn’t all. Joan wasn’t finished with trying to help her friend Henry. She put the video on You Tube. It began to get a lot of views and soon became very popular. People started commenting on the humor and copying the video to send to their friends by e-mail. Some people even portrayed the entertaining video on their blogs.

Soon Henry’s phone was ringing off the hook. He had more business than he could handle. He had money to fix up two more rooms in the attic that he had neglected and was able to take in more guests. Before long, Henry had one of the most popular Bed and Breakfast establishments in Massachusetts.

Henry was always a good proprietor. His bed and breakfast was always clean, he was kind to his guests and the establishment was lovely. Even the food was good. But because people didn’t know about it, he wasn’t getting the guests he could have.

Because of the internet website and video advertising, Henry’s business, that was once just getting by, was now bustling. Bookings had to be made months in advance. The video still circulated for a while on the internet. And because Henry was such a good host and ran such a good establishment, he had many customers who came back over and over again.

This is just one example of how a little bit of internet know-how, a video camera, a bit of the knowledge of what you can use on the internet in your ads and a little imagination saved a business. It began with the website and ended with a very successful ad campaign. And it saved a retiree’s business.

Do you still wonder how effective internet video advertising can be? Henry’s story is just one of many. Many businesses are discovering the importance of advertising on a media that 82 percent of Americans use. Many of them are realizing that entertaining people with clever video ads are more effective than word ads. Video advertising on the internet is the way of the future.

Henry’s story is not unique. It is a true success story and amazing because it was done by an amateur. But there are thousands of businesses who are discovering that video advertising on the internet is not only drawing more attention to their business, but increasing their sales and adding to their revenue.

By now you realize just how much videos added to your website can do to not only improve your website, but generate leads and sales. The type of video that you use will have to depend on the type of business you have. You can use video in many different ways. The examples given of Henry’s bed and breakfast and the shower filter company both used humor in a positive way to attract customers.

There are other ways that you can use video as well, without having to pay any fees to producers who may own the video. Remember in the last chapter how we talked about coupons? People like to save money. They like to feel that they are getting a deal.

Observe commercials on television. They will often say that if you call within a certain amount of minutes, you will get an extra product or discount. You can do this as well. Either on your own website, through e-mail or even on a free video site, such as You Tube.

For example, suppose you have an excess of a certain product you would really like to move. One way to do it is to introduce the product in your own home made video. Tell people how wonderful this product is, and that it is now available at a special rate. And if they call or order right away, they can get free shipping. Make sure that this is cost effective to you. If you have your own business, you probably already know about different ways to market certain products. One method includes marking the product up a bit to cover the “free shipping.” You do not want to lose money on this promotion. However, this will only work if it is a new product that you have not previously advertised on your website. If you have this product on the website for $24.99 and suddenly you are sending out a video that it is now “marked down” to $29.99 including free shipping, your customers will feel cheated and you will lose your credibility. This method only works with overstock that you cannot move or a brand new product that has not yet been advertised.

So you make your video and put it on your website. Is that good enough? No. You want to make sure that you send your video to all of your customers through e-mail, particularly those who have purchased the product in the past. E-mail is free advertising, it doesn’t get any better than that.

You can also advertise your product on You Tube or other free avenues. This is not going to cost you a dime and may generate much income, as well as rid you of some products that you are dying to get rid of.

Another way to use video to market your product would be if you had a restaurant of some sort. Again, you advertise a “special” on your site that will be good on only a particularly day. For example, on Tuesdays during this month, pizza will be 20 percent off. Restaurants often get business through word of mouth, but if one person sees the ad, they will tell others. Be prepared for an onslaught of customers on Tuesdays and make sure you have plenty of ingredients to make a lot of pizza.

If you sell strictly over the internet, you should have a database of all of your customer’s e-mails. If you have not done this, begin doing so immediately. You can easily send them a video advertisement each time you have a special. Make it short and sweet and give them an incentive to ‘act right away.” People often purchase on impulse. One example would be to simply advertise that you are giving free shipping on all orders that are placed on the website within 24 hours. See how well that does for you. It will give the customer an incentive to act quickly and you will make a sale. The longer you give them to act, the better the chances are that they will not act at all and talk themselves out of making the purchase.

If you have a car dealership, you can take tremendous advantage of such a video ad. “From now until Friday, prices on all new models have been slashed!” You can even offer a free gift for those who visit the showroom before the deadline. Car dealers often do this just to get the customer in the door. Once the customer is inside the door, the objective is to not let them leave until they buy a car. Some dealerships take this approach a little too far, such as the example of the car salesman who threw my father’s keys to his old car on the roof of the showroom. This was not good salesmanship and car dealers seldom behave this way anymore. But they still want to get you into the store so they can use every tactic, short of kidnapping, to get you to purchase a car. Because they know, once you walk out of that showroom, they have lost a sale. People seldom come back.

Another way to keep people interested in your website and keep them coming back is to use the “progressive” ad. Do you remember the old “Folger’s” coffee commercials? They were popular on television in the 1990s. It featured a man and a woman who were flirting with each other throughout the commercial. Each commercial became a bit more progressive, it was like watching a soap opera. People enjoyed seeing these commercials because they wanted to see if the man and woman would ever get together. This advertising campaign was very popular not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, where it was first conceived. The same actors were used and they used different accents in the different series of ads. The Folger’s progressive commercial was one of the most successful marketing campaigns of its time.

Why not do that on your website? It doesn’t have to be a soap opera format, but as videos are easy to continue to create, upload and delete, you can keep changing your video from time to time and make it a progressive commercial. The soap opera theme always works. A murder them, while macabre, may work on certain websites, depending upon what you are selling. People will continue visiting your website to see if the love affair works out or if the murder is solved. And if you can manage this yourself, it won’t cost you anything. Much less expensive as the Folger’s coffee ad, but just as effective.

No matter what type of business you own, use marketing techniques combined with video in your sales. Sure, the videos on your website can be entertaining and make your site more attractive. These alone will generate more sales. But when you combine them with old fashioned marketing techniques, you’ve really got is a winner.

Now that you are ready to begin using video advertising on the internet, you are probably wondering what type of content you should put in your video? How long should it be? Should it be funny? Should it feature people or just items?

The one thing that you want to make sure that you express in your video is what you are selling. This seems like common sense, but advertising executives in the 1980s often came out with “clever” ads that did not exactly represent what their client was selling. These ads were mostly for upscale products that were supposed to appeal to “intellectuals” and not to the commoners. The ads were mostly pretentious and not successful.

While you do not want to be obtuse about your product, you also do not want to keep hammering the name of the product throughout the ad as if the client is either demented or deaf. Keywords work well with SEO articles, but are not necessary in a video ad. You want to make sure that you mention the name of the product at least twice, the benefits of having the product and where to get it. You can do this quickly, but must make sure that the name of your business and website is clear.

If you hire someone to create your video, they will most likely present you with several ideas. Advertising people are experts in marketing and very creative. They may come up with the perfect ad. But it is going to cost you. They will, however, be able to come up with the right way to present the product and your business with the right amount of information, without overdoing it. You can choose one of their ideas if it is something that suits you.

Suppose, however, you want to make your own video ad? This is relatively easy to do as camcorders are easily accessible and relatively inexpensive. With some imagination, you may be able to come up with something creative that will be remembered.

Sometimes, the best known commercials on television are those that featured interesting characters that were difficult to forget. Those of us in Chicago know the “Empire Carpet Man” and would probably recognize him more easily than we would the Vice President. The Empire Carpet company began filming their commercials in the early 1970s using an actor. People assumed he was the owner of Empire Carpets, and he became so popular that they have continued to use the actor since. This was a low budget commercial, but it made the carpet company a household name in Chicago.

There have been others who have stood out as well. “Crazy Larry” in New York. He owned an electronics store and used to shout and scream like a crazy man. The commercial was very well known, not only in New York City, but across the country. And it did wonders for his store. This was another low budget ad and no actors were needed as Crazy Larry himself did his own advertising.

There have been others who have done this with much success. In just about every city, there is a commercial character that people remember. Even today, most of us know the Bob Evans’ “Sun” man. These characters stick in our mind because of one thing - they are people.

People relate to other people. Particularly those who stand out. This does not mean you have to act like a lunatic or dress like the sun to perform in your own video. But if you have a pleasant appearance, a good voice, can appear before a camera without being nervous, you may have what it takes to perform in your own internet video ad.

If you add a bit of humor to your ad, you can generally get more attention and publicity. Remember that you want to make sure that your ad is entertaining. This is the key and the entire purpose of video advertising on the internet. Just as a film producer wants their film to be entertaining, so does an advertiser. And if you are creating your own ad, you have to make sure that your ad not only gives the viewer pertinent information about your business and products, but also entertains.

Which type of advertisement on television sticks out in your mind? Chances are, it is either those you remember from your youth, those with interesting characters, or those interesting commercials shown during the Super Bowl.

Some of these advertisements cost quite a bit of money to film and even more to broadcast during the Super Bowl. Others cost very little to film and were only on local channels but generated just as much publicity.

Many of the most successful commercials and advertisements contained quite a bit of humor. Americans love humor and funny videos are often passed around the internet through e-mail. Most people get several of these types of funny videos from their friends and relatives in their e-mail each week. Again, Americans love to be entertained.

So if you decide to act in your own video internet ad, be sure to do so with a sense of humor. No one will want to watch someone drone on in a monotone voice about how great his website that sells discounted DVDs is. They will be bored quickly and press stop. If you have an outgoing personality and pleasant speaking voice, you may be able to manage your own video ad.

A video ad featuring a person is more effective than one that just features an object. Even if you have a real estate brokerage website and want to feature virtual tours of homes, be sure to put a little human quality in with the video. Humanize your video for your audience.

You do not have to be Cecil B. DeMille to come up with a good video for your website or as a way to generate business over the internet. You simply have to have a bit of an imagination and a way to come across as honest and a person with whom someone would want to do business.

As much as you want your video to stand out, you also do not want to make a video that is so entertaining that it detracts from your purpose. Remember that the purpose of video advertising on the internet is to draw more customers and business. You want to use this as a way to add to the revenue from your business, not to become an internet star.

No matter whether you have a professional create your internet video or if you decide to do this to it yourself, you want to make sure that your audience knows the name of your business, what you are selling and how they can contact you so that you make a sale.

You can also use your video, if you decide to create it yourself, as a marketing tool to advertise specials and sales by e-mailing the videos to your regular customers. It will seem more personal than a standard e-mail and is also another effective marketing tool and yet another bit of content you can add to your internet video ad.

If you are already advertising on the internet, you know the costs of having banners or pop up ads. Video advertising is not much more money and is twice as effective. If you do not believe this, check it out. You can try this for a month and see if you get more stats on the video ads or the banner ads. Most advertising engines agree that their customers profit get many more views on their video advertising than plain text or even photo advertising.

Cost will depend on how you wish to use the video to market your business. If, for example, you simply want to use a video on your website, it will not cost anything. Just the uploading of the video into the website. If you want a more professional looking video for your website, there are plenty of companies out there that provide this service for much less than text advertising. You can have a slick ad or you can have one that is home made. Sometimes, the home made videos tend to stand out more.

It will cost you slightly more to have your videos featured on other websites where you advertise. More than a banner ad or a line ad. But again, how much is your business worth to you? If you want to see how effective this media is, test it out.

If you have a small business and want to advertise for free, there are plenty of places on the internet where you can post your videos. They will also give you stats on how many people have viewed your video. On some websites, the videos are rated.

There are many professional companies that can help you out with video advertising. They can offer everything from creating the video, uploading onto the proper websites to even using it in e-mails to your clients. Many businesses keep a data base of their clients. If they don’t, they should. From time to time, they have sales or promotions and wish to contact their clients by e-mail. E-mail is very inexpensive. Actually, it is free. You can either hire a professional to e-mail your clients your advertising video or do it yourself to save even more money.

Writers are gaining publicity for themselves by using videos on writing websites. They upload a video of themselves and talk about their work. This is an excellent way to get people to read your work, particularly if you are on a site that pays you for page views. You can do this in an interview format, or simply have someone film you talking about yourself. This is free.

You can also promote yourself or your business on YouTube for free. Or MySpace. Camcorders have come down significantly in price. Many are around $100 or even cheaper. Each year, the price goes down and the quality goes up. They are easy to use and the contents can be uploaded to your computer with ease. Then all you have to do is decide where you want to “advertise.” If you are advertising a small business, your art, or even a political cause, you can put it on a site that offers free video uploading. When you compare the cost of video advertising on the internet to an actual commercial on television, you are talking apples and oranges. Video advertising is much cheaper and even small businesses can afford a professional agency that can take care of this for them.

How many of you get e-mails from businesses that you have previously done business? Most of you do, I would suspect. Even if you clicked on their ad by some mistake, they will contact you via e-mail. As said previously in this chapter, e-mail is free.

Now, imagine that you get an advertisement from a business that has a very funny video attached to it? You will be entertained and not forget about that business. It may even prompt you to take a look at their sale or new promotion.

I saw one of the most effective and clever uses of advertising on the web recently. I was taking a look at shower filters. Instead of just a website, like most of them, that featured shower filters and explained the advantages of having one of these gadgets, this one had a scene from the movie “Psycho.” Yes, the shower scene. The caption was “Remember when the only thing you had to fear about the shower was….” and then it stopped. We saw the familiar scene of Janet Leigh in the shower and “Mother” coming through the door with the knife. It was clever, entertaining and certainly caught my attention. In fact, this was the company that I decided to purchase the shower filter from.

How much did this ad cost them? A little more than a regular video ad. The film “Psycho” is not in the public domain so they had to pay synchronization rights to the producer to use this on their website. But synchronization rights on film, even the internet, are based upon seconds. They did not have to pay for the rights for the entire film, just a brief portion of the shower scene.

If you have a clever imagination, you can film your own video that will attract attention to your project in the way that this shower filter company did. You can purchase synchronization rights from film producers if you want, or you can simply make up your own video. Also, be aware that many films made prior to 1962 lie within the public domain. This means that they are free to use. Clips can be obtained from all over the internet, or can be downloaded from your television or DVD player. You must make sure that the film is in the public domain, however. The way to do this is to check with the United States Copyright Office. There is also much information about which films lie within the public domain on the internet.

No, it is not expensive to advertise using video on the internet, particularly if you are advertising on your own website or e-mailing your customers video advertisements. Just make sure that the advertisements are not too long or it may bore the customer, no matter how entertaining it may be. You do not want to go more than 30 seconds.

If you decide to use an internet advertising agency, they can keep track of the amount of customers who view your video and make sure that they are placed in the proper venues.

The cost is not that much more than banner ads and may be well worth it. Banner ads are sometimes clicked on by accident, giving false stats. A video ad, however, can be managed where the person has to click on to the “play” button to view it. Once they begin viewing, chances are that they will continue to do so. Either way, at least you will have an honest count of viewers when it comes time to pay Google or whoever you are using for your internet advertising. In a way, the difference in the quality of the views more than makes up for the price difference in advertising.