Online Video Marketing – Are Your Online Videos Ready for Internet TV?

Are Your Online Videos Ready for Internet TV

Technological improvements in bandwidth and speed helped launch online video marketing, an exciting field that allows you to reach business customers and consumers with promotional video over the Internet. Technology continues to evolve, with the potential to deliver Internet video marketing to the larger screens found in living, family, and conference rooms around the world. Is your promotional video ready for streaming Internet TV devices?

What is an Internet TV Device?

The popularity of high-speed Internet access spawned a revolution in online video, and websites such as Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, soon popped up with libraries of free or low-cost movies and television shows that consumers could watch online. While watching movies and TV shows online has its advantages, watching on a small screen with tiny speakers doesn’t compare to watching on a large screen TV with surround sound. Thus, manufacturers began producing set top devices capable of streaming Internet content directly to the TV. These devices include some Blu-ray players and DVRs, gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360, and standalone boxes such as the Roku or AppleTV. Some television sets now come equipped with Internet streaming capabilities as well.

Though these devices are typically marketed to consumers as a means of watching Internet TV and streaming movies from services such as Netflix, your online video marketing and promotional video productions may find their way to your targeted audience through an Internet TV device.

For example, most streaming TV devices include access to YouTube. If you market your promotional video on YouTube, viewers may watch from their couches instead of their office chairs. In addition, many devices include Web browsers, so it’s possible for viewers to surf your website and view your Internet video marketing clips on their large screen TVs.

What Does Internet TV Mean to Your Online Video Marketing?

While your promotional video may look amazing on a 15-inch laptop, how will it look on a 55-inch HDTV? Video resolution becomes a much more important factor thanks to this possibility. Fortunately, many video production companies specialize in online video marketing and can shoot broadcast quality footage in high definition. If broadcast quality production values and high definition haven’t played a prominent role in your Internet video marketing plan, now’s the time to prioritize them.

Internet Video Marketing – Leveraging Internet TV

While shooting a promotional video with the thought that it could find its way onto the big screen is a good first step, streaming Internet TV brings new possibilities. You could create your own online video marketing channel for many of these Internet streaming devices. For example, a quick look at Roku’s current channel list shows that CNET, Fandango, JTV (Jewelry Television, a company that sells jewelry and jewelry making supplies) each have active Roku channels. If you have an existing catalog of online video marketing messages, tutorials, or lectures suitable for a general audience you could create a public Roku channel. If your material is geared toward a niche such as C-level executives, you could potentially create a “private” Roku channel.

Internet video marketing has changed dramatically in a short time period, and Internet TV could be the next evolution. Today, people may watch your promotional video on any number of devices including smart phones, tablets, e-readers like Kindle’s new Fire, netbooks, laptops, desktop computers, and now, televisions. With screen sizes ranging from mere inches to over 100 inches, the video quality of all of your online video marketing needs to be top-notch. The days of using a low resolution camera and producing a short promotional video without understanding how your viewers will watch it are over.

What do you think about the future of online video marketing? Will the Internet and television finally combine? If so, how will that affect your Internet video marketing plan? Share your thoughts in the comments section below:

Product Demo Video: The Importance of High Quality Video

product demo video

A good product demo video not only showcases the product you are demonstrating, it also sends a message to viewers about the product’s quality. Make sure that your product demonstration video features the best production values possible so that viewers receive a message of quality. After all, an amateurish product video screams out that your product or company is also amateurish while a high quality video has the opposite effect. In addition to production values, your video should also contain quality content that shows you understand the benefits your viewers will realize by choosing your product.

Product Demo Video: Production Values

Whether your product demonstration video focuses on luxurious cosmetics or heavy duty construction equipment, the quality of the video production says something about the quality of the product. For example, if you were considering purchasing a $250,000 bulldozer, what would you think about a product video with fuzzy images, horrible sound, and jerky camera moves. If the video looks like it was shot on a cell phone by one of the equipment operators, what does that tell you about the company’s commitment to its customers?

While you may not be able to drag a bulldozer into a video production studio, you can certainly hire a professional video crew to shoot and edit the product demo video. Using a professional-grade video camera, tripod, sound equipment, and lighting is a must because the overall quality of the product demonstration video relies on the production values used at every point of the process including shooting.

In addition, the product video should be professionally edited. A good editor can do wonders with raw footage, voiceover, music, and interviews. A good video editor can transform a lengthy product video into a short, engaging product demonstration video.

High Definition Product Demo Video – Is it Necessary?

Before you shoot the product demonstration video, make sure to consider shooting in high definition. Even if your product demo video is destined for your website where high definition may not be necessary, shooting a high definition product video gives you options. Remember, you can always scale down a high definition product demo video for the small screen, but you can’t necessarily do the opposite. Once you have your product demonstration video produced in high definition, you can repurpose it for tradeshows, sales presentations, Blu-ray discs, or even television commercials.

Most video production companies have the capacity to produce your product video in high definition. In fact, most will be happy to produce the product demo video in HD and provide you with alternate formats for the Web and other uses.

Product Demo Video: What to Include

Okay, so you know you want your product demonstration video to have the best production values possible and be shot in high definition – now what? Before sending a product video film crew to your jobsite or booking studio time, you’ll need a solid idea about what your product demonstration video should include.

You may have already detailed which features to demonstrate in your product video. While that’s a great start, a feature-rich product demo video is missing a key component: the viewer. Instead of focusing your product demonstration video solely on your product’s features, switch perspectives and adopt the viewer’s perspective. What benefits will viewers of the product video realize if they purchase your product?

A product demo video that focuses on benefits answers the question of “what’s in it for me?” Viewers watching a benefit-focused product demonstration video will know that the product makes them look younger, saves them money, saves them time, reduces injuries on the job, makes them more productive, and so on. A product video that focuses on benefits creates an emotional connection and helps frame buying decisions.

When a product demo video features high production values and focuses on the benefits viewers will receive by choosing that product, it’s bound to be a success. How have you incorporated benefits into your product demo video? Share your thoughts in the comment section below: