TV advertising will be dead within the decade, and that ad revenue could be flowing into your pocket, instead. I’m about to show you how.
For the past 70+ years, TV advertising has dominated in terms of corporate advertising, but today’s entrepreneur or small business can’t compete with the big networks or corporations. So they’ve gone online to pitch their stuff to the masses – with mixed results. But today, we are in the first stage of an industry-disrupting advertising platform that is accessible to virtually anyone, dirt cheap, and actually pays off. It’s put many entrepreneurs on the map, and now it’s your turn.
Let’s talk about video advertising.
Humans are visual creatures by nature, and marketers have really capitalized on this through video advertising to drive traffic to websites. It’s been very effective. Google ranks pages with video much higher than pages without, and people are more likely to absorb your message through video than through printed copy. Using videos to talk about your services and products in a way that your audience can relate to has proven to be a powerful addition to the online-marketing arsenal. But now, it’s time to take it to the next level.
People remember video ads!
YouTube advertising is the next evolution.
I’m talking about those ads that play right before your video rolls – you know, the ones you can skip after waiting the longest five seconds of your life? Yeah. Those drive traffic. CHEAP traffic. It’s a new platform that’s still developing, and many people haven’t discovered its full potential yet. Here’s why you need to get on the ball with YouTube advertising:
Reach: Why do companies pay millions of dollars for Super Bowl ads? Because millions of people watch them every Super Bowl. Guess what: about 35-40 times that many people watch videos on YouTube every day. Let that sink in.
Affordability: In-stream ads with TrueView (Google’s video ad platform for YouTube) typically cost 3-30 cents per view. That’s where cost per click (CPC) was in search ten years ago! That’s going to go up 1,000% in the coming years as advertisers leave TV and come to YouTube in droves.
Targeting: How many times have you seen a commercial on TV that had absolutely nothing to do with your interests or buying habits? Like, most of them, right? But we now have the opportunity to place our video ads in front of only the most targeted audience imaginable. I mean you can target based on age, sex, location, interests, what sort of device they prefer, etc. You can even target specific videos you want your video ad to play on, including videos from your competition!
Analytics: The analytics data is feedback GOLD. You can analyze who is watching, where they’re watching, how long, click rates, if they bought a product, etc.
But here comes the hack.
Jake Larsen is a brilliant video advertiser featured in industry publications like Internet Marketing Magazine. He recently began sharing how to get virtually FREE traffic using in-stream YouTube video advertising. Pay attention.
With YouTube video ads, you only get charged for “views.” And a view is defined as when your video is watched all the way to the end or to the 30-second mark, whichever comes first. If someone clicks on your video ad before that point, they are taken directly to your landing page, and you don’t pay one red cent to YouTube. That’s called free traffic.
“So then you need to create videos that can get people to click the ad before 30 seconds. And if you can do that, you can drive free, targeted traffic to a landing page or website.” –Jake Larsen
So it’s simply a matter of focusing on engagement rather than a “viral video.” It’s about engineering a video around the click – your video ads need to grab attention in the first 5 seconds to avoid the skip, but get people to click before 30 seconds or the end of the video. If you can do that yourself or by partnering with a skilled video marketing service, you have 35-40 times the viewership of the Super Bowl at your fingertips for literally pennies.
A Case Study
Jakes’s company, Video Power Marketing, cites an interesting case study in which an e-commerce company did this very thing, and the results are simply amazing. They were spending about $5,000 a month on ads and getting almost nothing back for it. So they partnered with Jake to create videos centered on engagement and place them in front of very targeted YouTube audiences. Within months, their click-through rate increased 200%, traffic tripled, and they began earning $7 for every dollar they spent on in-stream video ads.
The Takeaway
The point is, this actually works. And it’s way more accessible to the average business owner or entrepreneur than something like TV commercials. And you can hack it to get virtually free and highly targeted (aka interested) traffic pouring into your site! It’s just a matter of creating videos around the click.
For example, let’s say a little dental practice wants to bring in more clients. They have a first-time customer discount, and they even created a “viral video” on YouTube to get the word out. It’s of a baby brushing his teeth. How cute. Problem is, it isn’t going viral. The solution?
They instead create a video ad that engages the viewer to click the video immediately, rather than trying to get them to watch it to the end. Then, they hyper target the ad to play on popular dental-health videos, like “How to Spot an Impacted Molar” or “Top 5 Remedies for Mouth Pain.”
Now, only people with dental issues on their mind see the video ads. They click right away, so the CPV cost is next to nothing. And all of this free and motivated traffic came by simply rethinking the video-creation strategy and utilizing the targeted, in-stream TrueView platform on YouTube.
It’s worked for tons of people, and you can get the same results. We’re at a crossroads with video advertising, and the advertising industry as a whole is going through a revolution. Now you know how to take advantage of it.
