Let me tell you a little-known marketing secret…
It’s one of the most powerful ways to be able to generate leads or create sales today.
It’s the awesome commercial before the video that you see on YouTube and other videos that you may be watching. This is called a pre-roll video.
I use videos for clients all the time. I’ve created over 400 videos and TV commercials, and 134 infomercials.
I love this media.
Why?
Because it works…it works so great.
This is what it is: If you’ve ever clicked on a video link on YouTube, you’ve probably had to wait anywhere from a few seconds to a couple minutes to actually watch the video.
First, you were shown a video ad or commercial. This is called a pre-roll video and it’s one of the growing techniques used to target a specific audience…either your clients or prospects.
Google TrueView places the advertising spots in the pre-roll before a YouTube video. You can target your audience with a growing set of variables, allowing you to accurately target the prospects you’re looking for.
Recently, I ran a pre-roll campaign for Strategic Investment newsletter that got an amazing response: 491, 930 pre-roll pre-roll video views with 47% watching 50% of the video more…for a total of 1,012,000 impressions.
For a typical pre-roll campaign – which I use for 70% of my clients – I use pre-roll videos in three different ways:
The first is to run the pre-roll video to a custom list of prospects or customers.
The second way is to use the pre-roll video as a part of integrated marketing, where I run the pre-roll video to the same names who receive the direct mail campaign.
The third way is to run the pre-roll video to a lookalike audience, where I use my customer list or a transactional data list in order to perfect the algorithms to identify the lookalike audience,
Here are seven things you need to know about pre-roll videos:
#1: They work. Pre-roll commercials have an average click-through rate of 1.84%, higher than any other type of digital ad. In fact, the average online video viewer spends 16 minutes a month watching video ads.
#2: The first three seconds of your video are the most important, especially for pre-roll videos. If you lose the attention of the viewers, they are going to click “skip ad” if given the option. Immediately catch the interest of the prospect or your opportunity to gain a new lead or client is lost.
#3: The call-to-action (CTA) is the second most important element in your pre-roll video. The prospect should be able to respond immediately.
#4: Pre-rolls can be specifically targeted to your audience. Want investors? Done. Want alternative health customers? Done. Want conservatives? Done.
#5: Pre-roll gives you the advantage of better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)… on YouTube and Google.
#6: Pre-roll videos can have multiple uses … the videos created for the pre-rolls can be used on your landing page, in banner/Facebook ads and in emails.
#7: YouTube is now providing special buttons for pre-roll videos that say, “Shop Now”, which can easily be converted to “Subscribe Now”, “Donate Now”, “attend this event”, etc.
Pre-roll videos should be one of the most powerful, effective components of your advertising campaign. A pre-roll video can increase response from current prospects, and expand leads when used with look-a-like audiences.
It can also increase sales to your customers—upselling or cross-selling.
If you’re interested in doing a pre-roll, we can write the script, we can produce the video, we can make the strategic audience select, we can do the media buy, and we can analyze the results. If you’re interested, give me a call at (310) 212-5727 or email Caleb at [email protected].
Here are the rest of this week’s articles:
Reactivating Past Leads and Clients
B to B Christmas Gift Ideas for Clients and Associates
The Best Times to Post?
$7 Trillion Lost From Shopping Cart Abandonment
