It would certainly seem to be very effective if done properly – properly meaning the videos use good keywords in the titles and descriptions, are somewhat well-produced, contain valuable information for the target audience and are disseminated to plenty of highly-trafficked video sharing websites.

I only have one goal for this 12-week case study: to receive an average of 50 subscribers per day solely from video marketing.  Now I admit, this is a lofty goal, but based on the volume of videos I’ll be submitting each week, I think it’s doable.

Some people think video marketing is too time-consuming and that it requires special skills to produce quality videos.  This is so not true!  In fact, for this case study I will be producing simple videos from slide shows I’ve created in Keynote (Mac’s version of Power Point).  Here’s the procedure I’ll be using to create each of these videos:

• Create a slide show using Keynote consisting of information from articles I’ve written.
• Record audio using Audacity, a free audio editor for Windows and Mac.  For this, I will simply read the article and record it.  Do a little mixing and that’s it.
• I will then add the audio to the slide show and record the slide show so the slides transition to fit the audio.
• Finally, I export the slide show as a (windows media video).  Since I’m a Mac dude, I export the videos to mp4 then convert them to wmv (windows media video).  Windows Media Videos seem to work best my video submitter.

That’s it!  It’s extremely simple and the entire process only takes about 20 minutes per video.  This is a great way to squeeze more benefit from your articles as well.  To see one of these slide show videos, check out the video at the bottom of this post.

Here’s my strategy for marketing the videos:

• Create a keyword-rich title.
• Write a description which begins with a link to my squeeze page followed by no more than two sentences which include least two keywords related to the offer.
• Use four to six tags in the tag field.

• Submit each video to 30 video sharing sites using my favorite video submitter:  Downloads Universe.

This strategy will result in over 300 video submissions per week, 3600 by the end of the case study.  Although I will receive some traffic directly from the video sites, I predict that most of the traffic will come from direct clicks on the squeeze page via search engine results.  This is what I’m shooting for anyway.  If I can achieve first page listings on Google for 50 keywords, then I should easily achieve my goal of 50 subscribers per day.

I do understand that since this is a case study, nothing is guaranteed and the results may be disappointing and even embarrassing, but I’m willing to take the risk.  The greatest success comes from learning how to fail forward.

Next week I’ll reveal my results for week one.  Follow me on this journey and let’s see what happens!

Here’s an example of an “article video”:

One of the newest concepts is the video squeeze page. While memory is becoming less expensive and bandwidth is more available, the use of video as a web medium has quickly become a standard. Creating a video squeeze page involves recording a demonstration or promotion video, then encoding it for Flash and uploading it to your server. You embed the flash video in your splash page and now your visitors have the opportunity to learn about your project in a more informative manner.

Video offers a different approach that may be more successful in part due to the fact that the visitor gets to see you and knows who you are. You can hide behind sales copy, but you can’t hide in front of the camera. Especially if you have a magnetic personality, you will see better success when you share that side of your sales pitch.

Production value is an important part of the video squeeze page. If you don’t have any experience in producing professional video for the web, you will want to consider hiring a professional company either locally in your yellow pages, off of the web, or through the recommendation of a friend. Ask to see samples of their work, and if possible check some of their client references. You don’t want to spend lots of money on a company that will walk out with your footage.

Don’t be afraid to try the new technology, it may just be what you need to break that sales threshold.