Tips for creating marketing videos

Clear Objective:
Are you creating the video to inform? educate or persuade? you should try to answer this question before you create the video for promoting your website. This will also help you in creating a good outline for your video.

Your opening is the headline:
For a sales letter the usually the first thing that catches the eye is the headline. It helps the reader to decide if that is something he/she wants to know. Similarly in videos your opening needs to grab the attention and tell viewers what this video is about.

Use zoom or smart focus liberally:
Give the viewers some eye relief by using the zoom feature in the video editing program. Especially if its a screen capture video people want to see exactly where you are clicking and what you are typing in the text boxes.

Description for the search engines:
A keyword rich (not stuffed) description will help the search engines to find your videos easily and there is a very good chance of your video getting listed in the first 10 results if its a long tail phrase with low competition.

Record Video first:
By recording the video first you can easily add audio just like giving a commentary on what is happening on the screen. My friend Sean who runs psychotactics.com used to say "Imagine you are a travel guide and you are telling the tourists what they are seeing on the screen" great idea in my opinion.

To the point:
Every frame counts. Make sure you are not talking something unrelated. If its a sales letter they can always skip and read the rest but if its a streaming video they have to wait till you get back on track.

Spice up the video:
Add some life to the video using animation, graphics and background music. Make them feel that they are watching a mini movie even though its an instructional video.

Call to action:
If your purpose of video promotion is brand awareness you don't need a call to action but if you have a direct response offer then lead them to your website by offering something free or at discount. Give them a compelling reason to go to your website.