About six months ago, I was searching online for a flooring company to refinish my hardwood floors. I did the customary Google search and up popped a video describing the refinishing process by someone who appeared to be very knowledgeable as well as professional. I quickly called and scheduled an estimate with this local small business and eventually chose them to do the work. I didn’t know if they were the best choice, but his video was enough to convince me to give them a call.

In the ever-evolving online marketing world, it is becoming more and more difficult to stand out in the crowd of growing advertisers. Since YouTube is the top online video site and is owned by Google, a video promoted through YouTube has the potential of reaching a wide and varied audience. So, how does a business go about producing a video and ultimately pushing it out into cyberspace? It's not as hard as it may seem - follow these three steps to create your own online video. 

1. Production

Find a reputable company (preferably local) that can produce the video. There are different styles to choose from including  photo montage and full motion video. In a photo montage pictures are set to music with a brief description of the products or services your business provides. With a full motion video a videographer is sent to your business to capture live video that represents your business. Both are a great way to give consumers and insider's view of what you offer.

2. Distribution

Once the video is produced, the next step is pushing it out to the masses. The main goal is to make sure the video is found by your prospects when they are searching for your keywords on search engines. Of course you’ll want to include the video on your website, but there are other ways drive traffic to it, such as YouTube, Metacafe, forums and blogs. Videos can also be linked to a YP.com listing, which is the 34th most used Internet site. See our recent post on the vast YP.com network to learn more about how YP.com can help your video reach consumers.

3. Tracking

It is important to know you are getting a return on your investment. A landing page is a unique page that’s only referenced from your video distribution and is used to track the visits to your video. The company producing your video will normally set up the landing page and provide tracking analytics.

Online video can be a powerful marketing tool for driving quality leads to a local business. It can give a business a competitive edge by differentiating them from the other businesses who are targeting the same potential customers. If you are looking for a creative, innovative way to highlight your products or services, a video may be an option to explore. Take a look at this online video created for a business in Lexington, KY by Berry.

To see examples more examples of small business videos created and distributed by Berry visit our YouTube channel.