ANTenna Blog -- Business & E-Business

Online video -- when done well -- is an incredibly effective marketing tool. But you knew that already. But did you know that small and midsize businesses, can now more easily, and affordably, get in on the action?

A few months ago I interviewed Ben Wayne whose company, Fliqz, provides hosted solutions -- read: affordable -- that enable smaller businesses to put videos on their site. None of this consumer, YouTube stuff where customers click away from your site: This is videos on your site, you get the search, you get the traffic.

More recently, Glenn Pingul wrote on SearchEngineLand about the significance of online video in terms of generating and maintaining traffic and in terms of search. Granted, Pingul is the VP of marketing for Mixpo, an online video advertising company dedicated to small and midsize businesses.

But he cites research done by "SEO guru" Mark Robertson, (check out what Robertson has to say in this video). Robertson reports that "that research from the folks at FindLaw showed that video marketing, which in this case meant adding an online video to a law firm's web site can help increase, to a somewhat dramatic extent, conversions from prospective clients."

The research is pretty compelling for smaller businesses. Pingul writes: "The research reported that consumers typically visit an average of nearly five Web sites (4.8 actually) before deciding which attorney to select. When lawyers added video to their respective Web sites, however, this number decreased fairly substantially, to 1.8. Studies like this are great. They show the promise of how video can help small and medium sized businesses and point to the importance of placing video strategically throughout the "buying funnel" with the right messaging at the right time -- and in the legal case above, accelerate people down the buying funnel."

Pingul says that in his company, their for clients who incorporated video ads into their landing pages, conversions went as high as 50 percent.

Impressive but another thing that Pingul points out makes sense, at least for now: "On a crowded search results page, online video can make the choice seem more clear, limiting the need or desire by users to "shop around" though search results and elsewhere. It’s too early to tell conclusively, but one would surmise that at a time when the use of video is still comparatively limited, the companies who do use it have a chance to "stand out" from others, whether in search results or elsewhere."

For smaller businesses, it's all about standing out in the crowded marketplace. Video has helped larger businesses get lots of attention but now there are lots of companies that are turning their attention to SMBs. In addition to Fliqz and Mixpo, there's Twistage, which also hosts videos for smaller businesses.

Now there's no more excuse. Get your site singing -- or at least talking.