Can A Video Ever HURT Your Conversions?

Absolutely! There are techniques to creating videos that will boost conversions. That means that if you don't follow the techniques chances are you are going to hurt your conversions. They will still come in... They could just be better if you create a proper video.

I have noticed that the longer the video the quicker people loose interest and move on to the next item. Your video can't be over complicated or people will get confused and move on.

What is the point of your video? Is it to show them how to use the product? Or is it to sell them the product? Think about those questions and create your video in accordance to what you want to do. Keep it short and sweet. Be direct. Don't beat around the bush and take 10 minutes to say something.

I second what Cashtactics said. You don't want to be too long winded in your video. Highlight the main selling points and don't stray off subject. Many people don't want to watch a full length infomercial.

What I've noticed a lot of the bigger names doing is having a video ONLY squeeze page or sales page, I've never tried this myself but it must work if the mega millionairio guys are doing it.

I thought the the wrong video could give bad results... I just wanted to make sure my instincts were not wrong.

The wrong video can definitely hurt you. The right one can, depending
on market conditions, much more effective than copy. In the end
I prefer to use video and copy together so the readers get what they
like, the watchers get what they like, and everybody who reads or
watches has a chance to get involved in the process.

When your first contact with your market is with video there are
a lot of technical things worth getting right. For people under
40, as a rule, online video works pretty good. For the over-40
crowd I can argue that most of them will just prefer to read.

I'm on the cusp at 37 and I prefer to read. I use video a lot
however in my own marketing. I am not my market however.

This one might:

The niche is very important. If you are in a niche where people are likely to view your offer from work the video may actually hurt you.

I ran an audio once on a financial site and I made the mistake of having the audio play automatically. My target market mainly viewed my site from work and the video made them abandon or they couldn't hear it because they had no speakers or they were shut off.

Lance,

This is a very good point. That is the problem with some of the info products out there because they take a system that worked in one niche and promote it as a system that works in every niche.

Every business has idiosyncrasies that make some things work and others don't. Experimentation is the key.

Just one other point. No matter what market you go to there will be some people who prefer to read and others who prefer to listen or watch video.

I know that video only sales letters are becoming more prevalent. However, especially if the video is long you may want to also include the sales letter for those who don't have the inclination to listen to a video or just can't spare the time.

All they want to do is to skim the salient points on the sales letter, check the price and make a decision. You can't do that with a video.

One thing that I had never considered was that an auto-play video could increase the abandon ratio - but it makes complete sense!

Thanks for all the help and the suggestions!

Ro-

Something else to bear in mind is
that your videos will be a lot
stronger if they follow the normal
rules of direct response...

Think of it as a visual salesletter.

You'll need calls to action, proof,
everything you'd put in a regular
letter to make it effective.

Hope that helps.

-David Raybould

MY conversions went through the roof on my opt in page when i took down my video and just placed it with a pic of a video template with an alert message saying you have to optin to see this video.

But i have to say this wont work for everyone. Its all about testing testing testing. For instance this method that im speaking of may not be very effective with PPC.

Video is powerful but in the right situations and markets.

Its strange though we put out all this content "if we are using free marketing". That content is suppose to pre sell the prospect to buy or opt in. A video too me can be a turn off. Sometimes I forget about the content I had read or watched before hand.

The purpose of capture page is to get people to optin. So i would only ever speak about what the prospect is going to get in the video on a capture. Sales page is a complete different story. You must get people excited, build trust & repour hit there hot spots. So sales videos have to be carefully crafted to generate sales.

I tested sales video just a few days ago and made zero sales in four days so im sticking to what works for me.