How should Your Business Catch the Video Wave?

Videos are the hottest trend on the Internet. A business can benefit by using videos in three ways.

Mississauga, ON (PRWEB) July 20, 2006 -- Videos are the hottest trend today on the Internet. From YouTube.com who reports that over 100 million videos are watched every month to Internet giants like Google and Yahoo who have been heavily investing in their video search applications, everyone wants to get on the video bandwagon. So how should a business catch this latest popular wave?

The first thing to realize, according to presentation consultant Dave Paradi, is that most of the videos online today are created to capture attention from an entertainment perspective and the popularity of these videos can’t be seen as a trend that is relevant to every business. “Creating an entertainment video is akin to creating an award winning advertisement for your business – very difficult to do, possibly very expensive and probably not that relevant to the bottom line,” says Paradi.

So how can businesses use videos to their advantage? Paradi suggests three ways that allow a business to participate in the video trend while remaining focused on the bottom line.

1.   Customer testimonials – Showing a video of a customer talking about how a product or service helped them is far better than reading a quote or a sales professional talking about the customer’s experience. These videos can be used in presentations or on a corporate web site.
2.   Training videos – As a lower cost option to in-classroom sessions, training videos can be used to get new employees up to speed or retrain employees on a new process or piece of equipment. These videos can be archived on an intranet site for refresher training. Some companies have even created secure parts of their web sites to store training videos that customers can view at any time, reducing customer support costs.
3.   Process or equipment demonstrations – Instead of explaining a process by using a diagram or showing a picture of a piece of equipment, some companies are starting to use videos to “tour” the process or equipment. This gives a customer a better feel for what is being explained. This can reduce the length of the sales cycle, as has been seen in the real estate industry with building tour videos posted on web sites.

“As long as you see videos as a new way to enhance the customer or employee experience, you will be able to capture the benefits that video offers,” says Paradi.

About Dave Paradi:
Dave Paradi is the co-author of “Guide to PowerPoint” by Prentice Hall and is a consultant and trainer in the area of presentations that use technology. He has incorporated videos into presentations for professional speakers, created 8 training videos and conducts web-based video training sessions.

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