The Rise And Rise Of Video As A Vital Part Of The Online Sales Process

If you want to sell products or services today in the 21st century it is all about video. Since the inception of the world wide web (would you believe as recently as August 6th 1991 when the first ever web page was created by Tim Berners-Lee?) things have come on at an incredible rate. That was just 28 years ago. So now you know. We suspect that Tim Berners-Lee had no idea just how successful his project would become.

Only 20 years ago, this writer was astonished when he was told by a barmaid that she had just sent an email to her friend in Australia. An email? What’s an email? How does that work? On the telephone lines? That must cost a fortune!! Just a few months later I had a desktop computer and an email address.

OK, if you are a millennial, our surprise will surprise you, because you were born with it and brought up with it. Some of us were brought up in the late 1940’s and 50’s when, if your father had a car, you were thought of as a rich family! Seriously folks!

The point is that, if you are in business, you have to keep up with the times, and the times are moving fast. Not very many years ago – even at the beginning of the century - many companies were sending out direct mail shots.

Huh?

These were letters of 16, 32 pages, or more, that were a sales pitch. They were designed to explain an idea or a product in such a way that on the last page you filled out a form and sent the company a cheque. The company then sent you the product. To begin with, there was only script. Then they added coloured print. Then they added a photo or two.

They flooded through your letterbox every morning. Dozens of them. Today that doesn’t happen because it got to the point where nobody ever opened them because they knew it would be a sales pitch. Sending out 10,000 or 20,000 letters or more that didn’t even get opened was an expensive hobby.

Fast forward to today and we have email. If you have an email inbox you know just how many emails you get from unknown sources, and it has now got to the point where, if a business gets an open rate of 10% it is actually doing pretty well.

Things have changed again. Actually, would you believe, direct mail has become a way of starting the sale process once again. This is because, since the demise of mass direct mail, not many businesses are using it. You don’t get piles of letters through the door every morning. The result is that when you DO get a letter in a quality envelope you probably DO open it because you are curious.

This letter has changed. It is what is known as a "teaser" letter and consists of one page directing you to a website.

When you log on to the website – sometimes with a password so that it makes it look as though you have special privileges – you THEN get a very long sales page which also contains images and videos. Yes, there may be two three, or even four videos which you can watch as you scroll down the page.

Of course, if you are following this new trend in marketing, then you will know that you need a video production company that can make outstanding videos for you which will become a major part of your sales process.

People today don’t want to sit and read a sales letter: they want to see a video which SHOWS them what the product or service is or does and shows them the results. Most businesses couldn’t even begin to produce a video any more than they could undertake the copywriting required for the sales letter.

However, today video has been proven to work, many times over. People sit and look at video everywhere – on YouTube (how many gazillions of views a day?), on websites – everywhere.

This is why video production companies are expanding at such an incredible rate. People want to see video before they buy, and video production is an art. Video gives them proof, which is why it works so well.