So call me old fashioned, but I’m still amazed when I watch my teenage daughter and her friends making fun, edited videos on their iPods® –  in a matter of minutes. Video apps from Vine and Instagram have re-defined the art of “movie making,” catering to the short attention spans of today’s generation of web viewers.

With the ease and availability of video — along with millennials not knowing life without HD video —  it has become vitally important to take advantage of video marketing.
But if you are having some qualms about venturing into video marketing, you are not alone:

• 37% of marketers who held back from committing to using that medium for their campaigns due to perceived cost of video production.
• 27% were concerned that they couldn’t produce high enough quality.
•  22% faced technical challenges and 1% blamed lack of available video assets.

All those aside, here are some simple ideas to get you started if you would like to video marketing strategy:

Make the most of that trade show

In my experience, trade shows are the ultimate opportunities for video marketing.  You will normally have industry leaders and clients under one roof – all potential interviews.  With some advanced planning, like scheduling interviews and crafting the right interview questions, you can put together some great content. Not only can you then share it with your own social networks, it’s likely the interviewees and their companies may even share the video as well.  This can translate into generating even more traffic to your site.

Give them a chance to win

This is something I have yet to try, but I love the idea from ReelSEO.  As mentioned, anyone can make a video – so take advantage of it!  Ask your audience to submit a video, with a topic of your choice, perhaps to go along with a current marketing campaign.  (Since the majority of the videos will be amateur, it’s a good idea to put good guidelines into place to ensure a certain level of quality.) Once submissions are in, drive even more traffic by giving your web visitors the chance to vote for the winner. Again, this is also an excellent way to leverage the social networks of the participants.

 Help them out

Another relatively simple way to utilize video marketing is to create tutorials.  Who hasn’t searched for instructions on the web for one thing or another. Because most people are visual learners, they will gravitate to video for step-by-step instructions.

You might also want to consider customer testimonials.  Prospective clients can then see what current customers have to say about your products.  It’s a nice, quick reference. And don’t worry about it being super professional – use your smart phone if you are on-site or at a conference, or record it via Google Hangout at your office. 

 Don’t forget to optimize

Now that you have a few ideas to get started, another valuable point to remember is optimization.  You’ve just created all this cool content – so you want to be found. Here are some tips:

1. Decide what keywords would be the best to use so your video is ranked high on Google.
2. Google owns YouTube, so uploading video to YouTube is a smart way to go to generate organic search results.
3. Claim your Google Authorship! It’s safe to say the majority of your potential customers will go straight to Google when looking for a solution to a problem. Marketing guru Jeff Bullas had this to say: “Connect your Google+ with your YouTube and use video to provide answers to questions. You’ll become a go-to Q&A Resource in no time.
4. Craft a magnetic call to action. Create a graphic with your business URL, phone number and logo. When editing, include the graphic on the lower third portion of the video, or wherever you think it would not distract from the video itself.

82% of marketers say video marketing had a positive impact on their business. All you can do is try it! Don’t worry if you aren’t a professional (or don’t have it in the budget to hire on) – just focus on creating compelling content, being personal and delivering good points that will connect with your potential audience.

Back to you:

Do you have plans to incorporate video marketing?

What types of videos have worked for you?