So you're not a technical or audio/video whiz, or you're so busy with your other business management tasks that you know you need to outsource your videos if it's ever going to get done. It is possible to outsource your video successfully. But like any outsourcing you do, you need to prepare and be aware of who you are hiring.

Here's what you need to keep in mind when hiring a freelancer for your video marketing:

Know What You Need: If you don't know what you need from your assistant or your marketing, how can you expect anyone else to know? If you can describe exactly what you need from your assistant then you will have a great chance for getting just that back from them when the project is completed.

Check Their Video Portfolio: Check the abilities of the person you're considering hiring to see if their style suits your needs. Ask for references and check them!

Prepare Materials and Logins: If there are specific materials and login information your assistant will need, it will save you a lot of time if you prepare everything ahead of time. If your assistant needs to email you every time they need something, you'll hold up the process while they wait for you to respond.

Find Reference Examples: Locate a few videos with the look and feel you like and forward those to your assistant. This will help your assistant make sure they're clear about what you're looking for.

Ask For Referrals: Asking for referrals is a great way to find qualified contractors. If you see a video online that you particularly like, contact the site owner to ask who created it. You'll know what kind of quality you'll be getting when you hire this way.

Be Open to Suggestions: Your contractor is an expert, so be open to suggestions from him or her. Explain your high-level goals, and then let them do their stuff.

Having a great team member or even a full team to handle your videos can be a real load off your mind. Just remember that successful outsourcing requires a careful blend of preparation and clarity on your goals, and willingness to let go and let the experts take over. Once you hit that sweet spot, you can cross one more thing off your To-Do list.

You've heard that using video to market your business can bring incredible results. But do the benefits outweigh the effort it takes to put your video online? In a word, Yes! Shooting a video, editing and formatting it, uploading it to the internet with the right title and description takes a bit of time. But the payoff for video marketing can be tremendous. Here are seven real benefits of marketing with video:

1. Personal Connection - Especially for internet based businesses, the personal connection with your potential market is a huge selling factor. With video, your audience can truly get to know you, eye-to-eye. They get to see that you are indeed a real, live person. They start building a deeper relationship with you and feel as if they actually have met you.
2. Social proof - There's an old proverb: "Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see." On the internet it's so easy to be a fake and a fraud. People are skeptical about claims they read online, and rightfully so. But video puts a face to your words and makes you more believable and trustworthy.
3. Traffic - People are watching 2 BILLION videos per day on YouTube alone! That's a whole lot of traffic you're missing if you're not marketing yourself with video. It's free and easy to add your video to a large number of the video sites available online.
4. Emotional Influence - The classic horror movie is a great example of how the audio has an emotional effect on us. The creepy music comes in, immediately cluing you in that something bad is about to happen. Now, imagine combining that audio with powerful video cues to influence the emotions of the listener and create a much more compelling message than with just text alone.
5. Portability - Maybe even more so then articles and ebooks, video is portable. iPhones, Smartphones, iPads and all kinds of other devices allow video to be seen on the go. You can also allow people to download video easily so they can view it over and over again.
6. Demonstrations - Reviews, case studies and examples are great ways to sell products and services. It's the reason why infomercials make millions of dollars. Now there's no need for you to be as annoying as the Sham-Wow guy to make money with video; you just need to create videos that show and tell your potential customers why your product will be helpful for them.
7. Engagement - There are many reports available online to show that video boosts response and conversion rates. When someone is watching a video, you have their full attention – eyes and ears. Unlike with the written word, they're not likely skip ahead or gloss over important information. Most people will watch a video from beginning to end, allowing you to clearly create a message and call to action that engages your audience.

Overall, video is an effective marketing strategy that is only growing in popularity. Since video is here to stay, it's time to check out the options and see how quick and easy video marketing can be.

If you have a business and a website, then you've likely considered video marketing. Once you're convinced of the power of marketing, the next step is to decide how to use videos to promote your business. Here are just a few examples:

1. Testimonials – Ask your customers or clients to give you quick 1-minute videos of their feedback. You can also interview them about your business for a more structured testimonial.
2. Product Demos - One of the biggest drawbacks to buying online is that you can't actually test the product. Bypass that objection and demonstrate your product on video to help increase sales.
3. Case Studies - If you're involved in some kind of before-and-after (website design, fitness, SEO, etc.) case studies are an excellent way to demonstrate your expertise. Seeing an example helps the potential customer understand exactly what impact your service or product can have on their business.
4. Product Reviews - Video brings an added element to product reviews, particularly if you're reviewing a physical product. But hearing you talk about a book or piece of software is effective too.
5. Education - Use video to educate your market on the use of your products. Lead them towards the sale by answering their most frequently asked questions and objections.
6. Entertainment - People love to be entertained! If you can entertain in your video and combine that with a call to action, you'll have a winning combination.
7. Webinars - If you provide webinars or other video presentations to your market, capture them via video and offer a replay to generate leads or even sell as a product.
8. Commercial - Done correctly (meaning compelling with a clear call to action), commercials for your product or service can be very effective.
9. Business Overview - One of the first things many people look for is who they are buying from and what they stand for. Let your potential customers learn about you and your business through a business overview.

As you can see from the list above, there are many ways to use video to promote your business. Just creating video is not the only step to effective marketing. You must craft a video that responds to the wants and needs of your market. They are looking for solutions to problems and questions. It's your job to figure out how to use a video to solve issues, answer questions, provide the right solutions and lead them to the next step. 

It's sad but true: There are literally billions of other videos, audios, images, and articles competing for your target market's attention. If your video is boring, nobody (except maybe your mother) is going to want to watch it. When creating a video for your business audience you must engage them or your efforts will fall completely flat.

Creating effective, engaging videos may take you time and practice, especially if you don't feel particularly at ease in front of the camera.

These tips can help you on your way to effective video marketing:

Engaging Video Tip #1: Know Your Market

Your target market has similar interests, issues and problems. By knowing, understanding and listening to your target market, you're automatically speaking in their language and appealing to their interests. That makes you engaging!

Engaging Video Tip #2: Keep Your Energy High

If someone is an energetic, charismatic speaker, they could read the phone book aloud and make it sound good. People respond to excitement, so make sure yours is high. You don't want to over-hype it, but imagine you're talking to a group of kindergarteners and have to work extra-hard to keep their attention. Our ears are trained to pick up on change, so give your voice inflection and enthusiasm, varying its pitch and loudness.

Engaging Video Tip #3: Using Effects

Our eyes are drawn to bright colors, beautiful images and motion. See how you can incorporate these elements in your intro and closing. Watch a few videos on Youtube.com to see what captures your attention, and model what works for you.

Engaging Video Tip #4: Eye Contact

One of the most important aspects of person-to-person presentation is eye contact. Talk to the camera like it's a person, a valuable potential client or a friend. Be natural, be real and be yourself. Again, this may take some practice but you'll get it. When you get good at making eye contact you will be well on your way to establishing valuable relationships with your potential audience.

Engaging Video Tip #5: Prepare

You might be one of those rare people with the gift of gab, shooting off a polished presentation with no preparation. If you are, great. If not, then you'll need to prepare to make sure you say what you want to say in your video and get your key messages across. Don't forget to include your call to action so your audience knows exactly what to do after they've finished watching the video.

Creating an engaging video takes work. However, it's well worth the effort as your video will be working for you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for many, many years to come. 

If you are running an email marketing campaign, you will find that often plain text is not enough.  Customers pay very little attention to printed words on a page, but if you can incorporate images into your campaign, you will find that you get a much better response. Videos produce better results that simple images.  This article can show you how to use video in email marketing campaigns in a variety of different ways.

Add videos as an attachment

The easiest way to learn how to use video in an email marketing campaign is to send videos as an attachment.  Most email hosts simply have a button at the top of the page that says “add attachment,” or something similar, and this is the easiest way to add a video to an email.  This is the obvious advantage to this method, but there is also a down side to this method.  If you add video in an attachment, you run the risk of your contact deleting the message without downloading the video.

Many viruses are transmitted to computers as attachments in emails and  email marketing campaigns are often sent to contacts that will not immediately recognize your email address.  Anyone interested in protecting their computer’s hard drive would likely not read and delete an unsolicited email and never look back if it had an attachment with it.

Add links to an off-site account

Sites such as www.photbucket.com, www.myspace.com, and www.facebook.com offer free hosting of videos and a unique web address for your uploads, so that you can simply add a link in your email which sends readers to the account.  Also, www.youtube.com hosts free videos by others that can be linked.  This is a great and relatively easy option for those still learning how to use video in email marketing campaigns.  You can choose to make the pages private and include a password, so that only those contacted can view the page, or you can make it public with the intent that you can attract more business when others happen to view your videos.

The downside to this approach is that many readers may not take the time to follow your link.  The average email reader has several windows open at once, and Internet users in general tend to multitask while reading email.  If your message requires too much “work,” you will likely not get much of a response.

Embed Images and videos with HTML

For the advanced Internet user who already understands how to use video in email marketing campaigns, the most effective way to add video to an email message is simply to embed the video into the message itself.  Embedded videos can be programmed to begin automatically as soon as the message is opened, or they can be programmed to wait until readers click a play button, so that text can be added above the video.