Most of the so-called video I see on internet sites are actually Camtasia screen captures of Power Point slides with voice over. Lately, authors of these videos are totally leaving off the video control bar at the bottom so its impossible to pause, advance, or otherwise control the video. I don’t mind when the control bar is hidden until you mouse over it but when I’m left with no control other than leaving the page thats not a good thing in my book.
You need to have a really great opening and a smooth delivery if you’re going to use this technique to promote your product. What got me thinking about this was that I’ve been looking for a Health and Fitness program (unfortunately, I need to lose about 20lbs). When I turned on my compter this morning, Windows Live Messenger popped up with a featured fitness ad that got my attention. Clicking this, lead to a page and a video as described above…. It seems to me that if you’re selling something like a fitness product that it would be a good thing to show a picture of the product author, or product users, right upfront in your video… some sort of social proof that it works. So…. what do you think?
