I have been involved in creating videos for about three years, always burning these to dvd. I watched the streaming revolution coming, but was reluctant to get involved until it worked on dial up, was cheap and dead simple.



During that time, I've also seen the prices of cameras, software and other necessary items tumble, whilst the quality they deliver continues to skyrocket. For example, the editing software I paid $200 for -- which is so user friendly a child could create movies, yet so packed with features it would satisfy Steven Spielberg -- is now available for less than 50 bucks!

Finally the moment has arrived, when streaming video is cheap enough, simple enough and -- even more importantly -- works well for those visitors who still have dial up internet connections. Dial up users are still a big part of your potential audience and you ignore them at your peril.

What delighted me was the instant increase in opt-in rates and even conversions to sales I enjoyed, once I started to stream videos on my web sites. Overall that increase was around 50%.

Why such an amazing increase?

Simple. If you know anything about marketing and the psychology of sales, you've probably figured it out. People buy with emotion. And the emotional part of the brain thinks in pictures. Hence the expression "A picture is worth a thousand words" So, imagine how you can increase that emotional response when you add in movement and body language, which is our oldest form of communication and the one linked to our instinct.

Beyond that, we are conditioned to watch TV and movies, rather than read. And many internet users have difficulty in reading English, but they understand spoken English very well -- and they all have credit cards. So, like those still on dial up, neglecting this large sector means you are leaving more money on the table.

We all know just how important testimonials and "social proof" are. So just imagine how much more compelling they are when presented as a video with a real customer explaining the reason why they are so enthusiastic about you and your product. And don't think your customers will fight shy of giving you a videoed testimonial, because I can tell you, they will be so keen, you'll have to fight them off with sticks.

And don't neglect the opportunities for creating videos as a product. If you have a web site that sells any sort of "how to do" information from child care, sports, martial arts, cookery, quilt-making or car maintenance you can create whole new product lines. And the best bit is videos have a higher perceived value than e-books, so you can charge more, yet they will be more fun and take less time and be easier to create than a book -- because there's no painstaking proof reading and correcting to do.

If that wasn't enough, once you have video on your site, you can tap into a whole new avalanche of free, highly targeted traffic. And the best bit is these sources are little known by most webmasters, so you are likely to be the first in your niche and have the whole field to yourself. In addition, you might find other niches, where there is traffic there for the taking and no one is taking it. So you can create another video web site to cater for this and scoop the pot!

And yet -- despite the astonishing changes it can bring to your bottom line -- actually putting the video on your web site can take less than five minutes. All you need do is take your video in .avi or similar format and run it through a piece of software which quickly produces to two files: a highly compressed Flash file and a snippet of html code.

First, you copy the Flash file in the "Files" section of your web site software. Flash, is now as ubiquitous as Adobe's PDF system, with 90% coverage, so your video will be instantly available to your visitors.

Then you take the snippet of code, also produced by the software, and paste into your web page, where you want the video to appear. And that's it!

Load your site to your server in the usual way and welcome to the 21st Century!