Selling River Cruises Using Video

Written By: Tom Ogg

 

 

Here are some fascinating facts regarding video on the Internet. 

 

YouTube has over a billion users, almost 1/3 of the total Internet users on the planet Earth. 

 

45% of people watch more than an hour of video content on Facebook or YouTube each week. 

 

More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each and every day. 

 

Online marketers overwhelmingly prefer using video content rather than textual or graphical. 

 

Over 500 million people watch video content on Facebook every day. 

 

Over half of video content is viewed on mobile devices. 

 

Over 50% of online marketing professionals name video as the type of content with the best ROI. 

 

Views of branded video content have increased 260% on Facebook and doubled on YouTube since June of 2017. 

 

Behind Google, YouTube.com is the second largest search engine on the Internet. But, it is much easier to gain high ranking positions on YouTube.com than it is on Google.  

 

launching Your YouTube Business Channel 

Make Your Channel Name Relevant to Your Niche: If your YouTube channel will only feature content on river cruising, then the title should reflect that. Get creative and remember the narrower the niche, the more likely it is potential clients will find you. 

 

Remember that you can have several “Brands” that operate from your YouTube channel so being very specific does not pidgin hole you in any way. 

 

As a search engine, YouTube has made it easy for you to tell YouTube what you video is about so that they can deliver it to the person looking for the content of your video. These elements are the video title, description and tags. 

 

Being an authority on a narrow niche is vital as far as YouTube is concerned. The narrower your niche, the batter. When your video content is themed around a narrow niche it will also be easier for people looking for the information to find your channel and the level of engagement will increase 

 

Long Tailed Keywords 

By using the keywords “River Cruises” you almost guarantee you will never rank well in YouTube. But, using long tail keywords like “AmaDara Category C Cabin Review” will put you on the first page of the SERP, I suspect. 

 

Think about it. Someone making a buying decision is quite likely to compare cabins on the lines they are considering. You will capture the client right at their point of commitment. 

 

Optimizing Your YourTube Video 

YouTube gives you the ability to offer a thorough description of the video you are uploading. This is a great way to further use your keywords to help improve your SERP. Of course, your description should include your video title. 

 

This reaffirms that your video would be of interest to someone searching for your specific review. You should always contain a link back to your website in the description. 

 

Tagging Your YouTube Video 

YouTube allows you up to 500 characters to tag your YouTube video. These can be made up of “Specific Tags” which are one word tags that help define what the video is about. “Compound Tags” are search strings potential viewers might use to find your video. 

 

Of course, the first compound tag should be your keyword Title. “Suggested Tags” When tagging your video YouTube will suggest appropriate category tags that you might want to include. 

 

The final tags are “Misspelled Words” that a potential viewer might use. You can use the Keyword Typo Generator to find common misspellings of your keywords. http://tools.seochat.com/tools/online-keyword-typo-generator/#sthash.Vpa5yXWg.n48lBUtl.dpbs 

 

There is a HUGE opportunity to gain top position in YouTube and I am going to tell you exactly how to do it. The Title, Description and Tags are HUGE. 

 

Your Google AdWords Account  

If you don’t have one you will need to open an account at www.Google.com/adwords/get-started/. From your AdWords dashboard scroll all the way down on the left hands side to “All Video Campaigns” and click on the button. Then simply launch a new video campaign. 

 

If you do not have an AdWords account you should open one immediately. 

 

There will be the typical questions setting up the campaign that will lead to the budget you would like to set. You can allocate whatever budget that you would like and this is a critical management tool as you will want to understand the cost per conversion on YouTube created leads. 

 

By choosing “Instream” ads, your video will appear before the content you have chosen by keywords. Since the ad will also have a link to wherever you would like, you would put the url in the campaign too. 

 

Instream video advertising is so powerful it isn’t even funny. I will show you an example in a second. 

 

Once you have completed defining the campaign you will proceed to “Targeting Options” This is where it really gets good. You can choose how you want your ad displayed and also set your bidding for your keywords. 

 

Just like in AdWords you are competing with other marketers for position and the higher you bid the more dominant your ad will be. You can change your bid at any time based on the responses that you are getting. 

 

\our budget and cost per lead and your conversion ratio (lead to sale) is what will drive your campaign. 

 

You can select demographics as a target market, and / or keywords. For the sake of river cruise advertising long tail keywords are the way to go. Once you have entered your keywords you will be presented with the likely outcome of your campaign. 

 

This will include the budget you spent, the number of views you can expect and the average cost per view. You can monitor your success from your AdWords dashboard and modify the campaign at any time that you want. 

 

What is a “View” 

A “view” is any time your ad is viewed for 30-seconds or longer or your ad is clicked on. If a thousand people see your ad, but don’t stay for 30 seconds and don’t click on your ad, there is no cost to you whatsoever. 

 

You can expect to see minimal cost per lead using video advertising on YouTube. 

 

YouTube.com is simply where you store your video and you can then populate it anywhere you would like either by using a link to the video or embed code to show the video on your website. Social media automatically turns your link into a video player. 

 

Creating Compelling and Creative Video Content  

So here are ways that you can create video content about river cruising that will engage potentially new clients. 

 

Create River Cruise Video Reviews: Having been the founder of CruiseReviews.com which was a textual and graphical review site that embraced the technology at the time, reviews have gone to video. 

 

YouTube.com hosts river cruise reviews on every river boat and river throughout the world. Shooting and posting reviews is easy and is guaranteed to be seen by potential clients. Here are some tips that will help you succeed at posting reviews. 

 

River Cruise Port Videos: When you are on a river cruise, be sure to take video of each port’s most interesting attractions and turn it into an edited 3 – 5 minute video of the port. And, be sure to put a hook or two into the video like “Don’t miss the wholesale pashmina outlet by the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. I bought pashmina that were selling for over $200 in Nordstroms for $4.00 each”. Then don’t tell them where it is. They may contact you to find out and that is an opportunity. 

 

Think Micro Reviews: Rather than try to do a thorough review of the entire river boat break your reviews into micro reviews and use long tail keyword titles as we have discussed. Do a thorough and complete review of the cabin, the restaurant, the lounge, the entertainment and so forth. 

 

Make the reviews contain so much information that anyone considering the ship will have detailed information of what they are buying. You can always string the videos together to make a larger review of the entire river boat. But, remember that the best videos are anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes long. 

 

Get Professional: If you are shooting river boat reviews always use a stabilizer to minimize the wobbles. Nothing is harder to watch than a video where the images are bouncing all over the place. Gimbals for smartphones a relatively inexpensive (under $100) and well worth the investment. 

 

You should also invest in a quality microphone so that you can get great audio while videoing river boats. Remember to get a wind muff to avoid the sound of wind on windy days. 

 

As you can see a video review can be focused on just one aspect of a river boat. 

 

Video Advertising: YouTube offers video advertising to appear when potential clients click on river cruise content. Video advertising for long tail keywords is without question the best way to go. YouTube.com video advertising is managed through your Google AdWords account. 

 

River Cruise Line Video with Your Agency Introduction and Trailer: This is another great way of gaining new potential clients. Go to your preferred river cruise supplier and let them know that you would like to put their video on your website. 

 

Have an introduction video which is nothing more than you introducing the video and then your agency trailer on the end of it. Publish it on YouTube and then put the embed code on your website and social media to play the video. 

 

This can easily be done with any video editor like iMovie or a ton of others 

 

“How to” and “Tips” Videos: “How to pack for a river cruise”, “12 secrets you need to know before booking your river cruise”, “10 tips for making the most from your Danube river cruise”. These are all titles for “How to and Tips Videos”. 

 

These can be very effective on YouTube and in social media. Be sure to brand them and have a strong call to action. And, by using long tail keywords for your video and advertising your cost per lead is going to be very affordable. And, you are capturing the exposure right when the client is making buying decisions. 

 

How to Turn YouTube Clicks into Sales: Like all online marketing you should offer something for nothing. Offering an ebook is a great way to encourage potential clients to click on your ad. 

 

“15 River Cruise Secrets You Should Know Before You Book” is an example of a hook that would motivate potential clients. You can use your imagination for ideas of what your potential clients would be responsive to. Your ad should make a value proposition that is difficult to pass up with a strong and solid value to the reader. 

 

Landing Pages 

When potential clients click on your ad they should be directed to a specific landing page that offers them more information and a clickable like to download their ebook. 

 

They enter their email address and immediately receive the ebook. At this point you now have the very beginning of a relationship that you can massage with you CRM. 

 

Your Download Link  

In your responding email with the link to download the ebook you should make a second offer to the potential client that might motivate them to consider booking with you. One agents hints that they might qualify for a $100 shipboard credit if they book. 

 

Another agent suggests that they have access to “Special Group Rates”. Of course, in both of these example they are simply rebating part of their commission. It is up to you as to what you do. But, the second offer is a way to continue email correspondence until the potential client either books with you or unsubscribes from your email list. 

 

Email Campaign Follow Up 

Engage in an aggressive and value Laden email campaign to convert. The average conversion takes 5, or more emails so avoid emails that do not offer true value to the receiver. This is how you can build trust and create an ongoing relationship with the new potential client.