In 2010 Gartner listed video as one of the top ten strategic online technology trends for 2011. With the year nearly three quarters over, their forecast seems justified. Consumers' appetite for streaming videos over their desktop, tablet and mobile devices is not abating. Seeing its potential, marketers in general are increasingly joining the online video trend as a way to get their message across more effectively – and to greater numbers.

Subsequently, more than two thirds of UK marketers are expected to have increased their online video ad spend in 2011 (IAB figures). With easier ways to consume video content and faster download speeds the trend shows no sign of slowing. So how can you get video marketing working for your business?

1. Think Personalisation Not Perfection
The stumbling block for most small businesses when considering video marketing is the unaffordable production costs. Ironically, the fact is that some of the most successful online video marketing campaigns have been done on a shoe string budget.

Today's video consumers are more concerned about watching entertaining; customer focussed content rather than expecting the highest of production values. That said, the production costs in most instances are in easy reach of a small business' marketing budget.

2. Make it Easy to View and Share
Once you have your video ready to go, your next step is to make it available for viewing using a dedicated video player. YouTube provides this service at no cost – but what you may save on the video hosting, you may lose on not having total control of how your video is viewed.

A dedicated video hosting and streaming service can provide you with your own branded video player which plays just as well across a number of desktop and mobile devices. A key component of your video player is giving viewers the ability to share the content with ease via the social networks or by email. Another nice feature is for the player to include a call to action button once your video concludes.

3. Optimise it For YouTube
While you may not want to use YouTube as your main online video player, you also don't want to ignore the marketing opportunity it offers. Owned by Google, YouTube is the world's second largest search engine, and regularly features within the first page of search results.

Optimising your video for YouTube can have a significant effect in securing your fair share of the huge number of viewers using YouTube to consume content on a daily basis.

4. Spread the Word
Use all your marketing collateral to help get the word out regarding your new video. While you may not be able to embed the video into an email (as email clients will simply strip the code), you can include an image of your video which when clicked, takes your subscriber directly to view your auto play video.

Your social media channels are a great place to promote your videos – and unlike email, will enable you to embed the video right into their platform. Making it easy to view and share.

5. Monitor What Works Best
Video is a very measurable medium, not only giving figures for the number of viewers, but also providing data for aborted views. Enabling you to identify unpopular content or if your videos are simply too long for example.

The key here, as with all your marketing activities, is to measure, rinse and repeat, improving as you go.