Technology has had a dramatic effect on the video production industry over the last 5 years. A few years ago video production was a highly specialized service that required very expensive equipment. Today anyone can pick up some cheap equipment and start making videos. At the same time many businesses are starting to embrace video, primarily on the web, as a means of reaching their audiences with engaging and persuasive new content. It’s both the perfect storm and the perfect opportunity for providers and purchasers of corporate video production services.

I am often asked about the state industry – how it’s changing, where it’s going, so I created this brief summary of how I see the industry evolving.  The numbers are my own – based on observation, research and discussions with other video productions companies.

Level 1. Equipment Owners
(Trend – Growing number of providers, resulting in both new opportunities and risks for businesses).

For under $5,000 you can pick up an HD camera, a cheap three point lighting system, audio equipment, computer and software to edit the video and just like that, you are now a video production services supplier.  It may take you a few weeks or months to get the hang of it but eventually you’ll be able to produce some decent video: Simple point and shoot projects, talking heads and perhaps even a corporate overview. Most new entrants will start by providing free or virtually free services and most will exit the industry in under a year realizing that, in spite of hype, it’s difficult to make a full time living in video production. We’re bound to see a lot of churn over the next few years.  This trend is not new to the creative services industry. We’ve seen the same thing with photography and graphic design. When anyone and everyone can provide services the market has difficulty in discerning value and as a result, there is bound to be a fair degree of uncertainty and disappointment in the marketplace. Who benefits? – the businesses who find capable low cost video production suppliers and the video equipment manufactures. Those suppliers with both perseverance and talent will evolve to the next level:

Level 2. Experienced Videographers.
(Trend – numbers are growing but the capabilities of this group are also changing quickly)

The two principle distinctions with this group are 1. Experience and  2. They are usually one person businesses. Whatever their legal business structure (i.e. sole proprietor or incorporated business) this group have been shooting for a while – both for their own clients and also doing freelance work for larger video production companies. Some of these guys (over 90% are male for some reason….) specialize in weddings or events and some do mostly corporate work. The big change for this group is that they are doing more now than ever. They are having to sell and promote themselves in different ways. They are being squeezed by the equipment owners on price but they are also competing for the first time with the larger video production companies. It’s okay today if you are a one man band. It didn’t use to be -  primarily because it was very difficult (and expensive) to do it all. Today you can. Many videographers used to be just shooters, either because they didn’t want to do editing or they didn’t want to appear to be competing with their principle source of income -  the next group in the food chain – the video production companies. {Interestingly, you are also seeing video production companies downsizing to three, two or one man operations working from home – again, because the market and technology allow this to happen and also because the ongoing cost pressures demand it.}

Level 3. (Pure) Video Production Companies.
(Trend – this group is experiencing the most pain, the numbers of these providers are shrinking)

The traditional video production companies (two or more staff and lots of experience) are getting squeezed from both ends. They are seeing tremendous price pressure and are not able to sustain the same high rates that used to comfortably pay their overhead. Big studios, lot’s of expensive equipment, layers of management and admin are all luxuries that few production companies can afford today. Most people in this group started in video – doing sound, doing lighting, etc. The entrepreneurs eventually started their own production houses. Having experience isn’t enough, however. Sure, the market will still pay for experience – but what it will pay is a moving (lower) target. The other challenge this group is facing is that they are seeing people with other talents and backgrounds (i.e ad agencies, marketing consultancies, online media companies, etc) jump into the fray. The traditional video production companies will argue that these new entrants don’t have the required video production skills but the reality is that the market places more value on ideas and application than on technical competency. Shaky camera, focus hunting, imperfect lighting and a litany of other video transgressions are not only acceptable today, they are sometimes preferred. New entrants often shape a market in strange and wonderful ways…

Having great video production skills today are becoming table stakes for higher end productions. The next level is application – what do you do with the video.

Level 4. Value-added Corporate Video Production.
(Trend – this group will grow quickly over the next few years)

The ‘value’ in the video production industry used to be in the expensive equipment and the experience in using it. A few years ago ‘corporate video’ meant either a TV commercial or a ten minute video containing a whack of superfluous motion graphics. The number and uses of video are growing faster than anyone can keep track of (here are 51 different types of video being used by businesses today).

The value today is in how you apply video to your market, not in how you make the video. As such, there are a number of new market entrants to video production who are not only creating video but coming up with new ways to apply that video to specific business objectives. Social media, interactive video and mobile video are all examples of purpose-built content to solve a specific business problem. One size doesn’t fit all. You will start to see video production companies specialize in the creation and delivery (creating the video is only the first step) of video. You will also start to see video production companies specialize in certain types of video (like HR or PR) as vertical knowledge will become more important than general video production knowledge. As such, you are seeing either new hybrid companies with marketing or social media capabilities enter the video production industry of you are seeing very tight collaborations (sometimes evolving into new business entities) between creative or marketing agencies with video production companies. Ultimately all of these companies are trying to get to the top of the food chain:

Level 5. Regional Market Leader
(Trend – No change here, every region has a couple of leaders)

By ‘Market Leader’ I don’t mean “Our firm is a Market Leader that provides leading edge expertise in…”  Anyone can lay claim to leadership but there are only a couple of true leaders in every market. The leaders command the big budgets. They are the regional go-to companies for the biggest brands or government agencies. Every services company looks to become the leader for one reason (O.K…. probably more than one): Market Leaders command the largest budgets on jobs – and that means not having to compromise and that also means having the greatest latitude to do the best work. Sure, everyone is being asked to do more with less – but more is better.  These guys are easy to find. Their body of work speaks for itself. The reason they got to where they are will (most likely) be the reason they will also be able to adapt to new trends and changes in the video production industry.

Technology has had a tremendous impact on the corporate video production industry. That said, you still tend to get what you pay for ( you just get more now…)

Salesforce provides cloud-based CRM tools and is a global leader in web-based services.  With over 1500 videos it’s safe to say that Salesforce is fully committed to web video as a means of reaching their customers and driving new business. If the internet is important to your business the above Saleforce video case study will show you how web-based video can support your ongoing business objectives. Saleforce presented this video at a recent Google B2B Think conference.

The video shows why Saleforce has chosen YouTube to manage their video assets,  promote awareness and drive new leads to the company. Some highlights from the video:

- YouTube is now one of Salesforce’s most important online marketing tactics.
- Saleforce equates their YouTube effort to adding 46 sales reps.
- Interestingly, one of the reasons Saleforce chose YouTube as their video delivery platform was that it was one of the most trusted by users.
- They have seen much greater success with video SEO since using YouTube to host their video.
- They have also tested YouTube Display Ads, Promoted Videos and on video Calls to action.

Many businesses today are considering what is the best option for hosting their marketing video. Obviously Salesforce isn’t concerned about issues such as YouTube being blocked by some sites or the possibility of other videos being shown around your video if you happen to click through to the YouTube site itself.  Should they be?

Forbes Insights, in association with Google, surveyed more than 300 C-level and senior executives at large U.S. companies ($500 million-plus in annual revenues) to learn more about how they are approaching Web video as a source of business-related information. The results are both surprising and important for anyone who’s job it is to communicate with and influence senior executives in any sized company.

The graphic above (created by eMarketer) illustrates post video-viewing intent. Clearly video’s influence is growing and will only continue to grow in the coming years. The following is a summary of some of the findings of the Forbes/Google research:

1. In some cases executives prefer video to text. When asked “If video and text covering the same topic are on the same Web page, which would you watch first,” 59% chose video and 37% chose text.

2. The top 3 objectives when watching business-related YouTube videos are: 1. Testimonials (29%), 2. Product demonstrations (28%) and 3. Product reviews (29%).

3. Video is social. 54% of senior executives share work related videos with colleagues at least once a week.

4. “Longer” videos are preferred. Conventional wisdom (it is usually neither…) has it that 2 minutes is the “absolute limit” for business related video. When asked, 47% of executives preferred a length of 3-5 minutes, followed by 36% preferring 1-3 minutes and 9% preferring over five minutes.

5. Video causes executive to take action. Overall, 65% have visited a vendor’s website after watching a video. Younger executives, however, may be more fully engaged with this type of media, and appear more likely to make a purchase, call a vendor, or respond to an ad.

Forbes summarizes these trends well – “While the Web itself is in the midst of a video makeover, executives are transforming their habits to be more open to video—the non-text Web—as a highly reliable and trusted source for gathering and filtering business information.”

As bandwidth increases and video production costs continue to decrease businesses are beginning to adopt video as a primary method of communicating with their customers and prospects. In-house or outsourced, video is quickly becoming a marketer’s media tool of choice for two reasons: video is engaging and, more importantly, video is persuasive. Here are some of the ways that businesses are using video to help improve their bottom line:

Customer Reference Videos

1.  Customer Testimonials (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Nothing is more compelling than seeing and hearing your customer (ideally in their own environment) extol the virtues of your products and services or explaining how your company helped them to achieve their business goals. These videos usually run from fifteen second snippets to a minute and are typically combined with or used to support other marketing material.

2. Success Stories (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Similar to a customer testimonial these videos run between one and two minutes and follow an interview format where the person on screen answers questions posed by an interviewer just off-camera. These videos are usually delivered as stand-alone marketing support materials and are often grouped with other customer success stories.

3. Video Case Study (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
A video case study combines customer testimonials with more a more in-depth explanation of how your company’s products and services helped your customer be successful. These case studies usually incorporate two voices – a narrator and the voice of your customer and can run anywhere from two to five minutes. The video structure follows the same “Problem, Solution, Benefit” format found in a printed case study and usually include b-roll or other supporting text and video.

4. Man-in-the-street Interviews (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
These videos are typically done to promote events and to build buzz around coming events but can also be employed to capture ‘spontaneous’ responses to targeted questions that help promote your product or service or to help differentiate the benefits of your brand compared to the real or imagined problems associated with your competitors. Consumer focused companies such as soft drink manufacturers, phone companies and fast food companies often use this video format in advertising but you are starting to see this type of video appear as a stand-alone promotion on business websites or YouTube business channels.  Sometimes these videos are genuine. Sometimes they are completely staged. ‘Authenticity’ is, in some sense, becoming a style…

5. Customer Presentations. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
If one of your customers is presenting at a conference, trade show or event or even in your offices and is talking about your products or services either directly with you or indirectly as part of a larger discussion this may be a perfect opportunity to capture the presentation of video (with permission, of course) to re-purpose on your website and intranet.

Product and Service Promotion

6. Product Presentations (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Product (or service) presentation videos are typically employed early in the buying cycle. Product or service presentations focus on benefits and talk from your customer’s perspective. They should speak clearly to how your product solves a specific business, personal or economic problem that your prospect is experiencing. They are used to help your customers and prospects differentiate between the benefits of your products and services to those of your competitors.

7. Product Demonstrations (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Product demos show how your product works and highlight the features that differentiate it from that of your competitors. Software screen captures, a 3D cut-away, or a high impact demo by a presenter are all excellent ways of showing how your product or service works. These videos are typically used to influence a prospect who is relatively far along in the sales cycle. In technology marketing these videos would be targeted at the technical approvers who need to understand how something works. In consumer marketing these would be targeted at the economic buyers of larger ticket items who may be further along the sales process.

8. Product Reviews (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
The best product reviews are trusted third party reviews. Video reviews can be found anywhere from YouTube to various business portals. To the extent they are positive and promote your brand, they should be referenced. You can also partner with trusted third parties to create product reviews for your own products.

9. Visual Stories (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Quickly rising in popularity, visual stories employ illustrations, animations and motion graphics with a voice-over to explain complex products or services in a simple and compelling manner. These are sometime referred to as ‘explainers’ and are usually between one and three minutes in length. A new version of this tool, used primarily for entertainment, are websites that offer predefined characters and backgrounds that you can both animate and add an automated voice to (sort of like building your own Second Life commercials). You will begin to see many new hosted services offering customizable cloud-based animation modeling options – some good and some quite awful.

Corporate Video

10. Corporate Overview (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: moderate)
These videos are the video equivalent of the ‘company brochure’ for small companies – intended to give new visitors to a website a better idea of the company. Corporate overview videos typically company history, key products, executives/owners and other top level business info. As the cost of video production continues to decrease and the popularity of video increases you will start to see these videos being replaced by multiple, more targeted video.

11. Executive Presentations (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Whether you are preparing for a quarterly update, responding to a major event in your industry or making a regularly scheduled presentation there is great value in presenting the “face” and “voice” of your leadership team to all of your constituents.

12. Staff Presentations (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Social media and other Web 2.0 trends have caused companies to reconsider how they communicate with external audiences. Your senior leadership team should not be the first and only consideration to represent your company. It is becoming more imperative to consider showcasing the people that drive the day-to-day operations of your company. Customer service representatives, technical experts and legacy workers are all valuable considerations for this new category of corporate video. Surveys show that there is more trust associated with these employees than with senior management. When you are selling to influencers in organizations (versus economic buyers or decision makers) it is especially important you represent your company with people that your customers and prospects can relate to.

13. Corporate facilities or equipment tour (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Ten years ago corporate facility videos and equipment tours were popular. Down-sizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, a couple of recessions and a hollowing out of North America’s manufacturing base has change the priorities placed on these videos. Uniqueness is key to success here. That said, it’s really not about you and your stuff any more – it’s about how you can solve your customers problems.

14. Annual Report / Review (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Public companies are legally obliged to create annual and quarterly reviews. As well, larger privately held companies also create their own quarterly and annual reviews. As print continues to fall out of favor video will either supplement or replace these materials.

15. Video Signature and Video Introduction (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are just starting to enter into the corporate culture even though they have been part of the social culture for years. Other social sites like web-based dating services are now commonplace. Video is becoming a key component in how you ‘sell’ yourself, in your private life… and in business. A video signature is a video (either embedded or direct link to video) that is in the signature portion of your email. Introductory videos serve the same purpose – to give people who don’t know you a better idea about who your are.

Training

16. Training (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Corporate video first gained prominence with training (service, support, sales, personal development etc.) and continues to be one of the best uses of video. Online Video is a cost effective substitute for in-class training. You can also easily integrate video into online training management tools.

17. Overnight expert videos (Sales Support)  (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
If you serve a large geographic area or sell through channels then it is well worth the effort to put together short ‘overnight expert’ sales support videos that highlight the key selling points, features, benefits, objection handling and follow-up issues to consider by your direct or channel sales force.

18. Just-in-time learning (‘How-to’ Videos)  (Popularity:Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Contextual training videos are becoming very popular on the web. ‘How-to’ videos, video manuals, on-site video reference, quick assembly demos, and other types of video are being used to supplement or replace traditional training. Mobile video will increase the popularity of this type of video.

Customer Support

19. Post sale support and maintenance videos (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
No one reads manuals. You can save thousands of dollars of post sale support by creating informative assembly, installation and maintenance videos for your products and services.

20. Website FAQ Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
In certain formats video can be a suitable replacement for text where an authoritative voice, support materials or other visual references are required. A list of FAQ’s answered by a company expert is an example.

21. Live, two-way video (i.e. Apple’s FaceTime or Skype)
I believe an interesting application for mobile computing and video is going to evolve around the ability to incorporate live and recorded video into the customer support process. Imagine being able to show someone the problem you are having with their product rather than trying to describe it or send them a photo. Showing someone the problem is just the beginning. Getting a step-by-step video response with someone talking you through the solution – live… that’s the holy grail of customer support. Most companies will dismiss this as too expensive. Other companies, like Apple, will integrate these types of services into their entire brand experience.

Internal Communications

22. Internal Communications (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
In larger companies few people have the time or interest to understand what other groups or functions within the company do or even why they exist. Internal videos that highlight business plans, new business activities and achievements can improve knowledge transfer and lead to more effective communications. They are also a great way to show off your local heroes. These videos can be either live or recorded and are typically used in larger more geographically dispersed companies. As employees continue to work from home these videos will become more important.

23. Event/Conference and Trade Show Communications. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Most companies spend a disproportionate amount of their marketing budget on attending and participating in a variety of industry events and yet only a very small percentage of employees ever benefit from these activities. Share the knowledge gained at these events by capturing the presentations, demos, interviews, commentaries etc. on video.

24. Employee orientation (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Once your new recruits are on board employee orientation videos are a great way to get new staff up to speed. Company history, structure, procedures, policies and codes of behavior can all be communicated effectively with video.

25. Health, Legal & Safety (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
The cost of dealing with health and safety related issues within organizations continues to grow. Video is one of the most effective means of minimizing these costs.

Advertising , Marketing  and Promotion

26. Commercials (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: High)
While advertisers are becoming more selective in how they chose to spend their promotional dollars with broadcast television, other venues for commercials such as online video pre-roll, online sponsorships, in-game advertising, event sponsorships and in-theatre advertising are starting to take the place of broadcast / cable commercials. A proliferation of video screens cropping up on every building, device and structure will create an even more diverse set of advertising opportunities. The challenge will be to create specialized content targeted to ever- shrinking niche audiences.

27. Viral Video (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: High)
A video is viral if it is so compelling that people want to share it. (Calling a video ‘Viral’ doesn’t make it so). Viral videos have to be extremely engaging, entertaining, shocking or meaningful to be successful. Unfortunately some of the most successful viral videos have little connection (and therefore value) to any brand. Everyone references ‘Will it Blend’ but very few viral videos are remotely this successful in actually driving sales. Viral video is very difficult to do well.

28. Email Video (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Testing has shown that open rates can double if you include video in your email marketing activities. To be effective the video should be purpose-built to elicit a specific conversion activity such as requesting a demo, more info, etc. E-mail is seeing a resurgence with marketers and embedded video in emails (like gmail supports) or links to video in email is becoming very popular.

29. Infomercials (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Infomercials have been around forever. While they continue to be the primary focus of web-based parody videos they have remained remarkably resilient over time. The shopping channel is, in effect, a 24 hour infomercial. If done well, Infomercials can be very effective at selling certain consumer products.

30.  Content Marketing (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Huge)
This is a broad category that will become very important over the next months and years. Much of the content (video or otherwise) being created today by companies is focused on selling and focused on the brand. Focusing on solving your customers problems first and then associating your brand with those solutions will be increasingly more important and effective. (i.e. Home Depot has developed branded ‘how-to’ series that sits on their website and shows their customers how-to fix various things around the house. ) What knowledge do you have that can help your customers and prospects. People don’t go to your website to see your sales pitch. They go to see if you can solve their problem.

31. Landing pages and micro sites (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Video is beginning to replace or supplement text and graphics as a content element on many corporate websites. Landing pages can offer a more compelling call to action with video. Some micro sites on larger web properties are self contained, purpose-built conversion machines that have the singular purpose of generating a conversion activity (sign-up for more info, attend event, order something etc.). Video is becoming an important part of the conversion process.

32. Interactive Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
The promise of interactive video has been around for years but we’re just starting to see companies build in interactivity into their videos. You can build in calls to action, form fields, multiple scenarios and any number of engaging content that get people to not just passively watch your video but actually gets them to start to interact with your video. Technology will play a huge role in interactive video over the next few years. You can already see the foundations of this with YouTube allowing you to add annotations and links to videos.

33. Branded Entertainment and Sponsored Video (Popularity:Moderate  | Growth Potential:Moderate)
Viral Video in many ways is just branded entertainment. There are many ways companies can benefit from having their names attached to content. In the ’50 the ‘soaps’ were a great way for P&G and other consumer companies to promote their brand. Everyday there is a new format for sponsored video being created for delivery on the web. Many will fail but some will become hugely popular. Associating your brand with the right entertainment and informational content on the web is a very interesting opportunity.

PR Support and Community Relations

34. Video Press Releases (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
The standard four paragraph press release is now being supplemented with video and rich media to tell a more engaging story. Video is now being purpose-built to directly support the important company announcements. The new challenge for press releases is to change the focus from the company to the customer.

35.  PR Support Materials (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)

Make it easy for networks, bloggers, news gathers and others to promote your business and also to talk about your industry. Smart companies are developing video support catalogs of company and industry related materials (b-roll, industry footage, sound bites etc) and offering them to news and business portals. The demand for video is everywhere. If a news agency (online or broadcast) is looking for stock footage to use in a story it might as well be yours. (assuming the story is positive, of course)

36. Community Relations Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
If your company is out working in the community, being good corporate citizens, helping the environment or contributing to important causes you should be capturing those efforts on video. Show the world what you are doing, don’t just talk about it.

37. Corporate Talk Show / Interviews (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Weekly newsletters require a lot of effort and the ‘open’ rate on most of these is quite low. Companies of all sizes are now starting to develop talk-show format video where a host interviews various people (either internal or external to their company) to discuss things that are important to your audience. Think of it as the long tail of interviews where very specific interviews are being delivered to very specific audiences.

38. EPK (electronic press kit)  (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
While EPK’s are still being delivered on DVD, web based video and text are quickly replacing this electronic version of the press kit which became popular in the mid 90′s.

Event Video

39. Event Presentation video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Events represent a unique confluence of expertise and opportunity – often under-leveraged. Trade Shows, meeting and conferences are usually attended by your top sales people, your corporate executives, industry experts and other influential business people. If you are speaking at an event or someone is referencing your company you should be capturing this valuable content on video.

40. Round table Sessions (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Take the opportunity at an event to corral four to six of your best customers and other industry experts, put them in room and video tape them talking about industry trends, business issues and the future of your industry. This content will be the most valuable content you could ever capture.

41. Q&A Expert sessions. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
There are many opportunities to take specific event participants to the side and take them through informal Q&A sessions on various topics that matter to your customers. This content is valuable lead generation content.

Other Uses of Video

42. Recruitment Videos (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Finding the best employees is the single most important function of any company and yet comparatively small amounts of time and money are allocated to this critical task. Recruitment videos that feature company employees, highlight corporate culture and promote the direction of the company can be very influential.

43. VLOG (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential:Moderate)
There are many levels and types of Vloggers today but for the sake of brevity I will identify two: 1. Pro Vloggers who have engaging styles, rich content and a growing list of followers who promote their vlog on their site and through various syndicated channels and 2. Regular Vloggers who have chosen, for whatever reason, to speak into a camera instead of typing on a keyboard. The problem today is that, unlike onscreen text, you can’t scan a vlog – you have to watch the whole thing to see whether it is worth your time. The other problem is that most people just aren’t that compelling on camera so there is little, to no value of a talking head – and often it’s a distraction. Of course everyone references Gary Vaynerchuck (from Wine Library TV) as the rule (rather than the exception) for video blogging in the same way that everyone references the success of Will It Blend as being what to expect when you launch your first viral video project. For individuals looking to gain notoriety from their passions vlogging can be a good option if you have a good on-camera presence and great content.

44. In Store Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
Wal-Mart has its own profitable in-store TV network that makes shoppers aware of new promotions. LCD screens are ubiquitous. In store LCD’s will be networked and customizable offering you the ability to promote your own goods and services or make money by promoting other complimentary services.

45. Company Lobby / Waiting Room Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
HD video screens are popping up everywhere – why not in your lobby or reception where you can get a jump start on first impressions and also take advantage of a captive audience.

46. Mobile Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Huge)
Yep, ‘there’s an Ap for that’. Mobile video will soon be the largest video category outside of broadcast. In the short-run, mobile video will consist of hastily re-purposed video made to fit on a mobile device. It will quickly evolve into a much more specific format – i.e.  five to fifteen second hyper targeted messages that are part of geo-located (‘location aware’) and micro-niched promotions. Adding mobility (true context) to video will generate many new uses and formats for video.

47. Market research, focus groups and polling (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Market research firms are now capturing the anecdotal feedback along with the raw statistics of their research. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video of your customer describing her likes and dislikes of your new product is priceless. Go to YouTube to see how people are describing your products and services.

48. Video White paper (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Video white papers have evolved over the last years from basically a person reading a white paper on camera (what’s the point) to a professional delivery that is accompanied by charts, graphs and other visual references to make the presentation more valuable.

49. Video Magazine (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Some video production companies specialize in helping companies deliver serialized video content to their customers. Like the name implies video content is created on a regular basis (usually monthly) that customers and prospects can view through a subscription service. While it makes sense to apply tradition formats to new technology and ideas, not all ideas transfer as elegantly as others.

50. Customer UCG Campaigns (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential:Moderate)
User Generated Content Campaigns- where customers are encouraged to upload videos showing how they use your products are becoming quite popular. Contests are usually the driver but sometimes just giving customers a forum to express themselves is enough.

51. Behind the Scenes Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential:Low)
Personalize your brand. Open up the cultural veil and let customers and products understand who you are – a group of humans rather than a ‘brand’. Authenticity is important.

Have I left any out? Let me know.

Bonus Applications:

52. Projection Mapping. Like everything else related to video, the costs of projecting video is dropping quickly. As a result you are starting to see innovative applications of projected video. Here are some great examples: http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7676-16-mind-blowing-examples-of-big-brand-projection-mapping?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

“I’m convinced that the latest iteration of crowd-accelerated innovation, fueled by Web video, is about to ignite the biggest learning cycle in human history.”

Big statement… with even bigger consequences. Imagine the impact on productivity if it’s correct.  Chris Anderson, founder of Future Publishing and curator of the TED Conference  says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be ‘as significant as the invention of print.’

True to the vision of TED (“Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world”) Anderson suggests that video sharing sites like YouTube are driving innovation in thousands of disciplines ranging from the ultra-niche to the sharing of truly world-changing ideas.

Today individuals are driving this radical innovation. Organizations on the other hand, still  have to contend with inertia and institutionalized bad habits. They also need to embrace radical openness in order to tap into the power of this growing phenomenon. That’s a big challenge.

The video is thought provoking and certainly worth a look:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/18/anderson.youtube.innovation/

Happy Birthday YouTube.

The LA times just posted a recent article that highlights YouTube’s meteoric rise over the last five years.  Google’s $ 1.6 billion purchase of the site in 2006 is still being debated but few people are betting against Google eventually turning YouTube into yet another money making machine.

All hype and controversy aside, YouTube’s numbers are impressive:

85% online video market share in the US
#4 site globally in terms of overall traffic
#2 site globally for search
20 hours of video uploaded every minute
5 Billion video streams a month
#2 time suck behind network television
…etc.

The folks at ReelSEO posted a great article in the fall that compared the options of ‘Hosting’ your video versus ‘Posting’ (placing it on a free hosting site like YouTube) and considered nineteen variables that should influence your decision. Their conclusion: “Unless your business is dependent on monetization of content (you are Hulu), chances are that the odds will be in favour of posting video.”

The biggest complaint about YouTube is that it is a big messy sandbox where you can’t control how your video is being presented. That’s true, but it’s important to remember that YouTube is more than just a place to post your video for free – it’s also a marketing platform. Here are five reasons why you should place your marketing video on YouTube (regardless of whether you also host them on your own site):

1. Sharing
Yes, you do lose some control over how your video is presented on YouTube, that’s the down-side of social media – the single biggest issue for companies deciding if and how to engage the great social media experiment. The upside however is huge. YouTube was built for the express purpose of sharing. The reality is that your website isn’t as important as it used to be – it’s no longer the exclusive or final ‘destination’ for all things about your products and your brand. More than ever people are discovering content wherever they happen to be (physically or virtually). You need to create content that is intended to be shared and consumed in many different ways and YouTube is the world’s biggest content bizarre – open 24/7.

2. SEO
Google is prioritizing video in it’s universal search algorithm. Every SEO article I read tells me that Google is explicitly looking for video content. Does Google have a bias toward video on it’s own website? It’s hard to say but you know that Google is certainly aware of it’s own video and is reading the meta data that you have tagged on your YouTube channel. Ideally, if you have a video sitemap on your website with proper mRSS feed Google should be able to find and promote your video as well. Why not do both? As well, you benefit from metatagging your video content on YouTube and linking back to your own website to help improve your site’s pagerank.

3. Content marketing and getting noticed
Content marketing will have the greatest potential to influence your brand in the future. Traditional marketers will argue that it’s a waste of time to place their videos on YouTube because no one is looking for them and no one is going to find them. That’s true. No one is looking for your traditional marketing video because it talks about you and your products and no one cares much about you or your products. If instead, you post a really informative video that solves a specific problem that your customers are facing your video will not only get found, it will get shared. ‘Yes, but we can’t just give stuff away,” you might respond. If you don’t someone else is going to.

4. Reach.
The long tail gets longer every day. YouTube has the greatest reach in the world (thanks to Google). Your audience may be huge or it may be very, very small. It doesn’t matter. There is no more cost effective way to reach your potential audience than on YouTube. Sure, the person typing in “Lolcats” into YouTube is not your customer, but the person typing in “North East Bolivian Pitted Kumquat Ripple Delight” just may be. Your customer may not frequent YouTube but I would bet that someone who knows and is trusted by your customer does.

5. It’s free.
Chris Anderson explains in his new book ‘Free – The Future of a Radical Price’ (a great read btw) that free is the inevitable price for many things online – you just have to figure out something else to charge for. Free doesn’t necessarily mean cheap either. YouTube continues to upgrade it’s service every month with things like better support for HD video, interactivity, metrics, mobile integration (i.e. the only easy way to get video on an iPhone at the moment) etc.

The majority of the content, information and entertainment that we consume in the future will be delivered on a wirelessly (or wired) connected screen. Television networks won’t tell us when we have to consume content and we won’t have to cut down trees in order to be able to read our favorite publications. Even billboards and posters will be connected to the internet. And all of these screens will be smart devices that deliver contextually relevant content when and where you want it. The Internet will be everywhere and video and video marketing will play a dominant role in the next phase of its evolution.

So how do you convince your boss or CEO to consider using web video to promote your company? You first have to consider different use cases for video and decide which one best suits your business objectives. Here are 42 possibilities to get you started. The next step is to develop the business case as to how one of these video formats can help you improve your bottom line. To help you in that process I offer the following seven reasons to suggest to your boss why video should be a top marketing priority for 2010:

1. BETTER ROI
Adding video to your online marketing campaign can significantly improve your results.  In a recent study by Eyeblaster of online advertising campaigns, video increased dwell rate on ads by 20% and dwell time by %100.  Another study by dynamic logic also indicated significant improvements in brand favorability, aided brand awareness and purchase intent of rich media ads with video compared to traditional static display ads.

2. TRACTION
comScore released  web video consumption results in September, 09 which indicated that 85% of people online consumed an average of 10 hours of video a month online. That number continues to grow every month. 26 Billion videos were consumed in September in the US. Video has taken root on the internet to the point where visitors to websites are now looking for video content first.

3. ENGAGEMENT
Video is the best way to keep visitors to your site engaged and the best way to engage people with your brand. Time-on-page and time-on-site numbers increase when you add video. Images, podcasts, polls, charts and graphics are all great but nothing engages a website visitor more effectively than video. There are hundreds of blog posts and articles like this one where Patrick Moran explains how his sales team improved their close rates by 20% and online registrations by over 25% using web based video.

4. VIDEO IS A TOP PRIORITY FOR MARKETERS
According to a recent survey by Marketing Sherpa, for the second year in a row Video Marketing is the top priority for marketers surveyed, ahead of SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing and all other online marketing tactics. Turnhere has also released a study in the fall which revealed the same results – “When asked to rank various online marketing priorities for 2010, video was ranked as the top priority”

5. UBIQUITY
In a recent post conference interview Jeremey Allaire, CEO of Brightcove summarized the outlook for web based video this way:“Video will become as ubiquitous as text on the web.” He went on to say that “what we’ve seen happening over the last year is this incredible growth in the number of organizations and corporations, of all types, of all industries, of all sectors of societies, embracing video to enhance what they are doing on the web.”

6. 2010 MARKETING PREDICTIONS
A year-end article by Junta 42 reviewed hundreds of blogs and articles to summarize the predictions of leading marketing experts for 2010. Topping the list – The growth and dominance of video.

7. SEO
Type in ‘Video’ and ‘SEO’ in Google and you will discover many articles explaining how video can improve your SEO results. With the launch of Universal Search from Google, you should expect to see more and more video results occupying the search engine results that are served up by Google. That means Google is prioritizing video in it’s search algorithm. Not only will video help promote your products and services online it can also help those products and services get found online.

So what are you waiting for?

When we look back many years from now to identify the seminal event, the watershed moment where video became the dominant media type on the web, this might be it. To be clear, I am not suggesting that text will ever go away, become meaningless or die (although those certainly make good attention getting headlines…) I am referring to the time when we chose video over text as the most effective way of communicating ideas online. Yes, I understand that context is everything so allow me to elaborate.

Pepsi has chosen not to advertise during this year’s Superbowl but instead is launching a $20 million social marketing campaign called The Pepsi Refresh Project. Pepsi is encouraging people to submit ideas for projects that will have a positive impact on their communities. These ideas will be promoted online and everyone will get a chance to vote on which ideas Pepsi should fund. It’s a very smart idea. Everyone wins with this marketing campaign. Not only is Pepsi associating it’s brand with a wonderful initiative it will also drive millions of people to learn about, submit and vote on this Pepsi branded project. The residual benefits to Pepsi of this project will be huge over time. Good for them.

People get to vote every month to chose which new project goes ahead. This is where things get interesting. If you go to the Project Refresh Blog you can watch some nicely produced videos that give people an idea of what a $5,000, $50,000 or $ 250,000 project looks like. Without meaning to Pepsi has already set a potential baseline for submissions. Lower down the page they also have some text summaries of other projects but I would bet that the video’s on that page will be viewed in much greater numbers than the text and photo-based summaries. If you were submitting an idea for a project to this contest how would you present it?

Will anyone bother to read a written submission and if they do, will the written submission be as well recieved as the onscreen voice of an impassioned community leader? Well written proposals stand a greater chance of winning than poorly written proposals, no question. Better quality videos also stand a greater chance of winning over poorly developed videos. Will viewers be able to judge effectively between a well written proposal and a poorly produced video proposal? Hard to say.

I’ll give Pepsi the last word from guidance provided in their Refresh Toolkit PDF: “While a video isn’t required, it’s probably a good way to tell the world about your idea.”

If you’re selling an idea online is video a better choice than text?

As the year and decade come to a close we enter prognostication season.

Google’s Mike Shmidt kicked things off nicely a few weeks back in a Gartner interview where he stated, amongst other things that Chinese (presumably Mandarin) would dominate the web in  five years. Wow – that’s a doozy. Of course, what he didn’t provide was the context around that comment – it’s a numbers game, there will be more Chinese people on the internet in five years. What was unsaid is that this is likely Google’s single largest impediment to global domination in the near future – Microsoft being a fait accompli. (done deal)

I thought I would add to the 2010 prediction chatter by suggesting one of my own – 2010 will be the year that all companies become media companies. ( By ‘all’ I mean quite a few… trending to many…) Here’s why:

1. New rules – content is more effective when it is shared. Companies have to begin creating content that is intended to be shared and consumed by many people in many different ways. (i.e. your website isn’t that important anymore)

2. You have to own and influence your own story. You can’t rely on traditional media outlets to communicate your story effectively – they have their own challenges and priorities and they don’t care about your company. Other (non media) people are now starting to re-write your story and you have to engage them wherever they are. That means you have to begin creating the content to influence that story.

3. The authority of traditional marketing and communication channels is greatly diminished. How important is a press release today? Who do you trust more, someone you know/follow or a reporter for a magazine that carries ads for the same products they are reporting on.

4. The disruptive advertising model doesn’t work as well when there are alternatives. I want to program my own entertainment and I am now tuning everything out that is not laser-focused to my current interests… because I can.

5. Some traditional marketing activities are becoming less effective. Newspapers are disappearing, magazines are seeing their revenues challenged, broadcast television (networks) are hugely concerned with having to trade ‘analog dollars with digital cents’ and other traditional marketing methods (i.e. direct mail, call centers ) do not provide the same returns they used to.

6. Trust is the single most important key to success on the web. Authenticity, a genuine voice and real engagement matters.  You can’t hide behind a tag-line or a brand image any more – you have to create real value for your prospects before they engage you and then you have to continue to communicate with them in new, more engaging ways when they become your customers.

7. Everyone now expects immediate access to information. If I need to know something, anything, I Google (or Bing…) it. I expect to find a good answer to my problem and I usually do. If you don’t provide that information for the things that matter most to all of your constituents, someone else will.

8. Contextual relevance is everything. The web allows you to target your customers wherever they happen to be on the buying cycle. You can’t create just one micro site, or one video or one piece of product literature and hope it will capture all of your various constituent’s needs. You have to understand where your customer happens to be in the buying cycle and what specific issues need to be addressed at that moment and then you need to create  content that specifically targets those business issues.

9. Content Marketing will emerge as the most effective lead generation option. Creating content that does not contain an overt sales pitch, but instead helps your prospects solve their business issues will become one of the most effective ways to build trust and interest and ultimately engagement with your company.

10. The cost of media production continues to drop. Many of the media creation and distribution tools are free and the ones that are not continue to drop in price. Google continues to happily underwrite much of this forcing every other technology company to follow the same path.

11. It’s not about you or your company any more. Sure, the guys who wrote the Cluetrain Manifesto told us this ten years ago but a decade later we’re finally starting to believe it. The customer engagement focus means that you have to develop content / media that speaks directly to your customers concerns. That means you have to create a lot of content and engage in a lot of conversations if you want to stay in the game.

12. New media channels are being created every day. Niche services, industry portals, groups, blogs, social media sites and many other channels are being created each day and each has it’s own unique rules and priorities. One type of content will not address all of these channels and one engagement strategy will not suffice.

13. The nature of media consumption is changing. Read the 2010 predictions. Social Media, specifically video is going to be very important. The need to create engaging content that is relevant to your audience will be one of your biggest communications challenges in the new year.

14. Content will become the new currency of the web. The web used to be about design, then the focus changed to technology. Now great  content is what matters.  Having a website today is table stakes. Pouring money into annual redesigns and ever more complicated content management systems has kept you busy but it’s never really moved the needle. You will be judged by the content (or lack thereof) that you create for your various audiences, wherever they happen to be.

So what do you think? Will all companies necessarily become media companies in the near future?

New visual languages, graphic interfaces, rich media content, lower video production costs and shrinking attention spans are changing how businesses communicate. In-house or outsourced, video is becoming a standard delivery medium for marketing and communications activities. Here are some examples:

Customer Reference Videos

1. Video Customer Testimonials (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Nothing is more compelling than seeing and hearing your customer (ideally in their own environment) extol the virtues of your products and services or explaining how you helped them achieve their business goals. These videos usually run from fifteen second snippets to a minute and are typically combined with or used to support other marketing material.

2. Video Success Stories (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Similar to a customer testimonial these videos run between one and two minutes and follow an interview format where the person on screen answers questions posed by an interviewer just off-camera. These videos are usually delivered as stand-alone marketing support materials and are often grouped with other customer success stories.

3. Video Case Study (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
A video case study combines customer testimonials with more a more in-depth explanation of how your company’s products and services helped your customer be successful. These case studies usually incorporate two voices – a narrator and the voice of your customer and can run anywhere from two to five minutes. The video structure follows the same “Problem, Solution, Benefit” format found in a printed case study.

4. Man-in-the-street Interviews (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
These videos are typically done to promote events and to build buzz around coming events but can also be employed to capture ‘spontaneous’ responses to targeted questions that help promote your product or service or to help differentiate the benefits of your brand compared to the real or imagined problems associated with your competitors. Soft drink companies, phone companies, fast food companies often use this format in advertising. Sometimes they are genuine. Sometimes they are completely staged. ‘Authenticity’ is becoming a style…

5. Customer Presentations. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
If one of your customers is presenting at a conference, trade show or event or even in your offices and is talking about your products or services either directly with you or indirectly as part of a larger discussion this may be a perfect opportunity to capture the presentation of video (with permission, of course) to re-purpose on your website and intranet.

Product and Service Promotion

6. Product Presentations (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Product (or service) presentation videos are typically employed early in the buying cycle. Product or service presentations focus on benefits and talk from more from your customer’s perspective. They should speak clearly to how your product solves a specific business, personal or economic problem that your prospect is experiencing. They are used to help your customers and prospects differentiate between the benefits of your products and services to those of your competitors.

7. Product Demonstrations (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Product demos show how your product works and highlight the features that differentiate it from that of your competitors. Software screen captures, a 3D cut-away, or a high impact demo by a presenter are all excellent ways of showing how your product or service works. These videos are typically used to influence a prospect who is relatively far along in the sales cycle. In technology marketing these videos would be targeted at the technical approvers who need to understand how something works. In consumer marketing these would be targeted at buyers of larger ticket items who are further along the sales cycle.

8. Product Reviews (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
The best product reviews are trusted third party reviews. Video reviews can be found anywhere from YouTube to various business portals. To the extent they help you, they should be referenced. You can also partner with trusted third parties to create product reviews for your own products.

9. Visual Stories (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Quickly rising in popularity, visual stories employ illustrations, animations and motion graphics with a voice-over to explain complex products or services in a simple and compelling manner.

Corporate Video

10. Corporate Overview (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: moderate)
These videos are the video equivalent of the ‘company brochure’ for small companies – intended to give new visitors to a website a better idea of the company. Corporate overview videos typically company history, key products, executives/owners and other top level business info. As the cost of video production continues to decrease and the popularity of video increases you will start to see these videos being replaced by multiple, more targeted video.

11. Executive Presentations (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Whether you are preparing for a quarterly update, responding to a major event in your industry or making a regularly scheduled presentation there is great value in presenting the “face” and “voice” of your leadership team to all of your constituents.

12. Staff Presentations (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Social media and other Web 2.0 trends have caused companies to reconsider how they communicate with external audiences. Your senior leadership team should not be the first and only consideration to represent your company. It is becoming more imperative to consider showcasing the people that drive the day-to-day operations of your company. Customer service representatives, technical experts and legacy workers are all valuable considerations for this new category of corporate video. Surveys show that there is more trust associated with these employees than with senior management. When you are selling to influencers in organizations (versus economic buyers or decision makers) it is especially important you represent your company with people that your customers and prospects can relate to.

13. Corporate facilities or equipment tour (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Ten years ago corporate facility videos and equipment tours were popular. Down-sizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, a couple of recessions and a hollowing out of North America’s manufacturing base has change the priorities placed on these videos. Uniqueness is key to success here. That said, it’s really not about you any more.

Training  and support video

14. Training (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: High)
Corporate video first gained prominence with training (service, support, sales, personal development etc.) and continues to be one of the best uses of video. Online Video is a cost effective substitute for in-class training. You can also easily integrate video into online training management tools.

15. Overnight expert videos (Sales Support)  (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
If you serve a large geographic area or sell through channels then it is well worth the effort to put together short ‘overnight expert’ sales support videos that highlight the key selling points, features, benefits, objection handling and follow-up issues to consider by your direct or channel sales force.

16. Just-in-time learning (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
Contextual training videos are becoming very popular on the web. ‘How-to’ videos, video manuals, on-site video reference, quick assembly demos, and other types of video are being used to supplement or replace traditional training. Mobile video will increase the popularity of this type of video.

17. Post sale support and maintenance videos (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
No one reads manuals. You can save thousands of dollars of post sale support by creating informative assembly, installation and maintenance videos for your products and services.

Internal Communications

18. Internal Communications (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
In larger companies few people have the time or interest to understand what other groups or functions within the company do or even why they exist. Internal videos that highlight business plans, new business activities and achievements can improve knowledge transfer and lead to more effective communications. They are also a great way to show off your local hero’s.

19. Event/Conference and Trade Show Communications. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Most companies spend a disproportionate amount of their marketing budget on attending and participating in a variety of industry events and yet only a very small percentage of employees ever benefit from these activities. Share the knowledge gained at these events by capturing the presentation, demos, interviews, commentaries etc. on video.

20. Employee orientation (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Once your new recruits are on board employee orientation videos are a great way to get new staff up to speed. Company history, structure, procedures, policies and codes of behavior can all be communicated effectively with video.

21. Health, Legal & Safety (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
The cost of dealing with health and safety related issues within organizations continues to grow. Video is one of the most effective means of minimizing these costs.

Advertising , marketing  and promotion

22. Commercials (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: High)
While advertisers are becoming more selective in how they chose to spend their promotional dollars with broadcast television, other venues for commercials such as online video pre-roll, online sponsorships, in-game advertising, event sponsorships and in-theatre advertising are starting to take the place of broadcast / cable commercials. A proliferation of video screens cropping up on every building, device and structure will create an even more diverse set of advertising opportunities. The challenge will be to create specialized content targeted to an ever shrinking niche audience.

23. Viral Video (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: High)
A video is viral if it is so compelling that people want to share it. (Calling a video ‘Viral’ doesn’t make it so). Viral videos have to be extremely engaging, entertaining, shocking or meaningful to be successful. Unfortunately some of the most successful viral videos have little connection (and therefore value) to any brand. (Everyone references ‘Will it Blend’ but very few viral videos are remotely this successful in actually driving sales.)

24. Email Video (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Testing has shown that open rates can double if you include video in your email marketing activities. To be effective the video should be purpose-built to elicit a specific conversion activity such as requesting a demo, more info etc.

25. Infomercials (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Infomercials have been around forever. While they continue to be the primary focus of web-based parody videos they have remained remarkably resilient over time. The shopping channel is, in effect, a 24 hour infomercial. If done well, Infomercials can be very effective at selling certain consumer products.

26.  Content Marketing (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Huge)
This is a broad category that will become very important over the next months and years. Much of the content (video or otherwise) being creating today by companies is focused on selling. Focusing on solving your customers problems first and then associating your brand with those solutions will be increasingly more important and effective. (i.e. Home Depot could create a branded ‘how-to’ series that sits on their website and shows their customers how-to fix anything. They would, or course, reference tools and supplies available in their store but more importantly, they would generate tremendous value for their customers and prospects – value that would accrue to them over time.)

27. Landing pages and micro sites (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Video is beginning to replace or supplement text and graphics as a content element on many corporate websites. Landing pages can offer a more compelling call to action with video. Some micro sites on larger web properties are self contained, purpose-built conversion machines that have the singular purpose of generating a conversion activity (sign-up for more info, attend event, order something etc.). Video is becoming an important part of the conversion process.

PR Support and Community Relations

28. Video Press Releases (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
The standard four paragraph press release is now being supplemented with video and rich media to tell a more engaging story. Video is now being purpose-built to directly support the important company announcements. The new challenge for press releases is to change the focus from the company to the customer.

29.  PR Support Materials (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)

Make it easy for networks, bloggers, news gathers and others to promote your business and also to talk about your industry. Smart companies are developing video support catalogues of company and industry related materials (b-roll, industry footage, sound bites etc) and offering them to news and business portals. The demand for video is everywhere. If a news agency (online or broadcast) is looking for stock footage to use in a story it might as well be yours. (assuming the story is positive, of course)

30. Community Relations Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
If your company is out working in the community, being good corporate citizens, helping the environment or contributing to important causes you should be capturing those efforts on video. Show the world what you are doing, don’t just talk about it.

Event Video

31. Event Presentation video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
Events represent a unique confluence of expertise and opportunity – often under-leveraged. Trade Shows, meeting and conferences are usually attended by your top sales people, your corporate executives, industry experts and other influential business people. If you are speaking at an event or someone is referencing your company you should be capturing this valuable content on video.

32. Round table Sessions (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
Take the opportunity at an event to corral four to six of your best customers and other industry experts, put them in room and video tape them talking about industry trends, business issues and the future of your industry. This content will be the most valuable content you could ever capture.

33. Q&A Expert sessions. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
There are many opportunities to take specific event participants to the side and take them through informal Q&A sessions on various topics that matter to your customers. This content is valuable lead generation content.

Other Uses of Video

34. Recruitment Videos (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Finding the best employees is the single most important function of any company and yet comparatively small amounts of time and money are allocated to this critical task. Recruitment videos that feature company employees, highlight corporate culture and promote the direction of the company can be very influential.

35. VLOG (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential:Moderate)
There are many levels  and types of Vloggers today but for the sake of brevity I will identify two: 1. Pro Vloggers who have engaging styles, rich content and a growing list of followers who promote their vlog on their site and through various syndicated channels and 2. Regular Vloggers who have chosen, for whatever reason, to speak into a camera instead of typing on a keyboard. The problem today is that, unlike onscreen text, you can’t scan a vlog – you sort have to watch the whole thing to see whether it is worth your time. The other problem is that most people just aren’t that compelling on camera so there is little, to no value of a talking head – and often it’s a distraction. Of course everyone references Gary Vaynerchuck (from Wine Library TV) as the rule (rather than the exception) for video blogging in the same way that everyone references the success of Will It Blend as being what to expect when you launch your first viral video project. For individuals looking to gain notoriety from their passions vlogging can be a good option if you have a good on-camera presence and great content.

36. In Store Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
Wal-Mart has its own profitable in-store TV network that makes shoppers aware of new promotions. LCD screens are ubiquitous. In store LCD’s will be networked and customizable offering you the ability to promote your own goods and services or make money by promoting other complimentary services.

37. Company Lobby / Waiting Room Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
HD video screens are popping up everywhere – why not in your lobby or reception where you can get a jump start on first impressions and also take advantage of a captive audience.

38. Mobile Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Huge)
Yep, ‘there’s and Ap for that’. Mobile video will soon be the largest video category outside of broadcast. In the short-run, mobile video will consist of hastily re-purposed video made to fit on a mobile device. It will quickly evolve into a much more specific format – five to fifteen second hyper targeted messages that are part of geo-located and micro-niched promotions.

39. Market research, focus groups and polling (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Market research firms are now capturing the anecdotal feedback along with the raw statistics of their research. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video of your customer describing her likes and dislikes of your new product is priceless. Go to YouTube to see how people are describing your products and services.

40. Website FAQ Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
In certain formats video can be a suitable replacement for text where an authoritative voice, support materials or other visual references are required. A list of FAQ’s answered by a company expert is an example.

41. Video White paper (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Video white papers have evolved over the last years from basically a person reading a white paper on camera (what’s the point) to a professional delivery that is accompanied by charts, graphs and other visual references to make the presentation more valuable.

42. Video Magazine (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Some video production companies specialize in helping companies deliver serialized video content to their customers. Like the name implies video content is created on a regular basis (usually monthly) that customers and prospects can view through a subscription service.

Have I left any out? Let me know.

We tend to take most things in life on face value. The earth is round, the universe is expanding, the internet is slow, but improving. This slow progression and acceptance of our ‘realities’ also tends to stop us from seeing what’s just around the corner. An example:

Imagine if television in the 1950′s evolved the same way that the internet has.  What if TV in its infancy was little more than radio with text – much like the early stages of the web.  What if television started with many, many channels but they all offered slow text, perhaps a few graphics. Over time, maybe ten years or more the television broadcast networks evolved to allow some blinking graphics, then motion graphics via flash files that allowed you to see moving images accompanied with text. How powerful a medium would TV have been up to that point. Would it have consumed our lives the way it has? Would it become the focal point of our entertainment, our advertising, our news consumption?

With the Internet today we are close (but not quite there) to where television started over fifty years ago.  Video is widely viewable today online around the world but the experience varies considerably. That will change over the next few years as good or great quality video will be delivered to any screen you want it on (tv, computer, mobile devise). When that happens this will have a profound effect on how business communicate and evolve. Like the frog in the slowly warming pot of water, many businesses won’t even notice the change.

What makes the impact that much more significant is that all of the televisions are connected, everyone is creating their own television shows and you can watch what you want, wherever and whenever you want. Context is everything and the companies that win in this game will be the companies that can produce contextually relevant video products for their audiences. Content that has real value (not commercials), content that people want to share and content that changes how people see and do things.

No, text isn’t going away (in spite of the recent pain in the print industry) in our lifetime but we are entering a time where new visual languages, graphic interfaces and video content will change how businesses communicate.

Websites don’t matter. The content on them and the content that gets consumed and shared (wherever) is what matters.

I recently responded to a blog article that posed the question “are corporate websites dead?”  My take was that the purpose and function of corporate websites is changing – they will still serve as a repository for corporate information but the days of websites being a ‘destination’ for information about the things you do are long gone. An Example:

Recent changes to driving laws where I live now make it illegal to hold/use a cell phone while driving. I needed to pick up a good quality Bluetooth headset. While scanning some recent tweets I noticed a comment about a new Plantronics Bluetooth headset. I followed the link to a YouTube video. It sounded interesting but I wasn’t convinced. I then viewed a number of related reviews on YouTube that seemed more credible and decided that this was indeed the device that suited my needs. I Googled to find the best price and ordered the product online. I never went to the Plantronics website – there was no reason to. I know the company and have purchased products from them before so there were no credibility issues to investigate.

The user generated videos I viewed provided good general information but ultimately the more professionally created videos sold me. The whole process took ten minutes and at the end of it I felt very informed and very comfortable making a purchase decision.  Would I have been as confident if I just went to the Plantronics site and consumed their literature? No way. Would I have been as comfortable if I went to my local electronics store and waited to listen to an inexperienced sales clerk sell me on equipment he may or may not have a lot of real experience with? No.

We are moving from the ‘text web’ to the ‘next web’ ( or ‘web something dot something’) and many companies still don’t see it coming. I’d rather watch a video review or video product demo than read product literature because video and other rich media content show me things that a document cannot. It’s also easier to make value judgments about the presenter and the content.

There is huge value in showing your product/service being used, showing people talking about their experiences with the product and showing how it clearly benefits the potential buyer.

It’s the content (and where that content is seen) that matters, not the website and the implications of this reach far beyond simple consumer products. All companies have to take into account how social media, rich media, mobile engagement, word of mouth, and especially the creation of truly valuable content is going to affect their brand and their business. Even companies with long sales cycles that involve complex buying decisions need to consider how they are going to engage the ‘next web.’