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?
20 Responses
Good article and good news for those in the profession of delivering video. The high engagement factor of video does offer marketers and advertisers a highly accountable way to improve response rates and deliver bottom line results. And it’s not just for large businesses. Even small business owners can benefit. I posted recently about trend.
Blog: http://tpmmorse.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/vmail_promo/
Video works really well, and there are a number of Digital and Mainstream agencies alike who are having video produced for their clients… Then it dies in the vastness of YouTube, or on the clients low traffic website.
If only someone could produce video that online audiences will watch, and a syndication distribution model that gets 175,000+ views a day.
Oh wait! That’s what we do!
Glen
heavyGFILMS / Le Gourmet TV
I would add to the ROI benefit that online video allows for multiple distribution channel possibilities, including email (see Flimp.net), embedding in social media platforms and embedding into an existing Website. Plus, video is being embedded into print publications, like CBS did this year with Entertainment Weekly to promote the CBS Fall line up. Business owners who decide to use video are getting a much bigger bang for their production buck than they were only a few years ago.
Agreed Dave. Everything is going to be online – the magazines and books you read, the billboards and posters that get your attention – everything (almost) will be digitally accessible and video will play a dominant role. When the Wall Street Journal puts video on their website – you know something very important is going on.
Jimm,
This and 42 Ways are both excellent. I’ve sent them to my clients as educational pieces. Big thank you for doing this.
Ed Morgan
Principal
Morgan & Associates
Marketing Writing * Video Production
Thanks Ed. I will be expecting sizable commission checks in the near future… 🙂
As a Digital Interactive Agency specializing in Web Video Production (2k square foot production studio in Agency) we are seeing a huge uptick in video centric solutions/needs in the corporate space. And with the ability to attach metrics/analytics with these productions we can truly see an ROI for our clients! Great Read!!!
Mark
VP Biz Development
{algo+rhythm}.tv / Rhythm Media
Agreed Mark – the ability to track not just ‘hits’ but engagement – where people stopped watching your video is going to make it much tougher for traditional broadcast folks to justify higher CPM’s. Sweet site by the way Mark.
If you’re on the “sell”-side of web TV (that is, you provide some kind of web TV services for a fee), the need for organisations to leverage this channel is obvious. Reading the “7 Reasons” and “42 ways” articles makes perfect sense to us (thanks for posting, Jimm! – I’ve retweeted the links) but I sense part of the reason why most of the comments above chorus their approval is because we feel vindicated by those articles.
However, where are the approving comments from the “buy”-side (that is, organisations which should be using web TV)? Where are the “I’ve tried this and it really works” success stories from your clients?
The fact is, the sell-side of web TV is still in the “awareness-raising” and “education” phase. Like most ground-breaking trends, there are some trend-setters who ‘get it’, but many marketing folks are still way behind the curve.
As Glen from heavyGFILMS commented (above), many video efforts die “in the vastness of YouTube, or on the clients low traffic website”. Yet many marketing folks here in Asia still think they can get away with some DIY video/upload to YouTube, and hey presto, there’s their web TV marketing plan.
**Start of shameless self-promotion** We’re glad to count many of those trendsetters among our clients, and we have found some ways to ‘convert’ the DIY/YouTube folks. Most importantly, we also have a network of syndication channels (far beyond YouTube), and we help our clients establish a business case for web TV **end of shameless self-promotion**.
The sell-side has a lot more work to do to ensure web TV earns its rightful place as a surefire marketing tactic.
The quicker we **substantiate** what we do with hard facts, unshakable case studies and scientific reach and conversion statistics, the better off we’ll all be.
Hi Jim ,
Your website and blogs are incredibly helpful to my young and curious mind. At the age of 16 I am venturing into business with Advantech Studio’s here in Ottawa Ontario to produce corporate webpage promotion and commercials. We are pushing online video marketing but I was unsure if there were stats to prove it is an effective medium.
Thanks alot,
Justin Stirling
Great points as usual. With all of this content we’re producing, I see two gaps in the market
1) Time/Workflow management for producers
2) Context and organization for customers.
Seems we’ll dive further into the niche trenches for video.
Great post Jimm, Many thanks. Engaging viewers with video is without doubt a popular and effective communication resource, we know this through click rates, but it’s not so easy to provide case studies facts on the effectiveness on sales or awareness raising. Posting and marketing the clips to the right sites and markets that fit with the editorial content is key. Each new production we make we learn more about this, it is a constant learning curve. I’m passionate about the potential of video but frustrated as yet I can’t prove how effective it is – apart from the passion of the client feedback on production, knowing the success of the impact of the film is difficult to measure. There would be greater investment in quality films if companies were more convinced on their bottom line. Still now we are getting out of recession hopefully we will see more risk taking… I look forward to making them. Jay Knox, Purple Flame Media
Thanks Jay. I agree that tracking / proving ROI of video should be a specific goal – just like any other form of marketing. Video is new for most companies so there will be even more pressure to justify shifting budget dollars to new ideas like video. But we’re in still in the early days. Video will have a profound affect on how companies promote themselves.
Would I consider a corporate video production?
The question is can I afford not to!
Its not about staying ahead of your competitors anymore, its about keeping up with them.
I don’t think there is a single serious web marketer left on the planet that doesn’t understand the power of online video. However, I see a lot of DIY video marketers letting themselves down with poor execution. Many would do well to invest in a bitrate calculator for starters. Doing so will make sure you retain visual quality but don’t make viewers wait for your video to buffer in download.
It looks like you worked hard to create this site. Good work
Hi Jimm
I sincerely do appreciate your articles and believe that they are indeed very informative. VMBIZ has certainly got this down to a fine art.
Regards
Krishnan
That is truly good material, thanks a lot.