WHY VIDEO SHOULD BE A PART OF
YOUR ONLINE
MARKETING
STRATEGY And why “going viral” is not the point.
WHY VIDEO SHOULD BE A PART OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY
Contents Why video is important.............................................................page 3 How video can drastically increase online sales......................page 4 Different types of online video..................................................page 5 Steps to ensure success............................................................page 6 Why “going viral” is not the point.............................................page 7
WHY VIDEO SHOULD BE A PART OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY
MORE AND MORE COMPANIES ARE ADDING VIDEO TO THEIR WEB MARKETING STRATEGY AND FOR GOOD REASON. LN OCTOBER 2011, MORE THAN 42 BILLION VIDEOS WERE WATCHED ONLINE. Internet video is now 40 percent of consumer web traffic, and is predicted to reach 62 percent by 2015. And don’t fall into the trap of thinking only tweens are watching; more than 70% of American adults watch video online (see Figure 1). VIDEO-SHARING SITE USAGE OVER TIME:
2006 - 2011
% of adult internet users 18 or older who visit video sharing sites (total and on a typical day)
Figure 1. Traffic to video sharing sites increased
an average of 9.5% from 2006-2011. Source: Pew Research Center: http://pewinternet.org/ Reports/2011/Video-sharing-sites/Report.aspx
O
n average, 28% of American internet users 18 or older visit a video-sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo every day. As Internet and phone connection speeds have increased over the past decade, watching online video has become simpler and more enjoyable. This increase in video sharing site usage shows no sign of slowing down. Over the next five years, the percentage of smart phone users will continue to increase and the number of web enabled devices like TVs and tablets will continue to grow.
What is
YouTube’s traffic like? • 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute • More than 4 billion videos are streamed every day • YouTube reached 1 trillion video views in 2011 • 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month • YouTube’s demographic is broad, mostly containing 18-54 year olds
WHY OF YOUR YOUR ONLINE ONLINE MARKETING MARKETINGSTRATEGY STRATEGY WHY VIDEO VIDEO SHOULD SHOULD BE BE A A PART PART OF
GOOD VIDEO CAN DRASTICALLY INCREASE ONLINE SALES
“Vistors who viewed product videos were 85% more likely to by”
•
Video can give much more information about a product than a photo.
•
Because video can have powerful imagery, music and voices, it is a better medium to create an emotional connection with a consumer
•
StacksAndStacks.com, a home storage and organizational products retailer, reported that its customers who watched a product video were more than twice as likely to add that product to their cart
Selling products online is different than selling products in a store. Customers can not hold your product in their hands or see whatever tiny details they want. To counter this, online retailers have to answer every potential question a customer may have. If you wonder how video can significantly impact sales on a site, consider this: •
•
When users watch a video on a product page, they’re more likely to spend more time on that page (around 9% for LivingDirect.com) Any video indexed in Google has about a 50 times better chance of being on the first page of search results than any given text page in the index due to blended search
Zappos.com, one of the largest and most recognizable ecommerce sites on the web, began adding product video to the site in 2009. In the first year, Zappos reported a 6 to 30 percent sales increase for products with video. Recently, the company has added more than 50,000 product videos to its site. According to an Internet Retailer report from 2010, visitors who viewed product videos were 85% more likely to buy than visitors who did not. Ecommerce video not only sales, it can also be easily measured. Success can be determined with metrics like conversion rate, cart abandonment, increasing traffic, and viewer retention rate.
WHY VIDEO SHOULD BE A PART OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY
WHAT KIND OF VIDEO SHOULD
I CREATE?
It doesn’t matter if you’re a B2B or B2C company, video can effectively boost awareness and interaction with your customers. Videos should try to do at least one of three things: • • •
Inform Educate Entertain
INFORM
expertise to help customers get the most value from your products or services or simply establish your company as the goto resource in your field, how-to videos may be the solution. These videos can be a unique way to thoroughly explain how to accomplish a task, get a product up and running or make a repair. The web is full of instructional videos, with everything from basic cooking advice to complex electronic guides. Your customers will appreciate the ease and convenience of being able to find easy answers online.
ENTERTAIN Several brands have had success creating entertaining online videos that have increased awareness and sales among its customers. K-Swiss and agency 72andSunny crashed the web with their irreverent ads promoting Tubes shoes with spokesperson Kenny Powers (Danny McBride).
Video is a terrific way for sharing news and opinions on interesting topics. Sharing information via video can be a simple way to convey complex information into understandable terms for your audience. For example, WebMD has hundreds of videos on its site to keep users informed about complex topic matter. Several companies have opted to replace typical About Us pages on their website with interesting video content.
EDUCATE How-to videos can be incredibly beneficial to many businesses and have a proven track record online. If you want to share your
The videos earned millions of views online, increased Facebook fans by 1,256% and landed K-Swiss on the “biggest buzz” list in industry trade Footwear News. But most importantly, K-Swiss reported a 250% increase in online sales after making Powers the spokesperson.
WHY VIDEO SHOULD BE A PART PART OF OF YOUR YOUR ONLINE ONLINE MARKETING MARKETINGSTRATEGY STRATEGY WHY VIDEO VIDEO SHOULD SHOULD BE BE A WHY YOUR ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY
STEPS TO ENSURE SUCCESS 1. Find a story to tell
Studies show that video is the most effective medium for creating an emotional connection with a viewer. If you want your video to be interesting and memorable, find a compelling story to tell. People remember stories, but they forget sales pitches. What’s the story behind your company? Who are the people impacted by your products?Your brand story is an opportunity to connect with a viewer beyond the vendor-consumer relationship. Not only will consumers be more likely to buy from you, they’ll be more likely to advocate your brand for you, which can be much more meaningful.
2. Strategize and optimize
Market research is a critical aspect of successful marketing campaigns. Where is your target market consuming video and where is the most meaningful place to interact with them? Before you can select the medium, you need a good understading of how your consumer behaves and what they care about. A good rule of thumb is that you want your content to be where your viewers are. If your viewers spend a lot of time on Facebook, you should make sure your video is there; if your consumer loves Mythbusters, you should consider advertising on their website. Where your video lives online matters. Placing your video on the homepage of
your website is a great way to showcase the video to people who already visit your site, but what about consumers who don’t know about you or your company yet? There are several video sharing services that allow you to easily spread your video across networks to reach new audiences. You should also optimize your video for search engines. The video’s title and description need to contain relevant keywords from high-traffic searches.
3. Identify what success looks like
It sounds simple, but many companies undertake large video production projects without any specific idea of what they want the video to accomplish. You will only recognize success if you know what you’re looking for.
“
People remember stories, but they forget sales pitches.
”
What should a viewer do after they watch the video? Buy a product? Follow you on Twitter? Call a sales person? Identify these conversion metrics and be sure to include a call to action in your video.
4. Make it high quality
If possible, hire a professional media production company for your project. Aspects of video production like lighting, sound, music selection and hundreds of other creative decisions may not seem that important, but video production professionals know these aspects are truly critical.
5. T rack your results and adjust
After your campaign has launched, have a
WHY VIDEO SHOULD BE A PART OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY
plan in place to track the success of your video. Check for new keywords to optimize it for search engines and maximize the viewership. In some cases, you can see real-time metrics detailing how many people are watching your video, who all is talking about it, and how many viewers are taking the desired actions you established in step 3. Analyzing these results provides you with valuable information to use on future marketing projects, and helps you gauge ROI.
“GOING VIRAL” IS NOT THE POINT
WHY
“Going viral” is an empty, measureless term that should be stricken from a marketer’s vocabulary. It’s a common misconception that to create a viral video, you simply post a video to the web, share it with a few friends who will in turn share it with their friends, and before long your video will have millions of views. Less than
1% of videos on YouTube have more than 1 million views. The truth is that videos with millions of views are most often the result of strategic, well-funded marketing plans. These strategies typically include: • • • •
Strong PR support to land the video on key industry blogs Buying ad space online Constant social media outreach to influencers Traditional advertising to support online initiatives
Going viral is not always a good thing. Rick Perry’s “Strong” ad during the 2011 Republican Primary received 764,530 dislikes. To be the most effective, these strategies should already be in place before creative work ever begins on a project. The responsibility for all of this falls squarely on the video creative agency to ask the right questions to help determine the goals and video strategies to be employed to ensure a successful campaign. As marketers it’s important to provide relevant data about how people interact with your brand online. What’s more important than the amount of views a particular video has is the number of postplay interactions it generates. A lot of people seeing the video and doing nothing is not the goal; users seeing the video and converting into customers is.
“
Videos with millions of views are most often the result of strategic, wellfunded marketing plans.
WHY VIDEO SHOULD BE A PART PART OF OF YOUR YOUR ONLINE ONLINE MARKETING MARKETINGSTRATEGY STRATEGY WHY VIDEO VIDEO SHOULD SHOULD BE BE A WHY YOUR ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY
ABOUT RED PRODUCTIONS
Red Productions is a full-service, script to screen production company located in Fort Worth, TX. We love finding creative ways to tell stories for our clients, and our clients love our work (they also love the keg we keep in our conference room).
Red Productions
817-810-0777 M @redproductions Scott@Redproductions.com