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Marketing with video

Content in this category discusses how streaming video is used for marketing and customer retention.

Interesting Newsletter on Video White Papers

I haven't followed the video white paper market at all, but according to a newsletter from Accela Communications, usage is booming. Here's a blurb. "The rate of adoption for video white papers is definitely increasing, as evidenced in this collecti...

Interesting Video on Creating Video Case Studies

aspect2.jpgJust finished watching an interesting video entitled Video Case Studies - Top 10 Tips, which was produced by UK video producer Aspect Film and Video. You can watch it here, though you may need to sign in first.

Click over to the main article to see the top ten tips and my short peer review of the video produced by Aspect.

Case Study - Producing Video Case Studies

kathryn.jpgFirewall vendor WatchGuard Technologies uses video aggressively in their marketing efforts, and produces some of the most focused and highest quality case studies that I've seen, though the presentation of these videos on their web site could definitely be improved. In this "peer review" video, I review their case study of the Burlington Public Library, which you can watch here on YouTube.

I detail what the producers of the video did right production-wise, and what went wrong on their web site. Click the link above to view the video; I hope you find it useful.

Creating a Case Study - Interview with the Pros

I recently reviewed ten case-study videos on the Internet to choose one to review for StreamingMedia.com, and my review of that video will appear soon. I evaluated multiple factors in choosing a winner, including marketing focus, visual and audio quality, player presentation and encoded configuration. The clear winner in my mind was a case study produced by network security vendor Watchguard Technologies. The case study featured their client, the Burlington Public Library, and was memorable for multiple reasons that I detail in the review, among them the stunning video quality shown below. To watch the case study on YouTube, click here.

Producing Video Case Studies

Many organizations use video case studies to help market their products and services. I recently analyzed eleven video case studies, focusing on high level production techniques, how the video was encoded, and how the video was presented on the companies' web pages. This article presents my findings, and should be useful to marketing professionals, video producers, compressionists and web developers.

I'll present the findings in four sections:

-- Useful statistics
-- Good techniques to emulate
-- Mistakes to avoid
-- Best practices for case studies

Click the link above to read the article.

Is your video player as good as your content?

Ten years ago, a streaming video player performed one function - it played your video. Today, the features of your player are critical to achieving the maximum return on investment from your video. Specifically, a well featured, properly designed player should increase your site's stickiness, improve your site's visibility, increase the amount of time viewers spend watching your video and help streamline your company's sales cycle.

If you're in the process of creating a new player, or choosing an online video platform, these are the features you should be considering.

Producing Screencams that Market and Sell

Screencams are a wonderful tool for demonstrating software operation. In many cases, producing them can almost be a real-time event—you capture and narrate simultaneously, import the result into Camtasia Studio, add titles and such, export the finished file, and move on to the next project.

However, when you’re producing tutorials for a client, or otherwise seeking a more polished look and feel that maximizes the marketing potential of screencams, you may have to take a different approach.This article details how to create a screencam script for maximum impact, how to capture at maximum quality and how to edit your screencam most efficiently in programs like Adobe Premiere Pro.

Video advertising is more effective than Flash animations or simple images

If you're looking for hard data that proves the effectiveness of video advertising over other rich meda formats, look no further. A new Doubleclick study entitled "The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads" found that rich media ads containing video appeared to increase purchase intent by 1.16%, compared to .26% for those who viewed a simple Flash animation.

I've never been that great at math, but that appears to translate to about a 4.5 times higher chance of selling with video than with Flash. Plus you don't have to deal with all those quirky and cranky Flash animation types (us video folks are just plain nicer). That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it. 

You can read more about the study in the Online Media Daily.

How streaming video can improve product sales - a user study

I found this snippet on the Really Practical Marketing website. It's third hand information, but it shows the results of some user polls taken by online video company Vzaar. Specifically, Vzaar polled their customers on how using streaming video improved their product sales, and produced a report you can download at the bottom of the Vzaar page linked above.

Some of the results included:

  • Diamond Jewellery United based in Antwerp Belgium, saw their sales increase by 65% four months after implementing product videos.
  • Industry Recycles who sell second hand equipment, saw an increase in sales over 12 months by over 307%,
  • Yesil, an online furniture website, saw a 50% increase in web traffic transferring to a rise of 30% in sales over the same period.
The report, which I recommend that you download, concludes that "the experiences from all four businesses have echoed two main benefits to adding product videos: Improved turnover as a result of video driving conversions and fewer product returns as a result of better product understanding."

Sounds accurate to me. If you're looking for a reason to ramp up your streaming video activities, perhaps this data will help.

Deep Thoughts on Producing Marketing Videos

I recently gave a half-day seminar to the greater Wisconsin chapter of the Media Communications Association—International, and I devoted the last hour to creating effective marketing videos for businesses and other organizations. In pulling the materials together, I reviewed 50 or so product-oriented videos from the likes of HP, Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, and IBM. As many of you have already discovered, creating videos for small to midsize businesses gives videographers a nice opportunity to branch out into new markets. In this column, I’ll share the key points from that last hour.