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Video Commerce Summit: Using Video as the Fuel in Your Social Media strategy, Jimmy Healey, Onlineshoes.com

Using Video as the Fuel in Your Social Media strategy
Jimmy Healey, Onlineshoes.com

Onlineshoes.com Seattle-based online retailer - one of the first brick-and-mortar business to go online mid-90’s.
- Online, trying to recreate the traditional experience, online
- Video seeing as the way to bridge between brick-and-mortar and online shopping experience
- Convinced of the value of video, question was about how to start and how to convince the team to do it

Why social media/video?
In this tough economy seeing erosion of other marketing channels, getting more and more expensive to do marketing, like SEM for instance. Sometimes even competing with manufacturers. Margins keep getting squeezed.
- Even channels like email threatened. 3-5 years from now, will people check emails as much (vs MySpace, Facebook)?
- Is how our business is going to be viable in 3-5 years? Social media seen as the long term strategy. Video as acquisition tool (posted on Facebook, Twitter), as conversion tool (Video on site)

History

- Initially started 1.5 years ago as a one-man-show, leveraging past sales experience/athlete runner. Put it on video site onlineshoes.tv

- Now on product pages, carefully picking the products that were revenue and traffic driver for the side. Example Asics GT2140 http://www.onlineshoes.com/productpage.asp?gen=w&pcid=130271 Notice the type of video that’s essentially an animation with photos, audio - because there is limited type to produce. Currently we can produce 300 videos/year.

- Importance of a good call to action on product pages. Went from 0.5% of click-through rates on video (product page) to 5%. Trying to get it be higher. Significant Average order size and conversion rate for people who saw the video.

Question: are you measuring returns? Answer: we’re not in the context of video.

- Point about proving ROI, paying for production and video platform with co-op dollars. Charging manufacturers for shooting the video and playing it

Question: is the appetite higher internally for doing a “viral” video project? Answer: example of Green Day project internally:
- wanted to do a quick video
- asked everybody internally about tips
- within 2H, video was produced, ready to go live next day
link: http://onlineshoes.tv/p/158/12-ways-to-stay-green-in-your-everyday-life/

On contests. Examples
“How do you Dansko” 13,000 views 257 comments, 50 words average comment length
Merill post, 140 comments, 60 words average
- Easy to put in place, gets a ton of UGC
- Following on contests, you can use as ideas for create a spontaneous videos. Example Dansko (using family/friends) http://onlineshoes.tv/p/118/what-does-dansko-mean-to-you/

Video Commerce Summit: No video? No problem! Control Costs with Production and Content Acquisition Strategies

No video? No problem! Control Costs with Production and Content Acquisition Strategies

Moderator: Jed Alpert
Alison Jeske, drugtore.com
John Weaver, FansEdge.com
Wes Pomeroy, RIVR Media

Initial remarks from Jed Alpert

Video is here to stay

When people do their online research, they are twice as likely to get it from retailers
What Webcollage does. Example with ToysRUs. Lift of 6% to 15% in sales with syndicated content on product page from manufacturers.

Wes Pomeroy - RIVR media
9 key cost control consideration

- Productivity: careful planning. By far most essential aspect. How many videos can we shoot in a single day. Techniques we use are about getting as many videos as possible.
- Product size: Example of how small products increase productivity (a watch VS a pair of pants == requires someone to put it on).
- Homogenous product: similarity of products — 10 pair of shoes better than 4 pairs of shoes, 2 pair of socks, 4 jackets.
- Complexity/simplicity: is the additional product quality selling more? Setting is expensive. Rather have a simple video on 10,000 products that a more complex video on 200.
- Leveraging raw footage for multiple videos: also requires planning ahead
- Automation: using motorized turn tables etc
- Camera/Lighting/Software savings
- Outsourcing: key question is how many videos you need to shoot? If you have a sustained amount of volume, you don’t need to outsource. Another issue is inventory management: if your warehouse is located near you, you will not need to ship items for videos. Other items: consider the soft factors (quality?), brand growth (no outsource company will advocate your brand better than you).

John Weaver - Fans Edge
Indie film maker background

- Being and indie film makers taught me to be creating about costs
- Essentially no budget, but using knowledge and creativity you can save and make it happen
- Biggest focus is on product detail page. Management believes we have to get right to revenue. But also do stuff on the about us page, even on YouTube
- On a given day, the goal is to get as many videos done. Planning in advance is the big thing
- Why should you have an in-house producer? Lots of SKUs, and most important, it’s not a static inventory. We do stuff year-round (football, basketball, etc).
- Importance of telling a story (showed video of a Jets helmet with professional players signatures)
- YouTube http://www.youtube.com/fansedge people love sport heros. Fansedge inserts logo on interviews of professional players like Dan Marino. Celebrity attract views

Alison Jeske - drugstore.com

On the beauty.com side
- Focus on original content: focus on unique aspect of an event.
Example: tips and tricks video for butter LONDON http://video.beauty.com/v/1892/butter-london-polish-tips-and-tricks-free-underground/
- Rollercity girls
- Also add other types of content: photo slideshows.
- Sometimes you are surprise by the results of a video http://video.beauty.com/v/1473/prescriptives-all-skins-foundation-makeup/ has 200,000 views on third party web sites

On the drugstore.com side
- Supplier provided content: commercials, product demos, brand stories, customer testimonials
- Customer provided content: contests for customer engagement (video/photo)
- Example of using contest to get engagement (http://drugstore.liveclicker.com/p/159/tell-us-why-your-pet-is-the-best/)

Live blogging from the Video Commerce Summit: panel - three video commerce strategies revealed

Moderator: Raj Gajwani from Silverdock (unedited notes)
Panelists: Peter Cobb (eBags), Jimmy Healey (OnlineShoes.com), Craig Bokesh (Altrec.com)

1) Question from Raj Gajwani: How did you start with video?

Peter Cobb: 2 years ago recruited a “new media producer” from their photo studio. About 200 videos over 2 years. Product demos, brands creating videos, interviewing suppliers. As highlights, the product demo have been successful. Challenges - what’s funny to some not funny to others. But you got to let people be creative.

Jimmy Healey: 1.5 years. Started as a nice to have to explore. Highlight: just recently started to see tangible effect of product page video on the business. Low point: how long it took us to get here. There are no best practices in this space.

Craig Bokesh: Started in 2005. Didn’t know what we getting ourselves into. Video product product page only. Over time seeing positive return on product pages. Low light: no real negative experiences. Altrec tends to use video for technical/high end product

2) Question from Raj Gajwani: Are any of you using user generated content

Jimmy Healey: we are blending UGC review from PowerReviews into our videos.

3) Raj Gajwani: will UGC be the predominant for in the future?

Peter Cobb: Suppliers have the video, but they use it for sales meeting, but are unaware they can use it for retailer. As far as UGC, quality issues. We are focusing more on our own production and suppliers.

Jimmy Healey: Tend to shy away from manufacturers because we taylor our video for our user demographics. But we are working with manufacturers to capture video content on site. Example of going to Doc Martens being interviewed. Manufacturers recently are becoming more and more excited about video

Craig Bokesh: No UGC. Acquiring assets from manufacturers: trying to work with buyers. Sometimes we take snippets of their videos and include it in our own.

Peter Cobb: Adding one thing: we’re having success with affiliates. Video helps us get our brand on sites (quicksilver videos).

4) Raj Gajwani: any bad experiences with video?

Alison Jeske from drugstore.com: working with outside freelance producer had a execution issues. Big vision, and execution didn’t follow. Footage now sitting on a shelf. Did you guys have similar experiences?

Peter Cobb answers: sometimes with the suppliers you see resistance to get the content produce. Manufacturers want to control too much. Sometimes you just have to do it.

Jimmy Healey: We are running a team with a production manager that’s process oriented and a creative person that’s extremely talented. It’s a great team.

Craig Bokesh: We got better results using a professional TV anchor for our videos.
Comment from REI: Agreed. Huge disparity with people (on-camera personality works much better).

Jimmy Healey: When you have someone on camera, production time is a lot longer. Now we don’t show people and we prefer to have someone do the video voice over. Recruited voice person with an internal contest. 10 people sign up. 3 of them trained voice-over talent. That’s how we recruited. Lots of talent in house.

5) Raj Gajwani: How do you produce video, what’s the cost.

Craig Bokesh: we were able to reduce costs to $200-250 per asset

Jimmy Healey: We made an initial investment, and we have it in the $300-400 range per video asset. Cost heavily offset by co-op

Peter Cobb: at eBags, we have one person who does it all. Just $3000 of equipment. The other cost is IT, although for us we work with Liveclicker.

Craig Bokesh: the co-op component helps offset the cost.

6) Raj Gajwani: Where are technology pain-points in implementing video on your site

Craig Bokesh: we were lucky to have very skilled people on our team. We used an open source Flash player. We have a simple product page implementation. Integration can take a little bit of time. Recommendation: recommending using Youtube for pages with high traffic to support lots of simultaneous videos.

Jimmy Healey: working with Liveclicker on the technical and implementation side and therefore allowed to focus on production and content

Peter Cobb: on the technology side there hasn’t been issues. Problem has been where on the site should the video reside - and fighting for real estate throughout the web site. I think these are the early days of videos and the market is moving to use video everywhere. Feel like we have to move fast and roll it out quickly.

7) Raj Gajwani: Where do you see video going outside of the boundaries of your site? Advertising? Affiliates?

Peter Cobb: I mentioned affiliates earlier, and I think that’s where it’s going. Also think video works great for email. Facebook and Twitter are also obvious places.

Jimmy Healey: Using video as acquisition tool, conversion and retention tool. In the running shoe category we have lots of content and people linking to us, which helps for SEO. We also have a destination site that helps too, onlineshoes.tv. On YouTube, lots of views but very few orders.

Craig Bokesh: Put videos on YouTube and Metacafe. Mixed experiences with that. negatives outweight positives. YouTube has the potential to outrank your own product page. We stopped putting our videos on YouTube. Other challenges on YouTube: comment spam, with outweighs useful product information. I would advise people to be careful with YouTube because overtime it will outrank your own product pages. We had to take some videos off because of this.

Jon Nordmark CEO of Wambo: 2 years ago at eBags we featured a Susan Komen video on the homepage and got pressure from investors. But it was a good way for us to connect with our audience and connect.

Jon question for Jimmy: do you know on PowerReviews how many people upload videos when reviewing?

Jimmy: 0%. No one uploads videos but that’s probably because we don’t promote. With Onlineshoes.tv we capture pictures, videos but most important, comments. So far acquisition of content from users of media content not successful.

Raj Gajwani: Thanks everybody for this great session.

Video Commerce Summit announced for June 1st and 2nd in Seattle

The video commerce industry now has its summit, to be held in Seattle, WA June 1st and 2nd 2009. The event is organized by Liveclicker, and will feature a list of impressive speakers from REI, MotoSports, Microsoft, drugstore.com and Onlineshoes.com. Mark Robertson from the excellent Video SEO blog ReelSEO will also be there.

I will be at the event, and hope to make good connections with video commerce professionals from all over the country. See you there!