2010: not without video marketing (Part 1.)
2009 was a good year for practitioners of video marketing. We saw some really encouraging results -better performance of landing and product pages that include video than those that don’t- especially from e-retailers, like e-bags, Zappos or Pool Tables .
I am looking forward to 2010 because as video marketing gets mainstream for commercial websites we will hear more success stories and we will have more metrics to analyze and to compare, most important how do sites that use video content perform compared to those who don’t in terms of conversion rate and ROI.
This is what I think will happen in 2010.
1. Video use and consumption will rise again.
- Some users, especially “generation Y users” will be more likely to abandon certain sites if they don’t provide video content.
2. Video will become the dominating content format across most industries.
- Especially FMCG and service brands will include video as key elements to communicate with their users and clients.
3. Video is nothing without interaction.
- We will see how conventional players (play, stop, share) will convert into widget-based visualization. It’s not enough to substitute text or photo based content by moving images, it’s the widget you can add to the video player that will make the difference.
4. Video will become a commodity.
- The real value will be to think about a sustainable video content strategy not in how to produce the content itself. What e-retailers need is a decent mid-term video marketing strategy. Production has become affordable and can be highly standardized.
5. E-mail marketing gets another chance.
- Including video in e-mail communication and newsletters can increase click-through rates up to 50%, compared to e-mails that just include text or pictures.
Trends for 2010. Video-based geolocalization: yes. Mobile video commerce: not yet.
Reading through European and North American blogs about digital marketing these days, one gets a rough idea where marketing budgets and efforts will go to next year. Most experts share the opinion that two areas will see a huge growth: 1. mobile marketing, pushed by the rapid adaptation of smartphones (iPhone, Blackberry and cell phones that run on Android, including Google’s Nexus One) especially in Europe and 2. geolocalization.
(For more info on 2010 digital marketing trends I recommend reading “Where Digital Marketing Is Heading in 2010 (Part 1)” published at Advertising Age).
So what does that mean for video marketing and video commerce?
I think that in general mobile commerce is still in a premature phase and it’s too early still to speak about “mobile video marketing” (the use of video content in mobile marketing). Just think about watching a video on your cell phone… While Apple (57 million iPhones have been sold worldwide) and Google (Android) have made sure that YouTube videos can be viewed on their devices, reproducing a video on a Blackberry is still quite a painful if not impossible user experience. In general, it will take more technical effort and time until e-marketers provide relevant web content for mobile users (at least that’s what I predict for the European market), let alone video integration for mobile navigation or mobile video commerce applications.
Having said that, let’s look on the possibilities of video and geolocalization. Actually, it makes a lot of sense to combine content mapping or geolocalization -one of the killer applications on the web- and video content.
Look at Trip TV, “The Hotel Video Guide”, a site that sells hotel rooms around the world. For me it is one of the best e-commerce sites when it comes to integrating video-based geolocalization. The idea is really simple: optimize the user experience by providing the necessary information for holiday travelers. Users can browse the site using a Google Maps interface that includes videos of listed hotels.
The video player has all the state-of-the-art features necessary to guarantee a great user experience: in video thumbnails to go from chapter to chapter, a more info button on the hotel, a photo gallery and related video (similar hotels) button, sharing options and a “see on map” option.
Click on “Rooms” and you will get short videos of everything the hotel offers.
You got the idea: mash up video content and maps to optimize user experience. The online travel industry shows the way. I wonder why so few retailers are using this simple combination to stand out in map-based search engine marketing. Something to think about for 2010!
Zappos.com: the biggest video retailer in 2010?
Online shoe and fashion accessory retailer Zappos has started to integrate Overlay.tv’s video technology, a simple and user-friendly “clickable” video interface that allows the user to interact with the content, widely referred to as video widgets.
Here a few impressive statistics on Zappos’ online video use:
- In 2010 Zappos plans to offer some 50,000 product videos on their website which will make it the biggest video retailer on the web!
- Zappos’ existing video content on product pages has been able to increase sales (compared to product sites without video) by between 6 to 30%!
- The Las Vegas-based online retailer currently counts with 6 video studios to produce their own content and is planning to run 4 more studios by the end of 2010.
That’s makes them the innovation champion in video retailing 2009-2010, and that’s why
Most watched at YouTube in 2009: Evian Roller Babies in the top 5 list!
Only 10 more days to go and 2009 will be history: high time for reviews and previews. Let’s start these last 2 weeks of the year with an interesting review. The YouTube Blog has published this year’s Most Watched and Most Seached For worldwide, and here are the results:
Most Watched YouTube videos (Global):
1. Susan Boyle - Britain’s Got Talent (120+ million views)
2. David After Dentist (37+ million views)
3. JK Wedding Entrance Dance (33+ million views)
4. New Moon Movie Trailer (31+ million views)
5. Evian Roller Babies (27+ million views)
All top 5 ranking videos are clearly entertainment content, that’s what people come to watch for at YouTube, they look for short, fun to watch clips that have natural viral potential. Which leads us to the second thing people love to do with these videos: they love to share the stuff they like.
And here is the interesting news: Even if pure e-commerce contents, company videos or product demos do not show up in the best of 2009 ranking, YouTube is still the best media platform to do online video marketing… if you only know how to do it.
There are 2 clips with a commercial character and a clear online strategy that made it into the 2009 top 5 list: The New Moon movie trailer and the crazy dancing babies of Evian, part of the Evian online campaign “Live Young” . The French mineral water brand’s YouTube channel has some 14,000 subscribers, their international version of the “Rapper’s Delight” video counts some 6,800 comments and almost 20,000 users have ranked the clip. Those numbers are not too bad in terms of user engagement for a low involvement product like bottled water. And if we take the FMCG sector, Roller Babies is this year’s best global online branding campaign on YouTube and I think other FMCG brands can draw the following lessons:
1. If YouTube is your single most important distributing platform, content has to be highly entertaining. That’s what people look for.
2. The YouTube interface is highly customizable - take advantage of it and make your branded content recognizable so it stands out form the rest.
3. If you are able to produce a good viral (some say that starts at 150,000 views), make sure all the rest of your content is integrated naturally into the YouTube environment; see for example, the series of interviews with Paul Smith, the design guru who conceived the limited edition bottle for Evian.
For the future of video marketing and video-based e-commerce it would be interesting and useful if YouTube also openly published metrics on the traffic generated from YouTube to Evian’s other sites. It would provide all online marketers with a great tool to start investing more into video branding and communication. Let’s see what 2010 holds…
“Videos we’re loving” - Lonely Planet’s video email marketing strategy.
The volume of email and newsletter marketing is soaring during the current Christmas season and we are seeing good examples of video and rich media implementations from retailers and online shops.
Take Lonely Planet, the most popular travel guide, for example. A couple of years ago they already started to use video on their website; they also started experimenting in a very early stage with user-generated video content allowing travelers to share their amateur clips with other users, integrating these videos very naturally in the community section of the web. Today, professional video content is a key to promote almost any destination at Lonely Planet’s sites.
The brand also understood that short videos help to curb relatively low conversion rates of email and newsletter campaigns, a format that has become less attractive, for some users even intrusive, especially in times when users prefer pull marketing in form of RSS subscription or social recommendations via Facebook or Twitter.
All week, Lonely Planet newsletters include at least 2-3 short video clips, like these from their latest newsletter on top Christmas travel destinations for example.
If you have video content think about if and how it could be used in your email and online promotion strategy because it it can help to make a good old newsletter look attractive again. A study of MarketingSherpa said already back in June 2008 that embedded video in emails have the potential to increase conversion rates up to 50%!
Tags: video email marketing
Smart video-based online advertising examples
We are starting to see some really well implemented entirely video-based online advertising campaigns that cleverly combine the advantages of video as a storytelling tool and video as effective web 2.0 content. That is a real progress in the sense that advertisers and their agencies finally realize the great potential of video based content to address demographic specific issues, something that is rare and difficult to archive in mass market TV advertising.
The first great example is from the UK and it’s a video-based micro-site by the auto brand Smart. It’s called “Truth of Smart” and the overall communication objective of the video-based micro-site is to do away with the 4 existing main prejudices against the smallest (non-electrical) car on the market: 1. it’s not safe because it has no protective zone; 2. it’s uncomfortable because it’s small, 3. it doesn’t have storage space in the back and 4. it’s not fuel-efficient.
All these issues are addressed through a interactive video-based interface that allow users to discover the “Truth about Smart” by themselves.
This is an effective example of how to use video based content (or call it rich media content) to give concrete answers to concrete questions about the product or service you try to sell based a segmentation that aims to respond to the main prejudice about the product.
The second example for smart online video use is the current global campaign of the beer brand Heineken focused on the important issue of responsible drinking, called “Know the Signs”.
Through a series of characters - defined during an extensive phase of interview-based qualitative market research - the user witnesses different embarrassing moments, when somebody has one too many drinks. There are tragically funny video episodes about how your friends can tranform into the “typical” drunk crier, groper, sleeper, flirter, etc., all representing realistic characters we know from real night life.
Again, a great work of content segmentation to reach different demographics and make them aware of the sometimes devastating and always embarrassing side effects of that last drink you shouldn’t have had.
Burn it, smash it, blend it: really simple product videos that put it to the extreme.
Product videos account for a large part of commercial video content on the web. Most of these videos are part of the product site or description and at best they are informative but never too entertaining, right? But that’s ok because their key function is to be relevant and useful for users who needs to get a better understanding of the characteristics of the product or service offered. But that’s also why only a very small part of those videos make it out to the web and go viral.
A “good” viral product video should produce more than a fleeting spike in views on YouTube. It should be able to create a certain (desired) brand effect and in the best case drive traffic to the brand’s or product’s site, raising online conversion rate.
Here are 3 great and extreme examples of how brands from different industries have been able to raise brand / product awareness through very simple viral videos.
1. The chemical group DuPont presents a new fire fighter protection suit that beats everything else on the market and gives almost 100% burn protection for fire fighters in extreme conditions. The spectacular clip went viral after video blogger Amanda Congdo put it on her favorite video list. Click on the image to go to the video.
2. Another great example is “catapulting chairs” stress test video that shows the indestructible design of Emeco aluminum chairs. The test object, Emeco navy chair, is catapulted against a brick wall. See what happens to the chair:
3. You might remember the launch of the IOSafe Drive at this year’s CES in Las Vegas. The video of the burning and drowning but disaster-proof data case of its hard drive made it around the globe. IOSafe kindly remarks, “Don’t try this at home with your normal hard drive!”
If you think about producing a product video for the web make sure you are able to visualize the unique value proposition of your product first. What is it that makes your product or service really different from all the others? What’s the best way to prove this to your prospective customers? After thinking about the characteristics of your product, you may consider using a video that puts the product through extreme testing - remember the simple but effective video campaign by “Will It Blend?”
Still, one should never forget that extreme footage isn’t for every product. Don’t force the “extreme” element into your videos just because it’s sensational. Such approaches can damage the brand, and when this style is forced onto a product that doesn’t fit the “extreme” mold, it actually can turn potential clients away.
Video hosts can help focus a shopper’s attention
I have been noticing that more sites have started to use an interesting form of online video known utilizing a “video host” or “video spokesperson.” This type of video is often presented as an overlay on a web site that appears when when you first enter a site or hit a landing page. When implemented well, a video spokesperson does not interfere with the normal operation or navigation of a site. Typical applications for a video host are site advertising and promotions, how-to or training videos, issue management or recruitment over the web.
First I was a sceptical because I thought it was an intrusive element in terms of user experience but looking for sites that use them I found some really well implemented examples, like this one from a Youth Sports site called We Play.
The site is hosted by baseball pro LeBron James who helps the first-time user to quickly find out about the main content and services by directing the user to the principal sections of the page. His intro ends with a call-to-action: “Join now, it’s free.”
The University of Dalhousie in Canada uses a host to promote the services of the institute’s career center to future students and alumni.
And at Barnes & Noble’s online shop, new releases are brought to the user’s attention using a short overlay promo video featuring the book author.
There is no doubt that this kind of dynamic video application can help to drive conversion rate of website or landing page. But in order to guarantee a good user experience it must be used at the right time, in the right place and above all give the user control over the video. The user must be able to stop and click away at any time while navigating the site.
So I think that a video spokesperson is only useful if …
1. …it helps the user to find his way around the site. Avoid simple welcome messages that don’t deliver any additional value for the user experience.
2. …it uses a person that relates naturally with your brand or product.
3. …the clip is related to a call-to-action or promotion that justifies the presence of an extra layer of navigation.
Tags: video commerce
Forrester says, there are online video opportunities beyond advertising. Start to call it video commerce!
Beet TV has published a video interview with Bobby Tulsiani, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research about the company’s report on video platforms.
The interesting thing is that now even mainstream analysts seem to realize that there is a business case for online video beyond advertising! Good, we are making progress. He doesn’t call it e- or video commerce but he says, … “I think we are looking at a much broader business cause. One could be communication [...]. You can do something like lead generation. [...] It can even be something more [like driving] transactions on a retail website.”
Transactional videos, lead generation! Oh yes, Bobby Tulsiani - I think you know your stuff!
It seems that we are really getting to the point where the mainstream business world starts to understand that video and online marketing is not the same as recycling your TV spots on YouTube but actually helps to convert a user into a client.
Click here to watch the entire interview.
Good video marketing reads for the Halloween Weekend
There are three great papers that were published recently, all of them good reads for everyone who works in video marketing and or in online marketing. And the good news: apart from being really useful, all of them are available online for free.
If your weekend is busy and you only have time to read one of them then go for “Creating E-Commerce Videos that Sell” by Justin Foster, co-founder of Liveclicker and Founder of Video Commerce Consortium . It’s a great paper for everybody how wants to understand the potential of video content in e-commerce; especially interesting were the sections on “Understanding Motivation, Simplicity, and Triggers” and the “Product Video ROI Calculator”.
The second paper I recommend is part of a series of best practice papers published by Adobe Scene7 called “Experience: What’s Best, What’s Next - A Point of View on Building Rich Online Experiences”. The author is Doug Mack (Vice President & General Manager of Consumer & Hosted Solutions at Adobe). Believe me, I have no intention whatsoever to promote Adobe or its RM solution Scene7. But it’s simply interesting and everybody involved in the multidisciplinary art of video marketing can learn something useful from the 7 principles explained. Principle 2 “Movement has Meaning” explains why adding video, animation and voice is so important for a good user experience online, including real cases of videos displayed in fashion e-retailing sites that helped increase performance.
The third is actually a presentation and has no direct connection with video marketing but it dives deeply into the immediate future of the Internet, showing upcoming trends relevant to any Internet marketer. The Top 5 Internet Trends were published by Richard MacManus, Founder&Editor of ReadWriteWeb. You will find valuable information on Structured Data, The Real-Time Web, Personalization, Mobile Web & Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things.