Upgrade Your Uploads
Here’s some stats on web video:
٭ Video currently accounts for one third of all web traffic, reaching 90% by 2013.
٭ UK web users watched 5.5 billion videos in February 2010 alone.
٭ Websites with video have a 50 times better chance of appearing on Page 1 of Google.
All of these facts came from the September edition of The Marketer magazine, but they’ve been flying round the web for a while now and they’re pretty convincing.
Yet still there are some companies that remain unconvinced. They fail to engage with video and would rather build their website with pictures, text and those ever-so-nineties 360 degree panorama pics. Hopefully these companies will pretty soon realise that these kind of sites are irrefutably stuck in the past and that they must embrace the need for an effective video-heavy web presence. It’s essential if any website is to comply with Google and Microsoft’s visions for Web 2.0 and more importantly to attract and retain users.
But, even those that are happy to accept the inevitable are still failing to grasp that the video you upload to your site not only has to exist, it has to be effective. It has to reflect your company’s aesthetic, offer the viewer an insight, look (for want of a better word) posh, entertain and have longevity. After all, it represents your company to the world. Showing a few shots of nice offices and competent looking staff or (even worse) waving a video camera around the office and uploading the results simply won’t do.
Companies understand the need for well designed, intelligent logos, stationery, livery, premises, websites and so on, yet when it comes to the moving image they seem to believe that allocating a few hundred quid will furnish them with a film that equals their existing branding. Video has to be planned and executed with the same skill and diligence as any other aspect of a company’s public facing promotional material. This means carefully strategising what you want to say, who you want to say it to and what subsequent action you want to encourage them to take. It means applying the same consideration to content and delivery that you would when furnishing your offices or designing your logo.
If you deliver a video that works then viewers will respond accordingly and react correctly to the triggers you have designed for them. This could mean repeat viewings, cross-pollination onto social networking sites, susceptibility to signposting – whatever result you intend. When it works it’s spectacular: who’d heard of Blendtech outside of the US before they started posting their ‘Will It Blend’ videos? How many more mattresses did Bensons for Beds sell after they toppled their staff like dominoes around the warehouse? (Incidentally, company videos don’t have to be gimmicky or viral hits like those above, these are just examples of good videos, well executed).
Viewers of your website want to watch video, the stat’s bear this out, but if the video you offer them isn’t up to much they will only watch the first couple of minutes or they won’t watch it again or they won’t feel sufficiently inspired to respond to the signposts contained therein. There are two facts that are inextricably and unavoidably linked:
1. Video is the most potent communication tool available and has more potential to convince than any other.
2. A well-made, effective video production costs money. Whether you trust your video production to an experienced company, your existing web designer or an in-house video department you must ensure that you have a focussed goal for the film and allocate a budget that realistically reflects the amount of time and effort reaching that goal will demand.
You will always be able to find someone who will make a video for any size budget you care to offer – however small – but if you simply hand your money over to the people who will do the job for the least money, then that money will almost certainly be wasted. You’ll have an ineffective, under-funded video production that doesn’t measure up to the competition and that will have to be replaced once you realise this. In these cash-strapped times everyone needs to spend wisely but effective communication isn’t something you spend money on, it’s something in which you invest.
Related external articles:
The importance of video SEO
Why marketers are pouring online budgets into video
In Focus Archives
Testimonials
Everytime i’ve worked with Classlane i’ve been amazed at how they understand our industry and convey it in an exciting yet understandable way