Sunday, August 23, 2009

Get Your Video Marketing Right - Part 1

Part 1 - Make your video visible

You should already know that using video on your website is an important marketing tool. It helps sell your product, services or company in a friendly and accessible way.

Online video is something that makes your website 'sticky' and engages with your potential customer in a way that images and text simply cannot do.

All well and good, but if your customers can't see your video then it's all a waste of time.

Make sure your videos are accessible and easy to find. Firstly, put your strongest video on your Home page. This should be your 'introductory' film - at any gathering where you meet new people you want to create the right impression, so it is with your front page vid. This is your one opportunity to impress, to explain what you're about and to encourage further browsing of the site. It needs to be short, snappy and to the point.

If you have other videos, make sure they populate the site and are relevant to the pages they are on, and put links near the video player that relate to similar videos. As well as this, group all your vids together in one place (such as your 'media' page) with clear navigation.

Coming soon...
Get your Video Marketing Right - Part 2!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Online video reaches a mainstream audience

An article published by US-based Pew Internet reports that in 2007 online video reached a mainstream audience; 57% of online adults have used the internet to watch or download video, and 19% do so on a typical day.

Key Points:
News, Comedy, Animation, Music and Education were the top categories watched by adults
More than half on online users share links with their friends
Most have watched with other people
Professional videos are preferred to amateur productions, but amateur content appeals
Few pay to access online content

Clearly, from this research (two years old now) we can deduce that video content is becoming more and more of an essential element to any web presence.

www.pewinternet.org