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Articles and news | Video Content in an Engagement Marketing World

Created by Thomas Webster   |  December 10, 2010 14:42

The last few years have seen massive changes in media consumption; moving away from the days when mass media such as TV and print were the be all and end all, towards a system of fragmented and changing communities of interest across multiple different access points and platforms.

Audiences today are increasingly sophisticated, and have new expectations of personal control and ease of access in how they are consuming media content and advertising. For brands and advertisers, direct engagement with audiences and consumers, be it through websites, social media, mobile or other emerging channels, is now a central objective and ts importance will continue to grow.

Content is the driver:

Content is the key driver for audience engagement. When we go online we are looking for things that entertain or inform us, or both. If it is compelling and relevant it doesn’t matter whether a big name studio, an enthusiastic amateur or a brand created it. And because so many different people and enterprises are developing new and innovative ways to talk to people, tell stories and distinguish themselves, we are seeing some remarkable innovations in content.

These developments are occurring in the forms content takes, its relationship to the technologies that deliver it and the way people interact with it. In turn, this environment of change is creating significant new opportunities for brands and advertisers to foster relationships with consumers directly, creating benefit and ROI in the process.

This is particularly true with regards to the focus of this article: Video.

Web users’ love affair with video:

Web users seem to have an unquenchable thirst for video and the demand is accelerating. In fact, eMarketer has projected that by 2012 more than 90% of the Internet audience will be watching online video regularly. And a recent report by Cisco asserted that by 2014 more than 90% of all web traffic will be video.

Heavy investment from the likes of Disney, Warner Bros, BBC and the emergence of new players like Hulu have brought premium, legally provided video content such as Desperate Housewives or Grey’s Anatomy to the web. These efforts are providing mass scale comparable to television audiences and have accelerated video uptake for mainstream web audiences. There are real challenges here though, as premium content for the web is to a large extent still being funded by traditional television revenue models, which are in decline. What this means for the future of such premium content offerings we will examine another time, but the point is that web video has become a very compelling and very mainstream offering.

A big part of the story is, of course, YouTube and its largely consumer-generated content offering, which recoded something in the region of an astounding 1.8 billion video views in June 2010, exceeding the combined traffic of its 9 nearest rivals by half a billion views…

Anyone can create and distribute affordable video:

Considerable attention has been focused on the challenges of production, delivery and monetisation facing the large existing media distributors, and at the other end of the scale, the raw consumer-generated content and its chief benefactor Youtube. But there has also been quiet progress occurring at the middle ground that is now yielding real returns for marketers, brands and content creators.

These brands have recognized that, on the web, anyone can be a content publisher and distributor and have taken a pragmatic approach to video. They are utilizing it to tell stories, open dialogue and create consistent online brand identities across the multiple platforms that people are using. They have also discovered that there are ancillary benefits that video can offer across many other elements of a brands digital presence, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), email communication and social media to name just a few. Also aiding the video content creation process, an ecosystem of enabling delivery platforms and services has developed. These companies make the ‘how’ of video content delivery a much more straight-forward proposition, allowing producers and marketers to get right into the business of strategy and creation free from the cost and complexity of technology solutions.

Which type of video is right for your audience?

We often hear people talk about the web as allowing true democratization of media and distribution; however, creating engaging and successful video content and then extracting maximum value from that content is a challenging enterprise. Formats can range from the creative and conceptual, pushing subtle or overt brand messaging in the form of webisodes and short documentaries, through to the functional and specific, with demonstration videos showing product benefits in a very engaging way and testimonials from happy customers substantiating an offering or service. Brands using web video as an integral part of their market strategy; across their websites, social media efforts, mobile offerings and other communication channels, are realizing that it not only provides a cost-effective medium, but also enhances the success and efficacy of the communication itself.

Video is more engaging:

The bottom line is that video is more engaging, more interactive and more personal than any other web content and as a result it provides significant gains across fundamentals such as brand awareness and consideration, as well as increases in more direct revenue metrics. In fact. recent separate ComScore and PWC research has shown that brands using online video, both published within proprietary websites and across web video networks such as Youtube, have seen incremental E-commerce buying lifts of anywhere from 20%-40%.

Results like these are very important because they are validating the claims of efficacy and effectiveness surrounding video content and debunking common misconceptions that it is an expensive and risky enterprise.

Top brands get it right:

A recent example of a brand profiting from increased video creation and adoption is Marks and Spencer with their M&S TV project. Launched in March of 2009, M&S TV is now a platform consisting of over 500 video items, with 12 separate channels each focused upon a specific business vertical, and has had more than 3 million minutes of content viewed since launch. The project has returned some impressive results, including a 30% average uplift in sales (up to 90% across some product lines) on the e-commerce site as well as significant increases in traffic volumes and dwell times. M&S TV video is also distributed across social networks and other open distribution platforms, driving further benefit by exposing the content to large organic audiences across Facebook, Youtube and elsewhere. This illustrates a key benefit of video creation: once a content asset is created, it can easily be used across multiple channels, allowing its creators to get full use and benefit from their investment.

While there is no ‘right’ approach to successful web video, there are two vital and common-sense elements: The creation of compelling content that provides value to the viewer either in the form of entertainment or information (and ideally both) at one end of the process. And the appropriate and successful promotion and distribution of that content at the other. Robust analytics and clear goal setting are also very important; knowing your audience, your specific KPIs for a piece of content, and having the information to optimize that content based on how people are consuming and interacting with it.

Video is more likely to appear in search results:

Video content can lead to deeper engagement with consumers. And it can have a number of additional positive impacts across other digital channels. Recent Forrester research has found that video is 53 times more likely than text to appear on the first page of search results. Put simply, videos have a one in 11,000 chance of landing on the first page of Google results. Text has a one in 500,000 chance. So video integration can drive SEO value. Furthermore, Flimp has recently reported that video content used in conjunction with email and social media can drive 4-7 times higher engagement and response rates across these channels. And as the mobile market expands with increased smartphone penetration and the advent of devices such as the iPad, video is an emerging area with the number of European mobile users viewing video rising 66% in the year to July according to ComScore. This mobile space is new territory and brands are rushing to stake their claim often using video and other content types as an incentive for audiences to engage.

As content-led ecosystems develop further, we will see an increasing adoption of video content as the driver of consumer engagement for brands and companies. Data illustrating the value of video across brand and retail metrics is already validating this growing role and providing deeper understandings of the medium. Ultimately these factors are driving web video content as a critical marketing priority for 2011 and beyond.

Do you have a strategy for video?

Video content is not an all-or-nothing opportunity however, and can be employed to answer specific business challenges provided it is part of a clear strategy with clear objectives. So, as the thought leaders of the marketing world are honing their strategies, you should begin to ask yourself where video fits into your communication plan. What is your company’s video strategy?

We will close with one of the success stories of web video content as a highly effective marketing tool: The “Will it Blend?” series was developed by Blendtec, a company that produces as you might have guessed, blenders. The quirky short-form video featured their CEO trying to blend a range of different and unusual items and was developed as a way to demonstrate the quality of their product range in an innovative and humorous way. These videos were seeded across YouTube, generating large viewership, driving brand identity and ultimately resulting in increased sales of over 700%. These are results that can’t be ignored.

About the Author: Thomas Webster is a digital content and communications strategist at Poets and Plumbers, and resident Thought Leader in video creation and distribution.

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