The Future of Online Video Marketing & the Benefits of Video Production
Video Production & Market Penetration
There are now some 43,221,464 internet users in the UK alone (Dec 2008 InternetWorldStats), representing a staggering 70. 9% penetration for consumer opportunities. Itâs no surprise then that the past few years have seen an increasing presence of internet strategies incorporated into business marketing plans. According to a recent survey 1 in 5 companies say that they now spend more than half of their total marketing budget online. However, it has become increasingly difficult for companies to differentiate themselves from the competition, prompting online marketers to explore ever more creative ways with which to attract new visitors and convert them into customers; and with the rapid improvements in streaming technology, companies are now sitting up and taking note of the potential marketing possibilities that online video marketing has to offer. The US has taken a demonstrable lead over the UK, and the online market in the US is predicted to be worth $3 billion by 2010 (E-consultancy). Clearly, online video production is set to explode in the marketing world as a lucrative and essential tool for both large corporate businesses and SMEâs.
Dynamic Logic is a leading independent research company that specializes in measuring marketing effectiveness and the impact of online video. It regularly publishes results showing an overall increase in the effectiveness of online video in terms of breakthrough and communication, when comparing video with overall online marketing results. Specifically looking at areas such as message association, brand awareness and favourability, but most importantly purchase intent, they found that placing video online proved to be far more effective than standard internet advertising. ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni, for example, has recently revealed that his organisation has detected that exposure to online video advertising can lead to a 40% increase in buying a product or service.
Applications
Compared to text, graphics and illustrations, video has the ultimate power to engage and hold the viewerâs attention. The latest technological advances mean that video clips now play instantly, and with perfect sound and picture quality. Video delivers the information quickly and simply, and at its best, creates emotional pull that leads viewers to take action. Itâs worth remembering that people relate to people more than anything else, and even the simplest messages can really help to bring a website to life. So what are the applications for video?
These are just some ideas and the list is limited only by the imagination, but how effective can these videos be? Well, take client testimonials. Most websites seem to carry quotes from happy customers in predictable and repetitive text format. Customer testimonials are a great way to endorse a company, service or a product, but in this written format, does anyone truly believe them? Are they genuine, and do they reach out and grab your attention? Now imagine how much more persuasive it can be when a customer speaks live on camera and uses his own words to say how good you are and how great you are to work with. Now that really does have impact.
A current hot topic is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Good corporate governance is under the spotlight and companies are falling over themselves to promote their social and environmental credentials. Most large companies will now have a CSR section prominently displayed on their website, and usually supported by lengthy PDF documents of their policies and reports. The problem is that very few people open them or download them. The easy solution is to provide a video that features highlights of good business practice, whether it be the CEO planting trees, or senior managers visibly involved in running local charity events. Communicating a difficult product or service, or maybe a new concept, is not best served by a barrage of text and graphs, yet itâs amazing how many websites still do just this. Financial institutions and technology companies are often the worst culprits. Yet a filmed presenter, describing a service supported by explanatory animated graphics, or providing a live product demonstration, can really help to get the message across in an interesting and informative way. It can make the difference between a bored visitor clicking on to another site, or an interested visitor who gets the message and responds to a call to action there and then.
Web Designers
Should web designers be recommending video for all their clientsâ websites from now on? Every site has its own unique functions and desired outcomes, and video certainly isnât for everyone. Added to this, clients will have their own ideas about how they want their website to look. But web designers should certainly be aware of the power of video. They should be educating their clients about new trends, and helping them explore every avenue to ensure that the website reaches its full potential. There are big financial benefits to using online video, and companies can save a considerable amount of money in manpower, travel, and DVD mail outs, by communicating to an unlimited mass audience instantly and simultaneously. Itâs worth noting that consumers are far more likely to view a video online than they are to put a DVD in a machine and watch it. After all, if they are already on a website and fired with interest, itâs easy to click onto a video whilst they are there. By contrast, a DVD requires interest to be re-kindled, and for new time to be set aside for a viewing.
Web designers too have a vested interested in using video. It will give progressive companies an edge over competitors who prefer to remain within the safety of their comfort zones. Video is a good driver for SEO with the potential to push a company up the search rankings. And video is, of course, a value-added product that clients will pay for over and above the conventional costs of the web design and build. Finally, video is an evolving new product that allows designers to re-visit existing clients with a new offering to upgrade the website.
Many companies shy away from the perceived complexity and costs of producing professional looking video. Video production is a specialised area in which most web designers have little or no expertise, and a good working relationship with a video production company is usually a good idea. A production company will be able to advise on content and oversee the video project from beginning to end, delivering edited media to the web designer, encoded and ready for streaming. The precise nature of the relationship will depend on individual circumstances, but whether a web designer introduces the job to the production company or vice versa, a commission fee would be considered normal.
Case Study: Spectrecom Films
Spectrecom Films is an award-winning London-based video production company with a strong track record working for clients across the public and private sector. They have recognised the growing potential of online video and often recommend that even their largest projects are streamed online rather than sent out on DVD. Recent projects include an ongoing series of over 35 promotional films for the Durham University website, 16 recruitment films for Google and a vast quantity of short presented clips for 247Spares, the UK’s top online car parts network, which resulted in a massive 80% increase in sales. Spectrecomâs unique advantage is that they own their own film/TV studio where they can produce highly professional video work in-house at very low cost.
What would be considered low cost? Spectrecomâs MD, Andrew Greener, reckons they can produce studio-presented video for under £1,000 a day; âThere are many variables, but we try to keep it simple. So a client could be here in the morning, presenting to camera, and we could edit and encode the material, and upload it to the web designer by the end of the day. â Spectrecom also film on location anywhere around the world, often at very short notice. âWe have an American client that often gives us just one or two days notice to film, usually interviews with supporting âBâ roll footage, and it could be anywhere in the UK. We havenât let them down yetâ, says Greener. And does Spectrecom work with any designers already? âYes, there are two companies in particular. Weâve received good projects from them, mostly studio work, but weâve been able to pass high value work out too. â
Spectrecom practice what they preach, and much of their website carries examples of their video work. Not only that, but it also features videos about themselves in a way that could be adopted by any other company. Whatâs interesting is that the most popular page navigated to from the home page is the team page, with 25% of all traffic going here first. And the reason? The team page features a video of every member of staff and, quite reasonably, visitors to the site want to find out who they are dealing with.
The Future
Online video is here to stay, and its presence is set to become one of the key elements that differentiates websites. After all, if you could watch a video of a new product or concept online, or read about it, which would you choose? Picture size and quality will only continue to improve, and marketers will dream up new ways of grabbing audience share and delivering key messages with real impact. If you are going to take advantage of this developing phenomenon, you need to understand the benefits and you need to be thinking of the many creative opportunities at the concept stage of new web design.
Have you heard of YouTube before? Even if you have never visited YouTubesâs website, you likely already know a little bit about what it is, as YouTube is often talked about among friends, family members, and coworkers.  You can also regularly find YouTube being discussed on local or even national news programs.  Although you may have heard of you YouTube, you might not have visited it before.  If you havenât, you may want to think about stopping by, as you have the opportunity to view an unlimited number of free videos, many of which you may find entertaining. 
Share my way of free download videos and songs into video player from InternetWhen I come to some other community like answers. yahoo, I always see someone ask the same question: How to get videos or free download videos from Internet into their iPod, iPhone, Sansa, PSP or some other popular players. Right now I own an iPod Touch 2. With my funniest iPod I enjoy my favorite movies like Gone with Wind, Ironman, The Dark Knight etc and other 180 songs. So you may wonder how did I get so much beautiful movies and songs into my player. In the below I will share my experience with you so that you can get video and songs you want in your portable player. I get all the videos and songs from Internet. There are many free resources on Internet that you can download. I usually download movie and music from those famous video website such as Youtube, Google video, Yahoo video. There are also many other free website for you to download videos such as Hulu, MySpace, Reuters, Metacafe, Break, Dailymotion, iFilm, Music, StreetFire, etc. Of course you may select videos according to your interest. For example, you can get more videos about International news, financial information and trading products information on Reuters. com. On Hulu. com you may get more TV shows and movies from NBC, FOX and many other networks and studio, but Hulu videos are currently offered only to users in the United States. For metacafe, I like the short entertainment video on it, which is really funny. Youtube, Yahoo and Google display a wide variety of video content, you may search movie clips, TV clips, music videos you want and free download it into your computer. Ok, after surf on Internet, now you must harvest lots of videos in your computer. Next you need to transfer these videos into your portable player. You may find that most of your videos are flv format files. So you need to transfer your videos with a flv video converter. What I use is [url=http://www. nidesoft. com/flv-converter. html]Nidesoft FLV Converter[/url], probably the best flv converter available. You may free download its trial version on its official website to have a try. The free trial version can convert video for 2 minutes, you may free try it first. If you like it you may go to its official website to buy it for full version. [url=http://www. nidesoft. com/downloads/flv-converter. exe]Download Nidesoft FLV Converter[/url] (free trial version) and install. Then you may transfer your videos from computer into portable player in the below step by step way. Step 1: open the program, click “continue trial” to begin. Step 2: add your flv files into the program: click the “add” button and select your downloaded flv videos from your computer. Of course, you may select several video files and convert them at one time. You may also preview your video on the right screen: select video and then press the play button then you will view your video. [img]http://nidesoft. com/forum/flv/flv-converter-1. jpg[/img]Step 3: Click “format” drop-down list to select format of your videos. Here I suggest you select format according to your player. For instance, I select “iPod Touch Video MPEG-4 (*. mp4)” for my iPod Touch videos. If you want to convert videos into Xbox, then you should select “Xbox 360 Video – Windows Media Video (*. wmv)”. [img]http://nidesoft. com/forum/flv/flv-converter-2. jpg[/img] Step 4: Click “convert” button to start conversion. Then process would be completed in few minutes, then drag them into your player and enjoy. Besides video, you could also get cool ringtone for your iPhone, Palm, Blackberry and other mobile phone in this way. Free download music videos on Internet, then extract audio from the flv video file with Nidesoft FLV Converter in the above way, but pay attention to the output format, here you should select a audio format supported by your mobile phone such as “MP3 – MPEG Layer-3 Audio (*. mp3)”. Ok, that’s all my way and you could have a try. Below are some problems I have encountered. Maybe you will have the same problems. Here are my solutions:Q: Does the software contain virus? Is it safe to install and uninstall?A: I download the software from its official website and install it in my computer. For nearly two month, I have never found any virus. So I am very sure it is safe. However if you downloaded it from somewhere else on the web then I am not sure. Probably malware/spamers have uploaded it onto sites to snag people. So always make sure you download things from their original website, or from a trusted location like download. com, and always run antivirus and scan stuff you are installing. Q: What tools should I use to download videos from Internet?A: There are many free video downloader you may get on Internet. For example, you may go to http://www. videodl. org/ to free download Youtube video, Google video and Break video. http://keepvid. com can do the same job. Just google it you may find different downloaders to download different videos. Q: Some movies are split into several clips by uploader, and I want to merge those video clips into one whole movie. How to do that?A: You can do it with while convert your flv videos. After add your videos on the flv converter, select your videos, click the blank box before “Merge into one file”, then those video clips will convert into one video. Q: What is flv? Sometimes I met some special flv files that could not played on my player, why?A: Flv is a file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player. It is widely used on Internet, notable users of flv format include YouTube, Google video, Yahoo! Video, Reuters. com, metacafe and many other providers. Beside the commend flv format, there are other four new flv files format including f4v, f4p, f4a, f4b. Flash player does not check the extension of the file, so these special formats could not played on your player. Q: How to do with those special flv format files, are there any special players or other solutions?A: In fact this FLV Converter could also work as a super flv player. You may preview the flv movie before convert. And with the powerfule decoder, it could decode all kinds of flv format, including those special formats. After add your flv file, you just need to select your flv files then click the play button to preview your videos on the right screen. Ok, those are all the information I want to share. Now you may follow my way to get videos and ringtones for your iPod, Iphone, PSP, Zune, Sansa, mobile phone and all other popular players. If you still have questions, post here!