The announcement this week of the iPad brings with it some
mouthwatering possibilities for the further advancement of online video and video advertising in traditional print media.
The iPad is more portable than even the simplest notepad
computer. It's a leisure device first and foremost, not a work tool. I think we will finally see streaming video move out of the home
office and into the leisure experience. Browsing on the couch or in bed means
that users coming across video will relate to it in a different way.
The iPad might introduce video advertising into leisure time
as early adopters flick through apps while sipping on their coffee and eating
breakfast. It just looks like a more accessible tool than a formal laptop.
Part of the iPad’s strategy is to take on Amazon’s Kindle
and other ereaders. With a comprehensive range of books and periodicals for
sale from iTunes, there is a perfect opportunity to subsidize the cost to the
reader of a magazine or newspaper subscription with the insertion of targeted
video ads or at the very least video sidebars with extra information about a
story and links to other upselling opportunities.
It’s not that these possibilities don’t already exist, it’s
that the iPad is the first device in a long time with a good shot at changing
the way we consume print media.
I’ve never been an Apple evangelist, but the thought of
having all my magazine and newspaper subscriptions waiting for me in easy to
browse apps makes this a very tempting proposition.
Am I overstating the fact? I’d love to hear what you think.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
What they mean is, when someone pays attention to you and respects what you do
enough to reproduce one of your original ideas or activities you should be
flattered. And we usually are.
Last July, before the release of his New York Times
bestseller, Trust Agents, I approached Chris Brogan with an idea for a Twitter
giveaway. I proposed that we give away 50 copies of his book on the day of its
launch to the first 50 people who tweeted about a brand awareness campaign we
were running. The campaign centered on our Video Marketing Quiz which is a fun
interactive game that tests your knowledge of video as an effective marketing
tool.
We were overwhelmed with the results. As soon as Chris tweeted about
the giveaway, everything went nuts with thousands of people taking the quiz
and tweeting about it afterwards. It was such a simple idea, yet it worked so
well for us and we were tremendously grateful to Chris for his support and
proud to be part of the launch for Trust Agents.
We knew it was a successful idea when Chris ran with it and
instigated the exact
same promotion with his pals at LinkedIn less than a month later. I’m sure
it’s not the last time we will see Twitter used in this way.
This week our Video Marketing Quiz saw another form of
imitation as Omniture, the web analytics company that was recently
bought by Adobe, released an interactive game that tests your knowledge of
banner ads as an effective marketing tool. If you disregard the background, the
awkward fonts and the clumsy interface that never quite clicks on what you want
to click, it’s eerily similar to our own Video Marketing Quiz. All of which
goes to prove a few things:
If something works for someone else, you might be able to make it work for you
If you want to know who’s listening, check who’s copying
Great ideas belong to the world (but it’s always nice to
know you had them first!)
EyeView's Video Marketing Quiz Omniture's Pick The Winner Quiz
The end of the year is always a time for reflection. This year I left behind my life with a major online video sharing site and started working for a company that is just as enamored with online video but approaches the medium with higher expectations. If video sharing sites represent the youthful excesses in the life of online video, then the next iteration is all about online video growing up, taking responsibility and earning its way.
Here are my predictions for the coming year in Online Video. I hope you enjoy my perspective.
Video
Sharing sites will continue to grow in size but diminish in importance. In
other words YouTube will be huger than ever but the story will be even more
fragmented than it was this year. Apart from unpredictable viral hits like
Susan Boyle, no YouTuber will ever again achieve the prominence that
subscription grinders like Fred, Hot For Words and Michael Buckley have. YouTube
has taken over from MTV as the number one place to watch music videos. YouTube
is already more relevant as a search engine than as an entertainment
destination site. It’s almost like Google could see into the future when they
bought it.
Some small and
medium businesses (SMBs) will embrace video more than ever before. The cost of
entry for online video has been so reduced that every commercial site will experiment
with the medium. Most will do so with no way of measuring whether the experiment
was successful.
Some large
businesses will continue to invest large sums in telling their stories with
video. They will continue to be happy to do so despite not knowing how
effective these videos are because however large the budget they are still
cheaper than creating and buying airtime for TV ads.
Some SMBs
and some large businesses will demand that their investment in online video
brings a measurable return. They will operate under the assumption that
marketing spend needs to be justified and they will seek out video solutions
that combine analytics with video creation and implementation. They will find such solutions and they will be very happy.
Video will become
a more important weapon in the affiliate marketer’s arsenal. As affiliates acknowledge
the persuasive power of video over less dynamic media, they will push
advertisers towards supplying video versions of banners and other collateral.
Affiliates will be a major force driving video to becoming more accountable in
the sales funnel.
Everyone
reading this blog will appear in at least one video posted on the internet
between now and this time next year. Happy New Year.
As we come to the end of an amazing year, it’s great to look
back and reflect on the changes we’ve seen. The year 2009 will be remembered as
a breakout year for online video as it left the confines of video sharing sites
and crossed over into mainstream acceptance. In 2010 every commercial site will
include a video presentation at some point in its interaction with potential
customers.
The final sign of acceptance will be when video is made accountable
not just as a ‘nice to have’ marketing extra, but as a fully functioning tool
in the marketer's arsenal with its own ROI and the expectation of revenue
generation.
EyeView is proud to be leading the charge towards accountable
video with our award-winning optimization program and our fantastic roster of
clients.
Thank you to everyone for making 2009 so exciting and let’s
see if we can’t do it all again in 2010!
There seems
to be some debate about who said it first, but whether it was Oscar Wilde or
George Bernard Shaw the quip still holds true that England and America are “two
countries separated by a common language.”
But even
when the language is the same, the accent used to express it can vary widely,
and our response to that variation may impact our willingness to listen to the
message being delivered.
We have long been interested
in testing the impact of different accents. We usually do not change the content
of a video for British or American audiences, but the accent in the voiceover
is a different matter entirely.
Ginger
Software markets a product aimed at improving your written English. It identifies
spelling and grammar errors and is particularly useful for students, people
with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, and business people for whom English
is a second language. Once we had proven that the inclusion of video on Ginger’s
site increased their conversion rate, we decided to test whether there was a
difference in conversion when the audience heard an American or a British
accent delivering the voiceover. Given that the product is tied so closely to
people’s perception of correct English, we thought this would be real grudge
match between two great nations. And the results didn’t disappoint.
We ran an
A/B test where 50% of the global audience saw the video with a
voiceover in a British accent and 50% saw it with the voiceover performed with an American accent. The conversion goal for each version of the video was to get
visitors to download Ginger’s software.
Looking at
the global population, we saw that the British voiceover was 4% more effective
at converting visitors into downloaders. On its own, that would be interesting enough,
but we wanted to look further into what was happening in each country.
It seems
that the often-heard comment by Americans that things sound smarter with a
British accent actually translates into action. For US audiences, the
conversion rate for the British accent was 5.5% higher than the American one – above the global average. In Canada, the British accent still outperformed
the American, but by a mere 1.5%.
Irish
viewers watching the British version converted 12% more often than those
hearing an American voice while the response of the Australians was even more
extreme. Viewers “down under” converted 32% more often when pitched with Pommie
tones than with an American twang.
The Brits
didn’t have it all their own way. In India, the American accent was 12% more
effective at converting visitors. But the most surprising statistic of all came
when we looked at the comparative performance of the two accents in the UK. For
audiences watching the video in the UK, the voiceover with the American accent
was 8% more effective at making visitors download Ginger’s software than the
British accent, representing a significant swing away from the global trend. This was a wonderfully counter-intuitive response to the test that really drives home the importance of knowing your
audience and optimizing your video geographically to ensure you get the best
results.
There is
nothing to say that the results obtained here would be replicated for other
videos on other sites, but there is no denying the value of testing to ensure
you get the maximum revenue from your traffic wherever it comes from.
We went back
to one of our most successful optimization projects to see if we could further
improve on the high standards we had already set.
Previously
we had embedded a landing page video for TutorVista and experienced tremendous
success. With clear confirmation that the video was key to boosting their conversion
we decided to experiment further. When we have a clear champion like with that
first test which increased conversion by over 80%, we test new alternatives in
the hope that we can squeeze even higher conversion rates from the incoming
traffic.
This time we
tested a graphic element that was part of the call to action at the end of the
video. The video was embedded next to a call to action button that said Subscribe
in the panel to the right. In the first version (below on the left) we finished
the video with a giant arrow on the player pointing towards the Subscribe
button to reinforce the closing words of the video’s voiceover.
The
competing version of the video went one stage further with a dynamic arrow
shooting out of the confines of the video player and coming to rest right next
to the Subscribe button (below on the right). The idea was to drag the viewers’
eyes as close as possible to the conversion goal for the page.
Whenever we
run a new test for a site we always try to predict which way the test will go,
but this one surprised us all. The arrow on the left that stayed within the
player and gently insisted on directing attention to the Subscribe button
converted at a significantly higher rate than the dynamic flying arrow that
left the player.
There may be
more tests to run for this kind of element that gleefully breaks the fourth
wall of online video, but for now the “old school” version remains on top.
I've been thrilled by the response to my guest blog over at ReelSEO. The post is called Three Kinds of Online Video for Business and it really tries to identify the different types of of video that companies are making and the struggle each one has to justify its budget and place in a world overcrowded with content.
Quite apart from the interest this post has generated, I should have mentioned Mark Robertson and the work he does at ReelSEO a long time ago. In a relatively short time he has established one of the best forums for thought pieces and in-depth articles about all aspects of online video. It's a well managed site with a terrific range of posts. If you have any interest at all in online video and its applications, you should add ReelSEO to your feed.
And if I'm giving shout-outs here, I should also thank Nalts for being polite enough to ask permission before plagiarizing the bits of my post that he likes best.
As I continue to try to provide value and depth with my posts, it's gratifying to have the support of people like Mark and Kevin to inspire and encourage me further.
I have been
keenly following the recent developments at Brightcove,
one the world’s leading syndicators of video content. Despite cutting back on
staff towards the end of 2008, Brightcove has bounced back with the
release of Brightcove Express a new iteration of their service aimed at
small and medium businesses and priced accordingly.
Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Brightcove,
has always been an evangelist for online video. When he launched the company
over five years ago he stated his belief that video would become as commonplace
on the web as text.
Discussing
the launch of Brightcove Express, Allaire said, “In the last 12 to 18 months,
we’ve seen a dramatic rise in the number of company sites that are adding
video. These are not media companies, but corporations and organizations of all
kinds: consumer goods companies, universities, government agencies. Nonmedia
companies are our fastest-growing segment.”
Our
experience at EyeView is very similar. We are seeing increasing numbers of commercial
sites beginning to harness the power of video for their businesses. Everyone
wants video but many are coming to the medium without a clear vision of how
their investment will be recouped. Even as video become ubiquitous there is
still much uncertainty about the business model behind it. Video must be
accountable or it will never succeed.
Brightcove
have attempted to go around the issue by lowering the price to make it
affordable for everyone, but syndication costs are just one part of the budget
for video. Bobby
Tulsiani, a senior analyst at Forrester, addressed this problem head-on.
The biggest
challenge for Brightcove and its competitors, Tulsiani says, “is whether these
company websites will be able to monetize their video content. The continued
growth of the market will be determined by whether these companies can justify
the cost of creating and serving videos on their sites.’’
It all comes
down to establishing clear links between the implementation of video and an
increase in engagement, loyalty and, of course, revenue.
Video
demands ROI and the companies beginning to embrace the medium will too. The ability
to deliver proven revenue gains and authentic analytics packaged with a video
that is engaging, persuasive and on-message will be the key that unlocks the
full potential of video for online businesses.
Anyone with
a school-aged child has wrestled with the problem of tutoring. Whether your son
needs help with his trigonometry homework or your daughter needs to stop
falling behind with her reading comprehension you will discover that finding a
tutor can be as difficult as it is expensive. Whether you have to travel to the
tutor’s residence or find a mutually agreeable time in your own home, you can
expect to pay anywhere from $30-75 per hour of one-on-one tutoring.
It was only
a matter of time until someone came up with a better solution. TutorVista
operates out of Bangalore, India with a team of highly qualified professional
tutors available round the clock to work with your children improving their
academic skills. As long as you have a broadband connection, you can get unlimited
tutoring for under $100 per month.
The guys at
TutorVista approached us with a problem. They had a landing page that was
specifically designed to funnel traffic through their sign-up process. The
landing page was already reasonably successful by most standards but they
wanted to try and increase conversion for that page to make sure they were
getting the most out of their traffic.
A conversion
solution was prepared which included a battery of tests to be performed on the
landing page to measure optimization around a video which we created
specifically for the page. The first test embedded the video on the page for
half the visitors and tested it against the existing page and the existing
conversion rate. On top of that, we made the embedded video autoplay for first-time
visitors, reasoning that the information in the video was useful enough to
overcome the issues that sometimes arise from autoplay.
Arun Kumar,
Manager at TutorVista, continues the story: “We implemented EyeView’s solution
on one of our landing pages that already had a pretty impressive conversion
rate. The very first test they ran boosted conversion by over 80 percent.
EyeView really works.”
We will be
running more tests over the coming months, with the aim of further optimizing
conversion for this page, but there is nothing sweeter than hitting the first
pitch right out of the park.
Congratulations
to TutorVista on having such a great product and congratulations to the EyeView
team for taking a gamble and watching it pay off handsomely.
If you want
to watch the video, I’m adding it here, but the real magic for TutorVista is
happening right on their landing page:
These days the only guarantee with online video is that what was true yesterday may not be true tomorrow. We are living in a period of rapid evolution where little remains the same for long.
A couple of articles caught my eye this week, because they reported facts which seemed to run counter to everything that we thought we knew until now.
First up was Jacqui Cheng writing in ars technica on the decline in P2P filesharing as online video streaming continues to grow. It seems like only yesterday when th No. 1 topic of geek conversation was the overwhelming percentage of internet traffic that was taken up by BitTorrent. According to the 2009 Global Broadband Report published by Sandvine "real-time entertainment traffic (video and audio streaming, Flash
media, peercasting, placeshifting) accounts for 26.6 per cent of total
traffic in 2009, up from 12.6 per cent in 2008." In the same period filesharing has declined by 25 per cent as people move towards wanting their content "on demand".
The second article backing this trend up comes from the ever-reliable Media section of the Guardian Online with a report by Mark Sweney on the viewing habits of Virgin Media's VoD customers. The article quotes Virgin Media boss, Neil Berkett, when he says that his customers spend more time watching VoD than they do with mainstream terrestrial UK channels Channel 4 and Channel Five. Again this runs contrary to previous thinking that VoD was a niche service that would not find the support from advertisers necessary to make it stick.
Streaming video is more popular and mainstream than ever as people are more selective about what they want and when they want it. Watch this space.
