Daniel Nelson | 16/03/2009

Back in the late 20’s early 30’s film makers in Hollywood commercialised synchronised sound films to replace silent movies. This innovation resulted in an unprecedented ability to captivate audience’s attention and “talkies” exploded in popularity. This wave of popularity set Hollywood up to be one of the world’s central cultural hubs of the 20th century. Savvy web marketers and digital agencies can utilise the same captivating power of video as part of successful web strategy to support brand’s and achieve exceptional cut through with online audiences.

If you are considering whether or not to spend the time producing, packaging and serving web video here are some reasons to tempt you:

Credibility - High production values in your video and website will help to support your credibility online and differentiate your offering from that of your competitors.

Cut through - If you need to deliver a more detailed message, video may assist you in grabbing the attention of your audience and achieving that additional cut through. Text alone can struggle to deliver some messages as audiences initially scan text before they commit or engage with the content. Video improve this engagement and therefore support the other content on your site.

Engage your audience – Effective use of video content can effectively captivate your audience and grab’s the attention of your prospects, visitors, and customers.

Increase conversion rates - The more people engage and understand the essence of your offering or brand the better your conversions will be. This could mean more enquiries, more sales, more newsletter signups, etc.

Enhance the user experience – As with many great Web 2.0 tools it’s all about good execution. I am not advocating intrusive, annoying or disruptive videos any more than I would advocate 100% flash websites. An experienced digital agency should use video to enhance the user experience for your audience not to annoy them.

Whether you deliver your video using Flash video, YouTube, Vidler or some other tool, I highly recommend you consider video as part of your website strategy. If you are an online marketer or digital agency and you are not considering utilising video as part of your client’s website strategy then I recommend you start doing so before you go the way of the silent film.

For examples of a good use of video website strategy check out some of the following links, feel free to post some other examples!

http://startcooking.com/
http://www.wingchun.com.au
http://www.apple.com/mac/
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/

tags: Web Strategy , Online Marketing , Web Design

Interested in learning more?

Wiliam is a leading supplier of web solutions and can provide expert advice to assist your business or organisation online.

Comments

Risks of Video

I think you could have better pointed out the risks of using video on a website. Many of the big publishers have chosen to run video ads on their news pages including SMH and news.com.au. When I open up multiple tabs for articles I want to read I get bombarded with layered noise as 10 video ads run all at once! This continues until l I go back through each one and close the video. This has driven me from the Sydney Morning Herald more than once. This is just website insanity! Do they not know how people use their website? You should point out to your clients that they have to be careful of the risks associated with video otherwise they could do more harm than good.

John

Yes. Online videos can be a very effective business communication tool

Being a web video producer, it’s very heartening to read your article. I see the trend towards using online video being taken up with much greater gusto in the States than here in Australia. However, I note that corporates, particularly in the finance sector (and more specifically since the crash) are starting to make use of market updates. AMP for instance, has a market update mini-site where each video is hosted from their YouTube partner channel. http://www.youtube.com/amp Ubank – part of the NAB Group – has something similar with what it calls “Money Box Webisodes”. http://www.ubank.com.au/whoWeAre/whoweare-moneybox.html These videos are also hosted on YouTube. BHP Billiton, is also using video upfront on the home page. http://www.bhpbilliton.com These are all large companies for whom video is primarily a vehicle to communicate information and ideas rather than sell product, but I think SME’s can also utilise video to sell their products and services online … The key is as you’ve explained –

Jonathon Heath
http://www.yourfilm.com.au

Video content

These are some really great reason for putting video content on your website. It will also help improve the content on your site.

Taylor Smith
http://www.ascendtraining.com/

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The power of utilising Video on your website