The Value of Digital Video

The April issue of Rockfish Read was written by Michael Stich, Chief Operating Officer at Rockfish.

Digital video: For many marketers, it’s tomorrow’s technology. It’s expensive to create, seems technologically complicated and difficult to update over time. While many of us have experimented with video, we’ve been reluctant to make it a mainstream part of our marketing mix. While a slow-roll on video may have been a good idea historically, new trends now challenge marketers to look at video in a whole new light.

More than two-thirds of U.S. Internet users now consume online video (eMarketer)

Like it or not, your target user is spending an enormous amount of time on digital video. YouTube gets 115M monthly unique visits and 15% year-on-year growth rate (Compete), but the more exciting phenomenon is that U.S. consumers increased their time spent watching digital video by 44% last year (Nielsen). It’s an increasingly common pastime, and it’s evolving beyond YouTube.

The benefits to marketers are becoming increasingly clear

• Digital video improves site performance: Retail site visitors who view video stay on site an average of 2 minutes longer than others, and are 64% more likely to purchase a product or service (comScore 2010).
• Digital video delivers great results for email: Click-through rates increase by 96% by embedding video into the medium (Implix 2010).
• Digital video delivers search results: Video is 53 times more likely to generate a front-page Google search result (Forrester). Search engines get that users want video, and thus rank sites with video as having higher credibility than those that do not.
• Digital video is a long-term strategic investment: With the advent of Internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes and 3-D tablets, digital video will eventually replace traditional TV advertising models and formats. Marketers can get ahead of this transformation by understanding digital video today, and by experimenting with different advertising models.

The result: Video is becoming a mainstream choice for digital marketers. Users love to watch it, marketers find new ways to compel their audiences within it, and great things happen as a result of both.

Principles for marketers to get digital video right:

• Get – and stay – in the game: If you aren’t experimenting with online video yet, you should be. Make a commitment to learn how to do digital video right.
• Focus on the prize: Your video should highlight the most valuable connection between your user and your offering. For most marketers, this means product videos that show their offering in a compelling way.
• Make it quick, fun, and shareable: E-commerce sites must provide fast videoexperiences to help users decide whether to purchase while in an accelerated mindset. Many marketers include both amplification and advocacy elements to spur sharing. A good example of this is White Cloud’s Roll-volution campaign in which U.S. moms call out their family members for not replacing the toilet paper roll.
• Design with reuse in mind: From characters to segments, to modular formats and platforms, make sure your video is built for reuse. Marketers can realize greater reach, campaign extensions and spend efficiencies by approaching their video projects with this in mind.

Where to start:

Give us a call or email us. Rockfish has deep experience in video creation and development across a variety of audiences and technologies. We welcome the opportunity to explore what digital video means for your business.