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Did you know that by 2013, 90% of all website traffic will be generated by video?

Justin Aldridge

Well, if you didn’t, you do now! I’d like to introduce myself. I look after online video production for Artemis Internet Marketing, and would like to tell you how we can work with your company.

But before we get in too deep, here are some more stats relating to web video that you might want to think about:

  • 19% of businesses already use video
  • Video is the fastest growing website feature
  • By 2013, 90% of all website traffic will be generated by video (OK, I used this at the top!)
  • Video is 53 times more likely to drive a first page search result on Google
  • Website video generates a 500% increase in visitor engagement
  • Promotional emails featuring video have a 3x higher click-through rate
  • 73% of retailers use online video, viewers are 85% more likely to buy
  • 60% of business users would watch a video before reading anything on a website
  • 75% of business users watch work-related video, of those 42% made a buying decision
  • More than 65% of the people who watch online videos are between the ages of 35 and 64 (and 67% of these people earn middle to high incomes)
  • People who watch online videos, will in turn, pass links for these videos onto their friends… turning them into viral traffic machines.
  • Your competitors are using video – it has become an integral part of the overall marketing mix

If you are reading this post, it probably means that you are already thinking about using video. That’s a good start. Maybe those stats got you a little more determined. But everybody has a video camera these days, and everybody is a videographer. Apparently.

What this doesn’t cover is whether much video on the web is any good, and whether it is meeting the needs of the companies on whose web sites it appears? The world marvels that a teenager’s phone-cam video of a dog on a skateboard gets 3,000,000 hits on YouTube, and believes that that this web video thing is easy. Believe us – if you want a professional looking video presentation to put on your site, and one that actually works for your organisation, that isn’t easy. And it categorically isn’t something that Jim from Marketing can do with his Sony MyFirstVideoCamera, despite it being FullHD and having an app with lots of funny filters.

Our web video experience kicked off in 2003, and over the ensuing years we have created hundreds of video presentations, including web video commercials, training pieces, news and announcements, event reports and up to broadcast TV-standard videos. Alongside this we have created and managed Internet video channels.

So you are hooked on the idea, but where do you go from there? Well, you think about one fundamental, baseline fact that will affect everything from that point onwards. What’s that? Well, what anybody looking to put video on their website needs to understand is that this business is like pretty much any other – you really do get what you pay for. And before that statement causes you to lose interest – hang-on. The market we operate in today (pretty depressed – the market, that is – but the video production marketeers are too!) means that web video production IS more affordable than it used to be.

So remember the basic premise – you get what you pay for – and understand that we can offer a fully scale-able menu of options. If you want a full-blown, broadcast quality movie, you won’t get that for £1,000 (or £250 if Jim from marketing is doing it). At the same time, if you want a simple but nice-looking talking heads piece, you don’t have to pay £10,000 for that.

I’ll listen to you telling me what you want, we’ll talk through some techniques and alternatives, and then YOU decide how much it is going to cost. How so? Well, that’s because I’ll be able to give you a ‘Youth Club Special to Hollywood Blockbuster’ set of options.

Past experience tells me that we will still end up being asked to do Hollywood Blockbusters at Youth Club Special budgets. That’s life!

So that’s the basic idea. Keep an open idea as to what making decent web video involves – lots and lots of work pre-shooting, then filming, and then editing – and be sensible about budgets.

It doesn’t stop there, of course. Combining online video content with traditional web publishing and social media network strategies is at the heart of today’s rich, multi-media, cross-platform marketing content. We have the experts here to talk you through that process, but with my VideoMan hat on, I’ll talk about the specific challenges of promoting web video in my next blog.

Thanks, and I hope we have the opportunity to work together!

Vince Holton