Drawing an audience—at least as measured by The Nielsen Co.—allows networks to sell advertising and keeps video production professionals employed doing what they do best: producing video.
Indeed, corporate videographers probably breathe a sigh of relief knowing that their jobs do not hinge on the sometimes mercurial results that can pop out of a Nielsen ratings book. After all, no one is out there trying to sell advertising based on the number of people tuning in to watch a company’s latest product launch event or corporate training session online.
But that does not mean the video professionals in the business sector can turn a blind eye towards the issue of drawing traffic for the online webcasts and video clips that they create. If you go to the trouble of cutting down a tree in the forest, you want to make sure someone hears it fall. And if companies go to the expense of creating videos for online distribution, executives want to make sure that somebody out there is clicking on the “play” button. Over time, if no one is watching business videos online, the market for video professionals to produce these videos ultimately will dry up.
It’s easy to see that online video should be a marketer’s dream. It provides a measureable medium where companies can deliver high-impact content in an engaging way. Done right, it integrates the eye-catching nature of prime-time television advertising with the ability to measure and track performance that is the hallmark of the web. The challenge, though, is raising awareness of these videos among a marketer’s target audience.
So, it behooves corporate video evangelists to learn a thing or two about strategies for boosting traffic for video-enriched online events and how viewership for these videos can create a significant business impact. Just like in the television business, more viewership translates into more opportunities to make more money by producing more videos. With this goal in mind, here are five key issues that video production professionals should consider to boost audiences for the content they create.
Video is Search Friendly: Videos embedded into corporate web sites help organizations stand out. Not only do their web destinations look more appealing, corporate sites with embedded videos earn higher rankings on search results than comparable corporate sites without video content. Essentially, video acts as a magnet for drawing more visitors to a corporate web site, whether or not those visitors actually watch the video content or not.
Social Media Should Be Leveraged: Consumer social media applications, such as Facebook and Twitter, can be valuable tools for getting the word out regarding an upcoming webcast event. Organizations that take the time to leverage social media platforms to promote the availability of online content can attract relevant audiences that might otherwise miss your organization’s multimedia message.
Recognize the Value of Consumer Mindshare: Video not only drives additional website visitors, but motivates them to stay on your site longer. Customers and prospects who visit a corporate web site and click on a video are likely to spend several minutes watching a single piece of content, extending their visit to your website. Without video, a visitor may simply breeze through your site, collect a piece of product information and then move on. Video professionals should work to help their customers quantify and document the impact video has on the engagement of website visitors.
Content Packaging is Crucial to Success: Even the most elegant videos can look out of place if they are not presented to users in a meaningful way. Organizing videos in attractive, easy-to-use portals can help viewers tap into the specific content most useful to them. Also, bundling related content together in a single place can help viewers interested in specific content to watch a series of videos that can bolster their understanding of a specific topic.
Video Can Be a Window into Prospect Intent: In an online selling environment where data dictates success, the tracking of individual video viewership patterns can provide a window into the interests and intended behaviors of website visitors. Users willing to invest time in watching a video online, for example, show an active interest in learning more about a product. This type of product consideration is the first step to actually purchasing an item. Those who watch this type of video should be considered a hot prospect for purchase.
When companies use online video properly, it can create expanded demand for video production services. As video becomes more important in identifying customers and successfully selling products, organizations will find new ways to integrate video into a broader range of corporate communications efforts. That’s good news for the people who are paid to make videos look good. Getting more work producing videos may hinge on your ability to help companies understand how it can be used to create even greater business impact.
