Getting Started with Online Video
Online video is awesome and companies large and small are pushing to get on board, but what is involved to make the magic happen? Any small amount of research will tell you that adding video to your site can increase conversions rates by 30% or more. How great is that? To put it in perspective, let’s say you have 250,000 unique visits per month. If on average your site converts at 3% with a $100 average order, you have $750,000 in monthly sales. A 30% increase in conversion brings an additional $225,000 in monthly revenue! It’s kind of hard to not make video a part of your site strategy, but let’s look at what’s needed to pull it off.
There are many “moving parts” that go into creating and delivering great video content on your site.
Three key components to consider:
1. Approach/Strategy
2. Content/Production
3. Hosting Platform
Approach/Strategy
You can’t just put the cart in front of the horse and say “let’s create video!” Well you can, but it will be a sure fire way to quickly hit a brick wall. It is important to hone down your focus and create a road map for your video strategy. If you are a retail site, product videos are elemental as they provide a much more efficient way to communicate products to prospective customers. But if you have 30,000 SKUs you’ll need to prioritize, decide on a realistic quantity, and plan for actual production.
Additionally, branded series content can be fun and engaging for customers. A “Tip of the Week” series for example, can provide valuable content for your site or blog. It can also double as a great media asset to use with your social media strategy.
Content/Production
So let’s say the decision was made to go down the product video route, what do you say and who will be in front of the camera saying it? Script writing is just as important as the product description on your site. In many cases you may be able to simply use the description currently on your site but if that description is too long or doesn’t transfer to video well, how you break it down or rewrite the script takes time and that time needs to be accounted for.
When it comes to shooting, it’s important to decide if you’ll use someone internally or hire someone for your product shoots. Some companies choose to use their internal staff for product videos to save money, but when production becomes more consistent, it can quickly take time away from their regular job. It’s important to make sure your staff isn’t falling behind their regular duties if shooting internally is the route you wish to take.
Pre-production planning to get all of your technical ducks in a row will help to ensure top quality and efficiency. This includes a list of items such as format, lighting, audio, day-of logistics to align with your developed approach, and much more. Once you actually have your raw content shot, then comes editing, finding the right music and encoding for the web.
Hosting Platform
Now that you have your videos all ready to go, how do you plan to host and stream them across your site? To realize the full potential of video content on your site, self-hosting likely won’t be your best option because of the cost of bandwidth and potential limitations on analytics. However, there are video platforms that handle all bandwidth issues and also offer some really cool custom players to match your brand. Additionally, a 3rd party platform can provide detailed insight into video metrics. After all of your work, you will want to know how your visitors engage and if they stop watching a particular video after 10 seconds or 35.
Free platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo can be an easy entry point, but for more scalable options you’ll probably want to turn to a paid solution. With that said, there is a definite place for the YouTube’s of the world in terms of distribution and traffic generation. That conversation is beyond the scope of this article, but I’ll be sure to touch on that at a later date.
So the question really is how you will go about incorporating online video into your site plan and not whether or not video is valuable for your brand. It’s best to do some cost analysis and make a decision on whether or not you have the resources to shoot internally or if a full service production company is a more practical solution. Either way, I’m sure you’ll be surprised with what you find.
About Video Aptitude
Video Aptitude is a full service video strategy and production company for the web, providing turn-key services for eCommerce Sites, Manufacturers and Professional Service Firms. The Video Aptitude team handles strategic development, scripting and casting, production logistics, editing, and complete fulfillment to provide companies with premium video content and easy-install player code. Learn more about our services or contact us today