The exact figure is $352941 and 17 cents a second and the video couldn’t have cost more than $200 to make. I’ll get back to that later, because there’s a lot to cover…
If you’re interested in advertising, where should you invest your money? I had a question. To find the answer I wanted to ask an expert. An advertising mogul. So I did.
“I would [invest] in Google and Amazon. If buying for my grandkids that is where I would put it.”
The quote is from Sir Martin Sorrell, the Chief Executive of WPP. It’s one of the largest multinational and advertising companies in the world. And yes, I mean large, $73 billion a year large…
Ok. You got me… I didn’t get the chance to actually ask him, but The Guardian did.
The other important bit of information I got from the article was about ‘where consumers spend their time.’ Maybe that should be, ‘where consumers spend their time and can be sold things.’ Unfortunately it seems that magazines and newspapers are still missing out… Print is loosing large chunks of market share to new forms of media and the advertising market has yet to adjust. TV viewing on the other hand is pretty stable.
So I’m going to make a few assumptions and maybe point out the obvious. If you don’t have the budget to get on TV, then use the Internet and start using a video in your marketing efforts, because it works. Seriously, I could only find one case study where conversion rates didn’t improve when you included a video on the sales page (it’s a case study about a company targeting senior citizens and you can find the story on Conversion XL).
Video Marketing: The Facts
So let’s crack this video niche and get at the data behind the trends. Then we can cover some of the things that big companies, innovative bloggers and Internet Marketers have been doing right (like $352941 and 17 cents a second right).
One of the best sources of statistics about online viewing habits are large video hosting companies. Wistia for example have published plenty of helpful statistics about peoples viewing habits that you can review. This article on why the length of your video matters throws up plenty of interesting facts.
Take a look at that graph above for example. That should reinforce just how important it is to grab your users attention from the start. Load the first part of your video with great content and you will have people hooked till the end.
Wistia included plenty of other nice stats. For example, just one in six people who land on a webpage will click the play button, which sucks… So what else can you learn? Well, Reel SEO had a nice article about the power of video testimonials (people will spend 100 seconds watching this stuff if you have it. Unfortunately the article didn’t have anything to say about how the addition of video testimonials affected conversion rate, which is what really matters).
Video Marketing: Lessons From the Internet
Now let’s get onto the case studies and cover a few of the ways videos can really benefit your business. We’re talking growth hacking and on site optimization. Let’s kick things off with Mailbox, a company that went from a valuation of $0 to $100 million in just 36 days on the back of a slick viral video.
The Viral Teaser
The first thing Mailbox did, before they even launched, was create a slick viral teaser. It collected 100,000 views in the first few days and created a huge buzz. This was followed by an overcrowded waiting list and the company’s eventual sale for a reputed $100 million just 36 days after launch (it’s one of the best modern examples of a successful growth hacking strategy. Here’s a great guide that includes some other growth hacks you could copy).
On a lower key, Jason from Copyblogger combined a slick video teaser and an opt-in form to collect emails for the blog Boost Blog Traffic. The video cost just $50. The result was thousands of visitors to the blog from day one (you can find out more about some other great ways to promote your blog here).
Informational Video
http://youtu.be/OFb0NaeRmdg
This two-minute long informational video made the kind of profits that Hollywood blockbusters dream about. Switch Video estimated the profit margin to be around $48 million, which is not bad for a simple animation that couldn’t have cost more than $200 to make.
Just to break it down, that $48 million figure comes from a 10% increase in homepage conversions. Proof, if you really needed it, that a simple video can turn a big profit.
Brand Personality
It’s nice to make people smile, so I’ll end this post with a funny video.
Humor and controversy are the final proven methods for injecting a bit of fun into an otherwise boring topic. Now if Air New Zealand can do this for air safety videos – yawn – imagine what you can do for something as exciting as your brand.
I hope that’s given you a few ideas and put a smile on your face. And if all that information wasn’t enough, we even created a great infographic to go with the post. Share it on social media and start a conversation.
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