Companies are increasingly realising that a straight-up product push no longer works. Potential customers are not that easy to woo any more. As a result, advertising is increasingly replaced by other methods with more depth. By far the most popular format is so-called Content Marketing. This term is already becoming a bit of ‘catch-all’ for any message exceeding more than one paragraph or 140 characters, so here is the definition according to Wikipedia:
“Content Marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation and sharing of content in order to engage (potential) customers with the company or product”.
The thought behind the concept is that customers and prospects are more involved if you provide them with valuable, relevant and qualitative information. Consequently it takes a while to build an audience, but once that has been done content marketing is more effective than advertising in terms of ROI and cost per lead, as shown by the diagrams below (source: Eloqua, 6 June 2012).
A good example of this approach is ABN AMRO. In 2008 this bank started an online video strategy that is based on content marketing. Even the introduction of new financial products consists mainly of substantive live and on-demand broadcasts in which bank employees and market experts provide potential customers with the necessary relevant knowledge. You watch the commercial on TV; the knowledge is shared through online video.
Involvement and loyalty
Video says more than a thousand words; in fact, it says more than thousands of words. Video is perfect for content marketing because it brings your company, knowledge and products to life and presents content more efficiently and attractively. Visitors to your website prefer watching to reading. Furthermore, video reinforces your branding. According to Google, viewers develop a 15 times stronger brand preference than readers, so that makes the medium highly suitable for promoting loyalty as well.
Sharing
Video is easy to share. The number of video-shares through social media is increasing rapidly: 840 million in October 2012 versus 270 million just one year earlier (source: Unruly Media). On average, videos shared via social media are also watched around 15% longer; on Facebook even 25% longer (source: TubeMogul). This makes sharing via social media a good thing for the number of views and the length of the views. It therefore pays to make it simple for people to share your videos and put them on things like weblogs and profile pages; don’t be surprised to see that more than 75% of your views are generated outside ‘your domain’, as ourown research has shown.
Charlie Sheen is Reborn
As a provider of video content it is also possible to share videos with other publishers. If you offer qualitative content they will definitely be interested. See the example of ABN AMRO on Belegger.TV in which the ABN AMRO interactive video player is used, which can generate reach and conversion.
ABN AMRO TV
Call-to-action & conversion
You can use the video to stimulate conversion in a number of ways. The content of the video and the interaction in the player reinforce each other. You can call viewers to act on an instruction that is shown in the player at that point, for example by means of a text banner.
Research by Google has shown that video generates a level of interaction that is four times higher, and in online stores a purchase intent that is up to an amazing 85% higher.
Musical
YouTube
In real terms the player is a small website. It is therefore even better if it is distributed on the Internet and the leads come in through these locations. Good meta-dating of the videos also aids in your videos being found through search engines. More on this in our column on video SEO.
