Of the one billion views a day on YouTube, Susanne Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent audition and sneezing pandas are not the only thing keeping people on the video sharing site.
In fact, 1.5 million businesses search YouTube everyday for video content according to its owners Google, making it the second most visited destination for business-related searches after the search engine.
Marketers cannot afford to ignore the fact that according to Google, a quarter of the C-suite prefer content in video form over text, and 47 per cent of IT professionals watch YouTube videos to research products and potential purchases. Added to this is the knowledge that video use increases SEO scores and that users spend more time on sites with video content and are more likely to return.
“The fact is that B2B professionals are looking to consume content in a much easier way, but at the same time expect it to be in a rich media format, engaging and hard-hitting,” says Richard Robinson, industry head for B2B marketing at Google.
Marketing via video content has been steadily growing but the rise of web-enabled smartphones and recent marked improvements in online traffic measurement and video ad-hosting means video marketing is set to enter the next phase in its development.
Video tracking
With limited metrics available to measure how effective video marketing is, marketers have been reluctant to throw money at the medium when there was no guarantee who was watching your output.
That was until last month when the Internet Advertising Bureau launched, in partnership with Nielsen, the UK online measurement company (UKOM). For the first time marketers will be able to plan campaigns that target specific audiences using an industry approved system. Just as radio or TV buyers have the RAJARs (Radio Joint Audience Research) and BARBs (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board), online marketers will have a metrics system that will define location, age and spending power, including business purchase responsibility of online audiences.
Jack Wallington, head of industry at IAB, says UKOM will compliment other computer use data and can currently supply data for sites that have over 35,000 visitors a month. “The reaction has been very positive as it is something that has been needed for a long time. B2B marketers will now be able to use UKOM to see which sites work best for their campaigns and from where they are being viewed.”
Wallington says that although 4000 individuals are monitored from work computers compared to the 31,000 consumers on home computers the figure is not to be sniffed at. “There are only 4000 TVs measured for the BARBs, on which multi-million pound campaigns are based on, so 4000 computers is not insignificant. However there are technical barriers to getting more businesses involved in monitoring computer use.”
UKOM has been launched in conjunction with VAST 2.0 (the Video Advertising Standard Template) in an attempt to increase spend and boost advertiser confidence in the medium.
Wallington says VAST 2.0 and UKOM are “two different pieces of the puzzle that lock together” although he admits that VAST 2.0 is “less glamorous, but equally important.” It will enable video adverts to be hosted, and reported, through third parties.
Advertisers will now be able to easily run multi-media campaigns across a large number of sites, rather than having to serve video adverts to each publisher as before.
Wallington says that reporting of video activity will be available within the next six months, allowing marketers to tell exactly which videos are being tagged and at which point.
Channel maturity
Ward says that VAST 2.0 and UKOM are a natural progression for video online and show how the format has reached maturity. “I think anything that makes online video marketing easier is a big step forward.”
So far UKOM has published only one month’s data and surprisingly there is not much difference between which websites are viewed at work or home. Google and MSN/WindowsLive/Bing took the top number one and two positions respectively while BBC took the third place in work locations, Facebook was at this position at home, although it was forth at work.
So while it is unlikely that the 10 million workers who spend on average 4.52 hours a month on Facebook are there to look for your product or service, it shows how important it is to have a presence on the site.
Of the eight million workers using YouTube for 28 minutes a month (that’s 48 per cent of people online at work) some will be searching for the latest thought piece or demo from your company.
As usual Google is at the forefront of video monitoring. One of its latest labs projects is Google Audio Indexing, or Gaudi. Gaudi uses speech recognition technology to capture the transcript of a video, allowing viewers to jump to relevant portions of a video.
Although Gaudi is currently restricted to political footage on YouTube it is a clear indicator of just how seriously the search engine takes video.
Adam Bunn, head of SEO at Greenlight Search says Gaudi will force marketers to consider how they present and structure videos, making sure search-friendly words are included in any scripts. Eventually it is expected that search engines will be able to recognise famous faces.
Bunn says, “Producing video is already a very real aspect to SEO today because Google already integrates video in to search results, almost always from YouTube, but in the future producing video will directly impact on rankings because the content of those videos will be indexed and counted as part of the content of the page the video is on.
“Natural search may no longer be confined to the written word, with video presenters having to ensure they use their target keywords as liberally as possible,” says Bunn.
Jake Ward, director of client services of corporate video production company BroadView, says that video content has played a major part in SEO ever since Google introduced Universal Search in 2008. “The update really changed the market because it means that video is seen as a higher-value tool and with it you see more cross-pollination between sites with link sharing and recommendations.”
Brand TV
Ward says the last 16 months has seen a large step towards brands becoming their own broadcasters, “there is going to become a point where there will be a division between sites that use video and those that don’t.”
Ward recounts anecdotal reports that 85 per cent of IT buyers expect video content on a vendors’ site and think less of a brand if its web presence doesn’t include video content.
Software communications solutions provider Mitel is one such IT company paying attention to the traffic generated by video. Last December it soft launched Mitel TV, a dedicated on-demand video website.
Mitel TV broadcasts videos designed to assist the sales process as well as hosting unique playlists and on-demand educational videos that can be watched in their entirety or by chapters.
“Traditional vendor portals provide channels with a vast array of information that is often difficult and time-consuming to access,” says Duncan Miller, Mitel EMEA marketing communications manager. “Mitel TV has simplified this and the sales process for channels and customers as much as possible.”
Miller explains that the site serves two purposes, acting as both an education and marketing tool for its resellers in the UK.
“We have a wide variety of resellers in terms of their size and capability and they are using the videos in their sales presentations.” Miller adds that an upcoming functionality of Mitel TV will allow resellers to embed it into their own websites.
Currently Mitel TV is UK-only with a Europe-wide and US roll-out expected shortly, however Miller says the company has been surprised at the reach Mitel TV has achieved.
“Essentially we wanted to create our own YouTube and by looking at Google Analytics we can see that we are now cropping up in places we wouldn’t have expected, in areas like Russia and the Far East where we do not necessarily have a presence, thanks to links from bloggers and other recommendations.”
For more information on content marketing and how to turn your incite and advice into sales, attend our ‘Effective content marketing’ seminar on May 26 2010
