Monthly Archives: June 2014

12 Big Video Marketing Numbers You Can’t Afford To Ignore

If you haven’t jumped aboard the video marketing train yet, it could be time to revise your marketing strategy.

Whether you work for yourself, manage a medium sized business or run a large multinational corporation, there is plenty of compelling evidence that suggests video marketing is the next big thing.

Here are 12 big numbers that suggest that video marketing is taking off in a big way, and a nice retro Sesame Street video to go with them, just for fun.

 1.8 Million

According to Dr. James McQuivery at Forrester Research, that is the value of a 60 second video.

1.8 million words is the equivalent of around 3,500 typical web pages. Do you really have that amount of time on your hands, and what’s more, would your visitors have the patience or inclination to wade through that much information? Even if you wrote one page every hour, it would still take you 150 days to make the same impact as a one minute marketing video.

100 Million

That’s the amount of web users who watch video online every day. Okay, so many of those people are going to be watching the latest funny cat video or hilarious footage of people falling over, but they still have the desire and capacity to watch video.

45.4%

That’s the number of Internet users who look at least one video over the course of a month. On average, web users are exposed to 32 videos each month and they are becoming more and more receptive to this type of advertising.

90%

This is the percentage of people who find video useful when they are looking for products or services or just casually browsing the web. Video can persuade in a way that other media cannot. It engages more of the senses and takes viewers on a journey. For 60 seconds or more, they are captivated (if your video is good) and much more likely to take positive action. Reports show that products and services accompanied by a video are much more likely to sell.

16 Minutes And 49 Seconds

That’s how much time web users spend on average watching video ads. However, it’s the reason why people watch video that is important rather than the time they spend watching them. People generally watch a video because it grabs their attention, but in the case of marketing, it can also save them time. A video saves a busy executive or a consumer on the move from wading through pages of text. They can grab what they need about your company, product or service in one easy hit.

Video is a great way to harness the power of the elevator pitch in a much more effective way.

80%

80%, according to the Online Publishers Association, is the percentage of web users who remember a video they last watched in the past 30 days. Even better, out of that 80%, 46% took action after the video ended. Here are some interesting numbers:

  • 26% sought out more information about the video subject

  • 22% visited the website that was named in the ad

  • 15% personally visited the store that was presented in the ad

  • 12% bought the product that was presented in the ad

64%

This is where things really get interesting. 64% is how much more likely your visitors are to make a purchase or make an enquiry after watching your ad. 64%! Additionally, visitors who view video ads tend to stick around for 2 minutes longer than they would on a website without a video.

403%

A real estate group in Australia, reported that property listings featuring video receive 403% more enquiries than listings without.

59%

According to a study carried out by Forbes Insight, 59% of senior execs would rather watch a video than read text. Further studies also showed that 65% of the execs who watched a video were likely to click through to the respective website. 45% of those execs reported that they got in touch with the vendor to find out more about their services. 50% of those who viewed the video went on to make a purchase.

96%

And it’s not just online videos that make an impact. A recent study carried out by Implix showed that a video included in an introductory sales email could increase click-through rate (that’s the amount of people visiting your website from a link) by 96%.

200%

A survey carried out by Forrester Marketing Group found that explainer videos could increase click-through rate by 300%.

10 Seconds

That’s how long you have to hook somebody in with your video. Consumers and busy execs – they don’t have time to hang around. They want to dip in and dip out and you need to keep them around long enough to be compelled to make a sale or get in touch. According to research carried out by Visible Measures, 20% of your potential customers will click away from your video in 10 seconds or fewer.

Want 403% More Engagement? Let’s Talk.

Effective video marketing means engaging your target audience from the very start. At Stormnet Media, we work with the magic 10 second window of opportunity to ensure you keep your audience interested and compelled to take action.

Sharpen your business message with a marketing video that will put you leaps ahead of your competition. Speak to our video marketing experts today. There is nothing to lose and 403% more profit waiting!

Written By Ian Stainton. Ian is the CEO and Founder of Stormnet Media Ltd, an award winning video production and digital media agency based near Birmingham in the UK. He is trusted by global brands, SMEs and start-ups to help them engage and interact with their customers  - ultimately selling more stuff. You can check him out on Google+

How to avoid the biggest pitfall that will ruin your video

One of the most valuable skills that I’ve acquired over the almost 30 years of being in the ‘video business’ is that of scriptwriter. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of great skills to be gained in this industry such as cameraman, animator or editor but without a good script or creative idea the whole thing is a non-starter.

Now, while I’m not likely to be composing any prose that will be studied for eternity by school children or writing the next Hollywood block buster, clients appreciate the friendly, direct and conversational tone that I try to achieve. When writing for video one of the biggest challenges that I always face when putting together a script is avoiding the use of jargon.

Jargon

Headache inducing words

Jargon is defined as “special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand” and this is the whole problem – most people want to be able to understand what you are saying in the easiest and most simple terms – especially when it comes to video.

In a recent survey by the BBC the biggest thing that puts people off buying technology is high tech babble and jargon. Unfortunately this cuts across most industries with almost all having their own special words for things.

Here’s a very funny spoof video that I love that’s overloaded with jargon:

The upshot of all this that people simply don’t buy stuff if they don’t understand it. I’ve seen lots of videos for things that I’m genuinely interested in but don’t understand the benefits because the person who wrote the script focused on jargon packed features instead of telling me what it could do for me.

Let’s look at a (real) BAD example:

[XYZ Product] analyses disparate data streams into market equipped opportunities by amalgamating data from numerous feeds. By then purging, supplementing and evaluating it the [XYZ Product] will deliver business intelligence, insight and a set of key performance indicators to allow you to expose mission critical opportunities for growth and development”.

Huh

Amazingly, this is a genuine line from an online product video (that shall remain nameless) that almost gives you a headache hearing it! This is the sort of utter nonsense that’s like have a full time ‘sales prevention officer’!

Instead, this is what it should have said:

“[XYZ Product] works with your data, wherever you have it to help you make better decisions, offer better products and sell more of them.”

Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and just ask “what can you do for me?” – it’s a simple idea but trust me it works. If this is central to your thoughts and you steer clear of jargon then you’ll be heading in the right direction.

Unfortunately some phrases I’ve heard all too often in videos offer nothing but a barrier to understanding. Typically, they sound quite impressive but don’t mean anything. Here are a couple of the worst culprits:

Customer Focused – This is a meaningless phrase as by definition all companies are ultimately customer focused because that’s where the money is. What’s usually meant by this is to provide a good service. While you can’t just say this you can use testimonials to provide the social proof you need to prove it.

Full-Service – this is another phrase to avoid. Firstly, no company is ‘full-service’ and secondly it often confuses people as to what you actually mean. Phrases that are obviously not true don’t endear you to an audience.

We Give 110% – We know that this means that you’ll go above and beyond the level required but again it’s just meaningless jargon. It’s so overused that it can have the reverse affect and give a negative and untrustworthy signal to a buyer – so don’t do it.

Jargon Gone

If only it was this simple…

Also think benefits – people don’t (mostly) care if your product has an ‘overhead grimble thruster’ of if you are the ‘market leader’ – they just want to know how they will benefit. So don’t be afraid to ditch the Jargon and be a simple script-writer… your audience (and your bank manager) will thank you for it.

Written By Ian Stainton. Ian is the CEO and Founder of Stormnet Media Ltd, an award winning video production and digital media agency based near Birmingham in the UK. He is trusted by global brands, SMEs and start-ups to help them engage and interact with their customers  - ultimately selling more stuff. You can check him out on Google+

Animation Case Study – Motorola

The Challenge

When Motorola came to us they wanted to showcase the features of their new mobile phone in a way that was easy to understand and without using voice over. Motorola were in the process of launching lots of new devices to the networks and were struggling to find a clear way to quickly show the innovative new features of their phones in a way that was engaging and persuasive. They had piles of technical specs, drawings, production prototypes and a wish list of all the final features but no actual phone. In fact there would be no phone available until after initial launch.

Moto Concept Wheel

Initial concept of the phones main navigation

The Brief

The brief was fairly simple – design and create a 90 second animation that would show-off all the phones features in a new and innovative way. However, they wanted all of this without us ever actually seeing a working phone and they wanted it delivered in under 4 weeks. They could see that we were full of good ideas and had helped other businesses boost sales with animated videos, but even by our standards this was going to be a big challenge. Usually with a project like this we’d get to see a prototype so we could understand how the software would work which would enable us to translate this into the animation. However, we were running blind so we despatched our creative team to set-up camp in Moto’s ‘war room’ so we could talk to the various techies involved and develop a clear idea of just how this thing worked.

Lucy, our storyboard artist hard at work

Lucy, our storyboard artist hard at work

Motorola’s audience were what they termed as ‘early adopters’ and ‘fire-breathing-achievers’ so we were briefed on the demographic of the audience so we could ensure that the animation was aspirational and appealing. The video was to be used by their sales teams, on their website as well as part of a TV campaign in some European territories.

Creative Process

Because of the short timeline we needed to define the animation quickly. This required us to come up with three different concepts for the animation so we could present these to Motorola’s marketing team and then decide on the final style and direction. Working with such an open brief our creative team produced the concepts in record time. Fuelled by ‘Red Bull’ and copious quantities of coffee all of the ideas definitely had a feeling of energy and passion.

The idea that was chosen centred around a piece of music that Motorola had the rights for by the ‘Black Eyed Peas’. The challenge from here in was to now show how the phone used an innovative navigation wheel to access and play music without any voice description. It was decided that we should create a 3D animated model of the device and overlay the video with highlights to show the finger gestures that could be used. This was then to be combined with graphic representations of some of the features such as the music library.

Animation

The start of the 3D modelling process

The start of the 3D modelling process

The animation process was extremely complex. Firstly we had to build an exact copy of the device in 3D space. It needed to be a perfect representation of the phone in all aspects, from the dimensions through to the different surface textures and materials. Normally we are able to import CAD files that our software uses to build the model, however on this occasion we had no files to work from and had to build it from scratch. This process normally takes a couple of weeks to complete but with the clock ticking (and yet more coffee) we had this completed in 48 hours. We did have a bit of luck along the way, normally we wait until all the surface materials are confirmed, but on this occasion we second guessed a few to save time and luckily for us they were all spot on.

Once the animated model was completed we then build the animation environment. By this we mean the ‘universe’ in which the model sits. From this point we can start to add lighting and decide on how we are going to move the actual model or the camera viewpoint. This is all done with what are called wireframes so as to make the manipulation and rendering time faster. As soon as these have all be decided we can then add in the final textures to complete the model moves.

On top of the 3D model sits a few layers of video effects. Using a programme called ‘After Effects’ we then add in some of the animation details – in this case the gestures and images that represent things such and the phone’s music library. This is all edited together with the soundtrack and sound effects to give the animation the final touches.

After Effects Interface

After Effects is used to create additional animation effects

End Result

The end result was an animation that helped Motorola successfully sell in the device to all the major networks and operators as well as retail outlets. The animation was used online and across Europe in a number of TV campaigns.

Hopefully you’ll have got an idea as to how things can be turned round very quickly and an idea of the processes involved in creating an animation. All in all with this job we had a lot of our resources working on it at the same time so we could hit the tight deadline required. If you have any questions or would like to discuss any project then we’d love to hear from you.

Written By: Ian Stainton

Ian Stainton is the CEO and Founder of Stormnet Media Ltd, an award winning video production and digital media agency based near Birmingham in the UK. He is trusted by global brands, SMEs and start-ups to help them engage and interact with their customers  - ultimately selling more stuff. You can check him out on Google+