I don’t know about you, but I love to quote music lyrics in conversation. When I say I love to do this, what I really mean is that later, when I’m thinking about a particular discussion that I’ve had that day with friends or colleagues, I wish that I had quoted the song lyrics that had just popped into my head 3 hours or 3 days after the dialogue.
But what is my point, you ask? Nothing related to music at all.
I was thinking about Video and the song “video killed the radio star” popped into my head and I thought it was quite apt that while video has enhanced the news website, it is definitely killing the traditional print journalist. And now video is moving beyond pure entertainment consumption and news into other categories, such as retail.
I wanted to write about how the use of video has increased sales conversion rates by up to 30% when used on e-commerce websites.
Of course we all like to see our product before we buy it. We want to be able to pick it up, feel how heavy it is, what type of material it is made of. We want to turn it around and see all sides. We want to ask questions and make sure we are getting what we are really looking for. So we used to go online, research our options and then go in store, check out the product in real life, ask questions of a real person (just to check that what we read online was true), then go back online to buy it at a discounted rate.
Video is a powerful tool. It can succinctly explain a difficult concept or demonstrate functionality in 60 seconds. Video often has a human face or voice, which for some reason we trust immediately.
Now, because we have video tutorials and reviews, pictures that you can zoom in on, detailed specifications and online chat, likes and peer comments and reviews, we can buy immediately online and have confidence that we will be getting what we expect. At least 30% of people seem to think this way.
But video can be expensive to produce if you don’t have the in-house resources. So, it’s time to up-skill. There are dozens of affordable video editing software packages available – here is a list of Top Ten Reviews for video editing software. You can shoot video from most mobile phones and digital camera’s, so start today and watch your sales go up.
Have you tried producing your own web videos? Tell us about it.
I know it’s a little off the topic, but I found this blog post by ComScore highlighting the jump in video streaming in 2010. This was no surprise to me or anyone else, but there was an interesting paragraph about finding the elusive 18-34 male audience online. It seems that live video streaming sites will deliver that for advertisers.
Just a tip and a good read about the growth of live streaming and online video: http://blog.comscore.com/2010/09/live_streaming_video_jumps.html
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