Web-Epics Video marketing

Please tell me it is an April Fool!

At last some UK online video stats!

I am constantly coming across US figures and all too rarely UK statistics. So it’s good to get confirmation from Hitwise that online video growth is every bit as healthy over this side of the Atlantic.

The headline figure is that UK Internet traffic to online video websites increased by 178% between February 2007 and 2008.

But perhaps of most interest (and buried towards the end of Robin Goad’s blog) is the fact that “One in every 40 searches in the UK during February 2008 resulted in a visit to a video site”.

Videoegg, one of the first established user generated video content sites that launched in early 2005 is shutting up shop; or at least they are closing the “My Video Egg” platform part of the business.

As the email sent to all subscribers states;

“It is with our sincerest regret to inform you that we will be closing the doors on the Videoegg Publisher Platform and related services at http://my.videoegg.com/. “

In answer to the question as to why they are decommissioning, the FAQs on the site state somewhat ambiguously that;

“… resources at technology startups are limited and it is in our best interest to focus on the core of our business at this time. With a wide range of video destination sites available on the market, we feel that we are leaving you in good hands. “

It was not that many weeks ago that Brightcove pulled the plugs on their free upload facility.

Presumably the “paying” side of the Video Egg business is working. As they stated in a recent blog;

“People working in the digital marketing space have a couple of things to be happy about in 2008. First, we are finally seeing a decent amount of TV dollars moving online - something that took much longer than it should have, and wasn’t easy.”

Suggesting that this particular egg has landed sunny-side up and they have secured enough of those TV Dollars to jetison the user generated video that brought them traffic… and overheads.

Is this a start of a trend as the plethora of user generated content sites try and find sustainable business models? After all, Google can’t buy them all!

I wonder as well if the pure ‘novelty’ online video has had its day and whether people are more interested in sensible communication with video rather than distraction?

Just over a week ago Web-Epics took our first tentative steps into Email marketing with some impressive results.

• 1. 25.9% of people who opened the email clicked through to view our video content.

• 2. Within an hour of sending the email a prospective customer we had not heard from for many weeks came back with a confirmation he wanted to go ahead with a Video Testimonial

• 3. Another potential new client has just visited us for a two hour meeting about how video can boost the effectivenes of his website in at least six different ways

• 4. Our website traffic has doubled

• 5. We now appear 7th and 9th on a global Google search for Video Marketing (3rd and 5th for the UK)

The power of video marketing!

I know that I speak for my fellow man (as in ‘male’) when I say that generally instruction manuals are there for when things go wrong - and then only as a last resort when you’ve spent a good couple of hours stubbornly trying to figure it out for yourself.
I’m thinking here of manuals for the huge number of technical appliances that now dominate our working and domestic lives. As a video business of course we probably acquire more than most, with all the shiny Japanese electronics and gizmos that are occupational hazards. Sometimes the equipment store in the office looks more like the shop window of Dixon’s (they don’t exist any more do they?) with all the video decks and DVD players of varying formats. And my young daughters are often marvelling at the multiple arrays of screens that seem to keep appearing whenever they visit the office. (Hint: if you like LCD screens get into video editing… you always have at least two on your desk!)

Anyway, back to the point… the ‘user manual’; how often does it happen when you finally realise you need to refer to the manual that you cannot find it. Is it in the box? Is it in the filing cabinet? Did it get thrown away with the box? And even if you can find it, the chances are it is the Greek version!

Today I had this self same problem when I couldn’t get one of our video decks to do what I wanted it to do. Of course, the manual was not where it should have been. So what did I do? Well, I did what any self respecting male who, when finally resorting to the manual and cannot find it does and turned to the great Google. Low and behold it led me to TV.ManualsOnline.com

This is fantastic! They have available - for free! - all kinds of user manuals in PDF format; all searchable and listed by manufacturer.

Not only that they are part of The OwnerIQ Network whose stated goal is…
“to make it easy and hassle-free to find the user manuals for the many products you own.”

What an honourable ambition!
They seem to have sites for everything from air-conditioning units, white goods, digital cameras, portable media, audio, car audio, TVs of all types… they’ve got everything… its the Harrod’s of user manuals!

And the really neat thing is it saves the manuals you need on-line in your own ‘electronic filing cabinet’ so you need never lose a manual again!

I feel reborn!

Picked this up from Informitv -who provide advice and consultancy on the future of television and video.Apparently immediately before their share price plummeted to $2 a share and while JP Morgan were waiting in the wings gleefully rubbing their hands, Bear Stearns were publishing a report on how “internet video is poised for explosive expansion”. Apparently they are forecasting that 90% of internet users will be watching video online by 2012.

Elsewhere I found another quote from the report saying;

“We believe that video will be at the very heart of the next five years of web evolution.”

So, some comfort for Bear Stearns then… they don’t seem to have got it all wrong.

(Note: No Bear Stearns shareholders were harmed in the writing of this post)

More and more businesses are getting wise to the effectiveness of video over the web.

Inevitably - particularly at the micro-business level where marketing budgets are likely to be slim or non-existent - some opt to shoot their own video. And why not? As these tend to be straight forward ‘talking head’ pieces, only a very modest investment in equipment is needed and as long as the presenter is clear on their message and can deliver it succinctly they should be able to achieve a passable result. Except all too often basic lighting mistakes are made. In most cases these are easily avoidable and not expensive to fix.

So often, I have seen an otherwise credible presentation to camera wasted because the speaker’s face is in shadow. In one regrettable film, there was a table lamp, beautifully framed next to the female presenter, that illuminated the wallpaper behind perfectly while the all important subject’s visage was cast in deep shadow! It rendered the piece totally unwatchable; what she had to say was actually very interesting, but as a viewer there was absolutely no incentive to keep watching… unless you were attracted to the wallpaper of course! Most annoyingly, whoever shot the piece could have taken two minutes to do two simple things that would have transformed the end result;

1. 1. If proper video lighting was not available, simply placing a reflective surface to bounce light back into the subject’s face
2. 2. Switching to ‘Manual Mode’ and adjusting the camera to expose correctly for the face and not the background

Often the difference between a professional video that reflects a business in a positive light (multiple puns intended) and a waste of tape that makes people ask “why did they bother” comes down to such small and simple actions.

I’m sure you have noticed just as much as I have the increasing number of web sites that are now making use of video.
In an effort to try and find some stats to back my perceptions up, I came across these figures a few weeks ago when researching a presentation I was making for Business Link

Okay, they are all USA figures - why do they always seem to have more research available than the UK? - but I think they give a fair indication of the scale of the national, international and global apetite for video on the web and how it is growing.

Anyway, here come the numbers - watch out they are BIG!

By the way the figures come from comSCORE Video Metrix

1. 1. The total number of videos streamed in the USA during September 2007 was 9.2 billion!
2. 2. The number of people in the USA who viewed a video online in September 2007 was 136,000,000!
3. 3. 74,8% of ALL USA web users watched a video online during September 2007!

Big enough?

Have you ever been in that position where you need to know what particular font a client uses in their logo and communications?

It often happens for us when creating titles and captions and we need them to be consistent with the client’s website where the video is going to be shown. Very often the client doesn’t know and you need a quick answer. Jonathan Schofield of Watershed Creative (Designer of this site) drew my attention a while back to WhatTheFont. This clever little tool allows you to upload an image of the logo or type style either from your local computer or to point to an image url on a website and gives you a listing of the fonts it is likely to be. Very simple, quick and normally gets you pretty close to the actual font. Here is an example of whatthefont returned when I uploaded the logo of The Wow Company who we shot some video testimonials for yesterday.

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