Using Spokesperson Video To Introduce Video Marketing Web Commercials
Using Spokesperson Video To Introduce Video Marketing Web Commercials
By Joe Schaefer, PhD
President, Live On Page
An embedded website video commercial can be a powerful branding device in your website, but there are several stumbling blocks that can prevent it from being truly useful in your campaign. The main issue with any video or text content in a website is, “Will anyone engage the content?” There is only a certain percentage of all the site’s visitors that will experience the content before bouncing or exiting the site. It is the altering of this percentage that will make or break your video marketing efforts, assuming that the content will actually contribute to making the sale.
The main question is one of instant clarity – A visitor is unlikely to watch a video of indeterminate length with indeterminate content. Their time is far too precious and they have too many sites to sample quickly in order to invest minutes of time on a shameless sales message with no objective information that goes beyond a blatant sales pitch.
We find that by using a video spokesperson to introduce the embedded website video, viewership increases. The spokesperson can give the 10 second overview of both content and presentation length so that the viewer can request the video instead of being forced to watch it automatically. One could argue that the spokesperson is being forced on the viewer, but the pacing and style of the spokesperson video makes it clear that it will be brief in length and to the point. In fact, the format of spokesperson video is one that is inherently outside the common experience of video. Instead, it lies within the arena of conversation and personal interaction. On the contrary, embedded website video is essentially a “web commercial”. Let me help you think about what this means.
Nobody watches TV to see commercials. In fact, they “bounce” from a station when a commercial comes on. In the exact same way, a viewer will bounce from a website when a commercial starts playing. After all, nobody visited a website today to watch sales pitches and commercials. You might think that the slick packaging of your video marketing will impress these visitors, but keep in mind that in their world outside your website, they watch things like Toy Story 3 and Avatar in 3D. Do you really think that your low budget video, with a script written by a proud but biased business owner can impress anyone? It’s more than likely that it will annoy or amuse them and hopefully they can look past these personal responses to listen to the information presented. A video spokesperson can change this ENTIRE equation by having the visitor hit play to REQUEST the embedded video. Their mindset is absolutely vital to how they will react to the video.
