The Cost of Free Video Hosting

Jan
27
2010

Before we get into the costs of free video hosting, let’s start with what’s great about it. We’ll use YouTube as an example since it’s practically synonymous with free web video.

The Value

YouTube can be a great resource for driving traffic and interest to your own site if used properly. Here are the ways we recommend businesses leverage YouTube.

Search

YouTube is the world’s largest video search engine. Optimizing your videos so that they can be discovered on YouTube is a great strategy to increase your visibility and help to spread your brand.

Viral Spread

YouTube has become the de-facto standard for video embeds and is supported by every social network, blog, and web interface out there. If you’re creating viral content that you want bloggers, tweeters, and facebookers to share, you should be getting your content onto YouTube.

Driving Traffic

YouTube can help drive brand-awareness, but the ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your website. Can a viewer buy your product on YouTube? Nope. You need to hook them and bring them back to your site.

The Costs

There is a cost for all this free video hosting. The root of this issue really comes down to a difference in priorities. Your priority is to use video to drive more business. YouTube’s priority is to maximize the visitors that stay on YouTube in order to drive ad revenue. You want to bring visitors to your site and YouTube wants to keep them on its site.

Content Rights

YouTube needs the ability to make money on every piece of content that enters their system. So be aware that when you upload to YouTube, you’re granting them license to do whatever they want with your content. Here it is in their terms of service.

“…by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.”

Branding

Perhaps the most obvious drawback of using YouTube embeds on your website is all of your videos will now feature YouTube’s logo in the bottom right corner. Would you display an ad for your web hosting provider on every page in exchange for free hosting? Not likely.

Related Videos

Want to embed a YouTube video on to your company’s site? Great idea, except for one thing: you’ve now created a permanent link on your website right back to YouTube — not the best idea for your sales funnel. And more than that, at the end of your video, YouTube displays a list of “related videos”. Imagine your product demo finishes playing and YouTube pops up your competitor’s products!

Blocked Messages

YouTube is an entertainment destination. And just like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, it’s blocked by corporate networks around the world. If you’re selling to other businesses, you should be certain they can see your videos.

The Bottom Line

Treat free video hosting as free advertising for your company or product. Drive interested visitors back to your website like you would with any other marketing channel so that you can push those visitors through your funnel.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

What does “Video Marketing” really mean?

Jan
11
2010

Paradigm shifting technologies are great, but they can have an unfortunate side effect… confusion about new terminology. One such phrase that’s currently mired in confusion is “video marketing.” Folks generally fall into one of two camps, both of which are valid but beg definitions, differentiation, and division. We’ll break these camps into two groups: “Marketing With Video” and “Marketing A Video”.

Marketing With Video

The people in the “Marketing With Video” camp are usually selling a product or service and using video to better explain that product or service. This typically takes the form of incorporating video into a direct marketing campaign like a newsletter or promotion. The simplest example of “Marketing WITH Video” is a company adding video to its website to summarize its product. Other examples of “Marketing With Video” include:

  • small-dotGathering actionable data on user engagement to help optimize a purchase funnel
  • small-dotIncorporating video into e-mail marketing campaigns to understand which prospects are particularly interested
  • small-dotUsing recorded webinars as a source of lead generation.

Here’s an example of “Marketing With Video”. This video is designed to better inform a web visitor about some elements of a product once they’re on our site. It wouldn’t be nearly as useful if viewed on YouTube.

The common thread of “Marketing With Video” is that the video is designed to better market things to someone who is already engaging with your company because they’re on your website, signed up for your newsletter, downloaded a whitepaper, or perhaps registered with you at a trade show.

Marketing A Video

Businesses who think of Video Marketing as “Marketing A Video” are generally trying to build brand awareness for their company/products. This is done by giving viewers a taste of the brand or concept in a concise package that can travel anywhere and that is designed to be shared. Taken to its extreme a video will be so compelling that it will market itself and you have created the elusive viral video. For this reason, these types of videos are generally more about entertainment and less about explanation.

Once the video has been created, it is often pushed out to as many of the consumer video sharing sites as possible (YouTube, Vimeo, blip.tv, etc.). These videos are often accompanied by a social media campaign, reaching out to bloggers and posting on Twitter, to try and generate buzz (and views) for the company’s video. For companies in this camp, they can either manually manage the whole process of marketing their video, or they can use third party tools like TubeMogul. TubeMogul allows companies to push videos to several different video sharing sites simultaneously and track the views across all of those channels in a single dashboard.

Here’s a great example of a “Marketing A Video” campaign that turned out to be a viral success. I’m unsure exactly what it’s for, but I like it!

So, why does this matter?

These differentiations are important because understanding them can be the difference between solving your problems quickly and being lost in the mire of marketing-speak website after marketing-speak website. Do you find this differentiation important? How would you improve upon these definitions?

Posted in rant | 6 Comments »

Share Video Like a Boss

Jan
7
2010

Since the Wistia tees that we printed up in November were a huge hit with all of you guys, we decided to keep the good times rolling with a new ad campaign.

Let us know if you spot them in the wild!

The Shirts

Wistia Shirts

The Ad

Screen shot 2010-01-07 at 4.53.29 PM

Posted in business, swag | 2 Comments »

Does length matter? It does for video!

Dec
14
2009

We’ve always touted the message “shorter videos are better”. They tend to get straight to the point and hold attention better than a drawn-out message. We’ve certainly noticed measured improvements when tightening up our own marketing videos. But are longer videos inherently less engaging than shorter videos?

Now that we have a wealth of video tracking data at our fingertips, we thought we’d put the old “shorter is better” theory to the test.

The Initial Test

30v90

We worked with one of our customers who has been testing two variations of the same video. The red line in the graph above represents the engagement of their 30-second video. The blue line is the engagement graph for a 90-second video. It’s expected that these two videos would have different engagement graphs, but what’s odd is that the first 30 seconds of both videos are identical!

Even though viewers were exposed to the same exact content, the drop-off rate of the 90-second video was much higher. By the end of the 30-second video there were about double the number of viewers than at the same point in the 90-second video.

A Wider Look

Our initial test got us thinking. Does this hold true on a larger scale? We decided to look at completion percentages across the thousands of videos we host.

viewingpercentage

We were right! Shorter videos are more engaging than longer videos, but there are some other unexpected trends. The average 30-second video was viewed 85% of the way through, while the average 2-minute video was viewed on average 50% of the way through. That is a very fast viewership drop-off. But what’s surprising is that the average viewing percentage stays quite consistent for 2-minute videos to 10-minute videos. That means the time spent watching is increasing almost proportionally with the video length during this period. Take a look:

minutesviewed

What does this mean?

The data is quite clear, shorter videos are more engaging than longer videos. For videos 2 minutes and under, you should strive to make your content as short and punchy as possible to guarantee the highest engagement. If your video is 30 seconds or under, it’s very likely that most people will watch it all the way through.

If your message is more complex, be comfortable taking the time to explain it, but understand that half of your audience won’t make it to the end of the video. With this in mind, you would be well served to front-load your video with the most important parts of your message.

Understanding the relationship between video length and viewer engagement can help you ensure that your audience is getting the most out of your videos.

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Posted in analytics, instructables | 7 Comments »

How are commercial videos really watched?

Dec
3
2009

One of the benefits of hosting thousands of business videos is that we have an opportunity to learn and track the patterns of how these videos are really being watched. What we’ve found is that there are a few very specific ways in which viewers watch commercial video. I’m going to focus on the three most common patterns and explain what each is trying to tell you about your video.

usain_bolt1The Early Finisher was excited enough to click play but lost interest almost immediately. Most of the time this means that they didn’t get what they were expecting, and expectations for the video are predominately set by the thumbnail. An easy fix is to change your still frame to something that provides a better explanation of what’s in the video. Another common issue that creates an early finisher is the “slow start”. Viewers expect instant gratification when watching video, especially when they’re watching commercial videos. Keeping a title screen up for even just 5 seconds can easily cause 20% of your audience to leave.

theearlyfinisher

skipperThe Skipper, just like his Gilligan’s Island counterpart, is an under-appreciated player. This guy or gal skips throughout the video looking for an answer to a question or just for something that interests them. They’re trying to find something interesting and sometimes they will (like the example below). The skipper is far more common on long videos. We’ve found that the best solution is to break up your videos into logical bite-sized pieces. For example, instead of having one long demo reel, our friends at Lilipip (an animation studio) showcase a number of shorter videos in one playlist. Helping people find what they want quickly is the key to keeping a skipper happy.

theskipper

robert-downey-jr-sherlock-holmes-06The Sherlock is a deeply engaged and inquisitive viewer. They are clearly trying to get something out of your video. This also means that they are highly interested in what you are providing. There’s no fix for this because having a Sherlock is great! What you should do is focus on the areas the Sherlock is most interested in and decide if their interest is unique or an indication of larger interest. Do whatever you can to talk to your Sherlocks. We put the Olark chat widget onto our website (you can see it on the lower-right of this page) so that we can make sure that we engage with our most interested viewers.

thesherlock

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Posted in analytics, business, customers | No Comments »

Video: From Blog Post to Screencast in 2 hours

Nov
12
2009

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post covering the 4 Advantages of Using Video in your Email Marketing. We had a great response to that post so I thought I’d try something new, turning a blog post into a video.

I made the screencast of 4 Advantages in a couple of hours in an afternoon. I worked off of the post as a basis for the script, which meant that writing only took about 20 minutes! I recorded everything, pieced it together and what you see below is the finished screencast. I made the video with ScreenFlow 2.0, which is a nice update to the previous version.

Let me know what you think of the conversion to video. Would you rather read the post or watch the video? Which one made the concepts easier to understand? We’d love to know what you think!

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Stop Throwing Away Valuable Marketing Assets: Your Webinars

Nov
5
2009

It might seem odd for a video marketing company to extol the power of webinars (an arguably competitive medium to video), but we think webinars and video go hand-in-hand like TV and TiVo.

Why are webinars valuable?

For the viewer, webinars provide a way to learn something new about a process, product, approach, or feature. In exchange the viewer is asked to give up their email and any other relevant contact information. For the host, webinars present a way to connect with a new audience. In return the host gets more leads, it’s a simple and overall valuable arrangement.

So why are webinars more valuable than previously thought?

They can be recorded. The first time the webinar is presented it creates value. But by simply recording your webinar it can continue to create value for months (and sometimes even years). Here are a couple of easy ways to get more from your recorded webinars.

  • Feature it as a resource on your website
  • Use it as the main event of an email campaign
  • Have your sales team send it as follow up to prospects
  • Provide access to those who couldn’t attend live

But how much value will my recorded webinar really add?

We’ll measure it. With webinars coming in at 30 and 90 minutes  in length, they are 15-50x longer than the average marketing video. NO ONE will watch 30 minutes (let alone 90) of something that isn’t interesting. This is a powerful point. By tracking those people that actually do watch your video you’ll learn which individuals are most interested in your topic (not a bad starting point for the sales team) and what interests people most in your webinar (so you can learn how to make your next webinar even better).

And here’s a teaser from a future post, a couple of the common ways we see people watching recorded webinars.

Webinar Viewing Types

Tags: , , ,
Posted in business, rant | 1 Comment »

New Feature: Fully Custom Side Bars

Oct
29
2009

Customize your sidebar! Wistia now includes a powerful and easy to use editor that allows you to add rich text, images, and web forms in your sidebar.

Just take a look at these 3 examples. It took me no time flat to whip up these beauties! Click here to see them in Wistia.

wistia_sidebar_elements

What can I do with this?

  • Create web forms – Create a form right next to your video and let your prospects sign up for your mailing list, register for a webinar, or even buy your product.
  • Co-brand your content - Doing reviews and approvals with a client? Feature your customer’s logo in the project and make them feel right at home.
  • Link to other content - Link viewers back to your website or to other content within your Wistia account.

How do I use it?

  1. Navigate to a project or a media in your account.
  2. Click ‘Create Sidebar Element’ from the Actions menu.
  3. Add a ‘Description’ element.
  4. Then click the ‘Edit’ link at the bottom of your new description element.

You can toggle between advanced and simple editing modes and for those HTML nuts out there, you can even edit the source directly. The possibilities are endless.

We’re really looking forward to see how you guys use this.

Posted in instructables, product | No Comments »

5 Things Video Will Replace in Your Business

Oct
27
2009

jane-jetson_l

It’s easy to forget just how many different ways video can enhance communications. Anywhere there is a repeatable (and often complex) message, video can lend a helping hand to tell that story more efficiently and in some cases tell it better. We’re highlighting 5 of the most popular ways we’ve seen people scaling their communication with video.

Product Demos

Replacing the initial in-person demo or online meeting presentation keeps your salesforce more available to focus on ripe opportunities. Giving your prospects the opportunity to watch product demos whenever they want, allows them to become better informed more quickly.  There’s no need to schedule a time to walk through the same canned demo; prospective customers can watch just what interests them.  The result is that prospects will already understand your product during initial sales calls, resulting in more meaningful questions being answered earlier in the process.

Customer Testimonials

Giving a prospect access to a happy customer is one of the most effective ways to gain trust and ultimately close deals, and yet one of the most difficult things to scale. Your customers may love your product but they’ve still go their own job to do and life to live. Interviewing your customers for testimonials on video can help you to harness one of the most effective (and underutilized) marketing and sales techniques.

Cold Calling

Cold calling is a polarizing issue. It draws “w00ts” from those seeing success and “@%!#’s” from almost everybody else. Many companies still use cold calling effectively but it’s at the expense of the 90% of people who never wanted to hear from them in the first place.

Fortunately we’re seeing a positive shift… turning cold calling scripts into video. Taking your message and putting it into a video format allows you to improve the quality of the message, annoy less people, and focus on communicating with those people that are actually interested. The goal of most cold calling is to gauge interest and qualify potential leads.  Letting people receive your message when it is convenient for them lowers barriers and makes it easier for the person to demonstrate interest.  By tracking what a potential lead watches you can spend more time following up with meaningful conversations and less time playing phone tag.

In Person Training

Keeping your customers, employees, and prospects well educated about your company and products is crucial to keep your business moving forward. When there weren’t technological options, it was common to ask people to fly in from around the country and spend an afternoon learning about all the new whizbang products and services your company has been cooking up. Today, we’re seeing people in the same company, sometimes even the same office opting to educate each other using video instead of meeting in person. Using online video to educate means that there’s no travel to schedule, venue to book, or documents to print out. It allows people to learn on their own time when it fits into their schedule. Just as you knew how many people came to your event, you can track how many (and which) people watched the video to get a sense for the impact.

Help & Support

Providing a solid line of defense for customer support is key to keeping customers happy and prospects engaged. Some customers will tweet questions @you, others while be satisfied with a FAQ or forum, but others want more in-depth explanations. As expectations have shifted we’ve found an increasing number of people expect that they can find the solution to their problem without having to pick up a phone or send an email. This is great, but it puts the onus on you to make sure that you can help answer even the most complex solution to problems on-demand. We’re seeing more and more businesses embracing video to get this job done right. Over time every business will include videos to explain many of their complex processes.

What’s next?

While even a few years ago it would have been a pipe dream to use online video to make all of the above business processes more efficient and scalable, today it’s a reality.  As technology advances and high quality video becomes easier and cheaper to produce, what will be the next generation of things in your business to be replaced with video?

Posted in business, rant | 4 Comments »

Announcing a New Way to Privately Share Video

Oct
21
2009

We’re very excited to announce a new, really easy way to privately share your video using Wistia: Project Links.

Watch this 45-second video to see how it works:

There are some situations where you just want a bunch of people to watch your video without having to jump through any hoops (e.g. enter a password or register).

Now you can have Wistia generate a secure link and send it to whomever you like, however you like. Of course, all the clicks and video views are tracked. You can even disable a link to revoke access.

Thanks to all our customers who helped push us in this direction. You know who you are!

Posted in instructables, product, screencast | 2 Comments »

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