What is a video? We weren’t so sure. Then we figured out that it’s a series of frames arranged to form a moving picture. Then our questions became more metaphysical, more advanced: why video? We went on a lengthy, complicated vision quest in search of the answer. I’d type more, but as it turns out, video sort of eliminates the need to do that.
 Fan Bi is the co-founder of Blank Label, a custom dress shirt company whose mission is simple: to make the luxury and empowerment of custom more accessible and more affordable. You can follow him on Twitter at @lifeoffbi or Blank Label at @blanklabel. |
Chinese New Year is the world’s biggest annual human migration, and with Blank Label doing its manufacturing in China, it’s our biggest annual production headache. Blank Label is an online custom dress shirt maker, and for two weeks each year around January and February, our tailors take two weeks off to travel home and spend time with families. In previous years, we’ve tried communicating the break with homepage browser pop-ups, banners around the site, support email auto-reponders, all of which generally cause confusion about why we’re delaying our customers’ orders.
In addition, during the break, our sales always freeze up. People get turned off and just don’t order during the period. We’ve had three years to try different communication tactics and just hadn’t found a good way to communicate why people should be okay with their order being two weeks late. Late last year, we were introduced to Wistia, and the power of communicating a message online with video. Immediately I understood why Wistia was better for business than YouTube, for us most notably. At the end of YouTube videos we posted, it would show related video from competitors. But it wasn’t until I saw some profiles of businesses Wistia had done that I understood that Wistia wasn’t just useful for screencasts, but that it could really communicate a story or message in a simple, engaging, brand-elevated manner.
This year we tried something different. We placed a banner on our homepage with a clear hyperlink that showed a pop-over lightbox video (with code simply copy-and-pasted from Wistia’s new SuperEmbed). We’ve received dozen of compliments on the video, our orders have held steady through out break, and it’s saved our customer service champions so much time explaining to people why their orders might be late. We’re now looking to add video to other important elements of the site including Returns, How It Works, and launches of new products. With the power of a SLR camera, some light video editing and Wistia’s SuperEmbed, we’ve been able to turn a customer and service frustration into a sales and branding win.
Do you have a frequently asked question or highly visited part of your site you think can be better served with video?
Your newest video just entered the wild, and you couldn't be prouder. Then, just when the tale seems to be reaching its happy end, you realize you've made a horrible oversight and something major is off. There's no getting around it: you need to replace the video, stat, but the one person with access to the page where the video is embedded is nowhere to be found, and you're racking up views by the hundreds who think your company is named "Wisti" or "Wisteria" or "Bratwurstia" instead of "Wistia".
With our Replaceable Video tool, launched today, you'll never have to worry about this scenario again. With one click, you can upload a new file in the place of any video in your account, and it will be replaced everywhere: in all of your embeds and in the Wistia app. It works with all SuperEmbeds and in all legacy embeds except the legacy HTML embed. As we're encoding the web-viewable versions of your new video, the old version will stay visible. As soon as those encodes are complete, your video will be automatically, seamlessly updated in all locations, with a new thumbnail and everything. So go ahead, run wild, be free and make mistakes. We've entered no regrets mode.
I’m proud to say that I’ve recently shifted how I use Facebook. I transitioned out of stalker mode and into business mode, using the platform to showcase my latest video work as CRLVIDEO. When I make a new video that I’m particularly proud of, I first email my close friends directly, then tweet it, then embed a Wistia video on my Facebook wall. Sharing my work on Facebook may be self-gratifying, but I tell myself that it’s building recognition for CRLVIDEO and what I do.
Every year (since 2005), I edit a short “year in review” video for my wife Courtney for Christmas. Nothing special, just some quirky music with pictures and video clips from whatever we did that year. I consider it to be the most important project I work on all year. No matter how many other projects I find myself trying to wrap up by the year’s end, I always love finding time to do at least this one very important project.
I followed the same video sharing progression I use for CRLVIDEO after I completed (and gifted) this year’s 2011 Christmas video. I sent out a few emails, tweeted it, and posted it on my (and Courtney’s) Facebook walls. Like the analytics junkie that I am, I checked my Wistia stats on the video a few days after.
I was shocked by the numbers. An extremely personal video. Made up of personal memories. Featuring pictures and video of only my wife and me. Garnered a metric of 91% engagement across everyone who watched the video. Umm...what? We’re not talking about a 10 second video here. This was a 3 minute and 10 second video... one of the longest I’ve created in over 2 years. 67 people watched an average of 91% of the video. 91% of every vomit-inducing, sappy, love-drenched frame.
With this video, I reached a new milestone. The 2011 Christmas video became the most engaging video of all of the videos I host on Wistia. Why? I don’t think it’s because it’s my best video. I think it’s because the video offers a privileged look inside our lives. We’re not living any differently than a lot of other of our friends. It’s the sheer curiosity and downright creepiness of everyone in our Facebook network that led each person to click play and watch all the way through.
Not creepy enough for you yet? Check out the spike in the aggregate graph at around 2:15. People re-watching this section like woah. Why? Because it had a joke picture of a joke gift from two of our closest friends that fake alluded to Courtney being pregnant. Guess that explains the e-mails from people we haven’t talked to since high school asking when the baby is due and if we know what she’s having!
There are a few lessons I learned here:
Smooth Playback is a webcomic about web video.
We’ve all been there: you play a video that really grasps at the core of your soul, but nothing is infinite so, eventually, it ends. You’re faced with a blank screen or something equally unreassuring and your soul is propelled into an existential void, never to return to reality. Well, we have good news for you: it doesn’t have to end this way.
When designing a webpage or an email blast we’ve all been coached by the marketing gurus to include a call to action to help guide the behavior of our audience. How come we don’t do the same thing with video?
For the most part, people don’t add CTAs to video because it used to be technically difficult to pull off. Do you add an image to the end of the video? How do you make it an active link? Can you even control what happens at the end of the video (like with YouTube, where the end of the video is outside the scope of what you can customize)?
As a result, most people settle for a simple fade to black or company logo. Heck, we’ve been guilty of that practice ourselves, mostly because its the easiest thing to do. But all of us have been missing a big opportunity to help influence our audience’s next action. Where can you direct users with a call to action?
With Wistia’s new SuperEmbeds, it’s super easy to add your own call to action to any video. Give it a try in our interactive demo!
Check out a call to action in action below:
What kind of device is your audience watching your videos on? Should you make a mobile version? Should you make an iPhone or an iPad version? What about Android? There’s no incentive for your audience to watch your video if it looks like crap or if the audio is out of sync.
When you’re serving web video, your audience is going to be on different computers, with different connections, and different capabilities. You need to deliver your content in such a way that it doesn’t detract from the message. In the end, it’s all about viewer experience. Here’s to web video that doesn’t suck.
