Archive for January, 2010

Click-to-pay Vs. Auto-play

Monday, January 18th, 2010

We regularly get clients that want to know what’s best: click-to-play or auto-play? Here are a few suggestions to help you make that decision.

1. Determine your the video’s purpose. Is the video the focal point of the page? Supplementary? or for entertainment? If it’s the focal point, it’s likely visitors are anticipating the video before they get there. If so, it’s ok to auto-play it. If it’s just supplementary or for entertainment, they may not be expecting a video and it’s best to have it click-to-play.

2. Is your page a landing page or a regular page on your site? If it’s a landing page, recent articles have suggested that while auto-play videos can be powerful, they don’t necessarily increase conversion rates.

3. On product pages, our customers have seen success with auto-play, but it depends on your audience and your product. If your product is subtle, or requires a lot of decision time, it’s probably best to not force the video on the viewer. If it’s a cool, hip, exciting product, it’s likely that an auto-play video is appropriate.

In the end, it’s important to have good video content. If it’s compelling, people will watch it and enjoy it regardless of auto-play and click-to-play options. Just remember, when in doubt do a test! Try both versions and see what happens.

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When is video the right decision?

Friday, January 8th, 2010

I think video is awesome. I think it builds branding, presence, the customer experience, and increases in both sales and conversion rates. However, there are times when video isn’t the best way to spend your money. So, how do you determine if video is right for you? Let’s look at a company that came into our office a few days ago.

Zoobies sells a stuffed animal that is also a pillow and a fold out blanket. Here is a picture of a zoobie pet and a regular stuffed animal:

Ok, so one of these folds out into a cool blanket and also acts as a pillow. Which one? It would be hard to tell if you were looking at them on the shelf of a toy store. The one on the left is a Zoobie pet. Even if I included the rest of the images, it wouldn’t do it justice. That’s why Zoobies is considering adding a library of video about each of their products.

If demonstration is key to helping your clients either see the full functionality of your product or in helping them see the competitive advantage it has over other products, then video is essential! With all the tools now available to business owners in 2010, there is no reason not to add video to your site! Find a way to get video soon. I might know of some affordable video production and cool delivery technology if you are interested :) Happy Friday!

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Posted in Video, Video Production, Web Video | No Comments »

50,000 product videos?

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Online retailer giant Zappos.com is serious about product videos. Why? because they are seeing a 6%-30% increase on every product they sell that uses video on its page. In fact, Zappos has said they want to make 50,000 product videos by the end of 2010. That’s an ambitious goal, but they recognize the potential ROI received from doing product videos.

Zappos is large enough that they hired 40 full-time video production employees to make it happen. Most of our customers don’t have those kinds of resources. that’s why you can rely on Qgia to create a video library of your top 5 or 10 products at an affordable cost. To read more about the zappos.com product video campaign, click here. You’ll notice they are also making their videos interactive by using one of our competitors, overlay.tv.

Adding interactivity and then making the video player embeddable on blogs and other sites is like creating a portable, clickable digital billboard that can drive shoppers to your site with the intent to purchase.

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Posted in Emerging Media, Video, Video Production, Web Video | No Comments »