Treepodia – The leading Product Video solution for e-commerce

Everybody knows video is on the rise - but how much?...

A recent study published by Tubemogul, a video distribution and analytics startup, in partnership with Brightcove, a video platform, provides some interesting insights and statistics regarding the ways and places we’re all finding, viewing and sharing video content.

Before diving into some of the cool numbers shared in the study It’s important to note that the study is based on numbers garnered from both companies’ data, which means that it only represents a certain segment of video consumption. This isn’t to say that the data isn’t valid – only that it’s partial and should be viewed as such. For example, data regarding Youtube, which alone accounts for ~40% of the market, is not covered by the study.

Video Engagement Statistics

• Broadcast networks take the lead in terms of viewing time per stream
  Online video content from broadcast networks is watched on average 2:53 minutes per stream. The networks are followed by music labels (1:50 min.) and newspaper publishers (1:41 min.)

• Newspapers and magazines lead in terms of video viewing completion rates
  Interestingly viewers are most likely to watch an entire video when they are consuming it on a newspaper’s site. Newspapers and magazine publishers video viewing completion rates are about 40% each closely followed by broadcasters (38%) with music labels bringing up the rear with 29%.

• Twitter leads in terms of referral engagement
  Twitter referrals generate the highest level of engagement, when compared to other referral sources, for broadcast networks, music labels and magazine publishers. Interestingly newspaper publishers enjoy their highest engagement rates with viewers referred from Yahoo.

Facebook’s shameful share

Another interesting statistic published in the study is Facebook’s share in driving online traffic. Although Facebook’s community has increased by 2% in April alone, and despite the fact that over 34% of the entire adult demographic in the US is already using Facebook, accounts for only 0.40% of video traffic.

I think that if nothing else this number, if correct, speaks volumes for the relatively poor experiences Facebook delivers in terms of video viewing and upload. Considering how popular video is, and considering Facebook’s incredible adoption levels, Zuckerberg’s social behemoth – a leader in almost every other online field, should account for more than %0.40 without even trying!

I’m pretty certain that when Facebook chooses to address it’s video usability issues its market share will improve dramatically almost immediately.

Join the video bandwagon with Treepodia Video Distributor

All these numbers are good and well but how does this reflect on your business and your day to day marketing efforts? Well, although I’m hardly what you’d call objective, I believe the joint Brightcove Tubemogul study provides further validation for our Video Distributor product, which syndicates etailers’ product videos to video sharing sites (Youtube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, etc.). Since we released Video Distributor in February we’ve consistently seen consumers searching for, and learning about our clients’ products on the video sites, and then coming in to make their purchases on our clients’ sites. This trend was confirmed by all the pilot partners who helped us test Video Distirbutor before we made it publicly available.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndevil/3491395689

Ecommerce video myths debunked

I’ve just finished reading a well written post by Daniel Sevitt on the ReelSeo blog titled: “The Three Types of Online Video for Business“. Daniel writes well and covers his subject matter eloquently but when I finished reading I remained with the sensation that I’d been taken for a merry little ride.

Sales Are Only 0.1 Percent (?!?)

I know it’s a heavy accusation, but I can explain:
When someone writes a post titled “The Three Types of Online Video for Business” and mentions in it a reference to someone else’s “Top 6 Reasons B-to-B Marketers Need Videos” I guess I expect the word “Sales” to appear often. Daniel’s post has 2,178 words. The word “Sales” appears twice. That’s less than 0.1 percent…

Apparently the “Top 6 Reasons B-to-B Marketers Need Videos” are, and I quote:

Grab people’s attention instantly

Tell your story in less time

Bring your ideas to life

Make your site stickier

Create a buzz with viral video

Bring your website into the 21st century

What I learned from Eli Wallach about Sales

Call me coarse or unsophisticated if you like, but I’ve always believed there’s a lot of truth in the line uttered by Eli Wallach in the scene shown above, and taken from “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”:

“When you have to shoot…Shoot! Don’t talk”

Let me explain:
With all due respect to the 6 points Daniel quotes in his post, I’d like to make 3 points of my own:

1. The purpose of a business is TO MAKE MONEY.
2. Online retailers make money by SELLING PRODUCTS.
3. The primary purpose of online video for retailers is TO SELL PRODUCTS.

To paraphrase Wallach:

“Pardon me pilgrim but ‘Grabbing people’s attention’ (pt #1), ‘Telling a story’ (pt #2) & ‘Bringing ideas to life’ (pt #3)… Heck, that all sounds like a lot fancy talkin’ to me!”

Although ‘Bringing their website into the 21st century’ (pt #4) sounds really impressive, I’m pretty sure 99 out of 100 vendors would prefer using video to SELL THEIR INVENTORY.

Let’s go back to basics

Video, indeed any form of advertising or marketing, has little or no value for its own sake. Its value is as a means-to-an-end. For etailers that end is TO DRIVE SALES.

By that logic the best way to judge the addition of video to your site is by the impact it has on your bottom line. If you can get a good impact on your conversions for a low investment – GOOD FOR YOU, you’ve done well for yourself.

I might be old fashioned

I might be old fashioned, but getting the best-bang-for-the-buck seems to me to be what a good business is all about.

• Our experience has shown us that adding video to a product’s listing can impact the conversion rates for the product by anything from 35% to 300%.

• We’ve learned that premium & complex products often show greater impact on their conversion rates because clients are more inclined to make a hefty purchase after watching a video that explains a premium product’s benefits.

Going back to my bang-for-a-buck point from before, it’s every etailers DUTY to his or her business to get these conversion rates at the LOWEST COST and effort possible – no small feat when one considers the vast majority of online retailers have over 500 products in their catalog.

When one takes into consideration these facts it’s easy to understand why automated ecommerce video solutions able of creating thousands of product videos in a matter of hours, are readily adopted by retail leaders such as Ice.com, Diamond.com, EyeBuyDirect.com, Elady.com, ElectricShopping.com, and others.

I guess when you’re as successful as these guys you know only too well there’s “A time for talkin’ and a time for shootin’…”

Image credit: Daquella manera