Web Tips: Video Without Tears

For many Web marketers, video is a two-edged sword. They know that visitors are more highly engaged by a website that contains sound and motion, but creating video carries a lot of costs both in terms of budget and human resources.

This dilemma has implications beyond user engagement, because videos indexed by Google or syndicated out from a website to YouTube or social networks can help drive highly targeted traffic to a site. Big retailers know this. Recent research by dynamic video platform SundaySky found that in Q3 2010, top retailer Amazon.com had 224,000 videos indexed by Google, while Overstock.com had 56,069 and HSN.com had 29,620. But that count tails off drastically: Among the 200 top retailers, some 54% had no video indexed by Google, the study found.

SundaySky, founded in 2006 and just out of stealth mode last year, wants to help with that problem by generating templates that mold picture content from websites into short video clips with animation, voiceovers and calls to action. The content can be modified on the fly to accommodate changes in pricing or offers.

While Overstock.com is one of its major clients, the platform is not just for retailers. Nationwide online real estate broker Sawbuck Realty was one of SundaySky’s earliest clients, and Sawbuck CEO Guy Wolcott says he’s firmly convinced of the value of video.

“We consolidate listing data from a number of different sources in the 12 metro areas we operate in — not just homes listed specifically with us,” he says. “It’s one thing to do video if you have only 15 listings, but we have a very large inventory of products — 500,000 houses — that are being sold all the time and seeing their data change as sellers revise prices. How can you do video for an inventory that no human could ever stay on top of?”

Since Sawbuck takes listings from a number of sources, it was also faced with widely varying levels of data in those listings. Some have extensive photos, while others are a basic curbside shot.

“We weren’t looking for A+ on 500,000 listings,” Wolcott says. “We just wanted an engaging presentation of the basic listing information that, yes, people could simply read. But there’s a reason ESPN puts video at the top of every article now — because people don’t want to read.”

When possible, Sawbuck incorporates third-party data into its videos, such as a “Walk Score” from an outside agency to document how accessible a property is to nearby services and transportation. The videos also include a button that lets a viewer schedule a house tour with an independent agent.

Wolcott says that since his firm began incorporating video early this year, web traffic has gone up appreciably — perhaps by as much as 20% — because his listings are getting higher organic rankings and have more appeal than a straight text result.

Visitors who look at videos on his site also consume 20% to 25% more page views per visit, Wolcott says, and are more likely to click through and request a house tour with an agent.

“At each stage we’ve seen a lift,” he says. “We’re still measuring. But all signs indicate a very positive result from video.”

Got a Web tip to share? Contact Brian Quinton at [email protected]

DID YOU KNOW

• In September, Facebook accounted for 24% of the online display ads in the U.S. — but Facebook itself gets only about 9.5% of the total U.S. budget allocated for display ads. [Source: comScore data and eMarketer]