Lights, Camera, Results: Make Online Video Work For You

Seemingly overnight, video has transformed the Internet landscape, changing the viewing, visiting and buying patterns of online audiences of all ages and demographics.

Americans, principally between the ages of 25 and 35, consume more than two-and-a-half hours of online video a month, rapidly making it one of the most popular forms of media. And the Internet, once a great equalizer where brand counted for more than size or budget, has once more been tipped in the direction of the well capitalized and the technologically enabled.

Publishers of all sizes are now scrambling to put the power of video to work. But the cost and complexity of solutions, the challenges of the new medium, and a rapidly-shifting landscape of knowledge and best practices is leaving many marketers with makeshift consumer video workarounds, ineffective homegrown solutions, or expensive programs that fail to live up to their expectations in terms of traffic, revenue or results.

How can marketers harness the power of video to boost traffic and conversion, and get real results for their investment? Here are a few simple guidelines.

Brand is critical.
Publishers have long understood that on the Web, brand counts for everything. At all costs, you must retain visitors on your site, and reinforce brand awareness and brand loyalty at every juncture. One must never allow a click away, and brand standards should be meticulously enforced in all aspects of the user experience.

Video is no different. Every aspect of a video solution—players, uploaders, Web cam tools, sharing e-mails—should reflect and reinforce the brand. Viral video dissemination must offer a branded video experience, or all leverage of the viral experience is lost. Fortunately, a number of video solutions providers now provide solutions that make introducing branded video experiences easy and cost-effective.

Think traffic, not just engagement.
Video is a powerful tool for driving visitors to an online destination, not simply a means for engaging them once they are there. Search engine optimization is only possible through MRSS submission, as search crawlers are incapable of reading Flash tags. Make sure that this is a part of your strategy—many providers offer this as part of their service or for an additional fee. Very few videos are search-indexed today, so this can be a powerful way of creating new traffic.

And don't to neglect viral propagation. Viral reposting of video puts your brand, your watermark, your video and a click to your site into blogs, wikis and forums that you could never reach on your own. For some publishers, over 50% of their video viewership occurs through viral propagation.

At the end of the day, it's all about conversion.
Too many marketers think of video in terms of engagement, and not enough in terms of conversion. Until things change in the advertising landscape, video advertisement is unlikely to produce real revenue for most publishers. However, it's extremely effective in terms of driving call-to-action responses. Make sure videos are always paired with a call to action, either directly within the video in the form of a watermark, start or end screen, or closely associated with the video on the page itself. Successful video initiatives can pay for themselves in 90 days or less.

Benjamin Wayne is CEO of custom video solution provider Fliqz.