Spike

Web TV has now been around for a number of years and is now quickly becoming an important part in the marketer’s tool set.  Video is simply the best medium to achieve an emotional response from the viewer/target. It can clearly explain a product or service and communicate the brand equity of the business. This was described in Marketing Sherpa’s 2007-2008 Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide, which showed online video second only to word-of-mouth for its ability to influence decision-makers in every stage of the purchase lifecycle.

Whilst at the outset the investment in video is more than other marketing methods it has a greater long term value with videos potentially being online forever and having a longer shelf life than most forms of communication

Power of the moving image

There is no doubt that video is the best engagement tool around, think of any major news story and it is the images we saw on television that stay with us, not the print or radio headlines. There is a lot of research to back up the fact that when communicating key product or service differentiators, video has no equal. Video can change a person’s point of view and imprint core messages in the viewer’s mind that will stay with them improving brand or product recall.

As well as communicating externally web tv is also a very effective internal communications tool keeping employees up to date on a business’s operations, deals human interest stories and performance. It means that everyone is engaged and receiving a consistent message, because the medium is perfect for getting complex and often dry information across in an entertaining or engaging way the employees view the learning experience in a positive light which also enhances their view of the company and how it values them

Engaging your audience

Web tv should be used in two ways, one to communicate with the users when they are on your site but also to attract them to you in the first place. It can position the business as a thought leader and by also adding other tools such as regular white papers, blogs, forums and ways for visitors to talk to each other it keeps people returning to the site.

Getting the message out there

Like any marketing campaign it is the distribution of the message that is critical to its success one of the strategy’s favored with web tv is known as the ‘hub and spoke’ model.
In this case the hub is the main website where a community is built around the main messages and films. The spokes represent a managed approach to getting the films out to the target audience and pulling them back into the website. In addition films should be made easy to share so that users can push the messages out to their group of friends and acquaintances.

Quality over quantity

Another preferred way of getting the videos out to the target audience is via e mail  “People love to share videos and watch those that friends send them this is what makes video as a medium more and more attractive to marketers. Video is also a fresh new format that injects new interest into the way messages are given out, a customer or member of staff is more likely to watch a four minute film that read a document for the same time or longer and they will remember more by watching a film than by reading.