Interactive video enhances the User's experience by providing more functionality to the viewing experience; interactivity is key - when putting across your message. Bringing TV advantages onto the Webs interactive feature rich stage deepens Customer engagement.
We live in a dynamic, visual world, and getting a highly targeted message across can be a real challenge for SMEs. A professionally shot and edited video provides the ultimate engagement mechanism - an interactive experience (highly targeted message) that makes an immediate impact on its audience.
However, most SMEs may not be aware that, it's not just the actual quality of the produced video that matters, but also the Video Player (the encasing used for that video) that presents that video; it’s important therefore, to distinguish that it’s the player, not the actual video that becomes the “Ultimate Engagement Mechanism”. This Mechanism can greatly enhance your online video campaign.
You’ll need to avoid being perceived as one of those sites where the actual Video Player doesn't live up to the overall standard, downgrading the Owners occupation.
We all understand that communicating and connecting with your clients is an essential part of any business, building your brand and client relationships. Its how we choose to “communicate” that makes the real difference.
The aim of this article is to provide an opportunity for you to learn the many possibilities on how you can bring into play the word "Engage" when hosting video content on your own site.
Social Sharing: The social aspects of interactive video are amazing, as it allows the User to share your content with Colleagues and Friends; Social Sharing, the new Word of Mouth. There are 500 million active Facebook Users' and counting.
"The last hundred years... the way to advertise was to get into the mass media and push out your content... In the next hundred years information won't be just pushed out to people, it will be shared among the millions of connections people have. Advertising will change; you will need to get onto these connections."
- Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.com
File Download: In-video document downloads, provides the opportunity for you to let the User download further information relating to your business; product brochures, catalogues, wine lists, food menus, job applications. Give incentives for them to download and try your service or product, by offering a promotional incentive. This is a major benefit, your literally placing your service or product on their desktop.
Cue Points and On Completion Events: Using cue points in your video timeline that triggers programmed events - clickable hotspots that can help you to emphasise a point, link to supporting material, link to another section of your site, where you have placed a "BUY NOW" button. On Completion Events are similar; allowing you to "Direct or Show" once the video has reached its end.
Backdrop Light Adjustment: When one's watching a streaming video on most Websites; one finds that all those images and text, other related videos or ads, a bit distracting. This enhancement certainly helps in, making your message clear.
How should this ‘Video Player’ procurement work for you?
You shouldn’t have to donate any extra time on learning new software, you shouldn’t have to hire a costly developer to plug the player into your site, and you certainly shouldn’t be asked to pay a monthly or yearly premium for this Video Player Service; ideally you should source a Provider that can take care of coding your player and embedding it onto your site, all inclusive of cost.
Where, you’d simply provide the required In-Video Data i.e. Video Name, Email details, PDF/File names and Dir/Path/URL locators, to your Provider. Alternatively the Provider should be able to collaborate with your existing Web Designer, to whom they could send the required code, and provide a simple copy & paste procedure, where your video could be viewable on your site, within minutes.
• Video makes your landing pages more engaging.
• Which leads to improved User engagement, immediate reaction; they pay attention. And if they liked what they've seen, they share the experience.
• Leading to increased sales and conversion rates.
With video being the “Ultimate Engagement Object"; be sure to allow your visitors to completely engage by allowing them to interact in a coherent fashion. I can name a whole bunch of sites that miss out on this trick - most provide a quality video cased within one of the free branded players, with limited interaction such as play, pause, stop and the all too familiar "click away" (YouTube) opportunity. Would you normally allow others to place their branding on top of yours, allowing your visitors to “click away” from your site to theirs?
Obviously, another downside concerning YouTube is that you can’t control those “Usage Spikes” which brings playback to a halt, alongside, of having one of your competitors’ videos’ or something equally distasteful (previous employee/customer grievance) shown amongst the landing page containing your video.
Make the most of what Interactive Video has to offer, today.
