Marketing professionals encounter the daily challenge of reaching their customer base in a way that drives those customers to purchase the latest and greatest product. Since the need for such a profession was established, the realm of available mediums has been constantly evolving; leading to tough decisions on how to effectively spend advertising dollars. In today’s connected world, the internet has become a major medium for delivering promotional content. To most internet marketers, click-through rate is king; but how do these professionals ensure those clicks lead to revenue dollars?
When a potential customer lands on your product’s site they are often bombarded with a variety of consumer education media, in an attempt to inform potential customers about the product. This media may include colorful images, persuasive text-based testimonials or even better, an attractive video. With the delivery of broadband internet to the majority of consumer’s homes, preferences have quickly shifted to richer content. As a result, the growth in the online video advertising medium has been staggering; in fact, a New York Times study showed that “Video is now the fastest-growing segment of the internet advertising market. Digital video amounted to $477 million in revenue in the first half of 2009, up 38 percent from the same time period in 2008". While it seems clear that online video advertising has taken a significant role in today’s marketer’s portfolio, the delivery of content in this medium is strictly split between two distinct classifications.
The creation of consumer education media begins with selecting the major goal of the video; two schools of thought exist on this selection. Promotional content focuses on showcasing a product to the consumer, and is characterized by a call to action at the conclusion of the video. These hard-sell videos typically highlight the key features of the product, and are usually restricted to a maximum of 2 minutes in length.
In contrast with promotional content; educational demonstrations provide the user with a soft-sell walkthrough of the product, allowing them to experience the product in action before they make the purchase decision. Educational demonstrations often serve a dual-purpose, as they are typically a new customer’s first reference if they have difficulty using a product, saving a company costly tech-support calls.
The combination of these two classes of consumer education media provide potential customers with a meaningful introduction to the product’s functionality and the associated benefits. While the growth of the online video market has been established, marketers must also realize that the access to this type of content is growing in parallel. Improving data-rates on smartphones, along with new content delivery systems like the Apple iPad allow marketers to reach even the most mobile consumer. The advancing level of consumer connectivity has led eMarketer to name video ads as the main channel for advertisers seeking to increase their online spending for the next 5 years.
The merit of consumer education media as a whole has been thoroughly presented; however, marketers are constantly faced with the challenge of quantifying the success of such a campaign. Canadian Business Online recently discussed measurement of the marketing effectiveness of a classical advertising campaigns; highlighting the importance of ensuring an acceptable return on your marketing investment. The next step in the evolution of online consumer education media must be the measurement of campaign success or failure; allowing marketers to tweak their use of this emerging medium.