Video Content Hits Puberty
You can’t open an industry newsletter or attend a conference on Affiliate Marketing without being told that video content has become a must for your marketing programs. Survey after survey shows that Internet users are watching video in record numbers. As broadband access continues to grow, there is no end in sight to the growing video trend. Online marketers have certainly jumped on the bandwagon and started posting video on their websites and blogs, hoping to capture more visitor interest and drive sales.
Despite any number of articles discussing how online video has matured, it might be a better analogy to say it has reached puberty. While more websites are using video content (with many focused on nothing but video) the majority of this content appears to be made up of rejects from America’s Funniest Home Videos. Even when companies develop “professional” videos with the apparent goal of marketing their business, it is often clear that the video was created mainly because “you need to have video on your site”. It’s not so much that they have a compelling reason for the video; they just keep hearing that they need to have it and put something together. This is not to say there aren’t plenty of companies and online marketers doing an incredible job of using video to drive results – because there certainly are some great examples out there. It’s just that the majority of sites are still finding their way when it comes to leveraging video content effectively.
In some ways, it reminds me of the early days of the internet when every business put up a website, often without any real purpose other than being able to say that they were “online”. Over time, companies (most of them anyway) learned that a website can be a lot more than just an online version of their printed brochure. Video will likely have a similar evolution, as more and more website owners and developers find ways to utilize video content to actually drive business.
As Affiliate Marketers, we are in a tremendous position to drive the development of video marketing that is truly tied to results, not just branding.
