It’s Time to Incorporate Online Video into Your Marketing Mix

It is hard to believe that Spring starts in the Northern Hemisphere this coming Saturday, March 20th.  Although it hasn’t been a bad winter here in New England, I’ve still managed to catch a horrible case of Spring Fever.
The first quarter of the year can be a harsh one.  It can be a jolt to go right from the holiday season into serious work.  New Year’s resolutions come and go, winter weather hits, the Super Bowl passes and before you know it, you’re staring down the start of the second quarter.
Marketers looking to pump some excitement into their upcoming second and third quarter initiatives should seriously think about incorporating some video content into the mix.  Web video marketing – be it video email, video direct marketing, online video advertising, or video social networking – is not nearly as complicated as people believe.  As David Meerman Scott said in a recent interview with ReelSEO “. . . it’s dead simple to record a video; it’s like falling out of bed. And then, the idea of video is just silliness, is actually a silly notion in itself; it’s not, its incredibly valuable stuff.”
I absolutely agree.  The nuances of video content are as varied as other marketing tactics.  While marketers don’t seem to be as intimidated when developing content for other initiatives – say blog content, sales collateral or even a brochure – for whatever reason video can stop people dead in their tracks.  Which is rather silly because video can be whatever you want it to be.  You could follow David Meerman Scott’s lead and create your own content using a digital video camera, you could hire a videographer to develop content or you could do something in between.  But you need to do it – just like you need to plant tulip seeds in the fall if you want flowers to be blooming this spring.
Not engaging with web video marketing will ultimately make you a minority compared what other marketing communicators are doing.  Marketing Charts published research today that found that 55 percent of marketers are currently using online video and another 20 percent plan to do so by the end of this year.
If you view spring as a new beginning, this is a great time of the year to plan for a web video marketing campaign.  Test the waters now before you and your target audience are away on summer vacation. 
In celebration of spring, I wanted to share a flimp created by Northwestern University’s Women’s Lacrosse team.  The Cats are looking to win their sixth straight NCAA Division I Lacrosse Championship.  This campaign, which consists of video email, social networking and web integration, has not only helped sell 2010 season tickets, but it has caused Cats fans to get pumped up for the current Lax season.  In a two-week time span, over 30 hours of video have been viewed, 55 percent of viewers watched the 55 second video to completion, 38 percent of viewers clicked on one of the direct calls to action, and 8 percent of viewers shared the video via social networking and email.