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BACKGROUND / CONTEXT In the bad old days of ...oh, maybe 4-5 years ago, most people lacked broadband access,
and online video was viewed with nearly the disdain reserved for spam. The quickest way to
earn the wrath of dialup users was to send them a 2-minute video clip that tied up their line
for 90+ minutes, just downloading into their inbox. Today, with over 450 million broadband subscribers worldwide and nearly every business
having a high-speed Internet connection, the old reservations have gone the way of the
teletype. Now more than 80% of Internet users watch video regularly. Since supply needs to match demand, you might guess that there’s been a mini-explosion in
video content on the Web ...and you’d be right. The larger companies with greater resources
have led the way, of course; but dropping costs have enabled nearly every B-to-B to get in
the game to some level. SHOULD YOUR COMPANY BE USING ONLINE VIDEO? In a word... absolutely.
There’s more than just a germ of truth behind that old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand
words.” No one would question the greater grabbing and connecting power of television vs.
radio ...never mind the newspaper. Research also supports the effectiveness of video:
according to MarketingSherpa, online video is second only to word-of-mouth for its ability to
influence decision makers in every stage of the purchase lifecycle. There are few marketers who have not harbored a secret desire to utilize video in their
programs; but in the past, delivering it to the prospect meant either buying costly TV time or
shipping cassettes or DVDs. Now, with the advent of online video, distribution costs have
dropped to near zero. So the only remaining barrier is production; and as many more
producers enter the video arena, that cost is dropping as well. On the other side of the coin, that 80% of Internet users are coming to your B-TO-B’s website
fully expecting to find some use of video. If they don’t, your site is bound to disappoint them
and seem ...well, maybe just a bit behind the times. Plus there are almost certainly aspects
of your product that could have been better explained using video; so there’s a definite
opportunity cost in continuing to present them in a sub-optimal way. next >>
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