HubSpot, creators of an inbound marketing software that helps businesses get found on the internet, hosted a webinar titled “Beginner’s Guide to Video Marketing”. Although we’ve been involved in online video and animation since 2004, I always like to see what new statistics, tools, tips, etc. I can share with my customers to help them better utilize the animations we create for them. In this post, I put together the “Cliffs Notes” version of the webinar with a few tips and statistics I thought were the most interesting to share with you. If you are interested in listening to the webinar in its entirety, you do so and download the slides from HubSpot’s On Demand Archive of the Beginner’s Guide to Video Marketing.

The first speaker was Maggie Georgieva, an Inbound Marketing Manager at HubSpot. She shared some interesting insights into how HubSpot utilizes video in their own marketing efforts including case studies for sales empowerment, webinars and events for lead generation. They also build brand awareness through podcasts (like their weekly marketing video podcast HubSpot TV) and entertaining videos (such as the Captain Inbound Animation Series we worked on for HubSpot).

She also shared how video screenshots have performed far better than static images or text links in email marketing. She didn’t share any exact findings but here’s some statistics we compiled about using videos in your email marketing campaigns.

Next up Yelena Kadeykina, the Marketing Director of Pixability, shared a few interesting statistics and suggestions largely around video discovery. She stated that 30-40% of video views are the results of search queries and another 30% are the result of social sharing on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. Think about that. That means that roughly 75% of online video views can be attributed to a combination of proper tagging and SEO optimizing your video and having a social strategy for your video content.

Jay Wilder, the Director of Product Marketing at myBrainshark spoke next about sharing / promoting videos and the importance of placement.

Jay had some great points and did a fantastic overview of how to use and distribute video on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn. The real amazing statistics he presented were regarding mobile and QR codes. According to Nielsen, mobile video viewership soared 40% in 2011 and the smartphone market grew to a 50% market share. He also illustrated how QR codes “connect the online and offline world” through their ability to show you a product in action. I personally believe that combining QR codes with your mobile video strategy will truly start catapulting video marketing to new heights in the next few years. Particularly for people selling products to consumers. Imagine rather than hemming and hawing in a store over Product A or Product B, if Product B has a QR code taking the buyer to an interactive video experience right there on their phone to answer any questions they may have about it…which product are they more likely to buy? That’s where things are going…the industry leaders are already there.

Last up was Jim Kukral who has worked with companies like Fedex and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how find success on the Web. He kept his presentation fairly simple and focused on how to measure video.

One of his points I personally enjoyed was when he talked about how videos on landing pages convert better than traditional text & images. It’s important to remember that people don’t consume content offline the same way that they do online and that is what makes video so effective as a messaging tool.

All in all the presentation had a ton of great content for people new to video marketing as well as some tidbits for someone like myself who has been doing this for a while. One of my favorite quotes from the event was from Jim and it sums up my thoughts on why video is critical to the success of every business marketing online:

“When faced with a choice between a video or a bunch of text – they’re going to choose the video. Recognizing this and building a strategy around it is the type of thing that changes a 1 million dollar company into a 10 million dollar company.”

Adélie Studios, a provider of animated marketing videos and tutorial animations, has received the 2010 All Star Award from Constant Contact®, Inc., the trusted marketing advisor to more than 400,000 small organizations worldwide. Adélie Studios is one of Constant Contact’s 2010 top business partners and most prolific user of its tools, whether within Constant Contact’s email marketing, event marketing, social media marketing or survey products – or a combination of all four.

“We’re pleased to be recognized by Constant Contact for helping our customers achieve higher click through rates through integrating video into our customers email marketing strategy,” said Eric Guerin, owner of Adélie Studios. “Our customers utilizing email marketing with video were able to garner a response rate that was on average 10x higher than direct mail and nearly double their click through rate when video content was included. Constant Contact’s services played a big part in helping our customers achieve those engagement goals.”

Constant Contact looked at criteria including the following when selecting this year’s All Stars:

• Frequency of campaigns, events and surveys
• Open, bounce and click through rates
• Usage of social features
• Mailing list sign up tools
• Use of reporting tools

“We work hard to listen to our customers, and we use that feedback to create products and services designed to help them better engage with their customers and prospects,” said Gail Goodman, chairman, president and CEO of Constant Contact. “The Constant Contact All Star Awards are our way of recognizing our customers that have successfully used Constant Contact to market their companies. We have some of the most committed, passionate customers out there and we’re proud we can be a part of their continued success.”

Have you considered Facebook video advertising units as part of your online video marketing strategy? If you haven’t (or didn’t know it was an option) here’s some statistics to consider.

TubeMogul just released a recent report analyzing Facebook Video Advertising where they took a look at 25 major video advertising campaigns that ran identical videos within Facebook ad units and also ran similar click-to-play video ad units on various publisher sites. The sample compared resulting cost, viewing-time and  spans over 60 million cumulative views. Here are some important findings from their report with some of my own opinions intertwined in their results:

Why should you care about video on Facebook?

Facebook is one of the top-ten video sites in the world without even trying to be. According to a report by Comscore, Facebook was the 5th largest video site in April in total videos played coming in above dedicated video sites like CBS Interactive and even Hulu.

According to the study done by TubeMogul, Facebook also delivers some of the most engaged viewers online. Their study found that Facebook leads all other discovery sources in terms of minutes-watched per view.

Overall, it found that completion rates for Facebook ads were roughly 5.5% to 9.5% higher than identical videos run in display units on outside publisher sites. The Facebook virtual currency (or in-game video ad) also had the longest average view time, at 54.7 seconds per view, followed by the Facebook in-banner, at 48.6 seconds, the third-party in-banner, 39.6, and the Facebook interstitial (i.e. preroll video ads), at 11.2.

It’s no surprise to me that the interstitials had the shortest view time because most viewers if given the option to skip them and get to the content they were originally trying to get to…will skip them. Even though in most cases they are much shorter than any of the other video ad formats here.

3/4 of Facebook ad units sampled have a lower average cost per view than comparable offsite display. Virtual currency ads were also the big winner here at 30 cents on a cost-per-view basis. That compares to $5.27 for Facebook app in-banner ads, $1.06 for Facebook’s sponsored video unit, and $1.07 for stand-alone video ads on other sites.

Other interesting stats

Viewers were more likely to share videos in Facebook’s virtual currency and app in-banner ads with friends on Facebook or Twitter at 1.5% – 2% than video ads on other sites which were less than ½% for offsite video ads.

The click-through rate on the virtual currency ad was also highest, at 5%, versus just over 3% for video display ads on third-party sites.

Herein lies a problem for marketers

So you may be thinking “Wow you get a lot of bang for your buck with the virtual currency, where do I sign up?” Not quite so fast. While social games like Farmville have a monthly audience of over 70 million this may not be the right demographic for your product, service or brand. So research the social game carefully before placing a video ad campaign. Also be wary that many of these game developers break the rules and allow gamers to click play on a video ad multiple times just to rack up points.

So while the numbers may look impressive make sure you know your audience and research the game first. Is the virtual currency model in gaming the next big thing for video advertising? Are you REALLY getting an engaged viewer or are they just clicking through because they think that will earn them more points? What do you think?

Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Maruxa Murphy for the Video Marketing Telesummit. It was a lot of fun talking about the usage of animation for online marketing applications and having a great discussion on the topic.

There are 11 other interviews done with some outstanding video peeps representing different specialties of online video marketing. The others interviewed for this series include: Michael Koenigs of Traffic Geyser, Perry Lawrence of AskMrVideo.com, Andrew Lock creator of the podcast “Help My Business Sucks!”, Josh Anderson of Internet Business Ideas Inc, webinar expert Stephen Beck, David Frey of Marketing Best Practices, video newsletter expert Michael Yost, Will Franco of jiveSYSTEMS, Joshua Aikens of Flixify,  Michelle Cox of Metacafe (who I’d also interviewed a couple years ago) and video blogging extraordinaire and all around great guy from the Boston social media scene Steve Garfield.

If you are interested in checking out the series it runs from 6/14 – 6/18 (my session happens to be on Friday 6/18 from 1-4pm EST). Register to listen to the entire series or just one session for FREE.

Here’s the description of my session for the event.

Eric Guerin

“How To Grab Your Customers By The Eyeballs And Keep Them Glued To The Screen Through Fun And Effective Animated Videos For Your Business”

Eric Guerin has over 15 years experience in the visual communications field working for marketing firms in and around Boston MA. Eric started his own company, Adelie Studios, in 1999 with the mission of providing an integrated solution to customer’s print and web design needs.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this presentation…

• Discover the 2 types of video animation that is often overlooked in video marketing today
• The easiest and most unique way to position your products in your video marketing strategy
• The #1 way you can grab your audience’s attention in the first 5 seconds of your video
• Why 53% of your current viewers are NOT watching your entire video (and how you can immediately change these stats to your favor!)
• 3 superstar tips to getting your videos viewed by your intended audience again and again
• How to create high-converting videos without your talking head in the video
• The single most powerful way to get more views to your videos
• How Google Site Maps can get your videos dominating Google searches within hours
• 3 major reasons your audience will want to pass on your animated video
• The fastest way to get your audience to see your animated videos through your email marketing campaigns

Register to listen to the entire series or just one session for FREE.

There is a new podcast called NomX3 – a brilliant idea where two guys (Mike Langford and Jeff Cutler) go to lunch and discuss interesting topics as well as the great food they are eating at different restaurants. NomX3 (or nom, nom, nom best pronounced as if you were a Muppet) i’s a great way to spend your lunch as a viewer at your desk (if you eat lunch like I do) and have a good laugh. It also reminds you that lunch is a great opportunity to get out there and meet some new people or reconnect with old friends.

Recently I created an intro for the podcast and they invited me on to the show to talk briefly about short form online video versus podcasting. Then they profiled the Telly Award winning video we created through JCSI for OpenPages as an example of what we do. The lunch at Burton’s Grill was absolutely amazing and the conversation was great. Enjoy this while you eat your lunch…I know I did.