How user-friendly is your website? When potential clients stumble across it, can they tell straight away what you do and what you’re about?

It’s always hard to convey a company’s core message without writing half a novel. And even if you do follow the expert’s advice and keep your text short and sweet, and despite what your designer might say, there IS such a thing as not providing enough content to read.

 75% of consumers visit a company’s website to get more information about products, but only 44% find the information they are looking for says a recent study by InQuira.

This isn’t just due to lack of text - badly organised and poorly written text or just plain hard to navigate sites may also be to blame. But whatever the cause, just think of all those wasted sales opportunities. I don’t know about you, but just thinking of all those eager customers seeking information on YOUR product only to come up empty handed makes me a tad queasy.

So many people prefer to research purchases without speaking to salespeople. But how do you satisfy all website enquiries without adding mountains of text that can render a site too complex? The solution: a very organised copywriter and designer, and a few video instructionals embedded into your website. You can have a welcome video that explains who you are and what you do, like a streaming video business card to mesmerise and greet customers. You could have videos showing people how to use your products, or informative videos in the case of a hard-to-explain product. Or you could even use video to drive visitors to your website in the first place, and introduce them to your products and brand identity before they even reach your homepage.

That’s what the attached video is attempting to achieve for small Australian designer toddler label Monster Baby.  Since many mums with toddlers prefer to shop online rather than brave outings with unruly offspring, the brand needed to come up with a web video that could attract the attention of it’s target demographic of mums who are looking for something very different, a little bit punk rock, and definitely off-beat. It’s just getting unleashed on the world today, so the results aren’t back yet, but we’ll keep you updated.

Video could definitely make your website more appealing. But could a video ad work for your brand too? Food to think about.

Caz

 

 Monster Baby Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’m not usually one to harp on and on about a subject ( OK, maybe if I’ve had too many glasses of wine..) but despite having just posted on how web video seems flavour of the moment, I just read a great post by Jeff Beringer over at the Next Fifty Years blog. His entry, titled “Placing bets on web-based video”, covered a whole different set of  signs that compelled him to deduce that web video is one of the most promising opportunities in the future of PR and marketing.

His reasoning shortlist? (I’ve condensed it here, but for best effect please go check out his original post at www.nextfiftyyears.com)

1.  A new Zogby poll that indicates a full 2/3 of Americans are dissatisfied with current journalism standards, which in turn has persuaded over half of the survey’s respondents to use the internet as their primary news and information source.

2. The big guys are convinced. Disney’s Bob Iger decreed that broadband-enabled Web content represents the future of communication, ultimately replacing television as the prime source of entertainment.

3. Google, again. It just made a move to open its uber-popular YouTube technology to the outside world. Just days ago the video sharing giant announced a new set of developer tools(known as APIs) allowing individuals and organizations to intermix the YouTube experience into their own Web sites and online properties.

4. Hulu.com, an online video platform created by News Corp and NBC Universal  launched yesterday. The ad-supported online video network allows consumers towatch more than 250 TV shows or 100 full-length movies in any Web browser, anytime, anywhere.

Add these events all together and it’s clear more people are watching video online, and the companies in the know are doing everything in their power to make it easier for them to do so. What are you doing about promoting your company online? If the answer is nothing much, then maybe it’s time to investigate web video too, huh?

Caz

www.soularchmedia.com

Google’s $3.1 billion dollar acquisition of advertising giant DoubleClick looks set to be approved by the EU any day now, despite news headlines to the contrary. But what will this merger mean for everyday small-to-medium business owners?

Expect online advertising to gain even greater credibility and popularity as Google lends it’s considerable brand clout to DoubleClick’s flashier display ads. Google’s foray into pay-per-click advertising with its simple user-friendly Google Adwords system has seen it become the major player in online advertising for SME’s, but even Google knows Adwords doesn’t fit all business needs - a rounded online campaign needs many hooks - so is seeking to cover more bases by tackling more sophisticated digital advertising through DoubleClick.

The Google/DoubleClick merger is just the latest in series of moves by giant online labels to grab a bigger slice of the lucrative online advertising pie. Microsoft Corp bought aQuantive for $6 billion, Yahoo Inc acquired BlueLithium for $300 million, and Time Warner Inc’s AOL unit bought Tacoda for an undisclosed ( but presumably massive) amount.

The bigger picture? Multi-media advertising is definitely on the rise, and these companies are betting big bucks that everyday businesses will be swept up in this latest trend.

To spread its advertising net even wider, Google is also hoping to replicate it’s Adwords success with Google TV ads. Already in Beta release in the U.S, Google has been working with the second-largest satellite operator in the United States, Dish Network, on technology that allows advertisers to see how many people are watching their adverts via information garnered from their set top box. Speculation is rife that Google will soon expand their TV ad network to the UK, where Google already has an existing arrangement with BSkyB, under which it is the satellite broadcaster’s search-and-video technology partner. BSkyB is keen to improve its targeting of its advertising, and Google knows an opportunity when it sees one.

But Australia? Don’t expect Google TV ads to be in a hurry to expand our way - apart from our remarkably smaller population base, we’ve been reluctant to fall for pay TV’s lure. 58.4% of all American homes have cable, whereas only 23% of Australian homes subscribe to paid TV services. So even if Google TV ads rolled out in Australia tomorrow, their effectiveness would be in serious doubt.

But the message Google TV ads is touting is still a compelling one. They say the visual appeal of video commercials can help illustrate you brands ideals, explain a complicated product or connect with buyers better than any other medium. And tracking the cut through and ROI of your ad is important. But the good news? You don’t need to hold your breath for Google TV ads to arrive Down Under or pay expensive TV broadcasting fees to achieve any of those things.

There’s already a way to tick all those boxes, and via a method that Google’s new acquisition already distributes. It’s web video, and it’s an affordable technology that’s becoming more accessible by the second as broadband users increase. It’s the cheapest way to get a video commercial to the masses, and until Google TV ads arrive here it’s probably your most viable way of rounding out your online marketing presence. Expect online video advertising to be the big buzz area of 2008 - over here at Soul Arch Media & Marketing we’re gambling on it too.

Caz

www.soularchmedia.com