A lot of my customers ask me the very broad question: “How do I make sure I’m making the most of my Brightcove account?” The truth is there’s no magic bullet that makes an online video campaign successful. However, you can take a few simple steps to maximize the possibility that your video initiative thrives. A successful video strategy does three things: it captures site visitors’ attention, engages them with relevant content, and keeps them coming back for more video goodness.
Capture: Put a Video on Your Homepage
In almost all cases, visitors to your site hit your homepage first. It’s therefore crucial to have a prominent video player displayed on the page. This grabs visitors’ attention immediately, demonstrates the value of your product, service, or website, and ensures that viewers continue to explore deeper into your site.
One of my favorite examples of this done well is Yodle.com – who also happens to be this month’s featured customer. They specialize in creating websites that help businesses capture local customers searching online, so the image of the laptop surrounding their video player really works. The video is also concise and direct, clearly defining their value proposition and pulling you further into their site.
Engage: Add Contextual Videos to Site Pages
So now that you’ve got your homepage video drawing visitors further into your site, what’s next? Whether your site is focused on news media, e-commerce, or marketing your product/service, you’re going to want to continue using video throughout your site. An effective site is one that tells a story, and while text and images get your message across if the visitor reads the page, nothing engages visitors like a contextually relevant video.
Check out what JTE System has done in this regard. Almost every singe product page is supported by a video that elaborates on product features and demonstrates the value of the product. Site visitors get to see what they are purchasing before they make the leap, increasing their confidence in the product and leading to more conversions.
Keep Them Coming Back: Create a Video Portal for Easy Viewing
The final step in your three-pronged video attack is creating a portal where site visitors can go to view your content in a centralized location. Our tabbed playlist players are great for this purpose, as they make it easy for viewers to locate relevant videos themselves via categorical playlist tabs and increase the likelihood that they will consume more of your content. Displaying all of your videos in one convenient location also increases the likelihood that viewers come back to see more later on.
As an avid sailor myself, I’m particularly fond of US Sailing’s video portal, located at http://media.ussailing.org/All_Videos.htm. The tabbed format lets viewers see recently uploaded videos, with the option to drill deeper into video categories to see content that is relevant to their interests. Being able to see all of their content in one place means that if I don’t have time to watch all of the videos I want to in one sitting, I know where to go to find them!