I’m constantly amazed by simple research that tends to prove what you’ve already figured out from gut instinct. I’m not knocking the research at all but, for example, learning for
a fact that consumers will leave a video site within a split second if the video doesn’t develop is not news. But knowing the whole world does it, based on research and surveys, gives empirical
credence to your observations, kind of like how satisfied you felt when you learned how all the other kids also took apart their Oreo cookies, too.
As an example, earlier this year, Relevancy Group released a study that showed that three quarters of the marketers it studied didn’t
include videos in their emails to customers despite the pretty plain evidence that consumers will click on videos with the flimsiest provocation. Virtually every month comScore reports a new record
for the number of video ads consumed. It was 11 billion in June. Each
one that is seen, in theory at least, brings a consumer that much closer to the business-end of the funnel.
To me, it would be more satisfying if these no-shows stayed away out of some
principle that makes them non-believers. But only 22% said that, more or less, they were unconvinced. But the study said a whopping 43% avoided attaching videos to emails simply because they
didn’t have any, and 27% suggested producing them would be too expensive.
Those marketers that got religion, however, reported the predictable thing—55% said videos aided
the click-through rate, 44% said it increased the amount of time they spent on the email, and 41% said it increased the likelihood that customers would forward the email to somebody else, or share the
video.
I guess you could hope all of those percentages were higher—far higher, in fact—but advertising and marketing is a game of percentages, after all. The number of people
who do anything at all after seeing a television commercial, even several times, must be in the very low single digits.
But again, everybody must know that, right?
pj@mediapost.com