ImageBeam September Blog: Top 5 Reasons to use Video on your website

Top 5 Reasons to use Video on your website

Making the case for B2B and B2C companies to use Video on your home page.

1. Your Customer Expects It

Just like with other sales and marketing channels, your website visitor is savvy and has high expectations for what they will find on your website. eMarketer shows that Online Users continue to watch more videos and spend over 42% more time watching videos online.

Today's internet user is trained to expect impeccable layout and design for your website and expects to engage in content that is the focal point of your home page. A compelling testimonial or marketing video is a match for what your customers expect.

eMarketer July 2009*

2. Rich Video Communicates effectively in complicated, high trust sales

Whether you're a B2B or B2C company, your customer has a lot of hurdles to overcome in doing business with you. And that's the way it should be. Many of us sell and market complex products or services and our customer is making both a financial and emotional investment when they are considering doing business with you. A rich video is the bridge to your customer's emotional connection to your product or service. The bottom line is that you can communicate the impact that your product or service can have on your customer's success and satisfaction through high quality videos.

3. Your Customer see's you as the Expert and their Resource

Spend enough time in any Industry and what seems like "thebasics" to you makes all the difference in someone's perception of your product or service. Your customers or clients have questions running through their head, not just about your services but about your industry. While they may have some sense of your offerings and the expected benefits to them, you have the opportunity to act as the liaison between them and your entire industry, a powerful position to be in. How? Create a compelling video that engages with those "running questions". Watch your potential customers flock to your video and, moreover, start to take the next step in doing business with you.

4. Users spend more time on your Home Page, resulting in Higher Penetration Rate

What is the point of laying out all of your service offerings, testimonials, resources, and contact information on your website if your users don't go beyond the home page? Web designers are constantly working on making their clients' home page (or entry page) more engaging so that users 'penetrate' to interior pages. An effective way of achieving a high penetration rate is to embed a video into your home page and have it grab the attention of your user.

In 2007 ImageBeam completed and launched Stemedica.com, a San Diego based Stem Cell Research company, website. ImageBeam produced four 'client impact' video's that were embedded into the home page navigation. These videos were designed to capture the attention and emotion of the visitors to the site.

ImageBeam also designed and launched the current Stemedica family of websites www.stemedica.com

5. Higher Conversion with Calls to Action

During and after the video is complete, you can layout calls to action (links to interior pages) that will allow you to convert visitors in to customers. Once you have wowed them with your video you can invite them to take the next step. For Example...

• Contact Us
• Schedule an Appointment
• Request a Quote
• Shop Online
• Watch another Video
• Read our Case Study
• Follow our Blog
• Meet the Owner

These are all relevant "calls to action" for your business that could be presented around and embedded into your video. There are many more that fit for your specific industry, business and way of communicating with your customer.

We hope these reason's give you an insight into why video is becoming a standard practice in Web Presence of any company.

For questions on how video can impact your company's web presence, sales or marketing efforts, Contact ImageBeam for a free consultation & strategy session.(see contact information below)

For samples of ImageBeam's past video projects, visit our Video Sample Page

Downloadable .PDF

ed.kennedy@imagebeam.com | 949.228.8657

www.imagebeam.com | 17961 Cowan Street | Irvine, CA 92613

Sharepoint Video Portal for Stemedica

One of my favorite clients came to me with a rather special and urgent need.

ImageBEAM has been managing the on-line presence of Stemedica Cell Technologies Inc for nearly two years now. This has involved the creation of numerous web sites to allow the company to share what it is doing in the area of developing breakthrough Stem Cell treatment products to be used on clinical studies and research throughout the world.

An important aspect of this work is the collection and dissemination of critical patient progress information - many times in the form of patient progress videos. This information is confidential - but needs to be shared with authorized staff and partners on a world-wide basis.

In the past Stemedica has shared this information by creating DVD's of these videos which are then shipped around the world. As their progress on their clinical trials and research is accelerating a new approach to handle this process was needed - with the following features;

1. Allow for rapid distribution of videos.
   Stemedica wanted to find a way to have immediate access to the videos - rather than relying upon mailing physical DVD's
2. It has to be secure.
   The videos feature proprietary and confidential patient information - and as such they need to be protected by password and encryption
3. Videos can be updated / replaced as needed.
   The information shared in these videos is constantly being updated. The system had to be flexible enough to allow the content to be easily updated.

With those requirements Stemedica turned to ImageBEAM for a solution.

Over just a few days we had designed and implemented a custom Video Portal solution based upon a combination of Windows Sharepoint Services and Windows Media Server from Microsoft. The solution allows the videos to be posted rapidly with tight security in place allowing item-level security. Individual users of the portal may be given or denied access to any particular videos.

The client is of course delighted with the solution.

5 Ways to Maximize Your Marketing Video Investment

Having spent over 30-plus years serving the SMB market, I've come to learn the importance of the word "repurpose". Marketing and advertising investments rarely serve only one purpose these days.

Online video is probably one of the easiest investments to repurpose, with little to no additional expense required. So how can you maximize your investment in a marketing video? Here's a few suggestions:

• Close your video with a call-to-action post-roll clip - Most marketing videos fade to black with no call-to-action, no "next steps" for its viewers. Tell your customers what you want them to do after watching your video - give your company a call, visit another page of your website, read something else on the page, etc.


• Turn your video into a hiring tool - Feature your video on your Careers page or include the link on online postings about any of your employment vacancies. According to JobCircle, embedding a company video into online job ads Increases job posting applications by over 20%.


• Open your next meeting with your video - Break the ice at your next company meeting by playing your video to clients and employees. Your clients will be impressed with your organization and your employees will be proud to see their company's professionalism.


• Display your video in reception, at trade shows and conferences - Plasma and LCD purchases or rentals are fairly inexpensive these days. Play your video in reception at your booth or kiosk at industry trade shows and conferences. You may need to work with a rich media production firm like ImageBEAM to plan your video production so that it works for every medium (Mobile, Web, PowerPoint, DVD, HDTV).


• Feature your video on your web site, email campaigns and corporate newsletters - The Internet is getting increasingly social and interactive, and people are expecting that same level of interactivity almost everywhere else. Turn a traditional newsletter or email campaign into a dynamic experience by including a link or embedding your video in your next issue or promotion.

There are several other things you can do to increase the value and maximize the investment of your marketing video. Learn more about ImageBEAM's rich media production services.