Friday, April 25, 2008

Gartner asks: Does Google Have a Video Strategy?

The Gartner Media blog writes a thought-provoking article about Google's video strategy.

YouTube clearly draws a lot of eyeballs, but Google still has to organize it and deal with copyright issues before it can get a full return for its generous hosting policy. The Gartner article suggests Google might ultimately offer two video content portals: one dedicated to the amateur/consumer content creator and the other for professional content creators.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Online Video to Generate $7.9 Billion in 2013

Informa Telecoms & Media projects that by 2013, US online TV and video services will generate revenues of $7.9 billion, as reported in eMarketer.

Revenues from US online TV and video services crossed the $1 billion mark in 2007 and are projected to surge to $4.7 billion by the end of 2008.

These numbers include download fees, but 63% of the 2013 number is projected to come from advertising revenue.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Marketing to Verticals

A good marketing campaign to a vertical can produce powerful results. If a horizontal marketing campaign is meant to be generic and provide safe results, then a vertical marketing campaign is meant to be specialized and generate specific results within the target market - hopefully with a higher conversion rate than horizontal marketing.

What constitutes a good vertical marketing campaign? It always begins with a message that speaks to the concerns of the buyer in the target market.

Information cannot simply be accurate and educational; it must also be timely and meet a specific information gap about which the target market is concerned. A successful vertical marketing campaign will provide answers to questions the target market already knows they must be asking. Timeliness and relevance is what will encourage the target market to respond to your campaign.

The information you are providing must be perceived as unbiased, so an effective tactic is to work with someone who is an expert within the target vertical. This person will understand the how the business works and what issues influence the purchasing decisions of buyers within that vertical. That person will be able to convey pain-points very clearly, and enhance the credibility of the message.

The next step is to align your campaign with a venue where the target vertical market is likely to look for information and education. Again, the more focused the venue the better. Remember you are targeting a specific vertical, and while there may be opportunities at venues which cover a range of topics, the more focused the venue on your particular vertical the better.

The webinar has been proven to be an extremely effective delivery system for this content, allowing the content producer to target very specific markets and measure exactly who consumed the content and ultimately purchased the product or service.

A great example of pairing a timely message with an efficient delivery mechanism is a webinar that addresses regulatory compliance. Any institution subject to regulation is going to be receptive to information that helps alleviate compliance issues.