Video content on websites wins customers

 

Specialty marketing news company Brafton News reports that consumers who do product research on the web seem to like it when they can literally see the benefits of products and services, courtesy of online video content. ComScore's State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy Q2 2010 shows that the number of viewers who watch video content on retail sites is outpacing the growth of total internet video viewers, and it suggests video sponsors are outselling the competition.

ComScore reports that videos placed on retail sites reached 43 percent of U.S. consumers last month. The number of consumers who watch clips on ecommerce sites has grown 40 percent over last year, and the number of videos watched on retail sites has increased by 79 percent over July 2009.

This should come as good news to marketers as it seems watching videos positively impacts consumers' spending habits. Ninety-six percent of internet buyers are video viewers, and 83 percent of online spending comes from consumers who have seen a video ad. Plus, watching a video on a retail website increases purchase likelihood by 64 percent.

Marketers who plan to add video content to their sites should remember to appropriately tag clips to increase search visibility.

Additionally, the study indicates it could be worthwhile to allocate marketing dollars toward video ads on traditional video properties. With this in mind, the latest comScore online video rankings reported by Brafton show that Hulu currently delivers the most ads to consumers, but Google properties, such as YouTube, are quickly gaining ground as video advertising sites.