Just over a month ago, Kulin Strimbu of Trip
Television asked me to be a guest blogger on Video and Beyond. She knew
that I have a passion for all things related to marrying buyers and
sellers (aka distribution in “travel speak”).
I have to
admit, I didn’t know much about video (at least as it relates to
distribution) before I started writing for this blog, but in the past
month I have gotten a rapid education and I am hooked.
So
today, I want to get serious with you about the effectiveness of an
integrated video strategy to sell your products and services. If a
picture is worth a thousand words, what is video worth? Literally.
I
grew up in an era of watching Carol Burnett and remember thinking how
clever it was that she ended all of her shows by tugging on her ear. It
was her signature and it was her way of acknowledging someone special
in her life.
I didn’t understand marketing then, but
four decades later, in all of my own blogs, I end my tomes with “Stay
Tuned”. That signals that the industry that I belong to (travel) is
ever changing.
When I took on the guest blog role on
Video and Beyond, I encouraged Kulin to do the same and come up with her
own “signature line”. That line is “What are you waiting for?”.
Well,
it is time to cut to the chase. While we want you to keep coming back
and sharing our musing about the topic as regular subscribers to our
blog, but as my old friend Timothy O’Neil-Dunne would say, I am
gobsmacked (that is British slang for astonished) that the conversion
stats alone don’t already have you running toward an integrated video
marketing strategy. Kulin’s phone should be ringing off the hook right
now.
So let’s look at the numbers. I happen to run a
number of online travel booking sites (affiliates of the major OTAs).
So, I have some empirical evidence to work with here.
For
an organization selling $10 million in annual hotel room sales, to
increase conversion by 1% would yield over $38k dollars per month in
revenues. That is $456k per year in incremental revenue. That is an
amazing ROI, even if we only incorporated video for our top selling
properties (which most of you know generated the bulk of the revenues
for any business).
While
your numbers may vary, depending on whether you are working with
merchant/wholesale model sales , a retail commission model or whether
you are the supplier, if you don’t know what every 1% of conversion is
worth to you online, run do not walk to your calculator or spreadsheet
and figure it out.
–>You are clearly going to have to do your own math, but Invodo says that
shoppers who view video are 174% more likely to purchase
than viewers who do not.
Did you hear that? 174% more likely to purchase!
I’m going to borrow Kulin’s line today and at the same time, I’m tugging on my ear for good measure.
What are you waiting for?
Chicke Fitzgerald
distribution afficianado