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STREAMING VIDEO KEEPS VISITORS ON YOUR SITE LONGER |
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| Challenge: One of the biggest challenges for a business-to-business web site is increasing site traffic and converting visitors into customers, or at least into qualified leads. If visitors are coming to your site but not staying long enough to take any action (such as requesting literature or a call from a sales rep), there are value-added elements you can employ to capture their attention. One of the best examples of this is streaming media. Solution: Consider adding streaming media to your site. Streaming media is a sequence of video images and sound that is sent in compressed form over the Internet and displayed by the viewer as they arrive. With streaming media, a Web user does not have to download a large file before seeing the video or hearing the sound. Instead, the media is sent in a continuous stream and is played as it arrives. All the user needs is a player, which is a special program that uncompresses and plays the data. A player can be either an integral part of a browser or downloaded from the software maker's Web site. Getting it done: Streaming media clips are a great way to demonstrate a product or technology, present customer testimonials or offer virtual tours of a facility. And with a little advanced planning, production can be surprisingly affordable. The first step is to decide on the objective and content of your presentation. Do you have a complex technology to demonstrate, a sales pitch to present, a safety lesson to convey, or an enthusiastic client testimonial to share? These are just a few of the options. Next, a script must be written and storyboards of the action created. Remember to keep it brief – two to three minutes at most. Ideally, a video production company should be hired to help plan, shoot and edit the material for a professional result. When it comes time to incorporate the streaming media into your site, determine if you wish to have users register for the presentation. There are pluses and minuses to each. On the plus side, registration allows you to collect valuable data from your prospects. The downside is that not everyone will have the time or patience to be bothered registering. Finally, benchmark your results. One way to do this is to have your ISP provide web traffic reports before and after your streaming video goes live to determine how site “stickiness” has improved in terms of the amount of time each visitor spends on your site. Is this an issue you need help with? Get our advice. How does your web site rank? If you are interested in a free search engine optimization analysis, click here. |
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