This is about one of the most commonly used marketing media vehicles for large consumer businesses- television. 2012 is the first year that the raw number of US households with televisions declined. Really.
Of course, today, just because a household doesn’t have a television, that doesn’t mean that the inhabitants of that household can’t watch the shows that are broadcast on television. They can watch on their computer (or tablet) screen via Hulu or directly from the channel’s website or sometimes even on YouTube. I think this is all good news for the small business owner who wants to incorporate video or visual content in their marketing. Their audience is getting more and more used to seeing online video marketing and content. And access for the small business marketer is now much less expensive- for both production and distribution.
Of course, you need to think about how and where they are watching your video content since another recent report shows that people are self-reporting that they are using the internet less. Really?
This one comes from Forrester and most of those who have written about it think that since it’s a self-report people aren’t counting all the time they’re online but not on their computer- like when they’re on their phone or tablet. In other words, we’ve become so used to being online with our different devices that we forget that we were online when we’re asked to self-report.
So, make sure that your video content (or other visual marketing content)looks and sounds great on a phone or tablet in addition to looking and sounding great on a larger computer. My favorite way to figure out what looks good is to watch content similar to what I’d like to produce and see who is doing it well across multiple platforms. Do you like talking heads? An animation? Graphics? On the smaller phone screens, you might lose some of the detail.
And of course, consider using a professional to help you if you’re not sure how to best present your company and marketing message using visual content.