Online Video Is the New Marketing Focus

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

We have been beating the drum on the rise of online video for some time. I recently ran across a new piece of research that brought home its likely impact on professional services marketing. A study by Permission TV looked at the digital marketing budgets of over 400 senior-level marketing professionals. Interestingly, online video was most frequently sited as the focus of budget increases (66.8%) and outscored perennial favorites such as social media (41.6%), search(34.1%), webcasts(32.0%) and mobile(17.4%).

Now, keep in mind that these data reflect marketers in general, not professional services marketers specifically. But that caution notwithstanding, it appears pretty clear that consumers of all types will come to expect online video to be part of any buying process. I see no reason to expect professional services will be any different.

What do marketers hope to achieve with online video? Most expect to increase brand awareness (71.4%). Lead generation (47.2%) is also very highly rated, as is customer retention (44.7%). To all this I say accelerate our video programs!