Can video increase your conversion rate? Andrew Johnson’s Web Publishing Blog has an interview with Brendon Sinclair about a website he made that is just a video case study that promotes Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. What’s interesting is that Brendon also has a normal site promoting the book, but the video site gets four times the conversion rate.
It’s a pretty interesting idea to build a site like Brendon built to review the book in an affiliate format. It’s pretty compelling because the video gives a sense of trust in seeing a real talking person, and he does a good job showing a real example of why the SEO Book worked for him. It’s getting easier and easier to create video like this, although Brendon still points out it took him four days of work to create this, but depending on how much revenue it generates four days isn’t that bad.
I wouldn’t yet say it’s a hard and fast rule that video will convert better. It has to be done well, a poorly done video could kill conversion rates as fast as a well done video could help them.
The bottom line is think about testing video for whatever you’re promoting. Whether you’re running a topical blog or an ecommerce empire, it could help your results.
I looked at both sites and and the layout and pretty much everything else is different. I don’t think I’d put it all on the Flash Video. The only thing the two sites have in common is they are selling the same product…and that’s it.
Thanks for the mention.
Yes, both sites are very different. The text page is on my main site and 1 of 1,000 pages.
We’ve agonised over what format to do the video site in and decided upon Flash 7 after a lot of research into accessability, reluctance to download media players, play quality, etc. No system is perfect but we believe the way we’ve done it is as effective as possible (but not perfect).
And you’re right in saying that video won’t work for everthing, of course. Being SEO I thought video might work because people who know about it and are reviewing a book about it are more tech savy and more likely to view online video.
Thanks again.
Brendon
You’re correct Webmetricsguru that it’s not a pure test because it’s not boiled down to one variable. However, it’s a judge between the two formats of the primary content being in video or being in text. Four times the conversion rate is a SIGNIFICANT difference, and I find it unlikely that it’s something like the background color of the page accounting for the majority of that difference.
The likelihood is that the different review format (text vs. video) is really driving the difference in conversion rate.
I guess it just boils down to ease of use and multimedia. People are always going to prefer being told something as appose to having to read it!.
I guess it just appeals to the lazy creature in all of us.
I agree, watching a video is a lot easier to digest on the ol’ grey matter. Multimedia is the way forward