Video Affiliate Marketing

[Grounded Vertigo]

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It's a new week and I'm in the mood for a bit of debate about the future of affiliate marketing.

I've been reading a lot recently about the potential of video and how it's the next big thing in affiliate marketing.

I would love to believe this as it would be a great excuse to get a video camera and start making some films but what do you all think, do you think it has the potential?

Most of the people who are trying it out at the moment are doing video reviews of products and stating they're getting 2-3 times the conversion rate they normally would. Do you think this is the only way to use video or do you think there are other areas it can be used in.

It would be great to see what affiliates think but also merchants. Would merchants be willing to send out products for video bloggers to review? I really think a lot would be influenced by this. If we're all going to have to review products we own / buy ourselves it would severely limit who could get started in this area.

Love to hear what you all think!

Michelle

[philhancox]

Funnily enough I was thinking about this t'other week. I think videos add a whole new dimension to shopping. For example, on sites like IWOOT I love those videos that actually show the product in action. It helps the online world get closer to the real world in that on the high street you can see a product, touch it etc and a video helps see more of a product and what it's capable of. I also think videos are very important with multimedia products e.g. DVDs, games etc.
Videos are an extra way of really making a site worthy of visiting and I've noticed Amazon are using them more. It's also a great way of marketing the site more e.g. through YouTube and social networking. It's more viral and presumably more profitable to share a video of a cool gadget on a Facebook group than a bit of copy.
I doubt it would be the kind of thing to make or break an affiliate either now or in the future, but I reckon it would certainly help.
In short: I like 'em

[Grounded Vertigo]

Funnily enough I was thinking about this t'other week. I think videos add a whole new dimension to shopping. For example, on sites like IWOOT I love those videos that actually show the product in action. It helps the online world get closer to the real world in that on the high street you can see a product, touch it etc and a video helps see more of a product and what it's capable of. I also think videos are very important with multimedia products e.g. DVDs, games etc.

I totally agree with you on this Phil. I think it can do a lot to help promote a product however at the moment I'm wondering how easy it is going to be for affiliates to play a role in it. It is really good to see the merchants producing video to use but I think there really is the need for unique content as well to draw visitors in to your site as opposed to a competitors. I do wonder how easy or flexible merchants will be in helping with that.

Videos are an extra way of really making a site worthy of visiting and I've noticed Amazon are using them more. It's also a great way of marketing the site more e.g. through YouTube and social networking. It's more viral and presumably more profitable to share a video of a cool gadget on a Facebook group than a bit of copy.

Again I totally agree with you! I think if I was to give this a go I would try to create something that was a bit more viral to spark interest, if not as the sole way I use it it would definitely play a role.

[accelerator]

Video will definitely be an important option to the affiliate some time in the future, but it's a question of timing and your own business strategy. I think it's probably still a little early to seriously dedicate your strategy to video, but that time could come in the not too distant future. The main issues I see are the time and production effort it takes to get your return, and the fact that at the moment it is difficult for the search engines to work out what a video is about, although that will change when they write speech recognition search engines that can "listen" to a video.

I believe in the future you will also see more embedded ads in video. These will also be used in computer games and films, so for example whilst you are watching a film, you could have an option which will highlight items saying "Buy This".

Video will be quite big soon, but there will still be a place for SEO'd traditional sites alongside it I think.

Rgds

Accelerator

[philhancox]

I think the difficulty is making videos the sole content or worthy of being on the site especially if they're just being used to sell stuff, but a bit of creativity goes a long way. After all, who wants to voluntarily watch an advert?

Take for example, videogames. What if I were to do video walkthroughs of games? Walkthroughs, FAQs, cheats etc are v popular but I bet they're more text based than visual and a visual aid to defeating a boss would be great. Now I publish loads of these videos to social networking sites via my blog, become an authority, get loads of visitors and have a section on my site / advertising targeted to the videogame playing crowd. They'd have more linkbait than a simple text description of how to defeat the evil wizard dude and therefore better for seo.

It's very much a complementary marketing tool. Take a look at a certain discount codes website for example, they have a shopping game and I accidentally spent about twenty minutes just whizzing around playing this game. It's all about adding stickiness to the site.

[Grounded Vertigo]

Accelerator, the point about search engines not being able to read videos at present is a really valid one and I would think would be crucial to when a switch over to pure video blogging occurs. My thought at the moment and from examples I've seen is that there would need to be a video with text in the form of a transcript.

I think this joint usage will always be needed even after video can be read by search engines as not everyone will have the capabilities on their computer to make a video play smoothly depending on complexity of it etc...

[uretopia]

Take for example, videogames. What if I were to do video walkthroughs of games? Walkthroughs, FAQs, cheats etc are v popular but I bet they're more text based than visual and a visual aid to defeating a boss would be great. Now I publish loads of these videos to social networking sites via my blog, become an authority, get loads of visitors and have a section on my site / advertising targeted to the videogame playing crowd. They'd have more linkbait than a simple text description of how to defeat the evil wizard dude and therefore better for seo.

With your example, I think video walkthroughs of games are already very popular on YouTube, and that raises an another issue. Why bother creating your own video to demonstrate a product, when very often you can find one one YouTube that you can use. I've done a few video product reviews, but generally it's possible to find a non branded video on YouTube which you can use to good effect.

What I think would be very cool is if there was a video hosting service like YouTube but designed with affiliates in mind, so a video would be clickable at any point through to a specified affiliate link. If a company set that up, they'd probably a want a share of the revenue, so what would be an even better solution is if an affiliate network added that kind of functionality as part of their offering. With lots of copy cat networks, it would be cool to see something totally innovative and new.

Rob

[David H]

"What I think would be very cool is if there was a video hosting service like YouTube but designed with affiliates in mind, so a video would be clickable at any point through to a specified affiliate link. If a company set that up, they'd probably a want a share of the revenue, so what would be an even better solution is if an affiliate network added that kind of functionality as part of their offering. With lots of copy cat networks, it would be cool to see something totally innovative and new."

This would be an awesome service. I am very keen to get YORKTEST Laboratories Ltd - Home products demonstrated on video and have often wondered what technical expertise I'd have to have to get video content on the sight but if a service like U Tube did but with the affiliate slant it would be a big bonus.

[John Jupp]

"What I think would be very cool is if there was a video hosting service like YouTube but designed with affiliates in mind, so a video would be clickable at any point through to a specified affiliate link. If a company set that up, they'd probably a want a share of the revenue, so what would be an even better solution is if an affiliate network added that kind of functionality as part of their offering. With lots of copy cat networks, it would be cool to see something totally innovative and new."

This would be an awesome service. I am very keen to get YORKTEST Laboratories Ltd - Home products demonstrated on video and have often wondered what technical expertise I'd have to have to get video content on the sight but if a service like U Tube did but with the affiliate slant it would be a big bonus.

Watch this space!

[Spreader]

Hello folks,

I hope you are all well.

You're totally right. From a merchants point of view a GOOD product video can really aid sales and increase conversion. However, conversely, a BAD product video can actually work to the detriment of the products saleability. I think the chap from the Internet Marketing Bureau had some stats at the recent A4UExpo which pretty much said the same thing...

With regards to affiliates, Prezzybox have actually produced a number of Vidiboxes - which are basically Video Content Units, which a lot of our affiliates are using on their sites to good effect. You can check these Vidiboxes out by clicking here.

Hope that helps a little folks...


Zak.