Common Craft Blog
Online Videos, Testimonials and Conversion Rates
By leelefever on February 20, 2009 - 10:00am
It's too easy to just put up a web page and hope for the best. I can certainly attest to this practice for most of Common Craft's existence. However, as we've moved into ecommerce and built some traffic, I've become much more data oriented and learned more about things like "conversions" and "A/B testing."
Many web-based businesses have the same goal: drive traffic to your web site and then convert that traffic into some desired action. This is called conversion - converting traffic to sales, contacts, newsletter sign-ups, etc. is a big deal and something that's important to understand.
I've been keeping an eye out for data on how videos work in this process. My guess was that video is an asset - if you can get people to watch a video about your product or service, they may be more likely to take an action.
I recently spoke with my friend Chris Savage at Wistia.com, who is very data-oriented. Wistia is a start-up that makes it easy to privately/securely share videos and measure the results. Wistia uses videos on a number of their pages and I asked Chris about the impact of videos in terms of conversion. His response:
We consistently get 3-4x better conversion ratios when we have videos on a page. Visitors convert in less time and there tend to be more opportunities.
Andrew Angus, who runs Switch Web Video (a member of our Explainer Network), recently wrote a blog post on the impact of testimonials on conversion rates and included some information about the role of video as well.
If you have a video on a webpage you are much much more likely to convert that visitor to a lead as compared to a normal web page. I have seen figures that show video landing pages convert 2 times to 6 times better then a normal webpage.
Andrew wanted to find out how much testimonials matter on landing pages - the first page a visitor sees. So, he set up two landing pages, one with testimonials and one without. Thanks to Google's Website Optimizer, he was able to test one page vs. the other (called A/B testing). Andrew's results:
The page with testimonials on it beat the competition by 158%! That blew me out of the water and is a huge difference for the business. Just think about it… rather than 7 people out of a 100, a much larger 17 out of 100 would contact us. This changes the game for our business and means we are much busier since we started using this new landing page.
So, I think there are a couple of lessons here:
1. Video may play a positive role in giving people a way to learn about your product and take the desired action.
2. Take a look at your "landing page" - the page that people see first, and consider how video and testimonials can help your conversions.
Of course, I must provide a shameless plug for the members of the Common Craft Explainer Network, who can help you create short and simple video for your landing page.
Timing
Universally, compelling communications make more "conversions." But, there is something timely about using video on the web, right now:
We're in the first "Golden Age" of Internet video. Video is both novel and easily accessible / usable on the web.
IMHO, the really happening "medium" of the web right now is links to videos and/or video embedded via Facebook and Twitter. I'd suggest that video is the #1 content type that's really happening on the web right now, with social network oriented microblogging content (via Facebook and Twitter in particular) coming in second. Combine those effectively, and you're on the leading edge.
I think this is going to last for a while. But, at some point, video (in general) may become more like blogs (in general)--still a great way to make a compelling communication, but not necessarily novel in itself.
A thing of the near future
Every business is different from the other - but human behavior is almost universal in the sense that he or she won't fall for anything unless he/she is convinced.
In this age of booming Social Media Marketing techniques, video is one of the most, if not the single most components of convincing prospective clients. Testimonials also play an important role in convincing the clients.
While we move onto Behavioral Search/Web ( I like to call it Web3.0 when visitors decide which site/product is good or bad and not Search Engines or Webmasters) - these tools like videos will be the main vehicles through which to convince visitors. Not many people like to read long articles about a product, but if it is presented in an entertaining way -- through videos, they will get interested.
So sites like Wistia will be having a huge headstart over other sites simply because they are just ahead of time. I see it coming within few hours.
So Cheers
Every Page is a Landing Page
Hi Lee,
Great insights, 158% is a whopping bullet-point indeed, yet I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that there is no such thing as "your landing page": Every page of your website qualifies as a landing page since any other website out there has the ability to link to even the darkest corner of your site and the search engines mostly don't necessarily link to, say, your homepage on any given search query; facts which your analytics tool should be able to attest ;)
Please also note that that the reported higher conversion rates on said pages (featuring video) isn't necessarily causal, as it is very likely that the viewers of those video's were already more than halfway inclined into being converted and thus the video only strengthened their decision making process towards that end.
All in all, very interesting stuff! :)
Last barriers to fall
I do believe that video has a positive impact on the decision process when it comes to the final step of a conversion.
A little more information, a trusted testimonial allows a much better atmosphere for prospects to become clients.
Verified.
TESTIMONIALS AND CONVERSIONS
Great info on combining testimonials and videos to get an opt in..
I think adding the testimonials builds the trust that a consumer feels that
they are dealing with a real life company not a scam.
Great explanation!
Conversion rate for Real Estate Development Website
Thanks for the insight. I have a meeting with the marketing director for a real estate development that wants me to rebuild their website. The specifically asked me about conversion rates and I am going to recommend that we incorporate a video to be linked off the new home page. Good timing on this post!
Importance of testing
Hey Lee,
Nice collection of insights. I work on Google Website Optimizer. We actually tried running video on our homepage (the GWO signup page) with not so good results (30% drop in conversion rate with two different videos). I think this shows the importance of testing. What works for others may not work for you, and more importantly what doesn't work for others (and what they've advised you against doing) may have a spectacular payoff.
Trevor
@Trevor Claiborne I agree
@Trevor Claiborne
I agree that what works for one - may not work for others and hence testing is needed.
But I also believe that - everything goes under some kind of evolution and I strongly believe the future of the web will be what Lee is saying now. For that one has to be highly creative, imaginative in order to catch the attention of the visitor and convince him/her thereafter.
Maybe, GWO videos were not creative enough to draw attention of the prospective clients - or click with their sync! :p
However, I'll be surprised if majority of eCommerce sites don't embrace this technique in the very near future.
Everybody should know this
I too believe that websites containing videos are far more effective compared to those who does not use it in terms of increasing conversion rates. It is because videos are more attractive compared to plain text and some people prefer to watch rather than to read.
Online videos
Videos really plays an important role in increasing conversion rate.This blog Is very informative ,I am really pleased to post my comment on this blog . It helped me with ocean of knowledge so I really believe you will do much better in the future . Good job web master!
Excellent post!
Thanks for sharing, I will be back again soon.
I'd never tought that simple
I'd never tought that simple video can play that big of a deal in conversion. Good to know I guess I'll have to start making videos once I start working on my site again. Thanks for the tips Lee.
"A Page With Testimonials On It Beat The Competition By 158%"
That is an AMAZING stat. You don't mention anything about video sybdication. Using services like Tubemogul or Traffic geyser. What do you think about them and will Google smack you down for duplicate content sending the same videos everywhere?
Thanks!
Trainboy - John Parker Culpepper - Train Horns
To video or not to video
This is interesting... I often see marketers trying to convince me that having video on the landing page is a must, and if you don't you go the way of the dinosaurs. (And they happen to sell some information on the subject, incidentally).
Now I notice among the comments here that video can even *lower* the success of a landing page! Kind of surprising. Has it something to do with people resenting being hard-sold to or is it the quality of the video?
Actual testimonials on the other hand -- never heard anything but good things about those. They are good for sorting out good products from bad ones, example: this site comparing Forex trading systems. What you want when considering a purchase is genuine user feedback on the product.
Vidoes and conversions
My company has been experimenting with videos for the all the reasons listed above. Our testing has also found another added benefit. No only to pages with videos seem to convert better, but the visitor stays on page longer. This plays a role in a few different areas:
#1 - The bounce rate for pages with videos is significantly lower than non-video pages.
#2 - The actual click-thrus for video pages is higher versus non-video.
#3 - The overall number of pages visited is much higher in video pages.
Based on information like this, it's hard to ignore the effectiveness of video when used correctly.
Office Products
How to get conversion to 0% in 1 easy step
First up... thanks for referencing the testing we did Lee. I was super excited to see MY name on YOUR blog... I thought I had finally made it... it like the front page of the New York Times only way better. But then I realized I was still not quite there....
Right after you posted this I messed up ALL the contact forms on my site. That is right ALL OF THEM. I get excited about making the big time and then I make it so NO ONE can contact me. Our conversion dropped to 0% for 4 days! Then I worked it out and finally fixed it.
So thanks for the excitement!
And if you did check out our site during the 'down time' ... we are back up!
Web Video Production now with forms that work!
Thanks Lee.
Andrew
I am thinking about trying to put video on my site...
I just have a quick question (well maybe 2 questions)
I am sort of new to making blogs. As I have noticed in this post adding video can improve the performance of a site.
Are some sites more geared for the use of videos?
Are there sites that would not benefit at all from video?
I have tried to find videos from YouTube on my site ... there doesn't to be relevant videos
Would a site like the one I have made be a potential site that would not benefit from the use of video?
Any help from experienced people would help.
Thanks Francis
I think videos will be the next big thing
There are a lot of internet marketers out there and we are all fighting to find a way to grab the customer's attention and really stand out from the crowd. I think video will be the next big thing in an attempt to really show your customers what they can expect from your product. It's so easy to do too with free software on your PC or Mac or a cheap flip cam from amazon.
Amelia Johnson