Using custom branded video players to make your content stand out and get you results

Using custom branded video
players to make your content
stand out and get you results

VITOMY video to many

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Copyright © 2011 Vitomy.com

Using custom branded video players to make your content stand out and get you results
Enormous rise in popularity of online video


The popularity of online video among consumers and business buyers is growing rapidly. According to comScore,
178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in June 2011 for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer.
These numbers represent a 1290 percent increase in views since January 2006.1 A Burst Media survey of online
U.S. adults found that 71.6 percent of Web users watch online video content in a typical week and 39.0 percent of
all viewers spend between one and five hours per week watching online video. Viewers are more likely to interact
with and take action based on online video than other types of content with 24.1 percent of men aged 35-54 saying
they have taken action based on Internet video.2

More than 75 percent of business executives regularly watch online video, according to a 2011 survey titled
“Enterprise Video Communications Survey” from Interactive Media Strategies. A 2011 Eccolo media survey found
that 62 percent of U.S. business technology purchasers reported that they found video very or extremely influential
in the final purchase decision, an increase of 14 percent over the 2010 figure. Videos were ranked as the fourth
most influential factor in the purchase decision, trailing closely behind case studies, which ranked first.3

The trend toward increasing online video views seems likely to continue since users of tablets, the fastest growing
device category, spent nearly 30 percent more time per session than desktop users watching online videos in the
third quarter of 2011. They were twice as likely to complete these viewing sessions, according to Ooyala’s Video
Index Report. Tablet users also spent about 28 percent more time per session watching video than desktop users.4

“comScore Releases June 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings,” comScore press release, July 15, 2011
1

Jack Loechner, “70% of Online Video Ad Viewers Visit Site or Buy,” MediaPost Blogs, November 17, 2011
2

“Eccolo Media 2011 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report,” Eccolo Media. 2011.
3

4
“Video Viewers Watching Longer via Tablets, Sharing More on Facebook,” MarketingProfs,
Jon Orlin, “Online Video Ad Budgets Expected To Rise Sharply In 2012,” TechCrunch, November 18, 2011.
5

“Content Marketing Key to B2B Sales Funnel,” eMarketer Blog, October 18, 2011.
6

Copyright © 2011 Vitomy.com. All rights reserved. 2


Increasing use of online video for marketing by small and
medium businesses

With the increasing popularity of online video, it should come as no surprise that online video ad budgets are
projected to spike in 2012. The second annual “Video State of the Industry Survey” by Adap.tv and Digiday says that
online video ad spending is expected to grow by 47 percent in 2012. Of advertisers that have not published video
so far in 2011, 84 percent said they will include digital video in their campaigns in 2012.5

Further, a study by Focus Research found that 23 percent of B2B and B2C marketing professionals worldwide said
video is the most valuable type of content for supporting marketing objectives. Videos ranked fourth in the survey
after blog posts, webinars and white papers.6

Methods of distributing online video

As with any other type of marketing content, distribution is critical. There’s no point in spending time and money
creating great video content without a plan to capture the attention of your target market. The three obvious places
to start in distributing online video content are:

◆ ◆ your own website

◆ ◆ a YouTube channel

◆ ◆ social media sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter)

Video can play an important role in the sales funnel. Most companies get video on their sites by embedding
YouTube video players. This has its disadvantages. For example, YouTube superimposes ads on your video and the
player often draws viewers to the YouTube site where they may become distracted by other similar products (or even
totally unrelated videos).

Most businesses also create a YouTube channel and post their videos there. YouTube is an obvious choice for video
distribution because of its enormous visitor traffic. YouTube is the largest video sharing platform, the third most
visited website in the world and the second largest search engine. YouTube gets over 3 billion page views per day
and YouTube mobile receives over 100 million views per day.7 Businesses posting their videos to YouTube benefit
from the fact that customers who have never heard of the company may find them through the YouTube
search engine.

“Video for Business – YouTube Statistics 2011,” Social Media Observatory, August 30, 2011.
7



However, YouTube has some limitations as a video marketing tool. A YouTube channel provides some basic branding
because you can name the channel and change its appearance a bit. But it is not possible to customize the
YouTube video player in order to provide branding outside of the YouTube channel pages. Your channel profile can
include links to your website, but YouTube viewers tend to spend little time reading profiles because their primary
interest is watching videos.

Another limitation of a YouTube channel is that YouTube generates revenues by selling ads that are superimposed
on videos played on its site. There is no way for you to control the content of these ads as it is based primarily on
keywords contained in your video’s title, description, tags and category. A competitor might purchase ads that
appear superimposed on your videos. For some, this might be a reason to avoid having a YouTube channel at all.

Another concern is that YouTube is blocked in many organizations in order to prevent employees from wasting time
at work. This means many potential customers may be unable to watch your videos while they are at work. One final
concern relating to a YouTube channel is that the huge number of videos on YouTube might distract your viewers
and reduce the time they spend with your videos.

Social media is another valuable place to market internet video. You can post your video in your Facebook status,
share it with users who have liked, friended or subscribed to your brand’s feeds, and post in relevant groups and
pages. You can post your video to LinkedIn groups that reach your target audience and you can also link to your
video in status updates. You can also post video as Twitter status updates (“tweets”).

With these and other social media, the key to reaching prospective customers is to develop relationships with them
by providing useful content and engaging in a dialog. The real power of social media comes from the ability of
users to share content they find interesting to their own friends and followers. Interesting content is often shared
hundreds or thousands of times, as it can spread virally from the initial audience to friends of friends and followers
of followers. Some of the most successful videos have gone viral and generated millions of views in a matter
of days.

Social media also has its limitations as a video distribution platform. Most companies post their videos on social
media sites by embedding YouTube video players in the social media site. The YouTube embedded player has the
disadvantage of not providing branding or a call to action. You might provide this type of information when you
posts your video, but when the video is shared by other users this information is usually lost.



Custom video players help emphasize the advantages and minimize
the weaknesses of all distribution platforms

Custom video players help businesses utilize the power of Internet video and distribute it widely over social media
sites while overcoming the limitations of video distribution on the Internet. The latest generation of custom video
players can be customized to incorporate branding and a call to action. This is not so critical when the video is
posted on your own site or on your page in social media sites where visitors have no difficulty finding additional
information and getting in contact with a real person. But the purpose of social media is to spread your content as
broadly as possible. A custom video player makes it possible for the vast majority of your audience who obtains the
video from a source other than yourself to receive branding and a call to action.

Instead of directing viewers to a link where they see a video player in the middle of a busy Web page with ads
scrolling across, they can watch video in your custom player without any distractions. A custom branded video
player’s advantage over a YouTube channel is that visitors are no longer one click away from leaving your channel for
a Lady Gaga music video.

A custom video player also provides maximum branding representation and a strong call to action whether your
video appears on your website, in a social media post, in an email message, in a blog post on another website, etc.
You can decorate the video player with your company name, product name, slogan, etc. You can also provide a link
to a sign-up form, e-commerce website, product landing page, or wherever you want viewers to go after they view
the video. A clear call to action can dramatically increase leads and revenue generated by your videos.

It’s possible to build multiple custom video players for different divisions, products or even for individual videos. For
example, if you have a series of videos meant to sell a line of products, then they should probably all be featured on
a custom video player dedicated to the line of products. This will allow clients to easily view one video after another,
see all of the products in the line and perhaps buy more than one.

Utilizes the cloud to save time and money

Most custom video players also utilize the cloud to deliver video to your customers and prospects in whatever format
is required by their device. So they eliminate the need for I.T. resources to serve up video and transcode video into
different formats. Like other cloud-based applications, these video player design platforms automatically scale from
handling zero users to handling tens of thousands of users without requiring an investment in computing assets.



Vitomy takes custom video players to a new level

Provides a higher level of branding and call to action

Vitomy is a new custom video player that provides a higher level of branding control and a stronger call to action
than other players. The main reason is that the Vitomy platform provides the ability to customize the player to a
much greater degree without requiring programming or design skills. The user simply logs into the Vitomy website
and selects the “build a player” button. Next the user selects either the “preexisting template” or “design and build”
option. The “design and build” option provides maximum design flexibility. The user then enters a name for the
video player.

The video player can be created in a unique shape by uploading PNG image files with transparent backgrounds as
the video player’s background canvas. The next step is to upload your branded logo and position it on the player.
Then define the viewing screen and adjusting its size and placement with the cursor. A banner can be added to
feature a specific call to action. Hyperlinks to a landing page can be added to the logo or banners to give users
an easy way to get more information or place an order. The custom video player can also have a channel selector
to showcase other videos you have created. These videos can be shown off to the side of the viewing screen to
simplify selection. The size and shape of the channel selector can be changed using simple drag-and-drop tools.

Once you have created your custom player, you can use it on your website, in social media and in email. Most
important, when others share your video or use it on their own sites, the player will go along with it, providing your
branding message and a link to the action that you want viewers to take.

Serve viewers on mobile devices

It’s important to ensure that your video marketing message can be accessed on a variety of devices, particularly
smartphones and tablets which are continually growing as a proportion of the video-viewing audience. The Vitomy
custom player can deliver multiple video formats and bit rates simultaneously while the user only has to upload
one original video file. Mobile video formats are continually changing and Vitomy stays on top of these changes to
deliver your videos in whatever format today’s popular devices are demanding.

Track video performance

Vitomy also keeps track of where your video has been posted and how many times it has been watched in each
location. This makes it easy to determine which videos are most popular with social media sharers and viewers. This
information can be used to help guide your future content creation efforts.



Which subscription level makes sense for your business?

Vitomy provides several different tiers of subscription designed to address the unique needs of different users.

A Free subscription lets you try out the product and find out whether Vitomy is right for you. This is not a free trial but
rather a never-ending free version that is limited to 40 GB of storage and bandwidth per month. Another limitation
of the free version is that users can create and their own custom video player templates, but are limited to using
standard players in providing videos to customers and prospects.

The second Vitomy subscription tier is called YouTube Only. It provides users with the ability to design their own
players for use with YouTube videos. This option is designed for businesses that want to continue to use YouTube as
their content server while adding the ability to use a custom video player. With this player, YouTube is used to host
videos and the Vitomy custom player to view videos on the company site, in social media, in email marketing, and in
other sites such as blogs. YouTube Only users host their video on YouTube but have the ability to design and share
custom player templates as a branded alternative to YouTube’s embed codes. YouTube Only accounts cost $9.99
per month.

Finally, a Premium Vitomy account provides 200 GB of storage and bandwidth and the ability to design and
customize an unlimited number of templates for $59 per month. Users can activate or deactivate overage billing
with this option. If you exceed 200 GB in usage in a given month, another 50 GB will automatically be added to their
account for $15. This option is designed for companies that are committed to use of internet video to market their
products. It avoids the clutter and potentially conflicting advertising messages associated with YouTube hosting.

Conclusion
A branded video player leverages your investment in video content by making it easy to share on websites, social
networks and blogs while providing branding and a strong call to action. The Vitomy custom media player provides
the ultimate custom video player by delivering the most design flexibility and branding, a choice of pricing levels
including a never-ending free account, and a wide range of other features.


Using custom branded video players to make your content stand out and get you results

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Using custom branded video players to make your content stand out and get you results