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The Explosive Growth of Online Video, in 5 Charts

Digital video ad spend is growing at a rapid pace. According to a new report from eMarketer, the “Q2 2015 State of Video,” total ad spend allocated for digital video has jumped from 2.4 percent in 2013 to 4.4 percent today. Sixty-eight percent of U.S. marketers also plan to increase their digital video budgets in the next year.

As the report notes, this shift is due in part because of new video ad offerings from platforms like Snapchat, Yahoo, and Vessel. The report also emphasizes the proliferation of original video content on platforms like Hulu, YouTube, and Amazon as a key contributor to digital video ad spend’s rise.

Even existing cable networks like HBO and Showtime have seen audiences drop their cable packages for digital; in turn, they’re starting to offer standalone subscription services. Others—like ESPN, CNN, and Disney Channel—are joining digitally packaged services like Sling TV.

Media outlets aren’t the only ones that have to anticipate viewers’ changing habits, however. If marketers are to keep up, they need to adapt to these new digital habits and platforms.

For those who want to stay ahead of the curve, here are the top five takeaways from eMarketer’s report.

1. People spend more time with digital video than with social media

This is a landmark year for digital video. It tied with social media in 2014 when it comes to average time spent per day engaging with different digital activities. In 2015, digital video finally pulled ahead. Users are spending an average of 1:55 with digital video each day, and only 1:44 on social networks.

In fact, time spent with digital video now trumps time spent with all other listed digital platforms, including digital radio, Facebook, and Pandora.

2. Viewers are spending more time watching digital video than ever before

The time adults spend watching digital video each day has increased from 21 minutes in 2011 to one hour and 16 minutes in 2015. Meanwhile, time spent watching traditional TV has been decreasing steadily since 2012. This isn’t surprising, given that more and more viewers are watching their favorite shows through connected TV devices like Apple TV and Roku.

To pull ahead of the curve, marketers would be wise to experiment with content and advertising that’s custom-made for digital video, rather than copying and pasting their TV spots onto digital platforms.

3. Especially millennials

According to the report, “trailing millennials” (aged 14 to 25) are the only age group watching more shows on digital devices than on traditional TV screens.

Seventy-two percent of these trailing millennials also use digital streaming services—a higher percentage than any other age group.

As this generation of trailing millennials grows up, they will most likely come to expect that the best content be offered on digital platforms. The advertising that accompanies that content needs to be innovative enough to hold their fleeting attention.

4. Viewers love longform original content and user-generated live-streams

Viewer attention is in high demand, and there appears to be one secret to capturing it: longform original content. That’s the stuff of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. All three started out as distribution platforms for licensed content, and all three eventually jumped into creating their own shows.

Meanwhile, video streaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat popped up almost overnight and started to gain traction this year, especially among millennials. A May 2015 study by Horizon Media found that 21 percent of U.S. Internet users would be interested in using Periscope or Meerkat; the majority of respondents were aged 18 to 34.

This boom of user generated content doesn’t mean longform content is leaving any time soon, however. As the report states, “It is a sign of the health and versatility of the digital video market that these and other types of content can coexist and present opportunities for marketers.”

 5. Tablet use is soaring

What kind of devices are we watching all of this digital video on anyway? Increasingly, we’re using our tablets and smartphones. In fact, of the devices listed below, tablet use had the greatest annual growth from 2011 to 2015, at 120 percent. And we’re not just watching on the go. We’re also tuning into content on our connected TVs, otherwise known as smart TVs, with an increased usage rate of 23 percent.

While we still watch most of our digital videos on laptops and desktops, their growth stalled in 2015. Suffice it to say, the content world is going mobile, and digital video is no different.

The future of digital TV advertising, in 5 charts

The dominant players in online video advertising today are YouTube and other short-form content providers. But that won’t last much longer.

YouTube and its ilk will lose their lead to companies distributing television programming through “over-the-top” (OTT) connected devices, according to a new report from media research firm The Diffusion Group. That OTT programming is mostly the same long-form content people watch on a traditional TV broadcast — from AMC’s “The Walking Dead” to ESPN’s “SportsCenter” — but served through connected devices such as Roku, Apple TV and Chromecast that enable digital measurement and ad-serving.

The Diffusion Group report forecasts legacy TV advertising revenue will drop to $47.5 billion in 2018, while OTT TV ad revenue will rise to $31.5 billion during the same period. Jointly, that spells growth for the TV advertising market, even as traditional TV advertising budgets decline.

Right now, “OTT advertising is still lumped in with YouTube videos and ads on sites that have video,” said Alan Wolk, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group and author of the “Future of OTT TV Advertising” report. “By 2020, give or take, there will be no distinction between OTT and TV buying. If I’m Kraft, I will buy women 18 to 25 who are watching [ABC television series] ‘Scandal,’ and that ad will show up through OTT or set-top boxes. They’ll be bought and sold together.”

That current conception of OTT ads as online advertising leads to undervalued inventory, but the biggest element holding the sector back is lack of a unified measurement standard, said Wolk. While a number of companies are offering OTT measurement products, including Rentrak and Kantar, many in the industry are waiting on Nielsen’s solution, which it has been working on since 2013. Wolk expects it to finally arrive later this year, which is likely to prompt a major upswing in the value of OTT inventory.

But whatever Nielsen does, the dollars will eventually follow the viewers, who are spending an increasingly large amount of time consuming video programming through connected devices. Last year, the average U.S. consumer watched 3.6 hours of OTT content per week. The report forecasts that figure will nearly double to 6.9 hours this year, with steady increases each subsequent year through 2020.

Not all video content accessible through connected devices is 20 minutes or longer — watching a two-minute YouTube clip through a game console is still considered OTT viewership — but people gravitate toward lengthier content when they’re sitting on their couch, watching on an actual TV screen. FreeWheel’s recent video monetization report shows that 91 percent of OTT ad views occur on content longer than 20 minutes (or on live content, which tends to run longer than 20 minutes).

(Source: FreeWheel Video Monetization Report Q4 2014)

Across OTT platforms and channels, the average video ad load for a standard 30-minute show will increase from 3.2 minutes last year to 5.2 minutes by 2020, according to Wolk’s analysis. Alongside increased viewership as well as advances in OTT ad measurement and targeting, that will help drive substantial growth in OTT ad revenue over the coming years. That growth will be fastest in the next two years, as both multiplatform video providers (Comcast, Time Warner, etc.) and networks push their “TV Everywhere” applications on consumers, said Wolk.

Lessons learned from my former head coach Don James

Coach James was a phenomenal influence on my life.  He taught be so much about life, dedication and achieving success.  He taught by example and setting systems that everyone had to follow to win championships.  The following are observations made during my time there.  Great lessons for all businesses.  

• Setting high goals, no matter how absurd they may be at the time, will result in levels of success that you never expected.
• As a team leader, success comes from surrounding yourself with outstanding people.  The exec should coach the coaches and hold them accountable.  James used to have a wooden plaque on his desk that read: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”
• Time management and attention to detail gives you the edge you need to win when things get complicated. He was the most detail-oriented person I’ve ever met. I’ve worked in the business world for 36 years, and no one comes close. When I became a graduate-assistant coach, Coach James instructed me on the correct way to staple a game plan: upper left corner, one quarter inch from the top, parallel with the top line of the page.
• Never stand in the way of letting good people advance their careers. Highly qualified prospective candidates will see this and they will want to join your team.
• Always teach and coach in a positive manner. Desired behaviors are established quicker when people are receiving positive reinforcement and believe they are getting better.
• It’s OK for people bring you bad news. No penalties. If bad news and potential problems are withheld, then you won’t know what problems you need to fix.
• You don’t have to be considered a pleasant, approachable person to be successful or engender admiration, loyalty and respect.  The only similar person I’ve ever met was a pretty successful guy – Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM.

The Rise of Social Commerce

For too long, e-commerce has been all about how fast a customer can get in and out of a site to complete a purchase. Immediate gratification has helped turn Amazon into a retail giant. But now, companies are trying a new approach — social commerce. 

Social commerce is all about inspiration and product discovery. Sites like Pinterest, Wanelo, OpenSky, and others are more like digital catalogs or virtual malls where shoppers can browse and connect with people interested in the same products and brands. But entrepreneurs and retailers are anxious to transform that interest into sales. 

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we analyzed the most recent data and spoke to leaders in the social commerce space to understand how their companies are adding value at different stages of the retail and e-commerce process. To do so they're building social networks around e-commerce platforms, partnering with brands, or otherwise transforming social commerce's strengths in Pinterest-style digital window-shopping into a clear value proposition.

Access The Full Report, Graphics, And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here's how social commerce companies are driving sales: 

• It's not about click-to-buy: Social commerce is not simply transactional — it's not just about offering a click-to-buy link next to an offer on Facebook. Social commerce will never be what some have wanted it to be, an "Amazon killer." It will be about enveloping the shopper in an experience, akin to a digital catalog or a virtual shopping mall. 
• What will help social commerce grow as a sales driver? The key is to help connect the funnel end-to-end, or to connect different mediums — say, social media and TV — to help coax a consumer down the funnel. The shopper may not buy the first time, but social commerce will become a valuable link in the chain. 
• There are a few ways to encourage purchases: Retargeted advertising may be one missing link. It enables social commerce to connect the sales funnel from end-to-end by serving ads that remind users of products they have browsed across the Web but have not yet purchased. So far, only Facebook has developed this capability.
• Also: Clever merchandising and user interfaces allow for sticky merchant-to-consumer relationships that can help nudge a consumer toward purchase over time. 
• Finally, referrals shouldn't be discounted: Another solution is for social commerce to develop as a sales referral engine, and take a cut of the sales. If social commerce sites have a large enough audience, even a low referral and conversion rate will result in a good revenue stream. But tracking needs to improve. 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-social-commerce-2013-10#ixzz2hnzn7kSV

POP UP Shops

The Code Happy Team decided to do a POP UP Shop concept.  Even though we had over 2,000 products ready to go, we wanted to test the market and our audience to see if we were on the right track.  POP UP's are short sprint concepts and in our case, we decided to only sell 25 products for two weeks and at full MSRP.  

We knew we had an audience of over 521,000 nurses to communicate to but we decided to market to only 45,000.  National hit rates are between 2%-3% and conversion rates also are between 2%-3%.  During our first week, we exceeded that by over 12% and with only a fraction of the audience.  In addition, our sales forecast went up and did it in half the time and with limited product.

We plan to run our next POP UP shop November 22nd- December 13th.  We will find out more metrics on what works and what doesn't.  Our plan is to have 50 products under 50 dollars.

 

9 Data Sets Every E-commerce Company Should Measure

I was curious about which metrics really matter, so a panel of successful e-commerce entrepreneurs which pieces data they measure regularly told us what their overall strategy is. Their best answers are below.

1. User Acquisition Costs

If you are in the e-commerce world and you don't know how many users are landing on your page, the conversion rate of users to paying customers and the cost of that user landing on the page (versus the profit you make in sales), you may not be in the industry too long. SEO is one way to get an audience, but sometimes you have to pay for users, and you have to know what that converts to. If you have returning clients, it's important to know the average retention you will have, as well. We track so much information on our users at TuneBash. There is a great quote that I use, and it's good for the e-commerce world: "If you can't measure it, you can't control it."

- Joseph Ricard, Tunebash Inc

2. Abandoned Carts

You work hard to get people to your site. You work harder to give people something they want to buy. Customers click that beautiful "buy now" and go to the checkout page. And they don't buy? What happened? Keeping a log of abandoned carts gives you the opportunity to ask customers why they didn't buy. Recently, we saw a customer who had five abandoned carts in a period of a couple of days. It turned out our e-commerce site didn't accept Canadian billing addresses. Whoops. Abandoned carts are one piece of data you should look at and follow up on if you have an e-commerce site.

- Brett Farmiloe, Digital Marketing Agency

3. Google Analytics Experiments

In Google Analytics, you can now set up split tests called "experiments." You can set goals and run multiple pages against one another. Rather than guess what works on your Web pages, I highly recommend you split test all important elements. I bet you'll often be surprised at the results. They're not always intuitive.

- Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.com

4. Visitor Value

How much is each visitor generating in revenue? If you know that number, you can budget how much to spend to buy traffic to your site, and you can work on improving that number by increasing conversion rates and customer value.

- Joe Barton, Barton Publishing

5. Lifetime Value

The lifetime value of each customer over a certain period of time and from a specific traffic source is key. You could build campaigns to sell one product to one person one time. But how do you build out a marketing plan that continues to engage both past and present customers and drive demand for both present and future products?

- Rob Emrich, PaeDae

6. Traffic

Obviously you’re going to get traffic from people who are looking for you, but it’s really a question of how much traffic you are getting from people who aren’t looking for you specifically, but rather for something you’re selling. The biggest opportunity to make more money comes from non-branded, organic traffic.

- Rameet Chawla, Fueled

7. Lead Source ROI

Many online businesses start advertising on the Web without actually tracking the ROI of each particular lead source. By diligently tracking this metric, you can know which particular lead sources are profitable and which ones to cut. On a deeper level, you can use this to split test advertisements on a granular level to find out which ones will maximize your ROI and develop the best ads.

- Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes

8. Purchase Funnel

Beyond the obvious metric of CPA (cost per acquisition), we tend to focus on the purchase funnel. Understanding where and when a customer drops off the sales process is just as important as understanding the conversions coming in. Without understanding this, you cannot optimize and refine for increased conversions.

- Adam Cunningham, 87AM

9. Percentage of Mobile Visits

If you don't have a mobile-optimized website, you are in trouble. My company creates a monthly report based on mobile usage, and we were stunned to learn that approximately 20 percent of our users view our website on a mobile device. Take a look at analytics and work to create the best shopping experience possible across all mobile devices.

- Andrew Saladino, Just Bath Vanities

Why Great leaders start with the "Why" before the "What"

This TedX presentation was recently passed to me by my friend who owns Outdoor Research who has successfully answered the WHY they make great outdoor gear vs using the WHAT or the HOW which most companies mistakingly do.

By creating a powerful why, they have created a social ecosystem in which inspires their customer to better relate to their mission statement.

I encourage you to watch this video by Simon Sinek who aptly gives examples of great people who set out with certain goals and answered the why before the what which led them to tremendous heights.

Former NFL Player uses technology to document climb on Kilimanjaro

On June 14th, 2013 Mark Pattison a former NFL player for the Raiders and Saints successfully climbed Mt Kilimanjaro's 19,333 peak in Tanzania, Africa.  Sponsored by GoPro, Mark filmed his journey from start to finish to capture both the culture and physical nature of the climb.

Mark used many technology gadgets to film the epic trip.  GoPro provided the Hero 3 Black edition which is super small, easy to carry and has incredible high video and camera resolution.  To charge up the camera, Mark purchased a solar power monkey which he was able to hang on his backpack while hiking since there are two panels that hang down and capture the suns rays.  Once all the content was captured, Mark downloaded to a I-pad Mini which was light to carry and served as a great source to view different aspects of the trip.

Once back in Santa Monica, Mark's daughter Emilia put all the footage together to come up with a 3 minute story capturing the essence of the climb and then published to You Tube where over 600 people viewed the story within 3 days.  The power of video!

Mark is trying to become the first NFL player to climb all 7 summits which are the tallest peaks on each continent.  Next up is Aconcagua in January 2014.

Maverick Consulting Company and team launch the Code Happy Store

Today Strategic Partners, www.StrategicPartners.net the world's largest manufacturer of medical scrubs and footwear launched their 4th media property www.CodeHappyStore.com (CHS) to a niche audience of "nurses" which they have captured on their other media properties www.ScrubsMag.com, Scrubs Magazine and the Happy App.

Mark Pattison, founder of Maverick Consulting Company was the co-creator of the store and has been responsible for procuring all brands, design, concept & strategic planning along with key members of the SPI team & CEO Mike Singer.  The Code Happy Store is a lifestyle brand for the off-duty nurse and will be leveraging the traffic built up from the other Scrubs properties to redirect back to the CHS.

Nurses are the 2nd largest women's workforce in the nation & they will have an opportunity to earn Scrubbucks -- an affinity program for every purchase they make through the CHS.  Once they earn enough Scrubbucks in their  ScrubBank, they can redeem for great merchandise.