This year, the  most significant marketing investment you can make, apart from creating a fantastic website (which we hope you have already done), will be to create meaningful and entertaining online video content for your target customers or constituents.

You know, the Hollywood writer's strike created a huge opportunity for online video.  Bereft of their favorite television programming, viewers turned in droves to the 7 million hours of online video content.  A Pew study found that daily views on YouTube increased doubled in 2007. The number of women who viewed online content increased 59%! 

So online video is hot.  Even the Royal Family has their own YouTube channel.  And another reason for the explosion of online video?  It's cost-effective.  The projected spending for online advertising is $1.3 billion for 2008, or about 3% of the total advertising budget for the industry.  Contrast that with $54 billion that will be spent on television advertising. 

 

Yet, in some ways, online advertising is more effective.  One study found that 75% of viewers thought online ads were just as good as televised commercials, while another finding reported that women pay more attention to online ads than televised ones.  Online video is also much more track-able.  It's been discovered, for example, that 60% of online content viewers will take action after watching a video.