When Flash first came out it was exciting and every designer wanted to use it. However, many times we were able to increase conversion by cutting out the use of video and audio. According to Marketing Experiments in a recent study, that is changing though.

An experiment through a series of 28 videos ranging in length from 15 seconds to 8 minutes with a 3-5 second promotion at the end of it resulted in a comparable saving of as much as $1,248.60 in pay-per-click advertising (for two consecutive months during the experiment), more than 4,000 of subscribers at the cost of $20.14 per subscriber.

Embedding promotional message at the end of the videos, with a URL to an interesting and relevant website to the viewer is the key to hook viewers into getting more.

The total estimated investment for all of the videos was $9,600 but getting the viral marketing works on both YouTube and Google Videos costs nothing. Moreover, these videos will continue to work months, if not years, instead of just the total 60 days of the time during which this experiment took place.

The study also introduces social media optimization (SMO) strategy for online videos. Based on how different social networks work, there are ways marketers could optimize their videos to maximize findability.

Read the whole article to find the six essential tips.

Although this study has proven that online videos could work if proper strategy is considered, still the cost to implement it has to be invested up front. This is different from pay-per-click, which allows marketers to turn on and off the campaign in real-time while testing different creative at the same time.

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