The report examined data during the first quarter of 2014, where social purchase interactions were tracked through Convertro’s attribution technology. This was used to determine which platforms had affected online sales and at what point they influenced the consumer to make a purchase.
Jeff Zwelling, CEO and co-founder at Convertro told VentureBeat:
We believe that YouTube does well in both of these important purchase funnel areas for a number of reasons. YouTube’s own search volume and preferential positioning on Google’s results help drive large amounts of traffic, of course. But when you get to YouTube, the content is rich, descriptive, and usually helpful.
I’ve done this myself. I recently bought a coffee machine. I had the decision down to three alternatives and couldn’t decide which one was best for me. In the end, I watched videos on YouTube of people using all three machines and chose the one that matched my idea of a good coffee maker.
Does Video Make a Customer Spend More?
Do you think it’s possible that video makes a customer spend more? My answer? A resounding yes. Here’s an example. My husband and I are renovating our kitchen. We are down to the final details, and under the gun from the countertop vendor, needed to pick out a faucet for the kitchen sink. We thought we knew what we wanted, then my loves-to-shop husband found a faucet we’d never before considered. So now, instead of paying $500ish for the faucet that would’ve made me perfectly happy, we are paying twice that for the out of this world faucet that’s motion activated. How did we ultimately discover this product and realize it was absolutely what we needed? You guessed it — a YouTube video!!! Video opens up consumers minds to solutions they might otherwise not have considered, which conveniently also means that often they spend more. [#Winning]
What About Other Social Nets For Product Introduction and Closing Sales?
As mentioned above, the study concludes that YouTube is strongest at both introducing new products and helping close sales. Facebook is the second best platform in those areas, with Google+ coming in third place. Coming dead last is Twitter, which the study deems the worst platform for product introductions and closing sales, but it does perform significantly better if you pay for sponsored tweets. Sponsored tweets are 30 times more likely to lead to a direct purchase and over five times more likely to introduce a new product to a customer. Promoting tweets also help to boost the conversion rate up to three times more than the conversion rate of organic tweets.
Video and B2B Companies?
When we start talking about the importance of video in the B2B sector, this can potentially be a huge advantage that many B2B businesses aren’t yet taking advantage of. I don’t care if you sell forklift parts, HVAC systems or components, automative aftermarket parts, or cabinetry accessories — your customers are out there and they are looking for information to help them along the path to purchase. When you can put visual content in front of them, and show you why they need what it is you sell, you make that decision easier for them.
Want more information from the study (I hope so, you should) …. you can download it here.