Video as a "First Mover Advantage" for Small Businesses.
First Mover Advantage as defined by Rajan Varadarajan Professor of Marketing and e-commerce at Texas A&M University: is described as “A sometimes insurmountable advantage gained by the first significant company to move into a new market.”
Can online video offer small businesses a “first mover advantage”, when it comes to perception in the marketplace?
Increasingly, online video is being realized as one of the best tools available to brand a business and position it against the competition. Most major companies have been utilizing online video, both in internal and external communications for years, to great effect.
In the rapidly evolving digital market space small businesses are realizing they need a new approach to communicate with and reach potential customers online. Often times however, the preferred mode is to sit back and wait for their competition to make the first move. As such many small businesses may be missing a golden opportunity, to garner a “first mover” advantage in their space.
Online video is now a well established and powerful "influencing" medium and is generally considered second only to word of mouth in terms of its ability to effect brand uplift and purchase intent.
Consider some of the more recent stats regarding online video:
59% of senior executives prefer to watch video instead of reading text. (Forbes)
Visitors who view product videos online are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not. (Internet Retailer).
Retail site visitors who view video stay two minutes longer on average and are 64% more likely to purchase than other site visitors. (Comscore)
By 2019, 80% of global Internet consumption will be video content (Cisco)
The beauty of the first mover advantage exists not only in the fact that companies have the potential to get a “leg up” on their competition, but also in the perception that their small business is “on the leading edge“, by leveraging online video in creative and compelling ways. So whether its a customer testimonial video, thought leader interview, product feature video, explainer video, or any number of video types, all have the potential (if reasonably well produced) to generate positive results.
The production costs to create good online video are reasonably inline with other more traditional marketing collateral.The time to make your mark and establish your web presence in the digital age is now--2017 is the year for online video.
About Joe Stephens and StratDV Video Production
Joe Stephens is an award winning independent video editor, shooter, and creative producer with over 10 years in the field of corporate video production.
Joe founded StratDV in 2007 to serve small businesses and non-profits through the creative application of online video and web technologies.
Joe has shot and produced video projects that have been used by AOL, Domino's Pizza, IBM, Alcoa Corporation, Annapolis Seafood Markets, Sodexo, SCLogic, UMBC, NRTC, Allegis Group, Comcast SportsNet, Chesapeake Regional Tech Council, Merritt Properties, Chesapeake Academy, The Erickson Foundation, Feed The Children, and a host of other companies and non-profits since 1999. Additionally, his work has garnered national attention, Joe is a two time Telly Award winner, and 2016 W3 award recipient by IAVA (International Academy of Visual Arts).
