Column: Ask SCORE, by Dean L. Swanson

What are the fastest growing digital marketing formats for business marketers? At the Small Business Round Table in Rochester last Saturday, Ann Potter gave business owners some great guidance on how to use social media in their small business marketing and Eric Froiland demonstrated several examples of using video in social media and websites.

This presentation was a great example of the results of a recent study completed by Ad-ology. In its report, “2011 Small Business Marketing Forecast,” it showed small businesses are interested in using more online video — 45 percent of business owners said they would do more with online video in the coming year. At the same time, 22 percent said they were frustrated with trying to understand online advertising. But “before too much time and money are wasted on videos, marketers should keep in mind the recent research on video viewership” warns eMarketer.

First, if your goal is to reach other businesses, don’t expect to engage older executives with in-stream ads. According to Forbes Insights, young executives (under 40, in this study) are comfortable watching an in-stream ad accompanying an online video, and a smaller but still high percentage are less bothered by “must-watch” in-stream ads. However, older execs (ages 50 and older) are far less tolerant of such advertising.

That being said, this research also shows that video grabs more attention than text on a webpage. In the same survey, 59 percent of executives said they would watch a video first, even if video and text appeared on the same page.

On the consumer side, About.com found that ads that showed how a product works generated the highest response rate among people looking for consumer electronics. And even the oldest consumers said they were more interested in such informative video ads than ones that were funny, offered interactive polls and games, or had “a lot of color and nice pictures.”

Marketers thinking of investing more money in video advertising this year must decide who their target audience is and what its interest in their product, service or brand would be. Use product demonstrations to get your company’s message across, and don’t let your video get lost in the crush on megasites like Hulu. Your real target audience may be more engaged elsewhere. This certainly is an area where small businesses will need professional expertise to help them, and my experience at the last Small Business Round Table demonstrated that we do have that kind of expertise here.

Dean L. Swanson is a volunteer SCORE Counselor.