Expertise on Tap | Email & Video Marketing...made easy

How to measure audience retention for your videos using YouTube analytics

Big news from YouTube! They've recently introduced a massive improvement to their video analytics. This brings some powerful benefits if your business has videos on YouTube. You can now monitor how long people watched your videos for. It's all very well saying your video got 800 views but what if those viewers stopped watching part way through thus missing out on your key message? Now you can play the video and view a graph showing exactly which proportion of the audience were watching at any given time. See the example below. How to view your audience retention 1 Go to www.youtube.com/analytics and logon to your account. 2 Click "audience retention" on the left hand side bar. 3 Then choose your video beneath where it says "content". 4 Choose your date range. 5 Play the video and the red vertical bar will move. Note: This will only work for videos with more than a few hundred views. Top 3 tips on how to use this to your advantage: • Anyalyse where the drop off occured. What specific content caused people to tune out? • Was your video too long? Could you have got your key messages across in a shorter video? • Use the results to work out what you could do differently next time you produce a video. Here is an example of the audience retention measure. As you play the video in your YouTube account the vertical bar moves across.

Expertise on Tap client wins major industry award

We're delighted that our client The Stuart Holmes Hair & Beauty Spa, has scooped one of the highest accolades in the British hairdressing industry. Salon of The Year 2010 The Cheltenham-based salon was named as Salon of the Year at the prestgious Hairdressers Journal Business Awards this week. The salon fought off strong competition from the industry luminaries such as Michael van Clarke and Sir Trevor Sorbie to win the title. Stuart started the business just six years ago with his wife Sara. Expertise on Tap has been working with The Stuart Holmes Hair & Beauty Spa since 2008. Since then they have worked with the salon to significantly transform all aspects of their internet marketing. This includes: • A regular email marketing programme to engage clients and attract new customers. • Stuart Holmes Tv. This includes production of promotional videos and a series of blowdry lessons. • Building and developing a social media presence including Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. • Internet consultancy including building a presence on Google Maps and YouTube and creating and managing Google Adwords campaigns. Julian Wellings of Expertise on Tap comments "Stuart Holmes is just one of those perfect clients. They're constantly innovating and aren't afraid to experiment with new ideas. Awards like this don't just happen and I congratulate Stuart, Sara and their fantastic team for their determination, vision and commitment to excellence". Stuart Holmes says "We love working with Expertise on Tap. They react positively, patiently and quickly to all our demands and they consistently add value to our business. We'd like to thank Expertise on Tap for the part they played in helping us win this fantastic award". How the Gloucestershire Echo reported the story... Click image for large version

On location at the UK's first Foursquarestival

Last weekend we were on location at the UK's very first Foursquarestival. Foursquare... what?! Watch the short video below to find out more.

YouTube Extends Video Time Limit to 15 Minutes

Our friends at Mashable.com report that YouTube is extending the duration of videos you can upload from 10 to 15 minutes.

This is good news. I've occasionally had videos I want to post which are longer than this and have to post them on Vimeo instead.

Just a word of caution though. Don't make your videos longer just because YouTube now allows you to.  "Less is more" when it comes to web video and if embedding video on your website we recommend no more than 2-3 minutes.

Read more from Mashable.com

Expertise on Tap now offers A/B testing for email newsletters

Here's a new feature being offered by Expertise on Tap for e-newsletter customers. It's called A/B testing. What is A/B testing? A/B testing (also called split testing) is a way of working out which of two different options will be the most effective. When used for your email campaigns, that means A/B testing can help us decide which email will the best one to send to your subscriber list from two different options which are labeled A and B. The basic idea is that we send Version A to a small number of your subscribers, and Version B to another small group. The results (opens or clicks) are measured, and a winner is chosen automatically, or manually if you prefer. Then that winning version is sent out to all the remaining subscribers.  The duration of the test can be anything from one hour upwards, but I recommend allowing at least 8-24 hours. Click here for a screen shot of a recent A/B test. Why should you use A/B testing? A/B testing offers a simple way for you to get the most opens and clicks from your campaigns. With A/B testing you could: • Test two subject lines, to see which one results in the most opens or clicks • Test two different sets of content to see which one gets the best results • Test a "Free Shipping" promotion versus a "15% Off" promotion • Test two different "from names" to see which generates the most opens Any pitfalls? It's not completely fail safe and there might be other factors which influence the test results. But it's easy to set up and worth trying it to see if the overall clicks and opens improve. Interested? Please drop me a line or call 01242 696728 to discuss how A/B testing could benefit your email campaigns.