Multichannel Forensics A to Z: YouTube

YouTube is a proxy for video. One day in the not-to-distant future, you'll utilize a lot of video on your website.

When we talk about micro-channels, video will likely become the most important entertainment micro-channel.

And entertainment micro-channels will become very important to brands that are, in the vernacular of Multichannel Forensics, in Acquisition Mode.

Home retailers are often in Acquisition Mode, with fewer than forty percent of customers purchasing again within the next twelve months. For these brands, what reason could the customer possibly have to come back and visit your website, when she has no need for the merchandise you offer in the short-term? Heck, she just purchased a couch and a rug, she's not likely to buy anything again anytime soon.

Acquisition Mode brands may use entertainment micro-channels like video to keep customers visiting the website in-between purchases. Think of it as the awareness-style advertising automobile companies use to keep their brands top-of-mind in the five years between car purchases --- except that the content is hosted on their own site, or on YouTube, where it serves as a customer acquisition vehicle.

Micro-Channel: Video And E-Mail

Staying with my current fascination of Crutchfield, here's how the venerable direct marketer uses video to describe the Polk Surroundbar.

It's quick, crisp, and complements text-based copy or user generated reviews.

Best of all, we capture this information in our database, right? We create an indicator that measures the most recent date a customer viewed a video (and we'll certainly get more sophisticated in time). And when we tailor our e-mail marketing campaigns, we sub-segment the video viewers from everybody else --- offering them vastly different content.

Eventually, we use Multichannel Forensics to see how video micro-channel users evolve and change, knowing and understanding the role video plays in the customer experience.

Fun stuff!