What with our membership in the Telegraph Business Club and London’s Business Junction, I ‘m doing quite a bit of networking these days. As an ice-breaker, people invariably start off with something along the lines of, “So, how’s business treating you in the recession?” Some have even suggested (and I can’t help thinking, somewhat tactlessly) that perhaps corporate video is a bit of a superfluous and unaffordable luxury in times like these. Well, if we’re talking about an expensive and glossy morale-boosting boast-fest for the AGM, I might be inclined to agree. But I would also agree with the worldly-wise Rob Vincent of Radley Yeldar. Speaking in the March edition of Televisual magazine, Rob commented on recession-driven trends, saying that ”Videos that are all about rhetoric, hype, spin and style over content are not what people are looking for. It doesn’t mean that creativity is out of the window, but it needs to be appropriate creativity”. In other words, a targeted message is still extremely important, and video is one of the most cost-effective ways of conveying that message. This is particularly true where online video is concerned, and respondents to a Televisual survey repeatedly made the point that the internet is where we’re seeing the biggest growth in the use of corporate video.

One of the emerging themes from all of the industry briefings I’ve attended over the last year (and there have been quite a few!) is that in a recession we need to market our businesses as never before. And yet, for many organisations, this coincides with a squeeze on marketing expenditure. We’re being asked to do more with less. Clearly then, if we’re going to achieve greater marketing impact with our dwindling resources, we’re going to have to do something differently. And for many, this means turning to the internet. Now, you won’t be surprised to learn that I happen to think that online video is one of the most cost-effective ways of reaching, and communicating to, a targeted audience. We’ve been around long enough to see this happen in practice. The videos we made for Durham University are routinely getting around 40,000 views a month, and applications, especially from international students, are up as a direct result. Aside from marketing and promoting products and services, video is a cheap way of getting all sorts of messages out there, from charity fund-raising drives to public sector campaigns aimed at increasing awareness of targeted initiatives. Of course, it’s not just video on a home site that does the all of the work, that same video can play on YouTube, Google, Facebook, MySpace and online directories like FreeIndex.co.uk.

At Spectrecom, we’ve seen the requirement for online video, as opposed to DVD, increase to 85% of our production output. And it’s comparative low cost has seen enquiries rise significantly – yes, even in the recession. We’re approaching our financial year end, and this rise in online video has helped us to increase our sales turnover by 38% compared to last year. And there’s still two weeks to go …