For: Application

Development
& Delivery
Professionals

Market Overview: Online Video Platforms

For Sales And Marketing
by Philipp Karcher, February 17, 2015

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Video Marketing Maturity Means Getting More Programmatic
Online video platform (OVP) vendors are adding integrations with Eloqua and Marketo
to simplify repurposing and embedding video in landing pages and social media. Rather
than just shotgunning content, marketers will increasingly use customer profiles to
dynamically serve the right video to the right customer at the right time.
Different Vendors Focus On Marketing, Sales, And Mobile Video Use Cases
OVPs target marketers looking to manage their video presence across multiple channels.
New vendors differentiate by providing additional support for managing videos and data
on viewership from within Salesforce. A new category of solutions optimizes pushing
videos to salespeoples tablets.
Buyers Should Focus On Use Cases, Integration Requirements, And
Player Design
Rich video player experiences maximize the impact of videos by driving viewers to take
the next step in the customer journey. AD&D pros should prioritize HTML5 video
players that work across browsers, that can easily incorporate calls to action, and that
support interactive transcripts.

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Tel: +1 617.613.6000 | Fax: +1 617.613.5000 | www.forrester.com

FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For

Sales And Marketing
Vendors Focus On Folding Video Into Marketing Operations
by Philipp Karcher
with Stephen Powers, Steven Kesler, and Danielle Geoffroy

WHY READ THIS REPORT

Digital video is the fastest growing advertising format and an established content marketing tactic. As
marketing leaders get more programmatic about using video to nurture leads and customers, they
need help from application development and delivery (AD&D) pros to integrate video into marketing
workflows, design video experiences that maximize engagement, and capture metrics from playback.
YouTube plays an important role in B2C video marketing, but shouldnt be the hub for multichannel
video content management and delivery. This report profiles established and promising new online video
platforms with guidance for AD&D pros implementing best-in-class digital video strategies.

Table Of Contents

Notes & Resources

2 Digital Video Is A Must-Have For Marketers

To Tell A Compelling Story

Forrester interviewed 12 vendor and user

companies: Adobe, Brightcove, Kaltura,
Mediafly, Mission Data, Ooyala, Perceptive
Software, PlayerLync, Ramp, Ustream,
uStudio, and Vidyard.

4 Video Marketing Maturity Means Getting

More Programmatic
5 Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For
Sales and Marketing
Other Categories Of Solutions Address Some
But Not All Sales And Marketing Needs
9 Mobile Video platforms Are For Salespeople
With Tablets
RECOMMENDATIONS

10 Focus On Use Cases, Player Design, And

Integration Requirements

Related Research Documents

Market Overview: Video Platforms For Digital
Media Companies
December 10, 2014
The Forrester Wave: Online Video
Platforms, Q1 2013
March 8, 2013

10 Supplemental Material

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FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

DIGITAL VIDEO IS A MUST-HAVE FOR MARKETERS TO TELL A COMPELLING STORY

Digital video is the fastest growing advertising format and well established as a content marketing
tactic.1 Video is highly effective at drawing audiences, maintaining their engagement, and converting
them (see Figure 1). For example, Verizon Wireless experienced a 16% lift in conversions on product
pages with video. Pitney Bowes switched to using gated video assets after finding much stronger
engagement with videos than whitepapers.2 Although most B2B and B2C marketers today are doing
something with video, were still in an experimentation phase. Marketers still test the effectiveness of
different types of videos presented at different stages of the customer journey (see Figure 2).

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Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

Figure 1 How To Attract, Engage, And Convert Viewers With Video

Before watching
Video player
Forms capture information
on new visitors

Please register to watch

john.smith@gmail.com

While watching
Display ad
Please register to watch
Display ads synced with
product mentions
maximize clickthroughs

Video player
Embedded hotspots make
it easy to take the next step
in the customer journey

Lorem ipsum dolor

Captions with navigable

transcripts help SEO and
drive engagement

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

nusquam consetetur eam ut
After watching
Video player
Download datasheet

Related videos and

datasheet downloads point
to relevant content
Marketer and salesperson view
Report
Name
John Smith

Engagement with video types

34%
Discover

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80%
Explore

66%

Scores on video engagement

lead to targeted follow-ups
for marketers or salespeople

Buy

Source: Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution prohibited.

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Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

Figure 2 Types Of Videos At Different Stages Of The Customer Journey

Video blogs

Viral content
Brand videos

Physical events

ENGAGE

DISCOVER

Interviews

How-to and DIY

ASK

EXPLORE

Client testimonials
Presentations

USE
Quick-start tutorials

BUY
Product videos
Demos

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Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

VIDEO MARKETING MATURITY MEANS GETTING MORE PROGRAMMATIC

From both a creative and technical standpoint, producing and delivering video requires different
skills than other forms of digital content. Recognizing this, more organizations source talent from
the media industry to join their digital marketing or content marketing teams. For example, EMC
brought in a documentary producer and director, and a major bank hired a digital media guru from
the NBA. From a marketing operations standpoint, video also requires different considerations than
other forms of digital content for measuring customer engagement, generating leads, and closing
revenue. Therefore, application development and delivery pros are being called on to help support
programmatic video marketing strategies that:

Integrate and automate video distribution as part of marketing workflows. Many online

video platforms (OVPs) have integrations with DAM and WCM software to support content
creation, management, and publishing workflows. Now OVP vendors are adding integrations
with Eloqua and Marketo to simplify repurposing and embedding video in landing pages and
social media. Rather than just shotgunning content, marketers are starting to experiment with
customer profiles to dynamically serve the right video to the right customer at the right time.

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FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

They will also apply rules based on a customers engagement with videos to follow up with them
appropriately automatically sending an email to a prospect if they watch more than 50% of
the video, for example.

Measure the effectiveness of videos and use data on video engagement to drive conversions.

By recording video viewership in marketing automation and CRM systems, marketers can
establish the ROI of individual videos by tracking which leads saw them and became customers.
Unlike whitepapers and case studies, video analytics process more engagement data on how
much of a piece of content or what key segments of it someone watched. This is useful not only
for more granular lead scoring, but for marketers experimenting with different types of videos
to see what resonates with customers.

Create rich video experiences that drive conversions. Marketers are getting more prescriptive

with calls to action in the video player for customers to take the next step in the buyer journey.
Examples include asking for a visitors email address before they can start watching, and
providing them a link to download a datasheet for the product being described. A common
practice is presenting visitors with related videos or redirecting them to a tour of the full solution
set with more videos. Calls to action can also be outside the video player: Nordstrom saw a lift in
cosmetics sales by syncing display ads with product mentions in videos on how to apply makeup.

MARKET OVERVIEW: ONLINE VIDEO PLATFORMS FOR SALES AND MARKETING

Companies use YouTube to kick-start their video marketing strategy because its familiar and
provides the basic tools they need to get started. However, its insufficient to only use YouTube
where a customer could be watching your video one minute and a cat video the next. Companies
turn to commercial video platforms for their integrations with digital asset management (DAM),
web content management (WCM), and analytics, and to have more control over the experience
in terms of branding, video player design, and directing viewers to related content (see Figure 3).
Unlike YouTube, commercial video platforms also provide customer service and technical support.
The following vendors play prominently in this market:

Adobe has a unified platform for marketers to manage and deliver videos. Adobes focus with

video is to help companies across the life cycle from content creation to management, publishing,
optimization (analytics), and personalization. Two benefits to marketers standardizing on
Adobes unified platform are 1) combining management of video and images and 2) mitigating
version control issues that can arise when using separate products for DAM and OVP. Some
customers are trialing personalized video using Adobe Target with Adobe Experience Manager to
dynamically deliver different videos to different segments. Adobe is a potential fit for marketers
that want video tightly integrated with the rest of their digital experience toolkit.

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Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

Brightcove has an attractive video player experience and plenty of integrations. In 2014,

Brightcove clarified its focus on serving the needs of two groups: media companies and the
digital marketing function in enterprises. Brightcoves Video Marketing Suite already has the
largest install base of marketing customers among OVPs today. Customers choose Brightcove
for its attractive player experience and breadth of integrations with popular third-party WCM,
DAM, and analytics solutions. Brightcove is an option for marketers that want an established
vendor with a large number of technology partners to enable complementary functionality.

Kaltura has a feature-rich platform for video publishing and live webinars. Kaltura has a

broad focus on the video management and publishing needs of media companies, universities,
and marketers and corporate communicators. Kaltura offers marketers tools to optimize video
SEO and to create interactive video player experiences. With its recent acquisition of Tvinci,
a service to create video storefronts, Kaltura has increased its focus on personalization and
targeting. And with its recent release of a live webcasting module, Kaltura is now relevant for
webinars. Kaltura is an option for companies that want a flexible platform than can address
multiple video use cases in marketing or across the enterprise.

Ooyala applies behavioral analytics to large video libraries. Ooyalas primary focus is to help
media companies use analytics and recommendations to drive engagement with their ad and
subscription based video services.3 The good news for marketers is that by focusing on highend needs, Ooyala also improves its offering for enterprises looking for a solution for video
ingestion, encoding, delivery, personalization, and analytics. Ooyala is an option for marketers
that want to use its native reporting and analytics capabilities rather than push video viewing
data to a third-party solution.

Perceptive Software helps your enterprise content management speak video. Perceptive

focuses on video as part of enterprise content management (ECM): It has customers using its
solution for marketing videos, but has generalized content management and publishing features,
not a marketing-specific focus. Perceptive, Lexmarks software unit, acquired the Twistage
video platform in 2013. Today it offers integrations between Perceptive Content (its flagship
ECM) and Perceptive Media (its video platform). Perceptive is building a series of vertical and
functional modules (like HR) to help embed video in business processes, but marketing is not
one of them. Perceptive is a potential fit for companies that want their employees to manage and
search videos as they would any other type of unstructured content.

Ramp automatically transcribes videos to make them searchable and interactive. Ramp has

applied its expertise in search, natural language processing, and speech-to-text transcription in
creating different versions of its video platform for media companies, marketers, and corporate
communicators. The result is a video player that exposes a transcript viewers can click on to
jump to different parts of a video. This time coded metadata also allows companies to serve
contextual advertising, recommended content, and other calls to action in sync with spoken
word. Ramp is an option for marketers that want to use automatic transcription for SEO and to
drive viewer engagement and click-through rates.

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Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

uStudio has a flexible video player and tight integration with Salesforce. uStudio is focused

on video for enterprise sales and marketing, and training departments. It differentiates from
other video platforms with: 1) Its flexible HTML5 video player and player framework and 2)
its comprehensive Salesforce integration. uStudio is an option for marketers that want to build
interactivity, custom content, and calls to action inside and outside the player frame. It also
provides salespeople with access to video based training and product marketing material they
can share with customers (and monitor that their customers watched it) without having to go to
a separate portal.

Vidyard specializes in video for demand gen and funnel conversion activities. Vidyard

focuses on integrating video content and analytics with sales and marketing operations.
Most of its customers use calls to action as well as Vidyards ability to track viewers and their
viewing history across multiple distribution channels. Vidyard pushes this data into marketing
automation and CRM systems for lead scoring. Vidyard also enables sales teams to share video
and track viewing activity from inside Salesforce, and to post videos on Chatter. Vidyard is for
marketers that want to use video to improve the results of demand gen, marketing automation
and sales enablement programs, and track data through Vidyards own analytics not a thirdparty analytics platform.

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Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

Figure 3 Defining Video And Related Software Categories

Category Definition

Usage scenarios

Online video Delivers video on traditional and mobile

platforms web. Includes video players, encoders,
light video editing tools, and basic media
management, complete with hosting and
delivery through partnerships with CDNs.
Digital asset Manages the creation, production,
management management, distribution, and retention of
rich media content such as audio, video,
graphical images, and compound
documents.

First used by large media and entertainment

organizations.
Now used by organizations across verticals
to deliver customer-facing video content to
the traditional and mobile web channels.
Allows organizations to centrally manage
cross-channel rich media marketing
collateral.
Used for the management, transformation,
and usage of branded marketing assets.

Web content Organizations use WCM to create websites Used by web developers as the foundation
for building websites and digital experiences.
management and online experiences; create, manage,
store, and publish content; and optimize
Used by marketers to create, manage,
experiences across web, mobile, and other
store, and deliver content and digital
digital channels.
experiences on websites and other channels.
Enterprise video Like OVPs, but with features to manage
platforms video distribution over the WAN, and
integrations with enterprise social,
collaboration, intranets, and directory
services. Most include webcasting
capabilities. Also known as video content
management (VCM).

Used by tech management, corporate

communications, and HR pros use to live
stream company meetings and training and
make videos available to employees on
demand.
Used by firms to set up an internal
YouTube for the enterprise.

Webcasting Broadcasts live events with slide decks and Used by marketers for generating leads
interactive features such as chat and polling. through webinars.
Unlike webconferencing, webcasting scales Used by PR and investor
to a larger audiences, is more brandable,
relation pros for product and earnings
and has more campaign management and
announcements.
reporting features.
Used by corporate communications and HR
pros for company meetings and training.
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Other Categories Of Solutions Address Some But Not All Sales And Marketing Needs
Besides the online video platforms recognized above, there are dozens of others Forrester gets
questions about from clients:

Vimeo and YouTube are tools in your social media arsenal. These sites have a broad focus on

advertisers, consumers, businesses, media companies, and independent producers. They can serve
as video hosting providers, but their real value for marketers particularly with YouTube their
audience: With more than a billion unique users per month, YouTube presence is critical for B2C
exposure.4 Vimeo has a much smaller audience (about a tenth of YouTubes), but offers more
control over branding and is effective as a video platform for companies with basic requirements
to host and embed videos. Neither has the same features for managing lead-to-revenue like the
commercial platforms mentioned above.

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Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

Livestream and Ustream simplify live streaming over the Internet. Livestream and Ustream
simplify live streaming over the Internet. Livestream and Ustream are a different category
of solution primarily for live streaming. Both started out as communities for user generated
live streaming and over time have added more premium features for businesses. Livestream
integrates with and even offers its own hardware to assist with video capture and studio
production. Ustream has built out more video platform-type functionality for managing and
publishing video files. Both are particularly effective for live streaming events, but have less
marketing campaign and event management features compared to solutions for webcasting.5

Startups and other categories of video platforms can address some marketing use cases.

Engajer is a tool to create interactive FAQ videos. Limelight Orchestrate Video is an online video
platform featuring tight integration with the Limelight CDN for scalable video distribution. KZO
Innovations is an example of an enterprise video platform solutions primarily for internal
communications and training, but with more vendors in the category adding integrations and
features that make them increasingly relevant to sales and marketing use cases as well.6

MOBILE VIDEO PLATFORMS ARE FOR SALESPEOPLE WITH TABLETS

As companies get more programmatic about using video to drive business results, Forrester sees
growing interest in video for sales enablement. The best way to get video in the hands of salespeople
on the go is to give it to them on tablets. A couple of vendors that started developing mobile video
apps for media and entertainment companies offer enterprise solutions. Unlike mobile apps from
the OVP vendors profiled above, these apps have collaborative features such as annotation
and messaging. They also support offline playback critical for watching video on tablets with
inconsistent access to the Internet.

Mediafly aggregates and distributes content from multiple content management systems.

MediaFly is used by some of the largest media and entertainment (M&E) companies to manage
the review and approvals process on tablets for sensitive pre-release television and theatrical
content. With its pivot towards the enterprise MediaFly now also has customers outside of
M&E using its solution to deliver product launch, training, and customer testimonial videos to
salespeople. Customers like the ability to pool content from multiple back end CMSes as well as
the added security of video encryption and the option to download content locally on devices
for offline access.

PlayerLyncs solution background downloads videos for offline viewing. Pro sports teams

use PlayerLync to push their playbooks and latest videos for film study to individual players
tablets. Its ability to compress large videos and background download them is also attractive
to businesses with a strong retail presence since their locations often have poor Internet access.
PlayerLync is an option for companies with large workforces in retail, restaurants, and field
services looking for a solution to put training videos on tablets.

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10

Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S

FOCUS ON USE CASES, PLAYER DESIGN, AND INTEGRATION REQUIREMENTS

When sitting at the table with marketing, sales, and other stakeholders as part of a video platform
selection, AD&D pros should consider vendors that:

Target one or multiple use cases based on your needs. OVPs target marketers looking to

manage their video presence across multiple channels. uStudio and Vidyard differentiate
by providing additional support for managing videos and data on viewership from within
Salesforce. Kaltura, KZO Innovations, and other enterprise video platforms have additional
support for corporate communications and departmental video use cases. A new category of
solutions optimizes pushing videos to salespeoples tablets. Consider consolidating on fewer
video platforms for multiple use cases.7

Integrate with your content management and analytics tools. OVPs offer integration

for many DAM and WCM vendors. Most integrate with marketing automation systems,
but have less support for CRMs. Analytics are also a critical integration consideration.
Customers choose Ooyala for its analytics, but 50% of Brightcove customers use third
parties like Adobe or Google. Therefore, vet that you can easily get data from videos
managed by your OVP into your analytics tool of choice.

Prioritize rich HTML5 video player experiences. Rich video player experiences are

important for maximizing the impact of videos and driving viewer engagement by
encouraging your prospects and customers to take the appropriate next step. AD&D pros
should prioritize HTML5 video players that maintain your customized look and feel across
browsers, that let you easily add calls to action (inside and outside the video player), and
that support interactive transcripts.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Companies Interviewed For This Report
Adobe

Perceptive Software

Brightcove

PlayerLync

Kaltura

Ramp

Mediafly

Ustream

Mission Data

uStudio

Ooyala

Vidyard

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11

Market Overview: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing

ENDNOTES
eMarketer projects digital video ad spend to increase 42% in 2014.Source: US TV Ad Market Still Growing
More than Digital Video, eMarketer, June 12, 2014 (http://www.emarketer.com/Article/US-TV-Ad-MarketStill-Growing-More-than-Digital-Video/1010923).

More than 70% of B2B and B2C marketers are incorporating video into content marketing strategies.
Source: Joe Pulizzi and Ann Handley, B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends
North America, Content Marketing (http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/
B2B_Research_2014_CMI.pdf).
2

Pitney Bowes is using Vidyards video platform.

Ooyala was acquired by Telstra, whose investment will help Ooyala build more industry partnerships and
add more integrations and features to support media company workflows. For example, Ooyala recently
acquired Videoplaza, a premium video ad server, in October.

To learn more about YouTube and B2C exposure, see the February 6, 2014, Integrate YouTube Into Your
Communication Strategy report.

Between webcasting, webconferencing, and videoconferencing tools, the market for delivering slide
presentations to a live audience is full of substitutes. Different products vary in their scalability to large
audiences and in how customers use them for internal or external events, with or without video, and
in managed or self-service models. This report provides a framework for buyers to evaluate products
according to their event life-cycle requirements and uses five segmentation criteria to summarize the major
differences in how customers use them. See the May 21, 2014, Pick The Right Webcasting Tool To Drive
Customer Or Employee Engagement report.

Business leaders want to take advantage of video to disseminate information effectively or generate as
many qualified leads as possible. Technology managers are concerned with managing the complexities of
video delivery over the WAN, with enterprise-grade security, controls, and integration with IT systems
and infrastructure. This report will provide three sets of product rankings of leaders in webcasting, leaders
in VOD portals, and leaders in both. See the February 3, 2015, The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Video
Platforms And Webcasting, Q1 2015 report.

This can be for cost, manageability, and security reasons. Companies dont want to pay for redundant
functionality across multiple platforms. One manufacturer wanted a single video platform to help it manage
the lifecycle of content published internally for example, providing employees a preview of its next TV
commercial before posting it publically.

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