Webvideos have become a crucial part of the online marketing activity. They are being used to market, to sell, to explain the detail of products and services and to provide customer service, help, advice and guidance. Online corporate video productions range from 10-30 seconds for quick riding advertisements, to 2-3 minute summaries and longer for customer service video tutorials.

It is no exaggeration to say the possibilities of productions are endless. The diagram below shows types of website video usage and how they work in the context of online viewing habits.

We categorised web video uses into two broad areas of marketing and customer service. The duration of a web video will depend on its marketing objective and when, in the web conversion or sales-to-service cycle, the viewer will see it.

For example, an online video advert must get its message over in 10-30 seconds, but if someone visits your website as a response to that advert or to pay-per-click advertising there is an assumption that the viewer has some interest in what your business message is and consequently they will allow you longer to say it.

A Web based customer service video production can provide complicated information, broken down into bite size sections and played repeatedly at the viewers convenience. So long as the information put forward is useful and relevant the duration of the video production is not usually an issue.

Information delivered through the use of online video softens the gap between wanting to know something and the process of finding it out. If people are interested in the presentation they will watch on and come back for more.

What is clear is that a can provide a return on investment at all points in the business cycle: from generating extra business to providing customer advice and guidance, thereby reducing the overall cost of customer care.