Bowdon Media - Whitepaper

VFRs as Tools for Selling: Behavioral Research

Video delivers more immediate impact, and will be remembered longer than static pictures, and there’s a mountain of evidence to prove it.

Elements in Conveying a Message: The Mehrabian Study

Mehrab Data

It all started with the original landmark study in 1971 by Dr. Albert Mehrabian of UCLA which proved that tone of voice and visual cues were more important in communication than the words themselves. He showed that in a conversation, words deliver just 7% of the received meaning, with tone of voice conveying 38% of the meaning and body language 55%.

Consider a face-to-face conversation as a metaphor for an online sales pitch. When a conversation is reduced to just words and pictures, no body language nor tone of voice can be conveyed, and 93% of the meaning is lost. Similarly online stores with only words and pictures make less of an impression.

So while the Mehrabian study didn’t examine video per se, it stands to reason that if your customers see and hear a clip online, the real human voices and physical demonstration of a product could produce many times the impact of just words and pictures alone.

Reference: http://www.answers.com/topic/albert-mehrabian

National Training Laboratories Study

The NTL Institute compared how well people remember different kinds of communications. As you might guess, a visual demonstration is much more memorable than say, reading.

How Well Do People Remember: A Measurement of Impact

	Hearing a Lecture	Reading	Hearing & Seeing a Speech	Demonstration
Average Learning Retention Rate	5%	10%	20%	30%

Source: NTL Institute

They reported an Average Learning Retention Rate (ALRR) of 5% for hearing a lecture, 10% for reading, 20% for hearing and seeing someone talk, and 30% for a demonstration.

Like before, this study didn't exactly include video. Still the lessons are unmistakable.

An typical online store with text and pictures might most resemble reading, and its 10% retention rate, for purposes of this analogy. A professionally produced VFR (with a product demonstration) would be closest to the live demonstration and its 30% retention.

Any website that could triple its sales because of VFRs would find the investment well worth it.