5 Smart Ways Marketers and Publishers Can Use Vimeo for Business

Online video platforms are in heavy competition these days. YouTube and Facebook are in a head-to-head to become the go-to for social video, while other business-focused platforms release new features that integrate with advanced marketing automation systems.

Vimeo recently released its own program that targets business accounts for an annual price of $599.00 (USD).

Slowly but surely, Vimeo is altering the direction of its platform. We've always been a proponent of the tools the Vimeo player offered. They were years ahead of YouTube in many ways with player customization, clickable calls-to-action and unmatched video quality.

Many considered Vimeo to be the artist's platform and the home of high-end videos and indie films. However, it has pivoted over the years and now offer some powerful tools for businesses and marketers, as well. Here are five ways to maximize Vimeo's business membership.

1) Clickable Calls-to-Action: Vimeo allows Pro account users to add clickable calls-to-action. In the past, publishers were only able to add a link to the end of a video that could take viewers to a landing page, etc.

One of the new powerful features of the Business account is that you can now collect email addresses within the embedded player. Once your video is done playing, viewers are shown a message and have the option of providing an email address.

The tool allows you to download email addresses to identity qualified leads. Publishers then have the option to integrate information with systems like Mail Chimp and Constant Contact. Or they can simply download a CSV file of all captured emails.

This can be a useful tool when creating targeted email marketing campaigns, which will grow in the coming months. Marketers will have information on which video a viewer watched and when they decided to provide their information. You can then send more information or complementary videos to those people.

2) Find a Professional Crew: Vimeo is not only targeting the small business with this program. Another perk to the business membership includes access to Vimeo's community of talented creators, who can help with your videos and high-end productions. Vimeo Brand Studio services include product demos, branded content, marketing videos, and filming events.

Publishers can fill out a short form and Vimeo will try to connect them with production companies and creators in their area. Spend some time browsing the content on Vimeo and you will be blown away by the quality of its community. This is a great way for companies to wow their audiences with amazing visuals and storytelling techniques.

3) Easy Collaboration: Piggybacking off the option to hire help for your video, Vimeo Business makes it easy for up to 10 team members to access a single account. This makes collaboration easy for large organizations or when working with outside vendors.

Through video review tools, content can be shared and reviewed by team members without running the risk of going live with your project. This is a nice feature in the review process and can allow for quick feedback, revisions, and more.

This can also help large departments that need to manage different parts of a Vimeo channel or account.

4) Player Customization and Unlimited Bandwidth:  One of the more popular features of Vimeo is the option to customize a video player. With Vimeo Business, you have the same powerful options as a Pro account. Publishers can add company branding including colors, logos, outros, and even third-party player support. These features can help make your video content consistent with the rest of your marketing and image. 

One added bonus of Vimeo Business compared to Vimeo Pro is that there are no weekly limits on the amount of videos you can upload. Finally, Vimeo opened the doors to serious publishers that make a lot of videos.

Users are allowed 5TB total for storage, which is plenty for even big players. The beauty of this is that bandwidth is still unlimited for all of your video content that plays within the Vimeo player. That means publishers don't have to worry about overages and videos not playing once they've reached a certain limit.

 5) Analytics and Support: Like many of its competitors, Vimeo offers a powerful set of metrics. It's now taken things a step further for Vimeo Business by integrating with Google Analytics.

Marketers using Google Analytics can track events on all Vimeo players embedded on their site. The setup instructions can be found here.

In a nutshell, you add a tracking code underneath your Google Analytics script under the HTML code in your site. The information you receive will track plays, loads, drop-off rates, and more. This is vital information to have when conducting metric reports or refining your future video strategy.

Vimeo also has guaranteed VIP support, which includes 1-hour email responses around the clock on weekdays and a 24-hour response on weekends.

Vimeo has often been ignored and overlooked by marketers and publishers in the past. With more than 280 million people watching and sharing videos on Vimeo, and all the powerful features discussed in this article, it's a mistake to ignore this platform any longer.

Vimeo continues to make strong improvements to its service and offers up some intriguing options for video marketers. Another benefit to using Vimeo is that is plays nicely with other social channels like Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook displays Vimeo videos with more real estate than a YouTube video and LinkedIn allows for Vimeo playback within profiles, work summaries, and status updates.

Get up-to-speed with everything Vimeo offers by checking out its free lessons and tutorials. It will be interesting to see what else Vimeo releases in the coming months. Stay tuned to OnlineVideo.net for all of the updates!

Stjepan Alaupovic's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net