Online video for business-to-business marketing is sizzling, according to an annual trend report from Web Video Marketing Council, Flimp Media, and ReelSEO.
• 96% of B2B organizations surveyed (one-fifth were B2B marketing agencies) are engaged in video content marketing.
• 73% of respondents said that video is having a positive impact on marketing results, and 32% of them said “very positive.”
• Fewer respondents — 56% — see positive impacts of video on sales results.
• Increasing brand awareness and engagement is the No. 1 application for 80% of respondents; promoting product and services is second for 65%.
• 41% planned to increase spending on video marketing in 2015, yet 36% don’t have set annual budgets for video production or marketing.
• 83% embed videos on web pages or blogs; 49% use video content for email marketing and newsletters.
• 75% are optimizing video content for search engine optimization.
• Nearly a third (32%) of companies have been using video for marketing fewer than two years.
• Biggest challenge: Measuring ROI of video marketing investment (44%).
• Metrics respondents track: Total video starts (84%); average viewing time (59%); watch to completion (58%); email and social sharing (54%); demographics of viewers (37%); viewing device (35%).
• 58% use free video hosting and sharing services (e.g. YouTube and Vimeo); 28% pay for online video hosting and marketing platforms; 14% self-host.
Source: 2015 B2B Video Content Marketing Survey Results & Trends Report (info@webvideomarketing.org)

Paying by phone at the point-of-sale. You’re behind the times if you’re not accepting meeting payments via smartphones. The total value of these mobile transactions at the point-of-sale (POS) will grow 210% in 2016 in the United States, to $27 billion from $8.7 billion this year. That represents 37.5 million users in 2016, up from 23.2 million in 2015. And strong growth will continue, according to eMarketer research: $61.7 billion in transactions in 2017 (+128%) by 50.2 million users (+33.8%). Here are the big numbers: $375.82 in average spend per user in 2015 jumps to $721.47 in 2016 and $1,230.94 in 2017. — Maxine Golding