• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, August 14, 2012

Spell it out.

If you want a prospective customer to watch the video on your Web page, say so. Use a clear and direct call to action.

That’s among the findings of a just-released white paper from Invodo, an online video e-commerce company with clients including Sports Authority, Verizon, Lenovo and others. Invodo tracked the video view rate --  the ratio of video views to page views -- across those and other online retailer clients between March 2012 and June 2012 to determine the best practices for e-commerce sites to use to boost the number of video plays. A rise in video plays can translate into more revenue -- studies have shown that video on product pages can significantly increase conversions to sales for the product.

How can a retailer entice customers to watch the videos it posts online? For starters, ask visitors to watch. “Click to play” or “click to view” work well as text in a call to action for a video, Invodo says. “Just as the salesperson bags the deal by asking for the business, the online marketer increases conversion by asking for the click. That’s the idea,” the report says. Don’t just write “video” on the player. Be specific in what you want site visitors to do. Videos with a text call to action generate view rates of 6.16% compared to 4.75% with an image-only call to action.

Also, make the call to action big. Yes -- size does matter here because Invodo found that a large call to action generates a view rate of 8.14%, while a smaller one only snags a 4.07% view rate. “This means increasing the size of the CTA makes the single greatest impact amongst all other hypotheses we tested. Something to consider is that a smaller CTA often lacks the flair that a larger image has room for -- they are frequently less colorful, lack text, and have less detail overall,” Invodo says.

And don’t forget to include video above the fold as much as possible. Premiere page placements help boost view rates.