I think some of the first people I spoke to about YouTube just laughed and I think they were laughing at me and the whole idea of uploading simple little videos to an internet site that makes them public. Well read on here and see if I’m crazy. The Kelsey Group just released the results of a survey they conducted which says “59 percent of those surveyed claimed to watch online video, and more than half said they engage in some sort of response activity, such as visiting a Web site, going to a physical location or making a purchase.”

So I’m sure that the skeptic out there will say that’s not farmers. Uh, wrong. We don’t know how many farmers but I guarantee you that farmers are included because they’re people and part of the overall population. Besides, if you’re trying to reach non-farmers then I hope you’ll think that this is a new option or channel of communication for your arsenal. How about a video podcast and use YouTube as part of the distribution mechanism? And keep in mind that Apple TV will be able to stream videos from YouTube. Are you keeping up?

According to the report, production companies such as Spot Runner and TurnHere offer to produce and distribute video ads for small businesses at price points that are significantly lower than those of traditional advertising, bringing video advertising within the grasp of many small businesses for the first time. The report reasons that the value of video may be easier to comprehend for many small businesses compared with some forms of online performance-based marketing.

Additional conclusions offered in The Kelsey Group’s online video report include:
— Small-business video advertising can combine the traditional strengths of pull-based directional marketing, the Internet’s targeting capabilities, and the emotional and dramatic power of television. Given the demographics of broadband users, the online audience reached by these ads would also be well-educated, affluent and more likely to engage in pull-based content retrieval.

You can find an executive summary of their white paper on the subject online.