A picture is said to be a thousand words. And a video is worth many thousands more.
That’s no exaggeration. Video content is known to be able to hold the viewers’ attention an average of five times higher as compared to still photos. And video marketing is one of the most powerful and engaging ways to promote your business today. According to statistics by Wyzowl, 86% of businesses surveyed already use video marketing and 93% of these say that video forms an integral part of their content strategy. And if these signs aren’t telling enough, one only needs to look at video consumption patterns over the last few years, and you can see that there is a marked rise year on year, including a lockdown spike. This isn’t surprising at all, given the easy access to high speed data and smart connected devices on the go.
Video marketing isn’t just limited to promotional, campaign centric videos though. They could take on the form of webinars, courses, behind the scenes glimpses and live video too, and can be hosted on an array of owned and shared media.
But this isn’t what makes video so popular. Nearly 80% of marketers surveyed by Wyzowl feel that video marketing has had a direct positive impact on their sales and bottom line, and 91% of those surveyed feel that the current pandemic has made video more important for their brands.
What makes video work?
Let’s start with something that we all know and acknowledge. Our vision is one of our most dominant senses, and a huge amount of the information our brain processes everyday is visual in nature. Videos engage two of our senses – sight and sound, and can hold our attention for longer, something that can really make the difference in the marketing clutter all around us.
Moreover, video works as most people prefer watching something to reading about it. And this would likely include you and me. Think about classic books being made into movies, and we’d have many iconic examples to talk about. Video can work especially well as top of the funnel content, to attract new audiences.
Videos, when done right, can be highly versatile and engaging. Their combination of moving visuals with audio, combined with graphics, special effects and tied together in a narrative can be riveting indeed. In fact, they can help a business come alive in a way like no other. They help to build a personal and emotional connection, while also giving viewers a glimpse of its personality.
- Ease of Production and Hosting
While a lot of businesses might shy away from video marketing given the time and cost of production, technology solutions today makes it possible to create good quality video in a fast and affordable manner. Apart from being able to record videos on smartphones, you could also curate your own videos from stock footage, or use a video editing website like InVideo and a platform like Doodly, that can allow you to create professional looking videos without a heavy investment.
Top 5 reasons to include video in your marketing plan
- Good ROI
Unlike the earlier assumption that branded video content needs to have a high production value, that isn’t the case today. As long as the content is high quality, production values don’t have to hit the roof. Moreover, there are so many hosting platforms available, and some of them are also free. All of this makes it easier for businesses to create, and share video content with a far greater regularity than earlier. All of this can significantly reduce your production and distribution costs, making it easier to get better returns.
Videos make it easier to not only showcase the benefits of what you have to offer in an entertaining, informative and engaging way, and are a really good way to retain customers. However, the ROI for your videos will heavily depend on your content strategy and content quality. How do you use your videos at different stages of the purchase decision process can greatly impact results. You can experiment with different video formats and styles to find out what works with your target audience. Almost 90% of the marketers surveyed shared that video helped them achieve a significant boost in their ROI, by driving traffic and leads, which in turn boosted their sales.
You might have noticed that search engines throw up more video results for search queries, and most of these rank above the regular, non-video results. This is because videos are considered as high quality content (as long as they are optimized well for mobile as well), and searchers tend to favour video over text for reasons that I’ve already shared above.
We are also witnessing an increase in video searches, and as per Cisco, over 80% of all search traffic will consist of video by 2021. So it makes sense to not only create more video content that is relevant and engaging for your audience, but to also optimize it with the right titles, the right keywords, a good meta description and so on. Integrating videos on your landing pages also gets visitors to stay on for longer, which has a positive impact on your page ranking.
Videos are very effective at retaining customer attention, and keep them engaged for longer. For one, landing pages with videos have a considerably higher conversion rate, because they get visitors to dwell around for longer, and open up the possibilities of them exploring your website and checking out your products.
Video can be intelligently used at multiple stages in the marketing funnel – both at the top, the middle and the bottom. Well placed, strategic video content can improve conversion rates by as much as 80%. This isn’t surprising, as video allows people who don’t particularly enjoy reading product descriptions, to check out a product in action before purchase, and improve their chances of choosing the brand in question. 90% of consumers say that watching videos helps them to make a purchase decision. Engaging videos will also speed up the sales cycle and move prospects faster down the funnel, as they will analyse lesser and act faster.
Videos can be the next best thing to an actual live interaction, and allow you to not only showcase your product / service, but also share your brand story and build an emotional connect with your viewers. It is not as easy to look away from a video, as compared to textual information, as a video will not only offer relevant information, but might also employ a narration, music, actors, graphics and more. All of these evoke emotions, and also make it easier for people to be able to connect with you.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that video marketing help builds a sense of authenticity and credibility about your business, which is the foundation for trust. This consequently promotes higher brand awareness and business growth.
Video can be a very versatile medium, and can work equally well for different objectives from lead generation to conversion. Different types of videos such as explainer videos, demos, testimonials and more can help people skip the unpleasant experience of a salesperson, and get to know the product at their own time and convenience.
When done well, videos can be very accessible to a wide range of audiences – for both B2C and B2B, making it a very versatile medium of communication. Its sheer popularity makes it a preferred choice for content creators looking to attract new customers, and retain existing ones, as video has a way to minimize critical thinking, and persuade viewers towards the desired action. In a nutshell, video works equally well for all – small, medium and large, B2C and B2B businesses.
So if you are still not confident about investing in video marketing, then think no more. With some creativity and strategic placement, videos can really upturn your marketing efforts and boost your bottom line as well. At Rank My Business, we are all about digital marketing efforts that make a real difference to your business, and we would be happy to help you milk the potential of video marketing for your business growth.
