Videos are a versatile and engaging content format that gives us a real-life picture of what is going on. The audience likes it because it’s easy to digest, entertaining, engaging, and marketers like it because it can give a potentially huge return on investment (ROI) through many channels.
A video is very accessible to anyone with internet access, both to watch and to produce. While there is certainly a trend towards higher quality video on a professional level, anyone can hop onto their laptop and create their own video in an hour.
It’s not too hard to see why videos are so popular these days — for one thing, it’s an easy-to-digest format that provides rest to our eyes from an overabundance of textual information online. This would be why the world reportedly watches 1 billion hours of YouTube social video per day.
Those who are heading towards digital marketing careers should have a complete understanding of the power of video as a marketing tool. This is not only because they might be interested in making amazing videos, but because they’ll probably have to learn to incorporate video into their content in order to remain competitive.
There are plenty of different types of videos available and part of creating an effective content marketing strategy is having a solid understanding of your purpose before you sit down and create the video (or any other type of content, for that matter). To that end, you want to make sure both the type of videos and the channel’s purpose (if you’re posting on social media that fit the purpose of the video itself). If you are creating videos featuring guest experts, for instance, you can always re-use the audio and market it as a podcast.
Product reviews and demo videos can be created by brand ambassadors in exchange for free products. If you can find people in your industry looking to boost their social following, this can be a great way of essentially getting free advertising. Doing this can also help you to find out information about the product if the people doing the video reviews have a lot of engagement and comments. So, in a sense, it can function like market research.
Live video is the best chance to get up close and personal with your audience, and it works well on social channels in particular.
Five stats that prove marketers need a video:
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Informing and Educating:
97% of marketers claim that videos help customers understand products.
For the most part, marketers today are no longer taking to launch an approach – the reason? There’s simply too much choice out there. Consumers and businesses simply don’t’ need to be sold to; instead, they’re doing a quick internet search to find the best product in their neighborhood or even in the world where they’ll proceed to order it online.
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Search Engine Optimization:
Over 80% of all traffic will consist of videos by 2021. (Cisco) Search engines love videos because they see them as high-quality content, so to this end, using videos in various types of content as well as on your main web pages can work wonders for your SEO — as long as the videos themselves are optimized properly as well. This means incorporating the right keywords, a solid meta description, and also a strong title.
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Staying Competitive:
81 % of businesses are now using videos for marketing.
Videos are amazing for getting all sorts of messages out there, and if we think in terms of practicality, a short, unique explainer video can do a world of difference when it comes to educating people on the ins and outs of your particular product. By using storytelling and unique types of media you can easily catch people’s attention and hold it while they’re actually entertained.
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Getting Personal:
Live video will account for 13 % of traffic by 2021. Ever wanted to check out Facebook Live or Instagram stories? If you’re in a digital marketing career, or you’re heading in that direction, you’ll need to learn how to create basic videos and optimize them.
Instagram stories and Snapchat are both awesome for offering people intimate glimpses or short, personal glances of what you’re up to and they are so great for creative tools. The interesting thing about these videos is that they’re only up for 24-hours so that creates more of a real-time feel. It also gives marketers the opportunity to develop ads that are focused on time-sensitive promotions.
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Boosting Conversions:
90% of consumers claim a video will help them make a purchasing decision. (Social Media Today)
Wyzowl claims that 74% of people who get an opportunity to see a product in action via an explainer video will buy it. And landing pages are great places to place videos, too. — supposedly boosting conversion rates by up to 80% (just be sure to keep auto play off so as not to scare the customer away with loud noises).
Another reason why video is great for conversions on websites is that they actually keep people around for long enough to look around on the site. This is especially true for those who aren’t big readers (a good rule of thumb is to assume that people’s eyes could be tired from looking at a screen all day). Supposedly people watching a video stick around for some two whole minutes longer if there’s a video.
In order to understand how your videos are performing, practice good SEO standards, and always check your metrics. You can develop a standard library of various videos and keep them organized on YouTube, then incorporate them into various forms of content such as blogs and emails.
And don’t forget about your call-to-action, which on YouTube usually consists of a little annotation suggesting that users subscribe to your channel.
Brands need a video marketing strategy — this idea isn’t new. What has changed is how important video has become on every platform and channel.
Video is no longer just one piece of your overall marketing plan. It’s central to your outreach and campaign efforts … especially your social strategy.
Video has absolutely dominated social. HubSpot Research shows that four of the top six channels on which global consumers watch videos are social channels.
Why is this important?
If you aren’t creating video, you’re likely falling behind. But don’t fret. For most videos, the simpler and rawer it is, the more authentic the content seems … and that’s what really matters to your audience.