If our marketing ancestors were still around, they’d be scoffing at how easy we have it. They’d say, “Back in my day, we didn’t walk around with video cameras in our pockets. And, even if we did have a camera to shoot a video with, we had to pay for placement. We didn’t have YouTube or Facebook to host our videos. No, back then you had to do things the hard way to see video marketing benefits!”
Joking aside, there’s a lot of truth to this. Video marketing wasn’t nearly as popular prior to platforms like YouTube. Not to mention, they weren’t nearly as shareable as they are today.
Quality and expertise are still trump cards, but smart phone videos have made it possible for small business to produce effective video marketing content. In fact, 55% of small-to-medium sized business owners published a video in 2015. About 3 out of every 4 of those business owners claimed it had a direct impact on their companies and the majority said they plan to increase their investment in the next year to see more video marketing benefits. Why? Because videos engage, convert and influence.
What Makes Video Marketing So Good?
While video content is easier to produce and accessible by more businesses, it isn’t as easy as it looks. Videos take time, planning and a flair for the creative. That said, the number of potential video marketing benefits is worth the investment, especially considering that, in 2016, people spent 33% of their time on the Internet watching videos. By producing effective video content, you have the potential to reach current and prospective customers for 20 minutes out of every hour spent on the Internet.
Video is the best content type for sharing and reaching more non-customers. In 2015, nearly half of all consumers surveyed said that they had shared a branded video on social media to their own page and 84% pressed “Like” on a company video they saw in their newsfeed. This means that social media users are more likely to share a video than they are a picture or blog post. When customers share, or even just “Like,” your content, it expands the reach to create more visibility and thereby draw in more traffic to your website, store, and social media pages.
Once you’ve acquired new followers, videos can help keep them engaged. Videos are very engaging and attract viewers with even the shortest attention span. When a customer stays on your website or social media page to watch a video, it gives them more time to wander the page. Again, this is something that your written content cannot do because, by having to read instead of watch and listen, their eyes are preoccupied, whereas a video triggers two senses; a viewer can still be engaging with the video with their ears, while their eyes wander the page. This means they are more likely to venture to other parts of your page, explore your products and, ultimately, convert.
Best Video Marketing Strategies
When you create a video, you want to be able to seize as many of these video marketing benefits as possible. Additionally, as more digital marketers turn towards creating videos, the pool becomes more crowded and thereby harder to make videos standout. Thus, to ensure the very best ROI of your video content, you have to keep on top of video marketing trends. Here’s a quick list of the current trends to utilize.
Interactive Videos:
If you want to make your video content more engaging, there are tools that allow you to embed interactive buttons. Video marketing benefits become more impressive because viewers are not only listening and watching, they are interacting as well. These clickable elements can be a direct call-to-action, survey questions, an immersive “choose your own adventure” style story and many other possibilities. Interactive videos are engaging for the viewer, but their responses to questions and which buttons they press can also provide you and your business with helpful insights.
Product Videos:
These types of videos are not new. Infomercials have been hawking products through videos for decades. What we’re seeing more of today is videos on a website’s product pages that showcase each product. Consumers like to research products thoroughly before buying. Including a video on your product pages means customers can do all the research right on your page. A product video can be especially valuable if the product in question is complicated or techy and requires some additional learning to effectively use and understand.
Optimize Your Videos:
The number of video marketing benefits comes with how you optimize the content perform. Many video hosting platforms, like You Tube, allow you to see key data about who is watching your videos, how long they watched, what actions they took after watching (subscribing, liking, sharing, etc.) and more. Data like this has become a powerful tool in the Digital Age because it allows a digital marketer to gain key insight and is key to growing a YouTube channel.
Optimizing your videos also means making sure they fit the expected format and community guidelines of each channel that you post it on. For example, Instagram has different “rules” than Facebook. This requires you to trim your video down or make small adjustments depending on where you are uploading it. You may even decide to make separate videos for certain channels. For YouTube videos, ensuring they are highly optimized to appear in Google search results pages is also important.
Moving Forward with Video Marketing Benefits
As you get more proficient at video marketing and you start maximizing your returns, there may come a time when you want to increase your investment to see even more of these benefits. This may mean partnering with a professional video production team or hiring some in-staff team members. Not only will this make your video content higher quality and easier to produce, but it will also allow you to delegate duties and focus on your talent.
Conclusion
There are a number of impact full video marketing benefits. If you have yet to add videos to your repertoire of digital marketing tactics, you’re truly missing out on one of the most engaging ways to get consumers interested in your brand. While the initial investment of time and resources into making videos may unnerve you, the returns you’ll see will quickly put your mind at ease.
