Why video marketing is so powerful.
Video marketing is one of the strongest and most useful tools you should be using in your marketing strategy. It involves any aspect of video marketing or animation as part of your wider content marketing strategy, either as a stand-alone campaign or as an asset to support a wider marketing strategy to reach your target audience and sell your product or service and ultimately boost conversions.
Video content can improve brand awareness and generate leads. It is used on a wide range of channels from social media and blogs to landing pages and sales presentations.
So, why is video such a powerful marketing tool?
To explain why video marketing is so powerful as a marketing tactic, we need to look inside the brain.
When we watch a video, we are using more of our senses than when looking at an image or reading text. Not only are we using both sight and sound for a video, but the moving elements are much more captivating for our eyes than a still image.
This makes the primitive brain work harder, grabbing more attention to make the experience much more memorable for the viewer.
A video is also capable of capturing the more advanced areas of our brains too, engaging the emotion centres in the limbic system and decision-making frontal lobe. And as soon as emotion is engaged, you take your marketing campaign to the next level. In fact, one study found that the emotional response we have to an ad influences intent to buy much more than the actual content of the ad.
As a result of all this brain activity, videos are much more memorable, with 95% of the information retained compared to 10% for plain text content.
But how does this translate into results for your content strategy?
You should use video marketing to stand out of the crowd. Video marketing is a great opportunity to show off your brand personality and business culture, giving you a competitive advantage from the first second.
This will help to boost overall brand awareness as well as the specific product or service you want to discuss. You could even use figureheads from within your business to present the video and show a recognisable face.
When making purchasing decisions, customers will buy from brands they know, like and can relate to. So no matter how your audience finds you, whether it be on your social media platforms or for video ads, the brand personality needs to be there and a video is a great way to do it.
When your brand personality is portrayed through a video, consumers will feel more connected to your business, especially if your values align. This leads to the consumers forming a bond with your brand, ultimately building trust and encouraging more sales.
And, if your video content is interesting and adds value for the viewer, it may even help to build a long-term customer relationship where they trust your expertise and keep coming back for more.
Video advertising isn’t just good for your brand perception, it also helps boost digital marketing efforts through SEO.
And why do search engines love video content?
Because it increases how much time visitors spend on the page. That’s why you will end up being higher up in the search results.
If a visitor gets engrossed in a video, the session duration will be much higher and bounce rates will be lower – two things search engines love to see, so your site gets pushed up the keyword ranks. Plus, if the video is really interesting, the visitor will share your site with their network encouraging more traffic overall.
Do you ever struggle to tell people exactly what it is your business does?
As a business owner, communicating the full scope of your products and services can be one of the biggest struggles. So sometimes, your audience just needs to see it.
When you use video to communicate your product or service, or even the company culture, you can use unique elements to help explain more complex information. A simple diagram or animated graphic can do all the talking, helping viewers to digest the information without the need for a long, wordy explanation.
This will help you communicate your message to even the laziest of audiences.
Video marketing is one of the most engaging forms of content marketing. Video advertising demand attention by using more of the senses, creating an engaging experience for the viewer.
And a more engaging experience encourages action.
Take social media for example. On average, a social post with a video is 12x more likely to be shared than a post with any other type of media. Lots of shares mean there are even more eyes on your content, getting your message to a bigger audience for better ROI.
Top Tip: Videos can be made even more engaging for the audience by using colours and animated elements.
A good video has the potential to make your sales skyrocket.
Using a product video on a landing page can increase the conversion rate by 80%. This works by giving the customer all the information they need to take that final step over the line and make the purchase.
But video marketing doesn’t just convert on the landing page, it goes even further. Research from Tubular Insights suggests that 64% 0f consumers make a purchase after watching branded videos on social media.
All types of videos, from explainer videos to short teasers on social channels have the power to boost conversions.
While videos are a powerful tool for marketing campaigns, video production has to be done right so you can reap the full benefits of video marketing.
Here are some factors you need to consider for your next video:
While a video is an engaging form of content, attention spans are still small. If you make the video too long, your viewer will switch off before you get the chance to communicate your message.
That being said, there are some channels, like YouTube, where viewers are looking for long-form content. So before you start storyboarding, it’s important to know the channel purpose and optimal times:
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As with all content creation, always make sure video content is clear, concise and gets to the point as soon as possible. Especially on channels like Instagram and Twitter where optimal lengths are short.
If your video needs to be longer to get all the information across, for example in an explainer video, a good tactic is to include a summary at the start of the video. This gives the viewer a preview of the content so they can decide whether to commit to watching or to skip to the relevant part.
Using Video content also makes it super easy to watch online. Through channels like Facebook and YouTube, the average person has more access to video content than ever before. It helps you show up in more search results too – so you can stay competitive.
And since most people access the internet through their smartphones, online videos have to be optimised for mobile. Make sure you use the right video formats for each channel to make it as user-friendly as possible
Captions are key for making your video as accessible as possible and are highly effective at getting more watch time. Not everyone who watches your video will be able to watch with sound, whether that be because they’re hard of hearing, don’t speak the language well or are simply in an environment where they can’t turn sound on, like in the office or on their commute.
Using captions is a great way to improve the reach of a video and encourage more people to watch the video even if they can’t hear it.
But the benefits of captions don’t stop at accessibility, captions can also help to boost SEO.
Like alt text, captions or subtitles on a video tell Google and YouTube what the video is about, giving the algorithm more information to use when deciding your ranking position for keywords.
Don’t stop at one video. When you put the time and effort into video production, it’s important to increase the ROI as much as possible for your business.
During filming, capture as much footage as you can to reuse for future marketing strategies. That way, you have a bank of content to use next time you have a quick turnaround for a video ad or digital marketing campaign.
Animation can help to take your video marketing strategy to the next level. Whether it’s difficult to film a certain element of your video, or you want to add a little something extra to your existing video, animation could be the key.
The opportunities with animation are endless, so get creative and embrace the power of animation.
As with any marketing activities, remember to round off your video by telling the viewer what you want them to do with a call to action (CTA).
A lot of the time, companies think their video marketing campaign ends after upload, but they’re wrong. You wouldn’t run a digital marketing campaign without reporting on the results, and video marketing is the same.
It’s important to track results when you use videos, to prove the effectiveness of the campaign and allow you to make informed decisions next time you decide to go down the video marketing route.
Key metrics to keep an eye on are: view count, play rate, engagement, social shares, click-through rate and conversion rate.
Diving into the world of video marketing can be daunting – renting the equipment, downloading the software, learning the angles.
Well, we have some good news for you.
Our team of video and digital experts are on hand to help you craft the perfect online video or animation for your next video marketing campaign. If you are ready to talk about your video marketing objectives, our team are available for a free chat to talk about your requirements and how you can start to benefit from the power of video.