Whether you’re a new Startup or a large international company, video is such an important tool for marketing your business. Most companies have taken advantage of the broad network of social media channels, to increase sales and generate leads. This is to be expected since online platforms are increasingly becoming the primary brand interaction point for most consumers. Among the strategies involved in this is the use of video content for marketing.
Granted, Video has been an integral part of Branding and Advertising for quite a while. The difference is that now there is an explosive amount of content being produced worldwide. At VIMAR Digital Marketing, we understand the importance of high-quality strategically driven content production. We have taken the time to outline some key things to consider regarding the importance of Video Production in your Digital Marketing Strategy.
What has however changed is its impact on existing and emerging social media platforms. For starters, statistics point to video content as the best way of reaching the current consumer base and increasing ROI (return on investment). Additionally, Video comes with other far-reaching benefits for your business. For more on this, here is a look at the importance of video in digital marketing.
What is Video Marketing?
Video marketing is the integration of video, also known as moving pictures, into marketing strategies. It’s a way of increasing visual appeal by using informative, provocative and easy-to-understand videos to advance brand promotion.
Why Video is Important in Digital Marketing
It goes without saying that if an image is worth a thousand words, then a video is definitely worth so much more. Moreover, images are the first line of communication long before you ever hear or read the media source. When these sensory aspects are combined into a video, a complete visual communication takes place. So, why video? Simple answer, why not.
We’ve outlined 10 reasons video is an effective marketing tool.
1. Video has High Conversion Rates
Video boosts imaginative engagement. Visual presentation of how a product works can be a great motivator to prospective customers. This has a direct correlation to conversions and sales for your business. Having a product video on your landing page has actually been projected to affect conversions positively by about 80%. Engaging content encourages subscription to your media accounts and enables you to generate a customer base that wants to receive more.
These are visitors to your website or sales portal who will subscribe, engage and follow up on your products for a considerable time if done effectively. After viewing a ‘how to’ video about a product or service, 74% of users have gone on to buy- underscoring the effectiveness of video as a persuasive sales tool. Although you may not generate immediate sales with every video you put out, it encourages brand interaction and lead generation.
2. Video Provides Great ROI
The focus of any marketing strategy is to reach as much of the target audience as possible, in the cheapest way possible, and to drive up sales. This forms the basis of a good return on investment, something that video is very handy in.
What makes video a good investment is that production has now been made easier and cheaper. With a smartphone, you can now shoot decent videos showcasing your products. For post-production, there are online tools to try out and they are pretty affordable. Additionally, all videos don’t have to be perfect; it’s the content that essentially matters. Quality video’s do help portray a better company image and help to share your unique brand proposition. Our experience at VIMAR, with various business clients, demonstrates that video can generate long-term financial returns, on the initial capital investment.
3. Video Leads in Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is now the order of the day. You probably remember the mannequin challenge of 2016, a trend where people were filmed frozen in different poses. What started as funny clips, soon became a ‘must have’ for most brands engaging with social media marketing.
While it lasted, netizens were looking forward to the next video- forward facing brands rode the tide with frozen videos of their own, all the while, advertising their products. Apart from viral marketing being easy to achieve, it helps in humanizing your company by tapping into your funny side.
4. Video Content Ranks Better on Search Engines
One way ensuring that your site ranks high on search engines is by increasing the time spent by visitors. A video provides just that. If its content is captivating and informative, users are likely to watch to the end. This beats skimming through written content. This longer exposure signals search engines that you have quality and dependable content- the very backbone of SEO.
By embedding videos to your website and including the right titles and descriptions, your ranking improves. On top of this, YouTube, the leading online video platform has about over one billion users– making up about one-third of the internet.
This translates to billions of views per day net users. Couple this with the fact that Google now owns YouTube and the importance of video in SEO becomes even more clear.
5. Video Builds Trust
A successful marketing campaign hinges more on trust than anything else. With trust, consumers are able to form long-lasting relationships with your brand. As the relationship develops, customers become the best advocates for your products.
In the digital world that we are living in, videos provide one of the best channels for building trust. Continued customer engagement gives your brand the ability to develop a reliable network of loyal customers.
When presented well, promotional videos remove any doubts or misconception that people might have concerning a product. Also, e-commerce is on the rise and sales are more likely to happen over the internet with every passing day. To eliminate the fear of the unknown, consumers prefer products backed by informational and tutorial videos. Customer reviews are an integral part of ensuring trust with new customers. Video requests to subscribe, like and review content is increasingly important when building your brand recognition.
6. Video Appeals to Smartphone Users
Mobile video views continue to grow with increased affordability and reliance on mobile devices. Users are now turning to handheld devices for news, inquiries, and even shopping. Mobile apps have also made this easier with users watching, sharing and connecting through videos. Optimising your content specifically for mobile devices is extremely important. Faster loading times for mobile devices ensures your video has the ability to play immediately on a viewers feed. Scrolling past your content is a wasted opportunity.
50% of YouTube users access content through their phones regularly. Similarly, mobile is the first screen of choice for the majority of millennials, who happen to control a large market demography. So, what does this mean for your brand? To tap into this market, it is important to curate videos that touch on customer experiences and marketing trends with engaging catchy adverts.
7. Video Provides Better Tutorials
When was the last time you read a manual? If you are like the majority of digital-savvy consumers, then you prefer tutorial videos over paper manuals. Reason being, video is easier to consume and implement. The modern consumer lives on the go and even the laziest buyer wants everything in a simplified version. Video tutorials demonstrating the assembly and usability of your products is necessary.
The importance of such video content is evident by their huge numbers of video’s available and how high they are ranking online. Exploit this opportunity by providing easy-to-follow video tutorials for your products and services. Your videos should touch on common FAQ’s, which is a major reason for needing tutorials in the first place.
8. Video Encourages Customer Interaction
Customer feedback is at the heart of marketing campaigns and also forms the basis for future product development. With the rise in video consumption, it’s a no brainer that timely interaction with your target audience will fare well with video.
This has also been made easier the integration of live streaming in most social platforms. You can now engage your subscribers and visitors, and address their concerns all in one sitting. As such, a video has become a new way of gathering opinions and increasing accessibility in different digital marketing strategies- case and point, influencer marketing.
9. Video Advances CTA
Any marketing strategy should conclude with clear instructions on what interested audience should do next- a call to action, CTA. This has traditionally involved ‘pop-ups’ on pages calling on users to subscribe or redirect to a sales portal. However, users are already gravitating towards videos so your CTA might go unnoticed.
With that in mind, a video embedded in your site with a CTA will impact positively on your marketing. It’s also possible to have an In-Video Overlay as part of your YouTube videos. Such ads can direct viewers to any page of your choosing, including products or subscription pages on your website.
10. Video Marketing is Evolving Fast
To a casual eye, video is just moving pictures with sound and visual appeals. To a keen observer though, the channel is evolving fast. With this comes renewed interest and more interaction points for your digital marketing campaigns. Social networks have made this easier by optimizing their platforms to these new features.
With Facebook 360 Video comes increased interactivity on how content is shared and viewed. It can also be viewed on VR gear making the experience even more compelling. This is just one of the many new video tools available in the market. Others include Instagram’s 60-Second Videos and Instagram Stories, and Twitter’s Periscope.
Marketing can be overwhelming especially in a digital world where trends disappear as first as they emerge. There are however strategies that have held their worth and continue to help grow revenues by advancing product penetration; video is one such leading strategy. It is relatively cheap to create and share across multiple digital platforms.
Video also makes it easy for you to piggyback marketing efforts on trending content. That’s not all, statistics point to video as being unstoppable and unrivaled in its effectiveness as a marketing tool. To stay ahead of the competition, be in the know; make video part of your digital marketing strategy.
Talk to us at VIMAR Digital Marketing to discuss how our in-house video production team can help with your next business video.
Our full-circle marketing team has a passion to help develop and implement a digital marketing strategy that will grow your business presence online.
