The use of video in digital marketing isn’t a new concept, but it is dominating social media. This isn’t surprising, it is an easy to digest media form and allows viewers a break from the dominating text ads they see every day. It was recently reported that 1 billion hours of video is viewed around the world today on YouTube. Whether you’re a business owner trying to make a splash on social media or a marketing maven, you must understand video marketing and how to use it in campaigns moving forward.
Why Video?
Video is easy to share across multiple platforms that give viewers a real life look into brands and businesses. It is an engaging and adaptable way to get your content out to the masses. In fact, it’s so engaging that consumers are watching more video than ever. In 2021 it is projected to be 100 minutes a day for your average viewer. Audiences like videos because they are entertaining, straightforward, and attention grabbing.
It is also scientifically proven that while everyone consumes information differently, our brains are wired to love video. On average, a viewer retains 95% of a message they saw a video of, compared to a depressing 10% that we retain when reading text. As a business trying to market your product to customers, that’s a huge statistic, it means you’re more likely to make an impression on potential customers with videos compared to text ads. A whopping 64% of customers are more likely to buy a product if they’ve seen a video ad for it. Your e-commerce business must include video content in 2020 and beyond.
Why Isn’t a Picture Enough?
Now you’re probably thinking, why do I need video if a picture is worth a thousand words? That is true that images make a higher impact on our brains than text, but a video is priceless. Our brains are hardwired to process information as fast as possible which makes using video so effective in marketing. Did you know that our brains process visual information 60,000 times faster than text? Video allows visual learners, audio learners, and kinetic learners to all connect with a video, you have a higher chance of reaching more customers.
Text only content is now seen as “old school” and it is expected to be extinct in the near future, now is the time for more video. In 2018, 93% of businesses reported that they got a new customer from a video they posted on social media. Now that you know why video is so important in your marketing strategies, let’s dive into it more.
Video is Cost Effective
If I haven’t convinced you to use video in your next marketing campaign yet, here are some statistics that will show you how valuable video is when it comes to your ROI. It was recently reported that 88% of marketing executives saw a positive return on investment after using video in campaigns. If that isn’t enough for you to invest in video content, I don’t know what is.
I know you’re probably thinking that creating these engaging and captivating videos must cost a fortune and be movie quality, but that’s not the case. HubSpot did some research for us and found that consumers prefer to watch authentic and lower quality videos. They found that viewers thought the over produced and higher quality videos seemed fake and not authentic.
While high quality video is nice, it’s not always in the budget for smaller businesses and that’s okay. Creating video is more cost effective than ever with some simple tips and knowing the right tools and software to use. One popular tool that is used to create low cost but effective videos is called Promo. Give this tool a test run first with their free trail, if you love it, they have very cost effective plans that fit into any budget. This allows your business to test out different content on your audience at a low risk.
What Kind of Videos Engage Audiences the Most?
Now that you’ve decided that a video strategy is a must in your next campaign, we are going to tell you what kinds of videos to implement into your next campaign. There are many different types of videos brands and businesses in all industries can create to be successful.
Just like the social media content you’re already creating for your brand, one common type of video is educational. Educational videos are important to customers because they add value or help them solve an issue they have. These types of videos will be a driving force for conversions. Give viewers a tutorial or an educational video about something new or a topic your audience is interested in is perfect. These types of videos add value to your audience, which will help you later convert them into customers.
Recording interviews and sharing them are great because they encourage conversations between the guest and your viewers. Reaching out to an influencer in your niche or to an industry expert will benefit your audience and help give your brand more authority on a certain topic. Another plus from conducting interviews, you can reuse the audio in a podcast.
You can work with influencers and brand ambassadors to create product reviews or demo videos. Reach out to influencers that already use your product in their everyday life, or reach out to someone with your target audience and offer free products in return for a product review. These videos will also provide you with market research on a new product while saving you money.
Showing behind the scenes content is another popular type of content your business can create. These types of videos will show the office and brand culture. Do some behind the scenes action, show your viewers what its like to work at your company. Let an employee do a take over and allow them to show footage of their day at the office.
5 Other Types of Video Used Today
- Event – is your company holding a fundraiser, conducting a round table discussion, hosting a conference? Show your customers
- Case studies- similar to customer testimonials, allows your customers to know if your product solves a certain problem for them
- Live – draws in longer streams and a high engagement
- Animated- using animated videos helps tackle harder to grasp or sensitive topics
- Personalized messages – used to continue a conversation
How to Create Video Content that Converts
Once you have decided what type of video you’re going to create, keep in mind you can use all of the ones mentioned above, test them out on your audience to see which ones work best. Now it is time to actually start creating engaging videos.
How long should your videos be? Each social media platform has a different length that works for that audience and medium.
For example, videos going on Facebook should be no more than two minutes long. Studies have found that engagement drastically falls after two minutes.
3 Tips for Video Content on Facebook
- Have appealing visuals since videos on Facebook automatically play whether the user has sound on or not
- Upload video directly to site instead of adding YouTube link
- Incorporate Facebook’s live streaming feature
Videos uploaded to Twitter need to be short, under thirty seconds, to perform well. Thirty seconds is also the current time limit for Twitter as well. Consider these videos to be a tease or trailer type video to encourage viewers to seek out the full video on your website.
Instagram suggests that you keep your videos no more than one minute long and possibly no more than thirty seconds if you can. They found that videos less than thirty seconds got the more engagement and comments on the platform.
4 Tips for Instagram Videos
- Make sure these video are visually appealing
- Use boomerangs and time (hyper) lapse videos
- Include relevant hashtags
- Take advantage of IGTV, Reels, and Instagram stories when applicable
YouTube definitely is the place for longer and more in depth videos, but researchers have found that two minutes is an ideal mark for marketing purposes.
3 Tips for Uploading Video to YouTube
- Take advantage of the playlist feature to organize your videos
- How to and video blogs do really well on this site
- Have an enticing title
No matter what site your uploading videos to, you want to make sure they are mobile friendly. Also make sure that each video has a clear call to action at the end, like sign up for my newsletter now. While your videos should never be pushing sales, but you do want some type of call to action to keep viewers interested in your brand.
How Does Video Content Effect SEO?
A huge reason why marketing professionals are gravitating towards video in content marketing campaigns is because Google loves videos. If you want a number one search ranking on Google, you must include video content on your website. Google made it clear that a website with video has a fifty percent higher change at a number one search ranking than a website without video.
The reason for this is because video is easier to measure than text content. Google does a deep dive into analytics for you and finds out how many times a video was loaded, played, how long someone watched, and much more. You can also determine what videos got the highest click through rates and lead to the most conversions. This is vital information to have as a business owner, as well to help determine what videos your audience resonates with and how to create future videos.
SEO is still very important with video content. To have a change at a high ranking, you must optimize your videos correctly. That means you have to use the right keywords, have a strong meta-description, and an engaging title, add relevant tags, and include subtitles.
Conclusion
Video content is becoming very important and if you want your brand to stay competitive, you must incorporate it into your campaigns. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re business is in, you must start incorporating video content immediately. Know your audience, add value, solve a problem for them, show your brands personality, and have fun with it.
Reach out to our CEO, Kollin, for a free consultation on how your brand can incorporate video content today!
Written By Tessa Porter