The days of video as merely a medium for entertainment are very much in the past!
Today, video content has grown into an essential channel that customers rely on to make purchase decisions and discover brands. By the same token, video is one of the best mediums available to help customers advance throughout their buyer’s journey.
And yet, as versatile as the tool is, there are still some marketers and brands that struggle with it. Doubting either the medium’s efficacy, or their own ability to get results with it. And this article aims to change that!
In this piece, we’ll discuss some of the most important facts surrounding video production for marketing, but we won’t stop there. At each point, we will also talk about how to use those facts to your own strategy’s benefit and success.
Video Marketing Boosts Sales Rates
Due to their entertaining and user-friendly format, videos are a great means of generating engagement within your audience. Unsurprisingly, that shows up in the numbers. Whether in the form of videos on landing pages, on video-sharing platforms, or as social media ads about half of user search is for service or product-related videos before paying a visit to a store.
As a consequence, 74% of customers who watch videos to learn more information about a product or service eventually purchase it.
Why it matters: You should use video content as a support to guide your customers through the stages of the sales funnel. Keep a varied catalog of videos under your sleeves to provide useful (and targeted) knowledge to the public when they need it. That involves videos aimed at general brand awareness, as well as more detailed product demo videos and everything in between.
YouTube Is the Leading Platform for Driving Conversions
We can collect a lot of wisdom from experienced people in the field. Their example sets a standard from which we can learn important lessons from their practice.
Such is the case of a recent study that surveyed 169 leading business owners in the US about their video marketing strategy. Among some other interesting findings, the survey shows that 37% of the interviewees believe that YouTube generates better conversion rates than any other social platform.
But what’s really interesting to see are the numbers for the other social platforms. The same queried business owners think that Facebook is the second best social medium for boosting conversions (35%), followed by Instagram (with a decent 25%).
Why it matters: YouTube has been and remains the largest social video hub on the web, but it’s far from the only platform people use to interact with brands. A reasonable and effective marketing strategy involves taking your content to all relevant social platforms where your users are interacting.
Video Ads Are Getting Longer (While Remaining Short!)
Many marketers are using social platforms to introduce their brand to new customers, who in turn rely on the media to discover new products and services.
According to a recent study, 66% of video ads were 30 seconds long by the third quarter of 2019. This represents a significant increase (11%) from last year’s statistics for the same period.
The second most preferred duration for ads was 15 seconds. Although they experienced a downturn from last year’s numbers, this category still comprises 32% of all ads.
By contrast, 6-second and 60-second long videos each represent 1% of the market share.
Why it matters: The fact that video ads are getting longer means that you need to put some extra work into making your content more engaging.
Right from the start of your piece, you may want to introduce esthetic and persuasive elements to generate immediate interest in your viewers. This can be a compelling frame, an interesting question, or a promising story that keeps your audience at the edge of their seats. Doing so will motivate them to watch the rest and thus expose them to your value proposition.
Video Content Is More Approachable and Effective than Text
Let’s be honest: nothing will ever replace the experience of reading a book or an article. Still, when we talk about marketing outreach, there’s no doubt that video performs better than text.
On the one hand, people are more willing to consume content whenever video is involved.
- When given the option, 59% of executives prefer to watch a video than to read a text.
- It’s 12x more likely for people to share a video in social media than text or images.
But what’s more curious to see are the cognitive aspects of video. According to some psychological research, users have the capacity to retain content more easily that they watch in a video. In contrast, they just retain 10% of the text they read.
Why it matters: If you think your brand has something to communicate—be it your product, your mission, or a life lesson—then consider using videos.
One of the more didactic types of videos out there is the animated explainer videos. With the help of powerful visuals, sympathetic characters, and fast-paced narrations, these videos are the perfect means of conveying your message in a friendly way.
Mobile Views Prevail on Social Media
Smartphones are a constant presence in everyone’s lives, so it’s really not a surprise that brands have their hopes up on mobile video marketing. In recent years, we’ve seen mobile users have come to dominate video content consumption by most measures.
- Ninety-three percent of Twitter video views come from smartphones.
- On Facebook, people are 50% more likely to watch a video on their phone than on a desktop.
- More than 70% of YouTube views occur in mobile devices.
Why it matters: You should use all the available resources and tools at hand to create mobile-friendly videos. That can mean lots of different things.
For starters, different platforms have different aspect specification ratios: whereas Instagram and Facebook videos fare better with the square view, YouTube adapts more to full landscape.
Also, optimize your video to play reasonably well on low bandwidth connections. It’s normal that mobile-users will sometimes have to deal with spotty WiFi signals.
Videos Have Great ROI
Video production costs can be very high. That’s expected since there are many factors that affect the value of the production (equipment, crew, sound mixing, and so on). The question then is: does it pay off?
You’d be surprised to know that not only is video worth the investment, but it has one of the highest return-on-investment rates of any media-based content. Recent reports show that for 2019, 83% of marketers reported seeing a profit with the videos they produced for their brand.
If most business owners are satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing moves, what does that mean to you?
Why it matters: There are billions of hours of video content uploaded every day and you can bet most of it is mediocre. It’s very important to produce high-quality content to distinguish your brand from the rest. Investing in quality can create content of enduring impact that will benefit your brand’s image and profits in the long run.
Pages with Videos Rank Better in Google Algorithms
When it comes to SEO rankings, pages with videos are as effective as uploading your videos on YouTube or Vimeo.
According to some data sources, the likelihood of your page showing up on the first page of Google increases by 53% when you embed a video. This is important as videos will not only provide users with a better experience but will also bring more visibility to your brand.
Why it matters: If you have a landing page to promote your product or service, make sure that users can access it without difficulty. You also want to make a good effort to properly optimize the page: put your video on the spotlight (on the top-center page) and don’t clutter the page with distracting, unnecessary content.
The Takeaway
As the stats above show, there is more than one good reason to join the video marketing rush.
Both businesses and consumers agree that video content is more attractive than any other type of content. Plus, it’s more powerful as an educational tool, which is great if you think you have something important to say to the public.
Finally, remember to take your videos to where your audiences are and optimize the content so they can have an immersive experience with your brand.
