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Video marketing hasn’t been around quite as long as the medium itself, but chances are if you’re reading this, video has been a part of your life for the entirety of your life.
So why you should bother investing in video marketing this late in the game?
Quick answer: smart companies are incredibly excited to dive head first into video not because of the medium, but because of how it’s being delivered and how it’s being consumed.
Here’s a stat to entice you to keep reading: 80% of consumers can recall at least one video they’ve watched in the last month.
Can you recall the last print ad you read?
If you’re like most people, you’re probably going to watch a video today (and no, we’re not talking about the Netflix session that will cap off your night).
That video might be a hilarious short featuring a cute kitten getting crazy or a tear-jerking story about a father’s love for his daughter.
Or maybe it’s a PSA so terrifying you vow never to look at your phone while in the driver’s seat ever again.
How did you find that video?
Or maybe it makes more sense to ask how that video found you.
- Was it trending?
- Did a friend post it to your timeline?
- Were you browsing YouTube?
- Was it embedded in a blog post?
Whatever brought you and this video together, the end result is the same: you clicked and you watched.
Now ask yourself this…
When was the last time you clicked on a text link “for more information,” just for the hell of it?
You probably get where we’re going with this. Your own habits (and ours) are proof that people like video, trust video, and engage with video more openly than they do with other forms of content.
Video is a triple threat — dynamic visuals! audio! text! — and so we remember it a lot better than we remember just about any other form of content. And we want to be cool, so we share it.
What does that mean for your brand?
Video is one of the most consumed (thanks to social media) and most versatile and profitable types of marketing content out there. It has never been this easy to capture the attention of the audiences you covet.
From video’s ability to inspire trust to its ability to generate sales, here are 50+ reasons why YOU should be investing in video NOW.
Video Is a Sales Machine
You want conversions; video can make that happen. Putting just one video on your company’s homepage can increase your conversion rate by a whopping 80%.
Even if the study was tracking results for the world’s best video about the world’s most-coveted product, a stat like that should make you sit up and take notice.
Let’s say you make an okay video for a product that very few people would describe as sexy, and you get a 25% jump in conversions. That’s not too shabby!
So what is it about a video that makes it such an effective selling tool? Let’s break it down:
- 90% of consumers say a video is super helpful when they’re making purchasing decisions. Here’s another fact: 74% of consumers will buy a product if they’ve seen it in action in a video. That’s because shopping online feels like a gamble at the best of times. Video is as close as you can get to interact with a product in a store like we all used to do in the olden days. A great video will make buyers feel like they can trust products, sellers, and providers.
- Video is also the exact kind of time sink you want on your website. Take a look at how long most website visitors interact with your blog. Is it two minutes? A minute? Less? An engaging video will keep people on your site a full two minutes longer, and make them more likely to stick around to check out other content.
- Vision is humanity’s most dominant sense. No, people don’t actually process visual imagery 60,000 times faster than printed copy — a persistent myth cited in far too many marketing guides. But we are visual creatures, and we did evolve to live in a world where making monkey-see-monkey-do your mantra could keep you alive longer than that other guy. People really do ape what they see!
The takeaway: Video keeps consumers across industries engaged, and generates the kind of emotional connection that boosts conversions and sales.
Video Is Tops When It Comes to ROI
Return on investment is usually the last thing people associate with video because they assume that video is expensive or time-consuming to make. Wrong!
Not every marketing short has to look like a Spike Jonze video. Then again, how many weird sitcom-length mattress store commercials have ended up going viral?
Maybe in your industry, a go-big-or-go-home approach to video could net you a major win. As proven above, video boosts sales, so the R in ROI is all but guaranteed.
How can you make sure you’re not investing too much (or too little) in your video marketing? Here’s how:
- You might be able to knock it out of the park with a well-lit conference room and an iPhone on a tripod. A DIY video of substance will convert a lot more people than a boring sales pitchy one — or no video at all. 83% of business owners have seen returns, and you can bet they’re not all making big-budget pictures. Maybe you’ll have the resources to hire a video team in the future but for now, do what you can with what you’ve got to get those conversions.
- Keep it simple, because simple equals cheap. Demo your product right there in the warehouse or talk about how your service has helped a client. Put together a highlight reel of your day to day office life or interview an expert. Your investment in video can be minimal and still attract customer attention, provided you actually make the jump to video and then stick with it. Rome wasn’t built in a day!
- Leverage all available channels. After you make the video, don’t just put it on your homepage. Put it everywhere. Upload it to YouTube and Facebook. Share snippets of it on Instagram and Twitter. Embed it on your blog along with the transcript.
The takeaway: You’ll get the returns if you make the investment. People watch videos for the content, not the slick production values, so don’t let lack of resources keep you from experimenting with the medium.
Knowing You = Trusting You
You’ve known forever that you can’t have conversions and sales without trust, but what you’ve probably struggled with is how exactly to inspire that trust. That’s where video marketing comes in.
The whole point of making customer-facing videos is to build trust by giving people free stuff in the form of interesting, entertaining, or useful information.
When customers know they can come to you for knowledge, they’re going to feel better about buying from you — full stop. It works because videos make us feel things, whether we realize it or not. If you like a video, you probably like the people in that video, and so you’re naturally going to have warm and fuzzy feelings about whatever it is they’re talking about.
Let’s take a look at how being informed and entertained inspires people to trust brands:
- As noted above, seeing products in action makes online shopping feel more like shopping with a friend. gen.video found that more than eight in ten respondents were inspired to purchase a product after viewing videos on social media. You can get the best by leveraging real influencers in your videos because viewers tend to listen to the thoughts and opinions of “real people” over your employees.
- Videos answer the burning questions potential customers never get around to asking. Most people barely have the attention span necessary to get past the intro of a blog post so what are the chances that they’re going to dive deep into your product or service details? But they will watch the helpful videos you make, making your brand seem benevolent and trustworthy.
- Finally, this is just Marketing 101. Show attractive people having a great time with a product, and consumers are more likely to want it. Show a serious business person solving a problem with a product, and people with similar problems are going to sit up and take notice. When we watch the people we want to be using a product, our doubts about buying it tends to disappear.
The takeaway: Videos are more likely to inspire trust in your target demographic than other media because they spark a positive emotional response in the viewer.
Google Loves Video
Did you know you’re more likely to show up first on Google (or at the very least on the first page of results) if you have a couple of videos embedded on your site?
Ever since Google bought YouTube, videos have a tendency to show up on the first page of search results — when there are videos to show, that is.
You can optimize your web copy to the Nth degree, but if your less-verbose, less SEO-savvy competitors are dropping some of their marketing dollars into video, they may have the edge.
As noted above, people engage with video — clicking, watching, sharing — way more than they do with the written word and that engagement has a real impact on how search engines like Google (and social media platforms) rank content.
So how can you benefit from Google’s love of video?
- Optimize your titles. Yes, your videos should have titles that real actual people find compelling, but you also need to consider what those same people are searching for. Use one of the many free keyword tools out there to find out what your target demographic is interested in and use that to 1. choose video topics and 2. create video titles.
- Host your videos on YouTube. Research has shown that Google is far more likely to rank videos hosted on YouTube highly versus videos hosted elsewhere. When in doubt, host your videos on multiple channels.
- Accept that you can’t ever really optimize a truly bad video. Your exact match title, a keyword-rich description, and your efforts to utilize it across platforms won’t do much for your bottom line if people click away after watching for five seconds. In fact, your boring, grainy video can actually hurt your search engine ranking. Make quality videos and then optimize them — always in that order.
The takeaway: Good videos will always rank better than bad optimized videos, but that doesn’t mean you can neglect SEO when you’re posting and promoting videos.
YouTube is a Search Engine, Too
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, and it’s poised to overtake Facebook as the second most visited website in the US. But you probably didn’t need us to cite stats or research to know how popular YouTube is.
These days, anyone can become a YouTube sensation, provided they have a face for the screen and they find the right story angle.
Maybe your company’s videos aren’t sexy enough to go viral, but the slim chance you’ll go viral isn’t why you’re thinking about adding video to your marketing plan, anyway.
Here’s what should be in the back of your mind as you upload your videos to YouTube:
- #1 ranked videos on YouTube are much more likely to have exact match titles so always consult your keyword tool and YouTube’s Search Suggest feature when naming your videos. Putting keywords in your video descriptions and file names may not seem to impact your YouTube ranking as much, but do it anyway since these can have an effect on your ranking in other search engines.
- Don’t let YouTube choose your thumbnail! Once you’ve verified your account, you’ll have the option of choosing a custom thumbnail in Info & Settings. The 1280 x 720-pixel graphic you choose to represent your video will be what appears in search results so make it a good one! Using an image editor to write something on your thumbnail (in big letters) is an easy way to set your video apart.
- You can boost your video even further by creating a blog post that targets the same keyword, embedding your video in it, and linking to the post in the video description. Writing the post should be easy since you’ve already made the video, and you’ll get traffic coming to your video from your blog and vice versa.
The takeaway: Given the reach of YouTube and how closely it is tied to Google, you ignore this platform at your own peril.
Mobile Users are Addicted to Video
Everyone’s watching videos, but mobile users are watching more of them… and are more likely to feel a sense of emotional connection to the brands whose videos they watch. They’re also more likely to willingly watch videos that are clearly advertisements.
Mobile viewership is also growing, with year over year viewership increases from 2014 to 2018 and continued growth projected for 2019 and 2020.
So what’s the deal with that? Here’s what you need to know about capturing this valuable audience:
- There’s something about viewing videos on personal devices like phones and tablets that makes people feel warm and fuzzy about what they’re watching. That may be because the portability of these devices lets people watch in private spaces like bedrooms (and, er, on the toilet) where they feel safest and most comfortable.
- Do this growing body of viewers a favor and optimize your videos for mobile viewing. Zoom in on products so people watching on the small screen can actually see what you’re talking about. Use a square video format (which may get you a lot more likes and shares). Make sure your video is still interesting when viewed without sound. And make sure any text in your video is large enough to be readable on a small screen.
- Keep video titles short and catchy so they display in their entirety on mobile screens. Longer titles will get cut off in search results, which might just make people less likely to click through to your video.
The takeaway: If video is not part of your marketing strategy, you may be missing out big time.
People Share Video
Would it be nice if a million people shared your company’s video? Well, duh.
But your video doesn’t need to go viral to make an impact on your bottom line.
Social networks have made it incredibly easy to share content and the content that people are most likely to share is… you guessed it, video.
The key to getting your fair share of those shares is capturing people’s attention in the first few seconds of your video. Doing that pays off in the form of reach because potential customers are a whopping 10 times more likely to engage, share, and comment on video (over links and other social posts).
Here are three tips you can use to get more shares on your video content:
- Videos get passed from person to person, but what’s really getting shared are feelings. Whether there’s a brand stamp on those feelings doesn’t matter! 76% of people in one survey said they’d share an entertaining video that had clearly been produced by a company. The same is probably true for videos that inspire or otherwise stir up powerful emotions. Can you make a tear-jerking holiday ad? A cute animal video?
- Will the length of your videos impact how often they’re shared? You’d better believe it. Videos that are 15 seconds or shorter are shared 37% more often than those that last between 30 seconds and 1 minute.
- If you’re going to lose eyeballs, you’re going to lose them quickly. 20% of viewers will click away from a video in 10 seconds or fewer, so don’t let your video intro drag. Jump right into your chosen topic or risk people getting bored and moving on to the next video in the queue.
The takeaway: Don’t be afraid to play with people’s emotions if your goal is to boost your reach.
Video Is About Showing, Not Telling
These days, when someone wants to learn something new, solve a problem, or see a product in action, they’re probably going to fire up YouTube.
Have you ever tried to wrap your head around a super difficult concept by listening to a podcast or studying a textbook? It’s not easy!
Videos bring products, solutions, and ideas to life in a way that little else can.
Plus, face to face communication tends to be more memorable and more meaningful. Video is as close as you can get in most industries to knocking on someone’s door and setting up a product demo in their living room.
Even better, once you’re in that virtual living room, you have the chance to tell amazing, inspiring, and educational stories to an audience that really wants to hear what you have to say.
Why is that important? Consider the following:
- In videos, you can employ known positive cues. Think about what makes people feel good and feature those things in your videos — even if they’re not exactly relevant to your brand. Consider Google’s “Friends Furever” commercial for Android. Unlikely animal friendships have nothing to do with operating systems but people LOVE THEM. What warm fuzzies can you tap into in your videos?
- Videos engage multiple senses, which means you can tell a story that appeals both to the visual learners and the listeners… to those who love cold hard facts and to those who need a human connection to learn.
- It is very hard to convey your enthusiasm and your passion for what you do in text. In video, your zeal comes through and people will respond positively. Emotions are contagious, and in video, your passion can inspire passion in others. Your very human-ness can make others more open to trusting your brand!
The takeaway: Show people something that’s fascinating or heart wrenching or otherwise moving, and you’ll earn their trust.
Hopefully, you remember me.
Reach More People in Less Time
Video is just about the easiest media to consume, which is why people actually do consume it and in huge quantities.
Compare that to text, which takes concentration and willpower to consume in a digital world that’s filled with distractions. Think people are reading? Think again!
59% of all links shared on social networks are never actually followed by the sharer. If they did follow the link, that doesn’t mean they read deeply.
55% of people will read a web page or blog post for 15 seconds or less before abandoning it.
And for all the effort most of us put into it, email doesn’t perform much better! The average read rate of emails across industries is only 14%.
But who doesn’t have a minute or two to watch a quick video?
The worst that happens is your audience gets bored part way through and click away. And if they don’t, you know about because most video platforms have clear analytics built right in. You know:
- How many times it was watched
- How much of it was watched
- When it was shared
- How often was it shared
The fact that you can measure some metrics of success so quickly means you can pivot equally quickly and concentrate your efforts on what actually works.
The takeaway: Videos don’t have to be picture perfect to get views. Good content will get measurable results.
Twenty More Reasons to Use Video Marketing
Are you still mulling over whether investing in quality videos is worth your time and your money? Then let us leave you with these 20 powerful stats:
- 87% of online marketers are currently using video (Forbes)
- 85% of all internet traffic in the US will be video in 2019 (Cisco)
- Sending video to email leads increases click-through rates by up to 300% (Forrester)
- Video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80% (Unbounce)
- Watching videos currently accounts for a third of all online activity (Hubspot)
- 90% of people say videos are helpful when making buying decisions (YouTube)
- An enjoyable video ad can increase purchase intent by 97% (Unruly)
- That same ad will increase positive brand associations by 139% (Unruly)
- 36% of online consumers trust video ads (NIELSEN Wire)
- 64% of people are more likely to buy a product after watching a video (ComScore)
- 59% of executives would rather watch a video than read text (Forbes)
- 39% of executives will call a vendor after viewing a video (Forbes)
- 73% of B2B organizations report positive ROI with video marketing (ReelSEO)
- Real estate listings that include videos get more than 400% more inquiries (Australian Real Estate Group)
- One minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words (Dr. James McQuivey)
- 92% of mobile video watchers share videos (Invodo)
- Mobile video consumption has risen steadily every year (YouTube)
- People watch 100 million hours of video on Facebook every day (TechCrunch)
- Over 1 billion hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day (YouTube)
- More than 8 billion people watch videos on Facebook daily (TechCrunch)
It’s not hard to see why so many businesses haven’t pursued video marketing — two words: time/money — but given stats like these and all the benefits outlined above, it’s also surprising that more brands haven’t made a point of shifting at least some of their marketing budget in the direction of video.
Maybe you think it’s too late… video is established.
Because your competitors have been making and sharing videos for years.
And you think there’s no place left for you.
Well, think again, because it’s never too late to jump onto a successful bandwagon!
Video sells like nothing else, and you deserve a piece of that action.