The business landscape has evolved rapidly in the last several years, and small businesses who want to keep up with this rapid pace must embrace the power of digital marketing. There are many different avenues to choose from when trying your hand at digital marketing, but one of the most effective and efficient is video marketing.
More involved than e-mailing or social media management, video marketing is a great way to interact with your customer base while keeping them engaged and informed to the goings-on in your company. Here are five reasons why video marketing works and why your company needs to embrace it before year’s end.
- Videos are the most popular medium and drive engagement
- SEO capabilities are greatly enhanced by consistently producing videos
- Many marketers see a boost in conversion rates once they start using video
Video Is The Most Popular Medium
Text had a good run as humanity’s most consumed form of entertainment and information, but video has officially overtaken it in the last few years. Nearly thirty-five percent of all online activity is spent watching videos, and comment sections are far more likely to be effective and engaged with when the content being consumed is a video, rather than text-based content.
YouTube has also grown to be one of the largest online platforms on the internet because users can consume its content in an easy but interactive manner. Nearly a quarter of consumers lose interest in companies which don’t feature videos on their homepage and nearly seventy percent of consumers say that a company’s reach is more widespread once they start implanting video into their marketing efforts.
Video Is Great For Driving Traffic
In the digital marketing landscape, those who can master SEO are kings of the world, and there’s no better medium to turn to if you want to enhance your SEO capabilities than video. Videos are nearly fifty times more likely to show up on the first page of Google’s search results than text-based content. Google knows the popularity of video and has trained its algorithm to view videos as both highly unique and relevant to users when they search for answers online.
Videos are easily linked across social media platforms and back to your own site, driving in traffic of those who enjoy watching your content on other social media sites. Videos keep your customers on your site for a longer time, which is both great for their engagement and greatly decreases their “bounce rate,” leading to higher search result placement for your company’s site; the longer a customer stays on your website, the more relevant your site is to Google’s algorithm.
You Can Educate And Inform Through Video
One of the greatest methods for turning short term customers into long term, loyal customers is education. Companies who educate their customers about the best way to use their products and how to increase their own value increase customer retention and loyalty substantially. Videos are great for educating customers because they can see firsthand, in real time, the proper way to use your products and all the features are laid bare.
Explainer videos and tutorials teach both loyal customers and the uninitiated about your products, meaning many users will approach your company after becoming intrigued by a video you put out trying to target another segment of your potential customer base. Videos are widespread and easily sharable in this way, which makes them invaluable to companies of all sizes.
Videos Increase Conversion Rates
One of the most significant advantages to marketing with videos is the bump you’ll see to your conversion rates. A whopping seventy-four percent of customers who watch videos to learn how a product works and how to use it end up buying that product. Another seventy-seven said they have been convinced to purchase a product or service simply by watching a video about it.
In this way, videos do more than drive engagement and bring customers to your company; they help close the deal, eliminating the bridge needed for your customers to see themselves using your products or service on a daily basis. The visual medium in general eliminates the need for viewer generated imagination because the images are right there in front of them. Counter intuitively, this is a fantastic component to help your company close deals, as viewers see themselves as the spokespeople who are using your products in your videos.
Many Marketers Swear By Videos
It’s been proven time and time again that the general population loves video and the benefits it provides, but professional marketers have fallen in love with the medium as well. In a survey taken, eighty-seven percent of online marketers reported that they used video marketing in a role to grow their business, while eighty-eight percent of those same marketers said video was “an important part” of their marketing strategy.
Some marketers errantly believe that video is the most difficult type of content to create, but this is generally false. While text can feel more comfortable to those who are new to the visual medium, the basic tenets of business hold true for both mediums. You must know who your audience is and what your chosen platform provides in terms of demographics and engagement. Different platforms attract different groups, and your company should know beforehand who is seeing the videos you’re creating and why.