The Future is Video!

According to a survey, 85% of businesses use video marketing as a tool in their marketing strategy. 92% of the marketers mention that Videos are an important part of their Marketing Strategy. The popularity and importance of the videos are growing rapidly. When it comes to the ROI, 81% of the marketers who used video mentioned that it has increased the average amount of time spent on their website.

Increasingly, the world is getting hooked to videos and this isn’t going to change anytime soon. People today lead a hectic lifestyle plus the videos are easy to consume and digest and can be watched on the move. Hence, the growth of this medium as a tool of promotion comes as a no-surprise.

Have you started using video marketing for your business yet? If not, here are some points citing its importance.

Importance of Video Marketing for a business:

Video can lead directly to Sales:

Well, who doesn’t love sales? Companies breathe and thrive on Sales. According to Wyzowl, 87% of video marketers say video has increased traffic to their website. Statistics mentioned by Insivia mentions that just adding a video on the landing page could increase the conversion rate by 80%.

Higher conversions lead to higher lead generation. Hence, it is no wonder that 83% of video marketers say video has helped them generate leads. Additionally, when it comes to video marketing directly helping increase sales, 80% of the marketers agree with that.



Boosts Email Campaign's CTR by 200%-300%:

A Study by Superoffice shows that just adding a link to a video and including the word ‘Video’ in the subject line can increase the open rate by 6% while other studies estimate the increase of up to 19%. According to a report published by Forrester, including video in an email leads to a massive 200-300% increase in click-through rate.

The customers find emails with videos more appealing than the ones without. The visual always scores better than the black text on a white background. So, the next time you want your email marketing campaigns to perform better, you know what you need to do. But don’t make the mistake of embedding the complete video into the email; the chances are that your email will get caught in the spam filters because of the size of the large video files. It is advisable that you include a thumbnail of the video in the email, which would encourage the recipient to click on the link and watch the video on your website or a landing page.

Engages your audience better:

People love watching videos. According to Statista, 85% of the internet users of the USA have watched online video content monthly on any of their devices. According to the data by Content Marketing Institute, audiences are about 10 times more likely to engage with video content by embedding, sharing, or commenting compared to a blog post or a social media post.

While more than 50% of the traffic on the internet is coming from mobiles, videos aren’t left behind. The increase in the number of smartphone users and people watching videos on the move has only increased the video audience. You get 10 seconds to hook the customer to your video with your narration and content. If you can give a start to the video that is intriguing enough, and the content of the video is engaging, you can be sure that it would generate great engagement around your brand.

Social Media loves it:

Absolutely Yes! With studies showing that an average user spends 2 hours and 23 minutes on Social media, videos have been incorporated in almost all of the leading social media platforms. YouTube is not alone; in 2015 Facebook launched ‘Live’ to get into live streaming. Facebook also allows uploading videos on its platform; Instagram has Videos, stories, and now Reels; Twitter has periscope.

As per the statistics, the videos posted on Social Media are 12 times (1200%) likely to get more shares than the text and images combined in the posts.

Get on the second largest search engine:

YouTube was launched in 2005 and was acquired by Google in 2006 for a massive $1.65bn. It didn’t take more than a year for Google to know that the videos are the future. That goes to explain why more than 500 hours of videos are being uploaded and more than 5bn videos are being watched on YouTube every day.

Producing a video of your brand on YouTube embedded in your website would encourage the users to watch the video on the website itself. Algorithmically, more amount of time spent on a page conveys to search engines that the information in it is valuable and your website’s ranking would improve. Make sure that the videos are optimized for SEO for better results. Choose a compelling title, write powerful descriptions, add the right hashtags and tags, and if possible add a transcript of the video, to make it SEO-Optimized. Guess what! You are 53 times more like to appear on the front page on Google with a well-optimized video on your website.

Builds connection & brand awareness:

Maya Angelou said “The people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”- this statement stands true even for videos. If you can enthrall your customers by sharing valuable information instead of selling, they would be never able to forget your brand. When you come to think of it, recall how many times you remember the brands though with whom you have never connected or met, but you felt great after watching a video or an ad and has stuck in your mind since then.

Costs low on the wallet:

Contrary to the popular belief that video creation is expensive, it might not be so if you are a beginner. Chances are that you already own a smartphone that has a quality camera because, in today’s world, most phones come with a good camera. Your current smartphone and its camera would be more than sufficient for you to record a quality video. You need to just make some arrangements for editing software or an app that can help you edit the video and you are good to go. Even online video editing tools are constantly improving and becoming more affordable. What matters the most for getting more audience to the video is the content shared in the video. Work on improvising your content regularly, make the video SEO-optimized, and sooner or later you will start seeing traffic to your videos.

You can use Storytelling more effectively:

Videos are the best mediums to convey an emotion compared to a written text. Sharing the story of your brand not only triggers the emotions of existing & potential customers but will build trust in the brand. Hence, a video is the best medium to share your brand’s story.

The tone, language of the video also gives a personality to your brand. The customers get to know who you are as a brand. A fun, interactive video that connects would let them know that as a brand, you are lively; while a video that is serious on a message lets them know that you are on a mission; but a video that is with a tone that is monotonous narration will surely make them feel that they are at a wrong place and Zap! They would be out of your video. If the customers love your video, you can certainly expect them to share it ahead. According to the data, when it comes to sharing, people are twice as likely to share video content with their friends than any other type of content.

Helps you explain easily:

Videos are the best mediums to educate the customers about your products or services. Vision is the most dominant sense, hence, when they watch a video, it is easy to digest and consume. People prefer watching a video to reading text descriptions, I included! When asked how would want to learn more about the products or services, almost two-thirds of the people (66%) mentioned that they would prefer to watch a video. Videos hence are very effective in conveying your message clearly.

Out of the surveyed people, 96% mentioned that they have watched an explainer video to learn more about products or services; after watching a brand’s video, 84% of them were convinced to buy the product or service; and when it comes to purchase or download of a Software or an app, 74% of the people were convinced to go for it.


Conclusion:

From Social media marketing, product reviews, product demos, product explanation, educational ‘how-to’ content, to even advertisement, the videos are all over the place. If you wish to get the growth that your business deserves, you will have to jump on the bandwagon. I hope that this article provides you with enough reasons to do so. If you already have Video Marketing in your business, we would love to know your experience in the comments below.