Contents
The Rise of Video As A Medium On the Internet
Why Is Video Marketing So Effective?
16 Most Powerful Reasons Why Your Business Needs Video Marketing
16 Most Powerful Reasons Why Businesses Need Video Marketing
Hari Krishnan - September 24, 2021 - Leave your thoughts.
There is no doubt that video marketing is one of the most innovative and dynamic ways of marketing that is taking the world by storm. With the global screen time shooting up every day and videos becoming the hottest content form consumed across the internet, your business needs an effective video marketing strategy with do’s and don’ts to survive and thrive.
Now, the question arises is why use video for marketing? Irrespective of the industry you belong to or the audience you cater to, your ideal customers love videos. Period.
The global streaming market has grown by 55% in 2020 itself. YouTube has replaced Facebook as the social media platform that influences buyer decisions the most. Whether we consider the data, consumer behavior, or simply human psychology— there is no doubt that nothing can beat videos!
Look at another statistic that says the demand for video content is increasing.
But if these hard facts have still not sold video marketing enough to you, we bring to you the 16 most powerful reasons why you need to fall in love with video marketing today!
What is Video Marketing?
The name speaks for itself— video marketing means marketing with the help of videos.
But video marketing is much more complex than these nine words used to define it. It is an exciting avenue in the world of marketing that is creating major ripples with its powerful effects.
Video marketing, sometimes called video content marketing, refers to the usage of video content for promoting your products/services, educating your ideal customers about them, creating engagement surrounding your brand, and ultimately driving sales by tapping into your audience through a new medium.
Video Marketing works by providing your audience with audio-visual stimulation that engages and engrosses them better. It traces its humble beginning as a minor marketing strategy. However, today, 99% of marketers that employ it would never consider discontinuing it.
The Rise of Video As A Medium On the Internet
The use of videos for promotional purposes is not a new discovery. We see them on television in the form of commercials all the time. In fact, the first video used for marketing purposes was a commercial aired in the 1940s.
However, the usage of videos for marketing has considerably evolved since then. This strategy has shed its old-time charm and has evolved with the world to stay relevant even today.
Image Source: Hubspot
The establishment of YouTube in 2005 opened up the internet to the world of videos. Soon, marketers adopted this new content form to their own benefit and by 2017, using videos had become the most popular marketing tactic.
Today, even consumers have started demanding videos from businesses with 54% of them preferring video promotional content over other forms of content.
Why Is Video Marketing So Effective?
The very brief history of videos that we touched upon so far makes one point amply clear— there is just something about videos that sets them apart.
The most fundamental answer is personalization.
The modern world market is fiercely competitive and only the fittest can survive. Consumers are being prioritized more than ever and making an impression on your ideal customer is requiring an increasing amount of effort.
In such an environment, do you know what makes impressing your consumers easier? Personalization.
With videos, you create an intimate connection with your consumers. There is just something about a human face and voice that will always connect deeper than mere words and images. This is why videos work so well. They connect.
But there is much more to video marketing than connection. At its core, video marketing is all about stimulation. Your consumers are stimulated in various ways— auditory and visual— so that they engage with the content better.
In the end, videos are the closest that we can leave a human touch through the digital medium. And that is exactly what sets them apart.
16 Most Powerful Reasons Why Your Business Needs Video Marketing
At this point, it is pretty impossible to doubt the effectiveness of videos. They are trendy and effective. They connect and promote. They are fun and they also yield results.
But as a marketer, you are looking for the truth laid out in front of you clear as day. This is why we have compiled a list of the 16 most powerful reasons why your business needs video marketing from today itself:
1. Your Audience Prefers Videos
Marketing practices are driven by what the audience demands. Clearly, if videos are becoming popular, it means that your audience loves them.
And why not? Your audience understands, processes, and retains the information being conveyed through a video 60,000 times faster as compared to textual content forms.
With videos, a huge array of information is conveyed in a short span of time. The combination of audio-visual stimulation also makes videos one of the most engaging content forms out there.
Overall, videos are amazing for learning about new things and allow you to present your product/service in the best light by allowing you to exercise a great deal of creativity. With video marketing, you get your target audience hooked, keep them engaged, and increase your chances of conversion by using the content form that they prefer.
2. Improved Customer Connection
One of the biggest reasons that give videos an edge is their ability to connect with your ideal customer.
Videos are the closest you can come to personally talking and interacting with your target audience through the digital medium on a large scale. They allow you to show your face, address your audience, and voice how much you truly care about them.
All this helps in humanizing your brand and expanding the dimensions of its personality. From a mere name found in an ad, your brand becomes a person addressing its ideal customer’s needs.
Over time, this human element that sets videos apart helps you in forging a connection with your leads and customers. You build authenticity and intimacy into your marketing efforts and win the hearts of your customers.
3. Higher Conversion Rates
Videos are a game-changer when it comes to closing sales and boosting your conversion rates.
In fact, considering how videos are an excellent medium for establishing trust with your ideal customer, why should there be any doubt about their ability to close sales?
With videos, you can convey everything about your product/service in the most authentic yet engaging way possible. This makes sure that your marketing efforts create an impression in the viewer’s mind while also promoting your offering.
According to Hubspot, marketers have reported a boost in their conversion rate up to 80%. Moreover, many other findings report that 71% of marketers consider videos to be the best performing content format in terms of conversion rate.
So, if you want to skyrocket your conversion rates, video marketing is your best friend!
4. Better Return on Investment
Marketing is a game of numbers and metrics. When you invest your time and money into a new strategy, you want to make sure that it reaps results. Thankfully, videos are the perfect choice for that!
With videos, you do not have to invest a lot of time and effort into creating and distributing them. Tons of highly accessible software out there makes it immensely easy to get started with video marketing with minimal investment.
In terms of giving results, on the other hand, you can only expect maximum results. 64% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase after watching a video.
So, if you want to become a part of the 83% of businesses that report excellent ROI from videos, you need to start taking video marketing seriously right away.
Image Source: Komarketing
5. Enhanced Brand Awareness
We have said this before but it must be reiterated— videos are one of the best ways to solidify an intimate connection with your target customer through authenticity, trust, and personalization.
When you focus on forging a relationship with your ideal customer rather than just treating them as a buyer, you stand out as a brand. Focus on the problems you solve, talk about your core values, and show your customers you care.
How many people know about your brand and what it represents matters a lot since it ensures that you always have leads in the pipeline. When used rightly, video marketing has been reported to improve brand awareness by 53% of marketers.
6. Smoother Transition Through the Marketing Funnel
The best part about videos is that apart from being a fantastic way of engaging your customers, they are extremely versatile.
You can use videos of different types at different stages of your marketing funnel. Ensure a smooth transition of a large majority of your leads down your marketing funnel by strategically placing videos at each step.
You can incorporate videos at the top of your funnel by using them as advertisements. You can also add them to your product pages to move your leads forward.
In fact, it has been predicted that up to 20% of consumers might lose complete interest in your product/service if there is no video description available to inform them. By using videos, you can have a winning marketing strategy that guides your target audience towards sales.
7. Higher Search Engine Rankings
If you want to stand out in the buzzing world of the internet, videos are going to be your best friend! With great search engine optimization potential, you can leverage them to climb up the search engine rankings pretty quickly.
Did you know that you are 53 times more likely to show up on Google’s first page if you have a video embedded in your website? With Google’s acquisition of YouTube in 2006, videos have become an increasingly important ranking factor every day.
Apart from Google, YouTube itself is a very wide search engine that provides great opportunities for recognition. Being the second largest search engine in the world, it is the perfect platform for you to gain tremendous visibility through videos.
8. Social Media Friendly
We live in the era of social media. One of the most amazing yet organic ways to grow your brand’s visibility and reach out to your target audience is through social media. If your video speaks to your ideal customer, it will definitely gain traction and go viral.
Social shares are one of the biggest boons that can significantly boost your video marketing efforts. Relevant videos create an impression in the minds of the viewers and are shared extensively. This is an amazing way of reaching out to more and more people.
Social shares also hold vital significance in today’s times because of the rise of mobile devices. Half of the internet traffic arises from mobile devices and 92% of mobile device users are in the habit of sharing videos with others.
This means that you can tap into a large demographic of users who will be more than happy to indirectly take part in your marketing efforts.
9. Easy Content Repurposing Opportunities
As mentioned before, videos are amazingly versatile. When you shoot a video for your marketing efforts, you do not have to use it only for a single purpose. You can use it at different places for different purposes or even chop/expand it to recycle it.
Whether it is your social media ads, emails, blog posts, landing pages, or product pages— videos are suitable for every element of your content marketing strategy. As mentioned before, videos allow you to plug in any leaks in your marketing strategy and allow a smooth transition down your marketing funnel.
However, apart from this, they also provide versatility in another way. You can edit, chop up, or expand a video to recycle it in a different format. Videos are amazing for reuse as GIFs. You can also turn them into trailers or share them on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram as shorts/reels.
10. Improved Click-Through Rates
There is just something about videos that makes your audience click. And why not? It is very clear that your audience adores them.
There is no doubt anymore that videos catch everyone’s eye easily. The recent surges in social media trends where TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are taking over is a clear indication enough.
So, there should be no surprise that if you include videos in your emails, your CTR is bound to go up. Something as simple as mentioning the word ‘video’ in your email subject line sparks a greater amount of curiosity in your subscribers’ minds.
In fact, your emails’ click-through rates can improve by as high as 200-300% with the inclusion of videos.
11. Better Customer Engagement & Brand Relevance
How many times have many of us clicked on a YouTube video because of its delightfully tempting thumbnail and ended up spending hours sucked into the world of videos? After all, if it was not common enough, people would not be consuming 5 billion videos every single day.
All this happens because videos are a highly personal content format. They fuse together auditory and visual stimulation to practically hypnotize the viewer. You get hooked pretty fast and it is very easy to stay focused on videos.
The high rates of engagement associated with videos are demonstrated across every single platform out there. Videos on social media platforms generate 1200% more shares than images and textual posts. Emails have also been noted to see an improvement by 13% in their opening rate.
When videos are catching such attention, it is only natural that they would also create a more lasting impression. After all, they do hold our focus a lot more than other content formats. Due to this, video marketing keeps your brand relevant and fresh in the eyes of your customers by staying in their minds for longer.
12. Increased Website Retention Rate
When videos are the most engaging form of content out there, is it any surprise that they also improve your website’s retention rate?
One way of capitalizing on video marketing is by including videos on your website. This could be on your landing page, on the products page, or on your About Us page. Whether you choose to depict testimonials, explain products, or share your story— videos come in useful for it all.
Incorporating videos in all these different forms will make your website visitors stay longer because of their engaging nature. In fact, 65% of your website visitors watch at least 3/4th of the video up on your website.
13. Enhancing Accompanying Marketing Strategies
We have talked greatly about the versatility of videos so there should be no doubt about how much they enhance accompanying marketing strategies. Videos fit in everywhere and go hand-in-hand with all forms of content.
- Do you want to boost your website’s copy? Include a video.
- Are you looking to elevate your sales page and close more customers? Add a video.
- Do you want your subscribers to open your emails more? Embed a video.
- Do you want your Facebook ads to stand out? Use videos as the ad creatives.
- Are you looking to make your blog posts more informative? Spice them up with videos.
You can also use videos in the form of webinars as lead magnets to build your email list.
There is probably no content format out there that cannot be enhanced by using videos. Videos are, undoubtedly, the best thing that can happen to your content marketing strategy for elevating it.
14. Low Costs Involved
The amount of effort, time, and money that you need to invest in your videos is very low. Because don’t we live in the age of technology? Most of us are tech-savvy to a very decent extent and creating videos would be very hassle-free.
You can begin your video creation journey by investing in minor equipment like a ring light, a good camera, and a stable tripod. These tools have been more than enough to launch the careers of many influencers and would be fine for you too.
There are also a number of video marketing platforms available out there to automate your video creation and distribution process. From free to paid video hosting platforms to simplistic, user-friendly video CMS— everything is available only a click of a mouse away.
Lastly, once you are more confident about the booming results your video marketing efforts are reaping, you can also invest in skilled professionals who can help you take your videos to the next level.
15. Improved Product/Service Understanding
At the end of the day, this is the reason why so many marketers across the world are violently falling in love with video marketing. It is because they can help their consumers understand their product/service so much better!
Videos have a magnetic effect on your target audience, no doubt. The moment your ideal customer lays their eyes on your video, they are hypnotized to click. Within a few seconds of playing the video, you have a lead sucked deep into your marketing strategy and well on their way to convert into a customer.
But do you know what is the delightful result of this laser-focus that videos command from your audience? The understanding of your offering shoots up.
With videos, customers are shown the benefits and utilities of your product instead of just being told about them. The result is that your audience becomes 64 to 85% more likely to make a purchase.
16. Stand Out In Your Industry
Videos provide you with the easiest yet most effective way you can stand out in your industry, carve a place in the hearts of your target audience, and leave your competitors behind.
Video marketing is increasing in popularity every day. Videos have become so crazily popular that they are predicted to make up 82% of consumer internet traffic by 2022. Video ad spend has also been predicted to shoot up by 41.9% by the year 2024.
However, despite the insane rate at which videos are spreading across the marketing industry, they are still highly underrated. It will take a long time for video marketing to become a saturated tactic.
Until then, video marketing will continue to remain a hidden gem rising to the surface very slowly. By tapping into your ideal customer’s love for videos, you can easily stand out in the industry and apart from all the competitors who are not exploiting this amazing marketing practice yet.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
After diving so deep and extensively into the benefits of video marketing, is the answer to this not obvious enough?
Video marketing works because it connects with your audience on a personal level, humanizes you as a brand, engages your ideal customer with your offerings, and taps into their human tendency to get hooked by audio-visual stimulation.
Video marketing provides you with a deadly combination of entertainment and promotion that makes your product/service irresistible to your ideal customer.
While there is no doubt that video marketing has some really out-of-the-world benefits, there is also a certain amount of downside that accompanies them.
The biggest issue with video marketing is that, if not done right, it can cause great damage to your brand. Since video marketing is so effective because of how beloved videos are to the consumers, it should only be natural that poorly made videos will drive consumers away.
Another issue with videos is that not everyone has the time to watch them. Especially if your videos are too long, your audience will always prefer a simple image more. In such situations, videos can actually put you at a disadvantage.
If you are holding back from video marketing because you think it would be too complex, fear not. Video marketing is a piece of cake for any marketing professional who has a fundamental understanding of selling.
However, if you still feel apprehensive, the most important best practice you must follow when implementing video marketing is defining your target audience. Yes, video marketing is as simple as that!
Apart from that, like every other marketing strategy out there, video marketing also demands goal setting. You need to have your KPIs in place and know what you are aiming for so that your marketing efforts have proper direction and guidance. A strategy without a goal is as bad as a goal without a strategy.
Another best practice you need to keep in mind while making your videos is to ensure that they are not too long (after all, your audience will only have so much patience with videos too!). Moreover, always keep the autoplay of your video switched on so that you can hook the audience without them having to click on the play button.
Other tips you should apply include adding a clear and simple CTA at the end of the video, keeping sound switched off by default (no one likes being startled!), and using the right equipment and software to produce high-quality videos.
There are innumerable types of marketing videos that you can use in your video marketing strategy. Depending on the stage of the marketing funnel where your target audience stands, you can use different types of marketing videos to warm them up and convert them.
The most popular type of marketing videos is the informational video. This video is, to put it simply, an ad for your product/service in the video format. It lists the benefits that your ideal customer would receive, the results they can expect, and the features of the offering.
Another popular type of marketing video typically used for retargeting purposes is video testimonials. These are recordings of past consumers of the product/service recommending the offering to others.
There is no end to the types of marketing videos out there. With the amount of flexibility and creative expression videos provide, the world is your oyster.
In order to make an effective marketing video make sure that you have your basic equipment in place. This involves a good camera, a microphone if any voice recording needs to be done, a stable tripod to hold the camera, and a ring light to provide the right amount of light.
You also need good video editing software to brush up on your raw video and perfect it. It may also be a good idea to make use of video marketing platforms so that you can store, organize, and host your videos with ease.
If there is one thing you must be able to take away after reading so far, it is that there is no bound to the versatility of videos! So, if there is one form of content that you can rely on for every stage of your marketing funnel, it is videos.
There is a video for each stage of the marketing funnel. The three sections of a marketing funnel have their own purpose and different types of videos can fulfill these different purposes.
At the top of the marketing funnel, your ideal customer has no idea about your brand or offer. You need to get their attention quickly and keep them hooked so that you leave behind an impression on their mind. Short, engaging videos can act as powerful capsules of information and attention to spark their interest.
At the middle of the funnel, your leads already have an idea about you and your product/service. However, they are not in a place where you can get them to convert. You need to feed their curiosity and convince them that you are the best solution to their problems.
For such leads, one of the most popular forms of video content used to hook them is webinars. Since they are already interested to some degree, they would spare enough time for watching a webinar. It would give you a lot of real estate to engage your leads and provide them with the relevant information that can set your offer apart.
For the last stage of your video marketing funnel where you want to convert your lead into a sale, information-driven videos would be your best bet. These could be videos explaining your products on its web page. They can also videos addressing frequently asked questions.
In the end, the right form of video content can create a world of difference in the number of leads who move down your marketing funnel and ultimately convert.
If you choose to make video marketing an important aspect of your marketing efforts, you will likely be dealing with a lot of videos. Even if not, videos have certain special needs because of how big their file size is. These special needs include relevant storage space, sufficient bandwidth, and availability in appropriate formats.
With video marketing platforms, you can store, sort, and host your videos with great ease. Some of the best video marketing platforms available today are Vimeo, Show by Animaker, Invideo, Vidyard, and Wistia.
You Need to Try Out Video Marketing Today!
Let’s admit it— videos have got it all. They provide amazing engagement, your audience loves them, and you can have so much creative freedom while creating them! They are the perfect content form for amping up your marketing efforts and wooing your target audience.
With videos, you can open up your marketing efforts to a world of opportunities. Videos are hot, loved, and here to stay. Everyone is falling in love with them and there is still plenty of time before all your competitors catch on to this trend and video marketing becomes the norm.
Until then, why not exploit this beautiful opportunity to tap into your target audience’s needs and drive sales wild?
