Video content that appeals to the emotions, curiosities and needs of its intended audience is a winner for marketers and their organisations.
So, how is video content so effective? Why should I use it? We’re glad you asked. There are some phenomenal statistics out there demonstrating in big, shiny numbers just how effective it is. But we know that some people just aren’t numbers people, like all those who prefer a video ;-). So, below we’ll talk you through some of the benefits of using video in your marketing and how it works for organisations.
1. Increases Engagement
Engaged customers actively seek out your brand and will go out of their way to purchase your product over those of your competitors’. Therefore organisations need an engaged audience as a base for starting and continuing a two-way conversation with potential customers, patrons, sponsors and communities.
Movement, sound, animation, human faces. All of these draw the viewer in and are achievable via video content. Whether they appear on your website, social media platforms, or a screen instore or at your trade show, videos capture and retain attention more readily than text or still images (although these of course do have their place).
2. Builds Trust
Once you have engaged your audience initially, video also helps you to continue overall engagement with your brand by developing and nurturing the trust of your customers.
Face to face communication builds all important trust between people. Video is one of the closest things to in person communication, with others being video calling and live streaming.
There are many types of video, including some incredible animations and graphic representations of data and information. However, it is video content that includes human faces that will build trust between your organisation and the people you want to form and maintain a relationship with.
Without trust you are not going to convert your target market into customers. So, if you can’t arrange a face to face meet with everyone you want to reach (and who can?), then you might want to look at the options that video presents.
3. Educates & Assists Decision Making
How many times have you searched and watched a how to guide when you’ve purchased a new product, or needed to know more about something before you took the plunge to hand over your hard earned cash?
Educating people about how your offering works is a crucial step in the sales and marketing process. Video allows you to quickly and effectively show how a product or service works in a way that’s easy for the viewer to consume.
We can also relate this to personal and professional development opportunities. The use of video in e-learning, or online training programmes engages the participant and offers important visual and auditory information to cater for different learning styles. In turn this makes for a more effective e-learning course.
4. Better SEO – Keep Google Happy
In the increasingly competitive world of search engine ranking it is important to know that, among other variables, Google looks more favourably on sites that have longer visit durations.
Including a video on a webpage will entice the visitor to view the content and therefore stay on the page for the duration of the video (or close to it). If that video content was on the money in terms of what the customer was expecting then you’re on the path to being that trusted go-to with yet another engaged customer on your side. They’ll be more likely to continue viewing further content on your site, in turn lengthening the time they spend there, consuming your other content.
5. Improved Emails
Video is not only good for websites, it has also been proven to make an email campaign much more effective. Want to know how much? We read the other day that it has been documented to double click through rates! That’s a massive improvement in engagement that’s definitely worth thinking about.
Your database is a crucial element of marketing, with many companies stating that it is email campaigns to their database that contributes the largest proportion of sales out of all their marketing activity. If you send relevant and appealing emails to this audience you will achieve some solid engagement stats and the results to go with them.
Ready For Action?
Regardless of industry or business objective, video content can be a useful tool to make your marketing more engaging and ultimately more effective in achieving your organisation’s goals, whether that be educating a community, or reaching sales targets.
If you’ve read all this and are now convinced you need to start integrating video content into your marketing, then get in touch!