Over the last several years, content marketing has changed the way companies expose consumers to their brand and has completely revolutionized advertising. Now, content marketing is going through substantive changes with the introduction of video marketing as a core component of content strategies. Video marketing has become the foundation of digital marketing campaigns. To stay competitive, your company should consider adopting a video marketing strategy.

WHY VIDEO MARKETING IS THE FUTURE

According to the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. But a minute of video is worth more than 1.8 million. This is because the human brain is programmed to absorb moving images and remember spoken words much better than it can remember the written language. Consumers remember visual media at a rate four times higher than words on a page, which allows your video marketing to gain mindshare with the consumer more efficiently with video than with simple text marketing. Video marketing also offers other tangible and immediate benefits for your company.

HIGHER ENGAGEMENT

Modern readers retain very little of what they see, and spend most of their time skimming through text rather than reading it. Unfortunately, this causes their minds to disengage, so your message proves ineffective. With video, consumers become emotionally and mentally engaged in the content, meaning they pay more attention to what you have to say, adding strength to your content.

SHAREABILITY

These days, videos are easier to film and share than ever before. Almost everyone who’s been on the internet for a while has either shared or been sent a video from a friend, family member, or coworker. People share videos because the content is easily digestible, and doesn’t require much time or effort to consume. Building a catalog of videos for your company increases the rate of sharing of the content, and spreads your brand virally.

TIME ON SITE

When a video grabs the consumer’s attention, that person spends more time on your site, and the longer they stay, the greater your likelihood of making a sale and that consumer becoming a regular customer or client.

PERSONAL MESSAGE

Finally, video marketing puts a human face on your company. It allows the consumer to make an emotional attachment to your brand and makes your company and staff relatable. These factors will make you memorable later on down the road.

SUCCESSFUL STRATEGIES

Video marketing isn’t as simple as throwing together a quick video on your smartphone and posting it to YouTube. Four factors determine its success.

AUDIENCE

A funny video of your product in action might work well with viewers under 30, but it could have trouble resonating with a middle-aged businesswoman. Know your target audience and develop videos of a tone and style that suits them.

Learn More: The Importance of Designing for Your Target Audience

DEPLOYMENT

You can have the best videos in the world, but if no one sees them, they’re worthless. Embedding the video on your site and posting it to YouTube are great starts. You’ll also need a strong social media campaign to spread the message and deploy your video content rapidly. Thankfully, the advancements in technology have made that easy and achievable for just about anyone.

MOBILE FRIENDLY

The mobile market exploded in the last few years, and now more people watch videos on mobile devices than PCs. Optimizing your video for mobile devices means using players that expand to fit the size of the viewer’s screen, adding an accessible call to action, and using attractive splash screens, are just the beginning.

Learn More: 4 Reasons to Optimize for a Mobile World

CREATIVITY

Boring videos don’t get watched all the way to the end, and they don’t get shared. Be creative with your content, and show that your company is dynamic and energetic with the videos that you produce.

Video marketing is a great way for your company to engage with consumers and spread your brand’s message. Adding online video to your website is one of the most effective things you can do to increase the amount of business your company does.

WHY VIDEO MARKETING?

If you still aren’t sure online video can actually benefit you or feel it isn’t necessary, you should think again. Here are a few ways it helps.

VIDEO GIVES YOU CREDIBILITY

It’s no secret that there are a lot of scam artists and less than reputable websites on the internet. A well-made online video can help potential customers see that you’re a professional, not just try to guess if you are. It shows that your business is a real place with real customers. By providing videos that highlight your company and its selling points as well as sharing testimony and client success videos, your interested visitors are more likely to turn into committed, paying customers.

Learn More: Client Success Videos 

With several generations of movies and TV permeating our culture, we’ve been conditioned to look up to people on screen. Your business video makes you a kind of “celebrity” in your field, increasing your credibility even more.

VIDEO CREATES A PERSONAL CONNECTION

Having online video on your website is the next best thing to talking to your customer in person. The person watching the video still feels like they are having a personal conversation with you and getting to know you. Attaching a human face and voice to a message makes it more meaningful. In your online video, you’ll be conveying emotions with facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice – and emotions are contagious. If you feel good about your product or service, an online video can make your customers feel good too.

VIDEO IS EFFECTIVE

Science has shown that we have different learning styles. Some people prefer to see a demonstration, others prefer to read or listen to an explanation. An online video can accommodate multiple learning styles, helping make sure your message gets through to as many visitors as possible. For example, a video demo of a product can be accompanied by a verbal explanation of how it works and an on-screen list of features.

Videos are usually the most time-, labor-, and cost-intensive visual aids you can create for marketing. But their extremely high appeal makes them well worth the extra effort. The popularity and demand for video content is booming at an unbelievable rate. On Periscope alone, viewers watch approximately 40 years’ worth of videos in a single day.

Learn More: Using Visual Aids to Up Your Marketing Game

Many people don’t realize just how effective video marketing is. Forbes.com provides an infographic that shows this well. In a study of people that responded to marketing, the second most common way to respond was by viewing a video. It is only slightly less popular than the ever-important Contact us/Learn more links, which you would never dream of leaving off of your website.

VIDEO BOOSTS YOUR SEO

We all know that Google frequently changes the way their software decides how relevant your website is. But traditionally, when it comes to content marketing, it has been easier to get a page with video to rank higher. If you read Google’s guidelines for getting your site to show up in search results, their first advice is to “give visitors the information they’re looking for”. We’ve already established one of the most popular things they are looking for is video. The second advice they offer is to “make sure other sites link to yours”. Do the first and the first and the second will happen. If you have an online video, visitors are more likely to find your site helpful and informative. If people find your site helpful and informative, they will share it. It is an easy way to get others to link to your site, increasing your SEO.

Another great way to improve your SEO through online video is YouTube. YouTube is the single biggest source of video on the internet. Everyone uses it – and it’s owned by Google. Your presence there undoubtedly makes you look more relevant to a search engine, improving your SEO.