Digital marketing trends are a changing beast. Each year, new preferences come into play that marketers need to be aware of. Even individual website owners should know what works and what doesn’t. In 2017, video marketing is coming into its own. It has become one of the most, if not the most, effective means of communicating with potential customers.
Video is dynamic and engaging. It allows you to say things to customers that simply aren’t possible through text or picture. Using video for your marketing purposes is simple if you know how to do it correctly. Read on to learn all about how you should be using video marketing for your business.
Video Has Taken Over
It is difficult to argue with the effectiveness of video. They say that a picture is worth 1000 words, and most videos have 24 to 30 of them each second. That means you can do a lot more than text or picture alone.
In fact, video has quickly taken over as the most popular form of content online. Around 74% of all Internet content is video. This includes everything from YouTube videos, traditional marketing ads, and everything in between.
This means that ignoring video marketing is unwise. Many companies have turned to this medium as a way to engage with customers and spread their brand.
It has become so popular that it is impossible to ignore. Thankfully, using video for your own marketing purposes doesn’t have to be difficult. There are a few simple ways to incorporate videos into your marketing platform to make the most of this format.
Increase Conversions
The first thing you should be using video for is to communicate your business, products, and services to potential customers. Video is one of the most popular and effective forms for increasing company awareness to people who’ve never heard of you.
One way, in particular, is to increase your overall conversion rate. Converting potential customers into customers is a difficult process. Quite often, it requires an authentic and nuanced form of communication to get the job done.
Video marketing can be effective at this. Over 71% of marketers agree that video consistently outperforms other forms of marketing when it comes to successful conversions.
The trick is to have videos that naturally and engagingly converts potential customers. This requires you to provide the basics about your business and what you have to offer in and attention grabbing way. How the video looks can be equally as important as what you do with it.
Shape Your Brand
For many marketers, conversion starts through brand awareness. If a potential customer doesn’t know what your business is and what you stand for, they are likely to move on to a competitor. Therefore, communicating your brand ought to be a top priority.
Videos allow businesses to communicate their brand in a way that is creative. If you think about any popular business, you know that the majority of them communicate their brand through creative means like commercials! songs, and social media. Since you probably don’t have the millions of dollars these companies spend to do this, video can be an effective and inexpensive way to do this.
Social media offers a wonderful platform to do just this. Sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter allow you to feature videos of any style and content. Whether it is you simply describing your business to people or presenting some form of social media marketing, this platform should be ignored when you are developing and maintaining your overall digital marketing strategy.
Video marketing should be at the top of the strategy.
Demonstrate A Product
Sometimes, certain products and services are too complex to understand at first glance. This is especially true if the product is a new invention or is entering into a new market space.
The old way to communicate what the product is and does is either through manual or product demonstration. Where is manuals or convenience to copy and include for people who bought a product, they don’t sell it. This is where the product demonstration comes into play.
Old school salesman would go around door-to-door to show people in person how a product works. This gave potential customers a clear understanding of the purpose and use of a product they might buy.
These days, video marketing can use the same strategy. Videos are a great way to show off your product in action. You may simply show the product in use or provide commentary an explanation on how to use the product in real time.
Tell Your Story
Finally, one of the most effective forms of video marketing is simple storytelling. This may come across as too simplistic, but storytelling has long been the weapon of choice for many marketers. Just think about traditional commercials that seem to have nothing to do with what they’re selling.
People engage with stories. They tend to hold our attention longer and make us think about things we otherwise would ignore.
Storytelling through videos is a great way not only build your brand but to communicate the important things about your business and offerings. This can be extremely helpful to humanize your business.
In order to make this work, you need to have a story worth sharing. Maybe it’s the story of your business, your offerings, or even the date of day happenings in your business. The story doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be engaging.
Success With Video Marketing
Video marketing is no longer the future of digital marketing. It has become the golden rule and the tickets to play with the competition. If your business isn’t embracing videos, you’re already behind.
Think about how to include videos in every aspect of your digital marketing strategy. These videos can go on your website, social media platform, product pages, and anywhere else your business has a presence. They can come in many diverse forms, so get creative with what you put out there.
If you would like help shaping and creating your video marketing strategy, check out our how-to guides and marketing strategies.