Video marketing is an easy and cost effective way to explain a product or service and reach audiences of motivated buyers via social media channels.
Offering an excellent return on investment, video marketing drives conversions because unlike many forms of marketing and advertising, people actually like watching videos!
Why Video Marketing?
- Increased traffic and SEO value
Videos are a major traffic driver.
Search engines nowadays prioritize videos due to user preferences. Likewise, social media platforms show videos more to users than text posts.
So, using video marketing increases the potential reach for your messages and drive more traffic to your pages.
- Higher conversions
This is mainly because videos do a better job illustrating products and services, which then entices users to buy.
- 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos.
- 50.9% of B2B decision-makers use YouTube to research purchases
- Brand building and competitive advantage
Video marketing facilitates brand-building efforts.
Videos provide a chance for your brand to show its personality and identity. In the process, your brand gains customer trust and credibility.
Furthermore, videos are more likely to be highly shared and thus go viral. As more people watch, it increases brand awareness.
These aspects build your brand and make customers more likely to buy from you than your competition.
Why Video Marketing Works
66% of customers reportedly prefer watching videos to reading text.
Users watch over 1 billion hours of video on YouTube each day.
This popularity shows that video is king, and marketers cannot afford to ignore it.
Marketing videos are popular for 2 main reasons:
- Videos are engaging
Videos are more engaging than text and graphics.
They come with motion, sound, and colors that are just more entertaining to look at.
Videos can bring even boring products to life in a way other forms of media cannot.
Additionally, videos are diverse, allowing something for everyone.
Marketers can use live motion, animations, explainer videos, etc., depending on their needs.
- Clear information
Videos are better at dispensing information.
It’s much easier to explain a product or service through a video than through images or an article.
This is why more users seeking answers check YouTube more than they read blogs!
6 Major Drivers of Video Marketing in 2021
Here are the major influencing factors for video marketing content in 2021.
1. Social media
People rely on social media for content, and crave videos as the most consumed format.
This is why platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Tik Tok are so popular.
So, marketers that are invested in social videos are seeing greater ROI than ever before.
2. How Video Marketing Works
To create an effective strategy, marketing executives should know how video marketing works.
The main considerations include:
3. Identify your target market
As with any other marketing tactic, the first stage involves identifying the target market mainly through buyer personas.
An effective buyer persona helps you identify your customers and what appeals to them.
4. Determine video types
Based on your buyer personas, you can then identify the types of videos you will need to communicate to your audience effectively.
There are several types of videos available, each with different requirements.
These include video ads, explainer videos, social media video ads, animation videos, event videos, crowdfunding videos – among others.
5. Video distribution
Marketing executives should know that their video marketing campaigns are only as good as their distribution strategy.
You should identify the best platforms to post your videos based on your buyer persona and chosen video types.
For example, event videos would work best on the website rather than on social media.
6. Measuring results
The final aspect of using video marketing is measurement.
The key performance indicators (KPIs) for any video campaign that marketing executives should be aware of are:
- Views: how many people watched the video for some seconds
- Engagement: How many people liked, commented, or shared the video
- Click through; How many people clicked any associated links or took related actions to learn more
- Conversion rates: How many people bought or downloaded products after following video-related links
How to Use Video Marketing
This is often the most challenging aspect of video marketing campaigns, as many marketing executives don’t know where to start.
You can create videos either in-house or hire a video production company.
- In-house production
Marketing executives can choose to create teams within the company to produce these videos.
This team is usually part of the company on a long term or contractual basis.
This route facilitates project management and reduces risks, however, it can be more costly in the long run because you may still need to hire different experts as needs arise – and acquire new tools, technologies, equipment and programs.
- Work with creative agencies and/or video production companies
Alternatively, marketing executives can team up with external video production companies or creative agencies to handle the work.
Here, they adopt a team on a contractual basis to create and produce video content – the expertise and equipment are always up to date with no hassle.
This option may seem costly in the short term, but creative agencies bring a pool of experience, expertise, and established structures – making them a more cost-effective optioning the long run.
Unless your stacked in-house, you just need to find a creative agency that’s better positioned than your in-house team to produce high quality video content.
Contact Supercool Creative Agency for advise or more information!