Since the birth of Youtube in 2005, video marketing has been on the rise. Video has a way of connecting with an audience in an authentic and engaging way. Your brand is more than a stagnant strategy on a piece of paper. Video volumizes marketing strategies to bring brands to life. Your brand is ever-evolving, and telling its story is important to connect with your audience, bring in new viewers and turning those new viewers into loyal customers.
We’ve identified a roadmap to telling your boss about the need for video marketing if you need it, as well as some tips for incorporating it into your existing marketing strategy. We hope this information is a catalyst for boosting your results!
How to Tell your Boss That Your Business Needs Video Marketing
We’re living in a digital age where people are quick to consume content and quick to move on from one piece of technology to the next. The internet is over saturated with content, and it’s become more imperative for marketers to make lasting impressions with the few seconds that they have on any kind of platform.
Video has begun to shape social channels in a way, that infographics, pictures, or gifs never could. It is a preferred form of content, and 72% of people would rather learn about a product through watching a video, despite text being available as well (wyzowl).
While video is just starting to gain some popularity, not many businesses are implementing it into their marketing plans. Whether or not you’re looking to jumpstart your business with a video marketing strategy or simply want to start the new year engaging with your audience in a way you never have before, we’ve laid out a couple reasons on why it works.
Educate your Audience
You might’ve heard this saying often, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but according to a report by Dr. James McQuivey, a one minute video is worth about 1.8 million words.
Regardless of whether or not his studies reveal an accurate report, he’s right about the power of video marketing. It’s an easy way to capture a wide audience and is a great way to tell a story with more than just words.
Increase Engagement
Because media use is at an all time high and people spend the majority of their waking hours on their phones, it is important to show that you care as much about your product or company as they care about learning about you. People are already choosing video over text, and it’s because you’re able to deliver something of greater value through video. After watching a video online, 53% of consumers tend to engage with the brand, and when it comes to millenials, that number becomes 66% (brightcove).
Builds Trust
When you’re able to tell real customer stories or even your own, your viewers will start to get a feel for who you are and what your brand represents. When you allow for that kind of intimacy, your consumers will want to interact with your media and company more often. A video reveals more about a product than just a description, and it also helps to get a better sense for the voice of the brand.
Increases Conversion Rates
Video brings your content to life. It makes consumers
want to stick around and see it all in action in front of
their eyes. It’s hard to compete with all the other businesses out there, but you already know video is dominating social platforms. Video drives results and around 93% of businesses have gained a new consumer through it (smartinsights).
A Better Learning Experience
Not only does video provide easily shareable content, you’re able to get more in-depth and thorough content through it. Video helps you market your product, your company, and is like a response to a conversation with your consumer. You can tell them everything they need to know by showing them, and sometimes that does the job better than building an outline of what you have to offer.
Videos for Every Stage of the Marketing Journey
It’s no surprise that for 72% of consumers, video is a preferred form of content from brands they follow and support. There’s nothing that can introduce you to someone, a product, or a company better than a video. It has the ability to take you on a journey that you’ll most likely remember. In order to make sure your video is reaching the right audience at the right time, you have to understand what videos align best with the buyer’s journey.
Discover
In this first stage of the buyer’s journey, consumers are introduced to a new fundamental need (Forrester Research). Because they are just being introduced to your brand, you want your marketing content to display everything they need to know in order to understand that need. You can do that by creating social videos that’ll captivate viewers across digital platforms, thought leadership and brand films that help to introduce your company, as well as explainers and how-to’s. These are all great ways to get potential customers interested and informed at the same time.
Explore
In this next stage, people are still figuring out more about your brand and business. You can keep potential customers informed by hosting a webinar that’ll deep dive into your company or the services that you offer, produce mini documentaries that’ll share a story within a short amount of time, or upload testimonials that can work to further establish your credibility.
Purchase
One of the most important aspects of the purchasing stage, is being able to build a seamless and memorable customer experience. You can easily share your knowledge by generating product demos, promotional videos for the landing page, or build personalized videos that help to solidify a relationship with your customer.
Engage/Delight
Once you’ve reeled in customers, you want to continue creating content that will engage with your audience. You can do this by creating tutorials that help customers understand the depth of your services or products, video blogs that help form connections with your customers, social interaction, new product videos, or community building content like mini documentaries and videos that highlight community events.
With video marketing on the rise, it’s important to know how your brand can take part in every step of the buyer’s journey. Being able to communicate with your audience is one thing, but when you build video content around every part of their research and decision process, you can help map their “path to purchase” (Forrester Research).
Video does what text doesn’t. It establishes a direct and authentic connection with audience members. Word-of-mouth is an age-old marketing tool because trust remains intrinsic among consumers. Consumers will always trust other’s experiences. Build that trust from the start by connecting with consumers through video.