Is video a part of your marketing strategy? If the answer is no, we’ll refrain from shouting at you and opt to educate. Video is the most powerful way to evoke emotion and connect with your audience. It’s no longer a luxury – it’s a must have.
Still not sure, yet? Let’s take a deeper look at why video should be a part of your marketing strategy
Video is Marketing’s Swiss Army Knife
Video can be used for a multitude of purposes. Whether you’re trying to recruit talent, launching a new product or need to reinforce your brand, video can help. Because it commands attention like no other format, video increases the likelihood of your message resonating with your target audiences. According to Forrester Research, one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words. Good luck getting your target audience to read through that kind of copy. But video is almost entertainment. And it’s pretty powerful.
Audiences Love Video
When I say “audiences,” I’m not referring to the everyday web surfer that searches for funny cat videos or the latest celebrity drama. I use it as a marketing term to refer to specific demographics or people. For example, a Forbes study on corporate executives and video showed the demographic consumes online video heavily. More than 75 percent of the executives in the survey said they watch videos weekly on business-related sites. Over half of them also stated they go to YouTube to find work-related content as well. This represents the tremendous growth of video recently. Years ago, I had clients push back on our recommendations to create a web-based video, with comments like “We don’t want our video on YouTube. That’s just for kids watching skateboarding videos.” This recent data squashes that argument, putting some real value behind video and video platforms like YouTube (even if there are a wealth of dumb cat videos).
Video is the Gold Standard
Imagine the web as a marketplace. There are two groups: marketers and consumers. But instead of money exchanging hands for goods, the exchange is between content for time. As marketers, we provide content of all types just to get a few seconds of a consumer’s time in the hope that it leads to sales.
In this marketplace, video is the gold standard. It’s the one form of web content that is almost guaranteed to lead to a successful content-for-time transaction, which means it opens up a door for you to engage with your audience. When a viewer can see and hear your employees, products and brand through video, it creates an emotional connection. And if you provide them with meaningful content on a regular basis, then they will be more likely to make another transaction with you in the future. That’s how you build a following.
As a platform to tell your brand’s story, video needs some space in your marketing plan. Being appropriate for a wide range of applications, ranging from display advertising, websites, commercials, social media, sales and so much more, video is an effort that pays off. You can do some great work with any size of budget — even small ones — with results like user-generated content or quick-hit video blogs. Video is a creative medium by nature, so think creatively in how you incorporate it into your plan. It’ll pay off.