Video marketing has become extremely popular and has also proven to be very successful across many industries. There are many reasons for its success and it can be used in a variety of ways that encourage engagement, lead generation, and sales.
Benefits of Video Marketing
Let’s dig in and discuss benefits of video marketing and explain why this channel is worth your time and money. There are advantages for both consumers as well as for companies. By integrating video into your plans, you are creating a mutually beneficial relationship with customers; you will both reap the rewards.
Benefits From the Business Perspective:
Videos tend to get a lot more engagement from consumers, which can lead to increased trust and a higher likelihood of purchase.
Videos are easily shared (and more likely to be), which can result in increased Internet traffic and higher reach.
Videos lead to more action from consumers, including revisits, purchases, email signups, and more. According to the Online Publishers Association, 46 percent of people who viewed an online video ad took some sort of action after watching.
Benefits From the Consumer Perspective:
Video can be consumed in a lot less time than any other form of marketing or advertising (with the exception of photos).
Video can tell a better story so that a more intimate relationship can form.
Consumers can experience an emotional connection with a brand after watching a well-produced video.
Why People Love Video Marketing
Video marketing can be found everywhere. All over social media (Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, the list goes on and on), explainer videos on websites, inter-company tutorial videos, online educational courses… Everywhere you look, there are videos to be found.
In today’s market, there’s a big focus on visual components to draw in customers. How could there not be with so many different forms of advertising to compete with? Video marketing helps to stand out from the crowd and is a great way to give information quickly.
Watching a video is easy to do and consumers know this. Many times, they would like to see a video about the product than see a static ad on a website. At the end of the day, a video is faster and can create better engagement. This is why consumers and marketers prefer to use this method when advertising or marketing something.
According to Hubspot, 65 percent of senior marketing executives believe visual marketing is the core of marketing communications. As far as visual marketing is concerned, 50 percent of those people say that video has the highest return on investment. It’s no wonder that many companies have integrated this channel into their marketing plans!
Our Case Study
I don’t simply base my statements off what other people are saying, although the statistics are compelling. I want to share a case study, highlighting my company’s client, Denver Public Schools, showing just how beneficial video can be.
The Denver Public School system was experiencing a challenge with explaining complex topics to their diverse audience. There’s a huge deal of important information that they need to communicate, and while the conversation was simple when it came to basic topics, with more complex ones, it wasn’t so easy.
The school system looked at animated video marketing for its solution. This was one of the more popular options due to the medium’s rising ease of production, decreasing cost, increasing popularity, and ease of distribution. They chose to make an animated explainer video, using a whiteboard scribing style, to help them communicate their complex topics. They distributed the videos using Youtube, Vimeo, and social media.
The videos have thousands of views each, which is impressive because 90% of their video views are qualified viewers from the area. They weren’t trying to make mainstream successful videos, but niche ones, and they succeeded.
Something so simple helped tackle an issue that had been prominent for years. One video in particular was about marijuana funding and how the taxes can help or hurt the school system. Marijuana funding has been a controversial topic in Denver since it was legalized. At the same time, the funding is often misunderstood. The video was only a minute and a half, but had a large amount of qualified views and engagement. The video lead to media coverage including the Denver Post and Denver’s local Fox affiliate, KDVR. As desired, the press took the issue of the school system not receiving the “pot money” that was earmarked for it and then brought this issue to the public.
It’s hard to deny how beneficial video marketing can be to any business. There are many ways to implement this strategy and it should be catered to your business needs.
This article originally appeared in edwardsturm.com on September 5, 2016.