Time. As marketers, it seems as if we don’t have a lot of it. To save time and provide a critical visual connection to messaging, video content is an essential aspect of marketing for most businesses.
From the development of commercials to creating live video content, recording videos often requires specialized equipment and other resources.
Despite this, it is worth the time and effort of your marketing team to use videos to help create an effective omnichannel marketing strategy that caters to your audience and meets them where they are.
What is an omnichannel marketing strategy, you ask?
This approach recognizes that customers today are not tied to one channel and instead bounce between multiple channels and platforms. For marketers, this means not putting all of your eggs in one basket.
Embrace an omnichannel approach so your customers can engage with you, whether they’re active on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, or another platform. Then integrate these platforms within your customer relationship management (CRM) strategies.
Access to a Large Audience
According to Business Insider, more than 1.8 billion people watch YouTube videos each month. That is nearly 2 billion people each month, just on YouTube alone.
This is a considerable percentage of the world’s population!
Many professional marketers would be willing to pay for an advertisement in an email subscription list or website that reaches tens of thousands. It doesn’t make sense for marketing teams to avoid taking advantage of such an opportunity.
Even if only 1 percent of monthly YouTube watchers see your video, this is still a large audience for your marketing efforts.
Multichannel Approach
YouTube isn’t the only place people expect to find video content. You can find videos on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blogs, Tumblr, WordPress, media news outlets, and even your self-hosted site on Wix or Squarespace.
When your marketing team creates a video, there are many channels available where you can distribute it. This makes it easy for viewers to share the video content on their social media feeds for their networks to see.
In the best-case scenario, you could end up with a viral video.
At the very least, add video content into your company’s blog posts. Combined with bullet points and H2 headers, you can help make a blog post more scannable. Video also helps to break up long blog posts with content that can better engage your readers.
Increased Opportunity For Engagement
Many people find videos more engaging than text-only posts. When your marketing team creates a video, they can develop content that utilizes music, engaging storylines, and emotion to convey your brand’s message.
Some customers might be more inclined to watch a video over reading a written blog post – especially executives. 59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same topic, they are more likely to choose video.
Builds Trust With Target Audience
Consumers have some natural suspicion when it comes to photos and articles that they see online. Using a video that shows them, in real-time, more information about the product or company can help to build trust.
Imagine how much more convincing before and after videos would be for a weight loss program than photos. Instead of questioning the change in lighting, use of tanning spray, or whether a picture was digitally altered, videos are much less forgiving. Customers know that.
If you show them before and after videos, with some footage of the process, they are more likely to believe in the results of your product.
Additionally, you can answer common questions with videos that can help to build trust.
For instance, some customers want to buy products manufactured in the United States to support local employment. Showing your office and manufacturing facilities, as well as the staff that helps produce products in video can build confidence and trust to your viewers.
Live Video Implementation
Today, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube all have a functionality where you can record and share live videos.
The screenshot above shows how to live stream on Facebook.
Followers receive a notification that your page is live and can tune in to see the information that you’re sharing. Below you can see an example of a push notification Instagram users receive when someone they follow goes live.
You even have the choice to add live video to your newsfeed when you’re finished recording or to remove the video. This way, people are unable to view it in the future.
Through live video, you can take a different approach and invite your customers in to be a part of what your company is doing, in real-time.
Show off what discounted items are available in your retail store during a hot sale. Let customers watch a vital presentation from your company’s CEO live as he presents it. Live stream your new trade-show or event. Host a live auction where customers bid on products for sale from their smartphones.
Live video content gives marketing teams numerous ways to get important messages out there.
Lower Costs Available
Overall, creating videos can be a low-cost marketing strategy, especially compared to other forms of advertising. You have the power to create a marketing video from your smartphone and share your brand, at no cost to your company, on relevant social media platforms.
If you’re looking for the next level of video content, there may be slight, but beneficial, costs associated. You can choose to hire professional actors, use professional studio equipment, and/or work with outside vendors to create the highest quality videos your business requires.
On some occasions, it makes sense to invest in a professionally filmed video campaign, such as when you plan to distribute the video through traditional TV commercial advertising.
However, not every video a company makes needs to be as complicated. Depending on the goals for the marketing video, something simple and made from the tools that you already have access to can be enough.
Personal, Real Content
When it comes to online content, nothing creates a more personal connection with viewers than video. This is particularly true if you use people in your videos.
Viewers connect (and stay connected) more effectively with other people than anything else, with 55% of people pay close attention when consuming video. Likewise, the people starring in these videos present a unique and more personalized view of your company and content than any other method of communication.
Take advantage of this. Use the stars in your video content to personalize and put a face to your company. People make more natural connections with companies where they feel like they know someone rather than with companies that feel like impersonal entities.
Improved Search Engine Rankings
Another essential reason to utilize video marketing is the fact that your content will rank higher in search engine rankings. Search engines look for the most effective means of sharing information, and video is at the top of the list. A video is 50x more likely to appear on the first page of Google than an average web page.
Google, in particular, focuses on YouTube content, although it prioritizes other video and multimedia channels as well. The preference is partially because Google and YouTube are connected. However, Google also recognizes that more people search for video content rather than written content on the same subject.
If you want to reach a wider audience, convert your written content to video content to rank higher.
Better for Mobile Devices
Additionally, video gives you an advantage on mobile devices. Reading the text on a small screen can be difficult, which is why many mobile users prefer video.
Plus, the multimedia aspect of your videos makes it possible for mobile users to take in your content without seeing it. Many people use mobile devices while doing other things and listen to the content rather than watching it.
If your videos are made with quality and a multimedia focus in mind, you can connect to mobile device users and listeners, which purely text-driven content can not.
Easy Connections Attract More Customers
One major advantage video marketing provides is they draw in customers who do not want to put in maximum effort to consume content.
Videos are more comfortable to digest because there is less that needs to be interpreted. Viewers don’t have to make sense of written content since everything is laid out for them in a video format. The hard-to-get conversions are more likely to happen here since it takes less effort to engage with the content and the company.
Viewers prefer to have their content served to them, which is easy to do in a video built with helpful visuals and durable audio quality. It feels more like having something explained to them by a person rather than trying to decipher instructions.
Quick and Easy to Make
Compared to text-based content, video content is sharp and can be quick and easy to create. All you need is basic recording equipment, which seems to be ubiquitous these days.
True, expensive and elaborate equipment raise production quality. In most cases, all you need is a decent quality recording device, which you can find on most cell phones.
One of the biggest problems video content marketers face is over content quality. Many companies focus on recording and production quality rather than the actual content in the video.
Stop right there. Remember, focus on content quality rather than production quality – every single time.
Most viewers care more about the discussion and value your video provides rather than if your video uses the top recording tools available. As long as it meets basic quality requirements, like being easy to see and having decent audio quality, most people will accept it as good content.
To craft a successful video marketing campaign, create an engaging script, well-written video descriptions, and related marketing copy.
Choosing to work with a professional content marketing agency, like Content Writers, can save your team time to creating your written content.
Your team can focus on developing high-level marketing strategy while professional and experienced writers simultaneously develop the content you need.
References
https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-user-statistics-2018-5
https://www.dreamgrow.com/8-reasons-why-your-business-should-use-video-marketing/
Levi Olmstead
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