Video Marketing: What Every Marketer Must Know
Video is taking over the world. From streaming favorite sitcoms on Netflix to tuning into LIVE videos that come on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and much more, the video has become the backbone of online activity. For marketers, video marketing can be a fast lane to reaching customers. Using the right video content strategy can augment the capability of a business to connect and interact with customers. This blog breaks down the details into fine details.
If pictures can speak a thousand words, videos can convey a million unspoken words. Especially in marketing, they are a mighty force to reckon with. That force is said to be at least Billion viewers strong. 5 Billion videos on YouTube. 100 million hours on Facebook. 10 billion videos on Snapchat. And, the power of video is growing by the minute.
If you are a modern-day marketer, a video is a must-have tool in your marketing toolkit. Videos can be used in several ways to pitch your startup idea, promote a product or to create a first impression about your service lines.
Here are some video marketing strategies that every marketer worth his/her salt must know and use to keep that lead ticker counting busily.
Videos can capture attention quickly. But, how long can they sustain that attention? Turns out short videos are most successful. Admit it. Most of us don’t even watch the auto-playing Facebook videos till the end. So, when it comes to video marketing, shorter videos have a better success rate than their larger counterparts.
It is exactly for the same reason that YouTube video adverts are capped at specific time limits.
Vidyard reports that at least 75% of videos published in 2018 were less than minutes in length. Marketing Land reports that 46 percent of the respondents said an ad shouldn’t run longer than15 seconds. That reiterates the fact that, when it comes to video marketing shorter is better.
Short videos are easy to consume, they boil down the marketing message into quickly snackable points and also help the viewer make a quick decision. So, the next time you start working on a marketing video, stick to a shorter version.
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LIVE video has got serious firepower
Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Instagram and several other endless social media and live streaming apps have turned almost everybody into a broadcaster. It just takes an Internet-connected smartphone to relay your real-time activity to the whole world.
For marketers, live videos are a gold mine that can be tapped lavishly for building brand identity, for live streaming product launches or even for running real-time Ask-Me-Anything sessions, and so on.
If used right, live video can help any business dominate the video space. Live streaming can also be used to stream conferences, webinars, or any other corporate event that the business is hosting or participating.
A joint study by Livestream and New York Magazine found that 80% of users would rather watch live video from a brand than read their content marketing posts. Further, live videos have a watch span that is three times more longer than ordinary videos.
If normal videos are crowd-pulling magnets, 360-degree videos go a step ahead and help viewers become a part of the experience itself.
360-degree videos help viewers get a complete view from any angle and any side of the video. It is literally like being in the place and taking in the experience virtually.
In fact, a study by Business Insider Intelligence report found that the Hong Kong airline’s 360-degree video was 35 times more powerful than its 2D version. A YuMe study also confirms that the immersive experience that 360-degree video, Augmented Reality and Virtual reality provide are considered to be the "next big thing" in video.
The normal kind of interaction that users have with video includes filling up a form, liking it, commenting on it or sharing it on their social media handles. Of course, there is also the manual interaction of play, pause, rewind or fast forward.
An interactive video takes the level of interaction a notch forward by allowing users to decide how the video progress. Interactive videos is an emerging video technology that takes user input to chart the progress of the video.
Deloitte rolled out an interactive video titled ‘Will You Fit Into Deloitte’ for gamified-based recruitment.
At specific junctures, the interactive video asks for user input based on which the video progresses with specific events. At the end of the video, depending on the choice of input that the user had given, he/she is decided to be a good fit for Deloitte or not.
You can watch that interesting video here.
Most often, if not always your prospects would want to know how your product works, what pain areas it addresses, how it is different from rest of the alternatives and so on. Like we said before, videos are better at explaining stuff easily with accurate information than textual content.
Explainer videos can help put across the table your product/service message and help your prospects make an informed decision. They also create a lasting first impression. Explainer videos are usually created using animations and motion graphics which makes them extremely customizable and unique to express your business.
The ‘What is an API?’ explainer video from MuleSoft is a classic example. It explains a complicated topic like an API in the simplest manner possible.
So, What next?
Video marketing is not the future of digital marketing. It is NOW. It is happening. While you were reading this blog, at least a million hours of video would have been uploaded on YouTube. Facebook would have streamed endless hours of live video. And so do Instagram TV, SnapChat, Livestream, Meerkat and so on.
Every marketer worth his salt must add video marketing to their arsenal to achieve business results. Be it a dominating competition, gaining audience attention, expanding markets, creating brand awareness or to sell more, the video has become a must-have marketing tool.