Video marketing is the use of video to promote and market your brand, create awareness, increase engagement, educate consumers, and all the sweet things that ultimately lead to more sales. When it comes to selling just about anything on the internet, photos are good, but videos are key. Research shows that nearly half of online shoppers look for a video about a product before clicking ‘checkout’, and 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by video.
The Benefits of Video Marketing
Lookup any video eCommerce stats and you’ll find overwhelming evidence that video is the best, most efficient form of marketing online today.
1. Video is crucial for SEO
One of the biggest reasons your brand needs video as part of its marketing strategy is for SEO. Video is 50x more likely to get organic ranking than text. That’s because Google is always prioritizing the content that will give its users the most informative, helpful answers to whatever they’re typing in that search bar. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a short video is worth a lot more, so it’s no surprise that they end up at the top of SERPs (search engine result pages) way more than plain text pages.
2. Video boosts engagement and conversions
Another benefit of video marketing is that it’s getting major engagement on social media. Stats show that people are twice as likely to share video content with their friends than any other type.
3. Video can be cost-efficient
This leads us to our last benefit, which is that video marketing can give you more “bang for your buck” since it generates so much engagement. Of course, studio-produced videos can cost an arm and a leg, but there are less expensive options for producing videos that get just as much—and in fact, usually more—engagement. This is where user-generated and auto-production come into play (but more on that below).
4. Video keeps people on your site
Having a library of quality video content gives people a reason to spend more time on your site instead of on video hosting sites like YouTube. Engaging videos can do wonders for your site performance and lead to lower bounce rates and increased conversions.
5. Video can educate your customers
Research shows that when consumers have a question or issue with a product, over 60% of them turn to Google first to try and fix things themselves. Rather than letting your customers read through pages of text, you can quickly and effectively show them answers on video. By creating videos about your products that answer FAQs, not only can you boost your brand’s SEO ranking, but you can also improve customer experience and brand loyalty. Plus, having self-service videos can decrease customer service calls and save on resources ($).
6. Video adds a realness to your brand
Videos featuring real people are a great way to humanize your brand and build trust with consumers. Authenticity and emotion are hard to convey in text and come across much stronger through video content.
7. Video is memorable
On average, consumers retain 95% of what they watch on video, compared to 10% of what they read in text. (It’s impressive that you’re still reading this article!)
The Different Types of Marketing Videos
Here are some of the different types of videos you’ll want in your brand’s arsenal.
Brand videos
Every brand should have a 15- to 30-second brand video that quickly engages consumers and gives them a sense of the product offering (along with why they need it). Think of this like a movie trailer—it should share just enough to entice. The goal is to get viewers to click through to your site and learn more about your brand.
Review videos
Video product reviews help build trust with your customers. Stats show that 90% of people are more likely to trust a brand recommendation, even from a stranger. Video product reviews help new customers feel confident about their purchase and follow through to checkout.
FAQ videos
Bridge the gap between your staff and your customers with FAQ videos, which demonstrate how to use a product or a step in usage, like changing out a battery, and let your customers save their valued time.
Educational videos
Quickly tell your consumers more about your brand’s product or service and why they need it. Engaging educational videos can also be a useful tool for your sales team.
Demonstration videos
These showcase your product and how it works, whether that’s how to set up a tech gadget or how to apply a self-tanner. Popular unboxing videos (where customers show their social media followers a point-of-view video of them unpacking their order) can also fall under this category.
Teaser videos
These are similar to short brand videos—highly engaging and designed to boost click-throughs—but can be about a specific feature or product. For instance, a teaser can get viewers excited about a new launch and then have them click through to provide an email address to be notified when it’s available to order.
Behind-the-scenes videos
More than ever, consumers value authenticity and human connection. Marketers often forget: People love people. Polished studio video can bring value to your brand, but behind-the-scenes videos can humanize your brand and lead to better engagement and brand loyalty.
Testimonial videos
Similar to review videos but with an even more emotional angle, these share the real-life success stories of your loyal clients (or employees). Testimonials can be incredibly impactful in converting new customers (or recruiting) and boosting brand trust.
Company culture videos
People like to know they’re supporting a company that aligns with their values. Company culture videos showcase your brand’s personality and story so that it feels relatable and admirable to potential customers and/or employees.
Making a Case for Video Marketing
The bottom line? In terms of engagement and conversions, video content is king and should be part of your marketing strategy (like, yesterday). We know what you’re thinking: “But video content is time-consuming and expensive!”. While this can be true for high-production brand videos, there are other ways of producing video. One is to produce and share user-generated videos, while another is to commission videos as part of influencer campaigns (although these can also be pricey). What if there were an easier way to produce genuine, impactful video content? Enter story-led video automation. Those are a lot of words, but it’s actually super simple: a user-friendly video platform (along with customized storylines) automates the production of video stories from consumers or employees – at scale, in any language, for any demographic. The end result is authentic video content that’s ready to share on social media and your website and get to work for your brand. Find out more about StoryTap by booking a demo.
Looking for more information about video marketing? Download our eBook: Video Marketing 101
