Video views have surged in the past few years, which is largely due to the advances of smartphones, social media and improved connectivity speeds. However, it is only recently that businesses have capitalised on the emerging opportunity, with 65% of businesses who aren’t currently using video planning to do so in 2018.
But why should businesses invest in video production?
Despite what you may think, it’s not just cat videos that gain high engagement on the internet.
Ask yourself, would you be more likely to buy a product if you are delivered a long blurb about how great a product is or if you had watched an informative video? If you would rather watch a video, you are probably in the 74% of people who have bought a product after watching a high-quality explainer video. In addition, if you are able to create a video which is engaging, informative and relevant to your audience, you are placing yourself as a thought-leader which increases trust and the likelihood of a user converting on your website.
On the other hand, if you are not currently seen as a thought leader in your industry, a great way of gaining exposure is to collaborate with publications and influencers in the industry. Doing this will help increase the audience reach, add unique insights and improve the perceived quality of your video content.
23andMe partnered with Buzzfeed to showcase their product through video
Another benefit of creating videos for your business is the ability to use them across your marketing. For example, you could place an explainer video on your product page, while also using it to attract engagements on social media and improve click-throughs for your email campaigns. A recent study from Hubspot found emails that include videos experience 200-300% increases in click-through rate compared with those that don’t. So by ignoring video, you’re potentially losing a considerable number of customers.
If you want to successfully deliver your message and ensure it sticks in the memory of your audience, you may need to incorporate video in your content strategy. As our brains evolve in this ever changing digital landscape, only 10% of information is retained from text, whereas studies have found that 95% of a message is retained through video. Therefore if you want to improve your awareness, there is probably no better way than creating branded videos.
“I have created a promotional video but it isn’t receiving any views”
Many businesses create outstanding videos but fail to get them viewed by their target audience. This is why it is imperative to have a clear purpose for the video prior to creating it, with measurable goals and a strategy in place to achieve them.
If you are creating a video for promotional purposes, we would recommend hosting it on YouTube, which is the site with the second highest traffic in the world after Google. Not only does this provide an opportunity to reach your audience through the platform, it also provides an opportunity to gain visibility through Google in a video carousel, which has started to appear more since an update in June.
Improving your search visibility through video will result in a higher possibility of reaching people who are researching for products or services, and allow you to educate a user on why they require your product or service. Plus, once your video is live on YouTube, it is easy to use the video as part of your overall marketing strategy, reaching as relevant a target audience as possible.
In addition, high-quality videos are a great way to engage your existing customers and we would highly recommend publishing videos across your social channels multiple times to reach and engage with as many existing customers as possible. This may result in increased repeat purchase and increased confidence in your brand.
What does the future look like for video?
There are huge opportunities for businesses to capitalise on in an ever-changing digital landscape, not least with Facebook launching 360 degree video functionalities last year, and the growth of Instagram stories and IGTV.
A 360 degree test video in the CandidSky offices
We are also able to create videos which are more creative than ever with tech such as drones and easy to use video editing software. As a result, there is no longer space in the market for poor qulality videos and consumers demands are expected to increase further in the next few years. A recent study showed that 61% of users were put off buying a product due to a poor quality explainer video, which shows the power that video has on a users journey in 2018.
In addition, there are huge opportunities emerging from advances in AR (augmented reality) technologies, which we expect to have an impact on how we interact with customers in the future, and will undoubtedly have an impact on what customers expect from your business.
Finally, we have witnessed the attention span of users decrease in recent years and millenials are demanding video content that grabs their attention in the first 5 second of a video. As such, when creating a video, we need to ensure it has a powerful message which is delivered in an engaging manner – quickly. This is why we recommend concentrating on quality over quantity when it comes to all content created for business purposes, otherwise, you could be setting yourself up to fail.
How to get started
Video should be a small piece of your overall marketing strategy and should align with your business’ goals and objectives. If you are new to video production, we strongly recommend speaking to an expert, such as CandidSky, to ensure you deliver your message effectively, make sure it aligns with your wider marketing strategy and reflects your brand voice.
Example of some short animations CandidSky created as part of a content marketing strategy for Peninsula.