Why and How to Add Videos to Your Marketing MixBy Jack Dawson

It’s a scientific fact…

People remember what they see more than what they read or hear.

Sight is the most powerful sense, as far as recall is concerned and when combined with the other senses, highly effective for marketing.

Capitalizing on this knowledge, marketing strategies have always tried to ensure incorporation of pictures and videos in their campaigns to make them more effective.

In this information age, the benefits of including videos are plenty, and we have here just a few.

Videos Increase Your Visibility

Try to run a search about anything and the first thing you will see is a video.

Search engines developed this with the aim of giving more interesting search results so you will have a video and a news story among the top three results of your search.

It therefore follows that if you want your brand to get more views, you need to include videos.

That way, you can increase your ranking and get yourself to page one of the results sooner than you could have even with interesting, shareable content.

The Power of YouTube

YouTube has risen to become the global number two as far as search engines go.

People simply head to YouTube to search for videos about literally anything from fashion and music to academic topics.

Further, there are more than a billion people watching a YouTube video every month.

Imagine the potential!

If your brand can get on that platform, you are sure to get more views and increased conversions than just sticking to traditional text and pictures.

Most Engaging

Few mediums can hold a candle to videos as far as being able to engage the audience.

Videos show how your product works and helps the audience see how and where it would fit in their lives.

It also shows your passion for your product, which can be a deciding factor where an individual feels torn between two essentially identical products.

A Little Does a Lot

You can upload a single video to your website as well as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and various other social media platforms for increased engagement with your market as well as to drive more traffic to your site.

This is pretty efficient and affordable.

Speaking of cost, videos can be relatively inexpensive.

Modern technology has put high-quality cameras in our phones that can take videos just as well as those on tripods.

Also, there are plenty of video editing software that can be used to make your video look professionally done at only a fraction of the price.

Builds Trust

As mentioned earlier, seeing is believing. Market research studies have shown that people trust a product they have seen at work in a video than one they haven’t seen. This means that you are likely to get more conversions from a video than from anything else. So why not do it?

These are just a few of the reasons why videos are currently at the top of the marketing strategy food chain, and why you should incorporate them in your marketing mix.

Here’s How to Do it

There are three main ways to incorporate videos into your marketing mix:

  1. EmailIf you have your clients on a mailing list, you can simply send them the video through their emails. Research shows that more than 50 percent of consumers watch the videos they receive in their mail. You can add it as a link within the text and make sure the loading time is short to avoid losing their interest.
  2. Social Media. As a company, if you are not on social media, you are simply non-existent. With the increased popularity of videos, things have gotten worse such that if you do not have a video on your website, viewers tend to lose interest faster since they have don’t have time to read all that text. Combining these two truths, you can include your videos in your social media posts. Research has shown 84 percent of consumers will like a videos posted by a particular company while nearly half with share the video on their profiles (which will increase your visibility for free!).
  3. Cross Platform. Whether at work or at home, 90 percent of people will watch at least one video on their desktop every week. Another 55 percent will watch at least one video on their mobile device per week. It is therefore important to ensure your videos, like your website, are responsive to all devices in order to increase visibility.

Beyond just putting them up on these platforms, you have to know what kind of videos you should put up.

Ideas for Business Videos

The majority of consumers prefer videos showing how the product is made or how it works.

They find it useful in visualizing how the product can be useful in their own lives and are more likely to make a purchase as a result.

Another kind of video you can use is customer testimonials showing how the product or service has helped them.

It has been shown that people buy products based on the recommendations of others; that is the reason why websites have that section where people comment or rate the product.

Putting these testimonials on videos makes them look more authentic (because skeptics often suspect the company generates the written ones) and puts a human face to your product.

The trick here is to get different people that appeal to each demographic within your overall market for an effective, targeted approach.

You could also make a video about the company.

The point here is to introduce yourself to the market, let them know what you offer and what you stand for.

This is usually about developing trust and allowing the client to identify with you based on your core values. Such a show of openness often creates a sense of loyalty with your brand or product and you may just win yourself a lifetime customer!

Whatever you decide to do, ensure you have the best quality videos and the best possible concepts for your video.

The danger with making a poor quality video is that it reflects poorly on your entire brand and that spreads quite quickly nowadays.

Spend a little money and watch at how well it works.

Conclusion

A picture speaks a thousand words but a video speaks more than words.

You can communicate emotions, ideologies, and abstract concepts through videos than one single frame would be insufficient to communicate.

So if you want to make it in this competitive digital market, incorporate videos into your marketing mix.

image credit: Shutterstock

Jack Dawson

Jack Dawson is a web developer and UI/UX specialist at BigDropInc.com. He works at a design, branding and marketing firm, having founded the same firm 9 years ago. He likes to share knowledge and points of view with other developers and consumers on platforms.

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