Recently, more and more marketers have started to use videos in their digital marketing campaigns. In 2017, only 63% of businesses were using a video for marketing. That number went up to 81% in 2018 and now has reached 87% at the beginning of 2019. In this article, we’ll do a deeper analysis of why video marketing is important to include in your overall marketing campaign.
So, what happened there? Maybe, marketers just realized video marketing’s importance. Or, maybe, it has something to do with the fact that more marketers are gaining positive results from videos. In 2018, only 78% of marketers said videos gave them a good ROI. In just a year, that number increased to 83%. In any case, videos can be helpful in increasing customer lifetime value and optimizing your marketing campaigns.
The studies show that video marketing is the future of digital marketing. By 2022, it’s predicted that 82% of all internet traffic will be online videosㅡ, a staggering 15 times higher than in 2017. So, if you haven’t implemented a video marketing strategy yet, now is the perfect time to do it before it all gets too crowded and competitive.
Before we get to the main course, let’s look at the 3 types of videos in the world of digital marketing.
Why Video Marketing Is Important – 3 Types of Video Marketing
Various types of videos embrace different groups of people and can be used for different campaigns. Let’s have a look at these types.
Awareness-Raising Video
This type of video is usually created by smaller businesses and brands working on their way up to gather new followers. This video aims to reach as many people as possible, to let them know that you exist. Therefore, this kind of video usually contains high entertainment value that appeals to the mass audience.
The following video titled “Best Restaurants in San Francisco, California” is an example of an awareness video. The maker, Travelocity, is a travel agency platform that tries to introduce the brand by making a video that’s appealing to most people while still related to traveling.
Engagement-Keeping Video
The engaging video touches the audience’s emotions and sparks reactions, making them more likely to like, comment, and, most importantly, share the videos with their friends.
What’s a better way to engage with your audience than to make them laugh? Taulia, a company that provides payment management services, has successfully turned boring advertising into a series of funny clips in their “Get Rid of Cable” campaign. You can watch the compilation of the ads on Direct TV’s YouTube channel.
Educational Video
The purpose of making this video is to teach the audience something useful and valuable. Videos like tutorials, how-to videos, explainers, product reviews, case studies, and presentations are among what you call educational videos.
If you launch a new product, service, or feature, you can make a video of how to use it, just like this video that explains its product in a simple and friendly way.
Major Reasons Why Video Marketing Is Important
Finally, we get to the main topic of the day. As promised, here are 10 reasons why video marketing is important.
1. The Rising Popularity of YouTube Explains Why Video Marketing Is Important
Before YouTube came around, watching online videos was almost non-existent because it wasn’t easy to find one. Even YouTube was created because one of the co-founders wanted to watch a certain video but couldn’t find it online. At that time, people mostly went to the cinemas or rented DVDs at their local Blockbuster.
But everything changed when YouTube was founded in 2005 and went on to become the second-largest website in the world. Today, one-third of all internet users are on YouTube, about 1.9 billion people. YouTube’s massive user database, that’s constantly growing, is one of the reasons why video marketing is important.
2. People Prefer Videos – That’s Why Video Marketing Is Important
If you want to learn about a new product or service, which content do you prefer? Do you prefer watching a video about it, or you’re happier just reading the articles? Recently, Wyzowl asked the exact same question to a group of consumers. Take a look at this video’s marketing stats to find out the result.
The study shows that the majority of consumers (68%) prefer watching short videos over other kinds of content when it comes to learning about something new. Some people still like reading articles or web posts (15%), while only a handful prefer ebooks (4%), presentation (4%), infographics (3%), sales call (3%), and other kinds of content (3%).
3. Explaining Your Product More Efficiently Is Why Video Marketing Is Important
The third reason why video marketing is important is the fact that videos can explain your product more efficiently than just writing a good blog. Moreover, the video will stick to the audience’s mind longer too. A study of the human brain shows that after three days, we tend to remember 65% of information if it comes with a visual, while we only recall 10% if it’s text only. So, the winner in visual content vs. text content is quite evident.
Just be honest, if you want to learn about the new iPhone, would you rather watch a one-minute-long video or read a 1000-word article about the specifications? Beside time efficiency, there are just some things that words alone can’t explain, like how the new iPhone model looks, what makes it different from the old models, and how to use the new features.
4. Help in Ranking First on Google Is Why Video Marketing Is Important
Millions of articles are already being published daily, and if your page can’t manage to rank first on Google, forget about ever being found by your target audience. Articles are easy and free to make, that’s why marketers can consistently create them. That’s not the case with videos, which are still far less competitive than blog posts.
Your odds of ranking higher on Google is far better with video marketing. Especially since Google purchased YouTube, the search engine seems to prioritize video content a bit more. Nowadays, you’re more likely to stumble upon a video if it’s relevant to the topic you’re searching for. I tested this theory myself by typing “how the earth was formed” and this is the result:
As you can see there, Google gave me two videos from YouTube on the first page of the results. The only downside to this is that most of the time the search engine will show videos from YouTube, not from your own website.
There are two ways to get around this. First, you can just accept that and put your website link on YouTube. Or second, you can embed the video on your site and learn how to create a video sitemap, so that Google identifies that the video belongs to your site.
5. Attracting More Traffic Defines Why Video Marketing Is Important
Did you know that 90% of Google users never go past page one when doing a search? It means that if you don’t rank on the first page of Google search results, then your business is pretty much done because no one will find your website. On the other hand, when you manage to rank first on Google, traffic will start coming in.
That’s why video marketing is important. As I mentioned in the previous point, utilizing videos in your marketing campaign can help you rank first on Google. If done right, video marketing has the ability to triple your monthly traffic― if your traffic is currently 250 visitors per month, implementing the right video marketing strategy can take it to 750 visitors per month.
6. Increasing User Engagement Clarifies Why Video Marketing Is Important
Another factor why video marketing is important is because it can boost user engagement on social media platforms. Don’t believe it? Check out these studies:
- If you put a video on your social media post, your views will increase by 48%
- 62% of Facebook users become interested in a product after seeing it on Facebook Story.
- Facebook generated 8 billion daily video views already in 2015.
- Each year, the number of Instagram users who watch videos on the platform increases by 80%
- Video content on social media gets 1200% more shares than text and image content combined.
- Video posts get 50% view rates on LinkedIn.
So, if you’ve been building your social media persona and presence with no avail, consider starting a video marketing campaign right away.
7. Videos are Smartphone-Friendly
Everywhere we go― trains, malls, restaurants, colleges― people are hooked on their smartphones. In today’s tech-centric world where people spend more time on their smartphones rather than on TV, it would certainly help if you have content that’s smartphone-friendly like videos.
With the popularity of apps like YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, Snapchat, and others, videos are everywhere. According to a study by eMarketer, of all videos that are being played in the world, 75% of them are being played on mobile devices. What’s more important is the fact that 92% of mobile video viewers will share it with their friends.
8. Making Visitors Stay Longer Is the Reason Why Video Marketing Is Important
Not only does it attract more visitors, but videos also make those visitors stay longer on your website. As a result of this, the average time spent by users on your site will increase, while the bounce rate will decrease. Google will see this as an indication that the content on your site is relevant, making it more likely for you to rank higher on the search engine.
However, don’t create videos that are too long as they can make your audience bored. According to Animoto, you should keep the videos under one minute because that’s how the consumers prefer them to be. A different view is offered by Wistia who found that 2 minutes is the best length for a video.
9. Enhancing Email Outreach Campaign
Yet another reason to believe why video marketing is important for your digital marketing campaign is because it doesn’t only enhance your website and social media performance, but also your email marketing. Cold email outreach usually has a very low reply rate, but videos can change that.
Multiple studies have confirmed that videos can enhance your email outreach campaign. According to Syndacast, just by adding the word “video” in your subject line, your email open rate will increase by 19%. Another study by Animoto suggests that 50% of email receivers are more likely to read newsletters that provide a link to a video.
10. Boosting Your Sales Explains Why Video Marketing Is Important
The end goal of every marketing campaign is surely to boost conversion rates, especially sales. Thankfully, that’s exactly what videos are all about. If you’re not sold yet on the idea to include videos in your marketing campaign, I hope these studies can change your mind:
- Adding a video on your landing page can boost conversion rates by 80%. (YumYum Videos)
- Marketers who implement video marketing grow their revenue 49% faster than those who don’t. (Vidyard)
- After watching an explainer video about a product, 85% of consumers are more likely to buy it. (Video Brewery)
- After watching a product review, 65% of executives will go directly to the website to find more information, and 39% of them will immediately call the contact person on the web. (Forbes)
- After implementing a video marketing strategy, 54% of digital marketers saw an increase in their sales.
Takeaway
This article has managed to show why video marketing is important. Videos can help marketers attract more traffic, increase the average time spent by users, increase user engagement, make their websites rank higher on Google, and most importantly, boost conversion rates. In short, video marketing helps marketers in gaining positive results from their marketing campaigns.
If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional video agency, you can always make videos on your own using free or at least affordable video-making tools. You don’t need to search for the tools on your own, because we’ve already done it for you. In the past months, we’ve surfed around the cyberspace to compile the complete list of video marketing tools and platforms. Click on the link to find out more about 121 awesome tools in making videos, including:
- DIY Animation Tools
- Video Marketing Platforms
- Live Streaming Apps and Platforms
- Video Editing Tools
- Interactive Videos
- Sound Effects Library
- Stock Video Library
- Sound Recording Tools
- Scriptwriting Utilities
Before the Internet becomes overcrowded with video content, this is the perfect time for you to start using videos and video animation business tools in your digital marketing strategy.