Content marketing has come a long way since static images and blocks of text. Nowadays, it’s not rare to see at least one video on our social feeds. In fact, videos are everywhere. The amount of videos circulating online is significant and isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

Youtube began in 2005 with only a few dozen videos but has since grown into one of the largest search engines (behind Google). The video platform brings in over 30 million users and a whopping 5 billion videos are watched every single day.

Thanks to the growing popularity of videos, social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat have jumped on the bandwagon and introduced live streaming and long-form video content.

The bottom line is that people prefer videos than other types of content. More and more brands are investing more in video marketing. A study states that in 2019, the number of companies that use video as a marketing tool reached 87% which is a significant increase from 63% and 81% in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

Why Choose Video?

There are a lot of perks to video marketing and there are various reasons why companies should start implementing videos in their marketing strategy.

We’re Visual Creatures

Would you rather read long blocks of text or look at moving pictures? We’re guessing you would choose the latter. The fact is, we are visual creatures and our brains crave imagery like nothing else— it’s just how we’re wired.

Our brain remembers 95% of the information we see on video and only 10% of what we read— that’s a pretty huge gap.

Digestible Content

Videos have the ability to convey complex information in ways that text alone and images can’t. With text, you would have to explain in paragraphs and images sometimes need a caption to go along with it.

Videos, on the other hand, are much more engaging and easy to understand. They retain attention well and keep the audience engaged while getting the message across. Also, anyone would prefer watching a clip than read a long block of text any day.

Keep It (Mobile) Friendly

There’s a big chance that you’re reading this article on your phone. Nowadays, people prefer doing everything on the go and that includes watching videos. In fact, over half of video content is viewed online.

According to a study, 90% of Twitter video views are from a mobile device. People love the convenience, so it’s important to make sure your site is up to date and optimized for mobile use.

Having a site that’s optimized for mobile use will help you reach a broad audience and tap into the desired target market with a bit more ease.

Go for SEO

Video has become one of the most prominent forms of content marketing and can make significant changes to your SEO strategy. Google loves video and its algorithms prioritize websites with video content.

According to research, including a video on your page drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs. Other than that, a video can also lower your bounce rates. People spend over twice as long on a page with video than without.

Increase Conversion Rates

Videos can also help with your conversion rates. Having a video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more.

Including a video in your email marketing strategy can also help you increase conversion rates. An initial email with a video receives an increase click-through rate by 96%.

So, if you’re looking to increase more sales, drive more traffic to your site, and overall attract a bigger audience, a video may be the way to go.

Increase Brand Awareness

Marketers nowadays know the importance of video in any marketing campaign. An average business produces 18 videos a month which is met with support by consumers— around 87% of people mentioned they’d like to see more video content from brands in 2019.

How can video help a business increase its brand awareness? Well, there are several ways. Videos can help improve a marketing strategy by assisting in different aspects of a business such as business goals, retention, customer experience, customer education, and more.

A video can help businesses tell a brand story, share a customer testimonial, show how to use a product, compare products to competitors, and explain key features and benefits with ease.

Engage with Video

Videos are great storytellers and who doesn’t love an awesome story? This is what makes them digestible and easy to understand which means they make it easy for the audience to stay engaged.

When you have your viewers’ attention, it’s much easier to sell your brand and increase sharing content on social media.

When a user has a positive experience with a video ad, it increases their purchase probabilities by 97%. Video content has also garnered many fans. Around 88% of users spend more time on a website that has video. A video of up to 2 minutes long receives the most engagement.

Shareable Content

Videos are also shareable. Imagine sharing a long article to your friend. What are the chances of them reading it? Now, compare it to when you share a video, there’s a bigger chance they’ll actually take a look.

Videos are simple yet engaging and people can’t get enough of them. Their easily digestible nature makes it a shareable form of content.

How to Incorporate Video Into Your Business

Now you’ve got the gist of why video is great for your business, let’s dive into a few tips you can use video:

Engaging Thumbnails

The first thing people see on Google will be the title of your video and the thumbnail. This represents the content of the video and you should pay close attention to what you put in your thumbnail.

Make sure it’s engaging, catches the viewers’ attention, use real images. A tip we suggest is to use human interactions or close-ups of faces as it will more likely affect the viewers’ emotions.

Social Sharing

A video marketing campaign is nothing without some effort to share it. Instead of letting the video collect dust on your website, make an effort into uploading your video on video sharing platforms such as Youtube or social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat.

SEO Is the Goal

Although it’s important to create some buzz from social media, the end goal is to bring users to your site. There are several ways to do this and optimize your video so it’s SEO friendly.

Provide transcription for your video so it will appear on Google searches. Optimize your video file metadata with related and user intent keywords on the video’s title and description. Lastly, create a video sitemap and submit it to the Google Search Console.

What’s Next?

Did you know that 46% of users act after viewing an ad? It’s crucial that your video has a clear call-to-action so your audience knows what to do after watching your video.

Having a clear call-to-action can make or break your video marketing campaign. A couple of ways you can incorporate a clear CTA is by using Youtube End Screens to include some clickable elements such as a link to your website or to some more videos. Another way is to include a CTA and a link that leads to your website or landing pages when posting on social media

The Tools You Need

If you’re looking to create your own video but don’t know where to start, we got something just for you! The folks at Breadnbeyond did all the heavy lifting of looking for tools all over the web that can help you create videos.

The page is easy to maneuver with filters so you don’t need to read through the whole list. You’ll find a tool according to your needs. The list covers tools in the categories below:

• DIY Animation Tools
• Video Marketing Platforms
• Live Streaming Platforms
• Video Editing Tools
• Interactive Videos
• Sound Effects Library
• Stock Video Library
• Sound Recording Tools
• Scriptwriting Utilities

Check out the video marketing list on Breadnbeyond’s page!