As video is shifting to an on-demand and non-linear, social and immersive experience, marketers need to create value-add content to enrich their customers’ lives and deliver messages that speak to them to win attention.
30-second summary:
Video is a marketing tool for any brand or business – this concept isn’t new. However, video content is quickly becoming a focus for marketers, as it allows them to expand to any and every channel for an immersive and engaging experience, and changes the way that brands and companies interact with their audience.
According to a recent HubSpot survey, over 50% of consumers reported that they wanted to see video from brands or businesses that they support, taking preference over other traditional marketing methods such as emails, social images and blog posts.
It’s easy to understand why. Absorbing content from video is effortless compared to reading articles or dense PDFs. A recent video marketing report showed that watching one minute of video was equivalent to reading 1,800,000 words.
In the same report, 90% of consumers said that videos aid their decision in buying a product, and 64% often buy a product online after watching a video about what it is or how it works. This means that just a one-minute video could increase sales and engagement for a business.
As the video trend shows no signs of slowing down, companies of all sizes and types can implement video into all aspects of their marketing mix to increase brand loyalty and ROI.
As the stats clearly show, video is engaging and appealing to its intended audience. However, just like any marketing tool, there can be good and bad video content.
Compared to other mediums, videos can take much more time to successfully create. Before investing time and resources into video marketing (online tutorials, social posts, animations for an eBook, etc.) marketers need to gauge what a company’s audience – whether it be employees, B2B or B2C – wants to see and engage with.
Catering to these trends and demands is important. A video that is opened and closed before the opening line is delivered is a waste to all involved, and by not connecting with the audience, businesses are missing out on the potential that video advertising or content could offer.
Sensing what an audience wants can seem challenging and difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. Video can be cut and re-purposed in different ways.
For example, brands can recycle content that has already been a big hit and keep the popular style or message in-use if appropriate, like re-purposing a five second sports clip for a news broadcast or changing the length of a product commercial to fit time slots.
Using this consistent, well-planned messaging will ensure success of the video being produced.
Some brands and companies believe that video content marketing is not the right fit for them for a variety of reasons – but that’s usually not the case. Video marketing is useful for all companies, both big and small, and can be made to fit any message, brand or budget.
Smaller-sized companies are often hesitant to use video in their marketing with the fear that it is out of their budget and they’ll have to continually create content, or they save it for “special” projects that may not end up materializing.
Fortunately, thanks to technological advancements and capabilities, high-quality footage can be captured on equipment as small as a smartphone. Instead of outsourcing video content, it can be created in-house, minimizing budget and utilizing the creativity of employees.
This also extends to the platforms on which small companies house their content. If the added software works in a company’s tech stack, the internal IT team will be available to help with any bumps in the road or technical difficulties.
Because of old techniques and habits, large companies often think that video content marketing is only viable for one or two departments. Favorably for them, this marketing style is applicable to all departments and can use re-purposed content.
With internal discussion, teams can figure out what should be shown, showcasing internal talent and success, or communicating to customers. Bigger companies also have bigger budgets, with the ability to outsource large video campaigns if needed.
Regardless of business size, video content marketing can be used to further engage audiences, creating greater ROI for companies both big and small.
Once brands and marketers have put effort and resources into videos that are successfully engaging, teams should think about how to best to maintain control of their content.
Internally, teams need to be mindful of where content is stored to maintain control of who (or who doesn’t) have access to it. Having the appropriate storage mechanism and process in place can easily solve this issue.
Maintaining control externally can be more challenging. Large streaming platforms, such as YouTube, are popular to use and seem accessible, but can control what happens to the content more than the original owner or producer can.
These large platforms will place ads before other users’ videos – sometimes ads that aren’t appropriate, misconstruing the views and professional morals of the brand. This can be risky and disrupt brand loyalty from consumers.
These large platforms also come with minimal guidance, leaving marketers in the dark to figure out how to successfully showcase videos and monitor engagement.
Smaller platforms better suited to tackle internal and external control issues are available, and brands and businesses should use them to house, manage and distribute their video content.
By doing so, they can maintain the power of their content, monitoring who sees it, where it lives, where it goes and its success.
As video content marketing continues to grow, both B2B and B2C companies will need to be smart about the content they create, and how it is stored, managed and distributed. By housing video in a central platform, it will be accessible and available for re-purposing. Reusing content will create greater ROI and promote brand loyalty the more impressions published video content receives.
Helen Aboagye is CMO at specialist video management company, Imagen. With over twenty years of marketing experience, Helen is responsible for developing the brand, corporate communications and demand generation programmes, as well as the company’s global go-to-market strategy.
