Video isn’t the future of content marketing. It’s the present.
Marketing strategists like to claim that video is the future of content marketing, but that’s not entirely true. Yes, video is the future. Nearly 80% of all Internet traffic will be video by the year 2018. But if you haven’t incorporated video into your advertising campaign, you’re already late in the game. The time for video is now. After all, video ads grew 34% last year – the fastest in any online ad medium. It’s clear that video is essential to any content strategy. If you’re not using video, you better think twice… your competitors surely are.
“Far outpacing growth in spending on television and other digital formats, it’s not hard to understand what makes online video so compelling to business advertisers. Video ads obtain the highest level of engagement and provide a level of visual and narrative richness, while offering all the advantages of digital, including advanced targeting, tracking, and increasingly, automated buying of video ad units.”
Video drives growth and increases sales
A picture is worth a thousand words, but one minute of video is worth 1.8 million. Whether it’s a personal ad or a business commercial, video builds trust and credibility with an audience. In fact, studies show that more than 80% of people say they are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it, and Forrester predicts that more than 90% of the online population will watch online videos regularly by 2017.
Browse through your Facebook News Feed and you’ll see a GoPro video of your buddy’s recent vacation in Mexico. Scroll through Twitter and you might happen across a warm, heartfelt video of a lost puppy in a Budweiser commercial. It’s just that simple; video ads are everywhere. Posting a video increases the chances of a customer making a purchase by up to 35 percent. That’s right – online video ads generate 27 times more traffic than standard banner ads.
Amazon, Dell, and other online retailers have publicly shared statistics showing that a posted video can increase the odds of a customer purchasing an item by as much as 35 percent. Results from Online Publishers association’s research show that after watching video, 12% purchased the specific product in the ad and 26% looked for more information about the subject of the video.
Video Increases Social Media Engagement
A young boy retweets a Nike video of his favorite athlete and that video instantly reaches a new network of people. One of his followers retweets the same video and boom. You get the picture. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites have wonderful sharing opportunities for video. Where else can you reach millions of people in a matter of seconds?
People are most likely to engage with branded content on social media when companies share either picture or video. In fact, one in five Twitter users discover videos each day from tweeted links. If brands are smart, they will capitalize on video through apps like Instagram and Vine. Check out this brilliant move by Oreo:
Still not convinced? Consider this: more than 80% of shoppers say that their friends on social media platforms directly impact their purchasing decisions, and 4 in 10 social media users have purchased an item online or in-store after sharing or favoriting it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. And ever since Pinterest introduced the buy button, sales have skyrocketed. Social media and video go hand in hand – you can’t have one without the other.
Video Increases SEO and Improves Email Marketing
Nothing else boosts engagement like video. Did you know that YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine? Incorporating video on a web page makes it 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google. And hey, let’s face it – people are lazy. We prefer to watch videos rather than read. Especially with autoplay on Facebook and Twitter, users are more than willing to watch a 30-second video instead of clicking a link to a news article. Landing pages with video can increase conversions by 80%. When searching a topic on Google, over 60% of the results include video.
Yes, SEO matters. But did you know that marketers consistently rank email as having a higher return on investment (ROI) than any other marketing strategy? Video increases email click-through rates by 200-300%, therefore almost tripling the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. If your business doesn’t have video, you’re in the minority.
Want to use video ads in your marketing campaign? Check us out. Viddyad is an easy-to-use platform that enables businesses to create and publish their own video ads online in minutes. With an in-built content library, easy-to-use editor and affordable pricing, Viddyad opens up the world of video advertising to everyone.
Viddyad Blog 