At IMS Marketing, we work mainly with SME’s across a range of industries and one of the questions we are regularly asked is “How can I attract new customers?”. Attracting new customers is one of the most difficult parts of marketing, especially in this fast-paced digital world we live in. However, it is critical for small to medium businesses to find innovative ways to help attract new leads and ensure that your company’s product or services stand out from the crowd.
For growing businesses, video marketing is becoming an increasingly important tool to add to your strategic marketing plan that will help you attract new customers and grow your brand online. There has been a major increase in video consumption, which like many things these days, can be attributed to the phenomenal rise in mobile phone usage with over 50% of all video plays being on mobile devices.
This coupled with videos rise in importance on social media which actively encourages video content and introducing new features that supports it. Facebook launched Lifestage (A Video-Centric App for Teenagers) as well as 3600 Video and Live Video. Instagram has also focused on video by extending videos to 60-Seconds and Twitter has introduced Periscope. And if that wasn’t enough, YouTube is the second most popular social network in the world, after Google!
And this trend is set to continue according to a recent report by Cisco, who predict that video traffic will account for over 80% of all consumer internet traffic globally by 2021.
So, while video marketing isn’t new, the continued rise in video consumption is going to place an importance on including this medium as a powerful and effective addition to your digital marketing strategy.
We understand that videos can take a lot of time and effort to produce, especially to do them right, but the benefits of videos cannot be denied and video marketing should be seen by SME’s as an investment that will see greater returns when supported by other digital marketing tools and online promotion. So, when you ask yourself, do I need videos to grow my business? Keep on reading to find out why video marketing should not be ignored in your digital marketing plan.
The Benefits of Video Marketing
1. Exposure
The easier it is for your customers to find out about you, the better your chances of engaging with them and converting them into actual customers. Video makes it easier for companies to get found online and can make the difference between getting noticed and getting ahead of the competition.
And when it comes to reaching your customers, four times as many consumers would rather watch a video than read about it (Source). Not only are people watching more and more video, but they are also more likely to keep watching a video than they are to engage in other types of content. Video is the most shared content on social media which is why videos should become the superstars of your marketing tool kit.
Excluding video means you will be missing out on a huge opportunity to increase your digital footprint, magnify your reach and prompt your audience to act.
2. SEO Boosting Effects
I have said it before but I think that it is worth mentioning again, YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, which Google now owns by the way, so it may explain why there has been a significant increase in the effect that videos have on your SEO rankings. According to Moovly, you are 53 times more likely to rank first on Google if you have a You Tube video embedded on your website.
You can further improve your online visibility when you take it to the next step and promote your video via social media as part of an integrated marketing strategy. When you are an SME trying to get exposure and reach your potential customers, organic rankings are a must if your potential customers are going to find you. If they can’t find you, you are dead in the water!
3. Improved Communication and Understanding
There are certain occasions when videos have the edge over all other means of communication and that is when you are trying to explain, introduce or demonstrate a new product or service to your intended audience.
If you have an intricate product or service, video visually help your audience to understand your products or services much more effectively than written text can do. When launching a new product or a service video can effectively show how it works and illustrate associated benefits. Research indicates that 98% of users say they’ve watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service before a purchase. (Source)
There is no better medium to use when you are trying to explain a difficult or novel concept. Creating animated videos can simplify complex ideas and clearly bring products to life that would be extremely difficult otherwise. Animated videos are a perfect combination of entertainment, novelty, education and simplicity. And they work.
4. Videos Are Very Persuasive
Increasingly people are turning to You Tube to watch videos before making a buying decision. That is because videos are a powerful visual medium that can engage and inform viewers, tell stories, demonstrate ideas and communicate much better than the written word. It is very difficult for a consumer to fully imagine how a product might work from looking at a few pictures alone, or how your services may help by reading lots of text. A video can provide a full visual and audio account of what your product actually does and how it should be used. It is also a great way of answering many questions that your customer may have and therefore satisfy any reservations they may have about buying from you.
5. Boosts Conversation Rates
Watching an informative video can speed up the decision-making process and turn warm leads into sales. At the end of the day, businesses are about selling and to get people buying you need them to act.
Watching a compelling video can have a major influence on buying behaviour and persuade a viewer to purchase your product more effectively than any other form of content. They can serve as built-in tutorials, product demos or testimonials, depending on the angle you’re going for.
When it comes to email marketing the biggest challenge is getting people to open your email. People connect to video in a way that is unparalleled by other forms of content, which is why it’s the perfect tool to get an audience to take action.
An introductory email that includes a video can improve click-through rates by a staggering 96%, and including a video on your website landing page can increase conversions by 80% (Source). There are very few SME’s that would turn their back on conversions and results like this!
6. Video Strengthens Your Marketing Strategy
Adding video to your content strategy is be a big jump in the right direction for improving visibility and engagement for your brand in 2017. It can perfectly complement your current marketing strategy. Video marketing can easily be used to translate your current content into a more visual and engaging format.
If you’re doing weekly blogs, you can convert your blogs into a video format. Helpful how-to blogs can be made into how-to videos. A business presentation can be turned into a corporate video that introduces personality and fosters trust. If you have a new product to launch you can embed a video on your website or emails to boost conversions and click-throughs.
Video marketing can be the star of your strategic marketing plan offering your target audience another format to find out more about what your business has to offer and share it with their peers. An integrated marketing plan that incorporates videos will help your business to increase brand awareness, get ahead of the competition and stay there.
Conclusion
There is no denying the benefits of video in today’s environment and it’s ability to enable small to medium companies to stay ahead of the competition and help fuel ongoing business growth. We are all super busy nowadays and don’t have the time to read long product descriptions or delve deeper into services to find out more. The modern customer wants to be able to understand your offering quickly and easily.
Developing videos that are created specifically for your brand that can integrate with your current marketing strategy will appeal to your target customers, boost online visibility and improve your website performance. This is your opportunity to get ahead and use video now – before your competitors do.
If you are interested in finding out more about video marketing and how it can benefit your business, contact IMS Marketing today. [email protected]