In this post you will learn why video is a must have and some simple video tips and strategies to make your videos shine in 2015.
When it comes to content marketing, the role of video is becoming increasingly clear. Today, more than ever, companies are realizing that video has a key role to play in the content marketing strategy. It is a tool for capturing the user’s attention and delivering a brand message in a memorable and meaningful way.
If your company has not made the move to incorporating video into the content marketing mix, it is a must for 2015. The following information will provide some background on why video is an integral part of any successful content marketing strategy and also provide some useful tips as to best practices for doing so.
What is the Market Like for Video Marketing?
When assessing the market for video, marketing numbers tell the story well. More users, are watching more videos, more frequently than ever. According to comScore, a company which tracks online engagement, just over 45% of internet users viewed at least one video per month, and the average user is exposed to an average of 32 videos per month.
Looking further into the data we see that the average number of internet users who watch video each day has reached 100 million. When it comes to video in the retail space, 90% of shoppers at major retailers indicated that video played an important part in making purchasing decisions. Within companies themselves, video is also proving to be important, as 75% of executives told Forbes that they watch work-related videos on business websites at least once a week.
The key takeaway here is that video is no longer an optional part of a comprehensive content marketing strategy, it’s crucial.
How Many Marketers are Using Videos?
A recent report of almost 400 marketing and business professionals, conducted by Demand Metric in conjunction with Ascend2, revealed that 69% of respondents had already begun to make use of video marketing. On the other hand, 31% were planning to integrate video marketing into their strategy moving forward (anyone not interesting in video marketing was removed from the survey).
Video is the Preferred Form of Marketing Content
Aberdeen Group research report which examines how the best organizations utilize video in their content marketing strategies compared with the industry average and companies late to the game, noted that video has become the preferred form of marketing content.
The report acknowledges that video marketing is utilized by over 90% of the companies surveyed and that it is playing an ever-growing part in the content marketing mix thanks to a significant positive contribution to ROI. The research concluded that video marketing was the most popular form of content, followed by white papers and 3rd party research.
What Are Videos Being Used For?
While the survey conducted by Demand Metric and Ascend2 indicates that video is quickly becoming a preferred form of marketing content, it is worth examining its role within the context of content marketing to understand the purposes for which video marketing is proving to be effective.
According to the survey, when it comes to making use of videos in marketing, video is the preferred form of content used for building brand awareness (52%). It is followed by lead generation (45%) and online engagement (42%).
How Effective Are the Different Uses of Video?
Although research indicates that videos are being used primarily for building brand awareness, lead generation and online engagement, it’s also worth examining their effectiveness when being utilized in the following contexts to obtain a better understanding of where video marketing is most effective.
According to the survey by Demand Metric and Ascend2, the primary placement of videos was on the brand website (81%) – but videos were most effective in the second most popular placement location – video sharing sites such as YouTube (26%). The brand website was in fact, found to be the second most effective distribution channel.
Marketing Results for Video Marketing
No examination of the use of video in online marketing would be complete without looking to some of the benefits, so let’s dig into the important metrics which highlight the positive results for video marketing:
According to the Online Publishers Association, 80% of internet users recalled watching a video ad on a website they visited within the last 30 days. Of those, 46% took some sort of action after viewing the ad by searching for more information, visiting the advertiser’s website or purchasing the product featured in the ad.
Further examination of other statistics included in the report, supports the evidence that video marketing increases sales and leads. Additionally, it shows that those businesses who are not leveraging video marketing, are losing customers to those who do.
How to Make Video Marketing More Effective
Now that we now know just how important it is to include video in your marketing strategy, let’s examine some techniques for making your videos more effective in driving brand awareness, lead generation and online engagement.
Video Length Matters
Research by Visible Measures said that marketers have 10 seconds to grab the viewers’ attention in a marketing clip. Furthermore, 20% of users will click away from the video in 10 seconds or less. Then, by the 2 minute mark, you can expect to see 60% of users clicking away. These numbers seem to hold true irrespective of the video duration. When it comes to platforms, desktop users seem to have an attention span of around 2 minutes or less, while mobile users seem to stay a little longer, around 2.4 minutes.
In order for your video marketing efforts to be truly effective, in addition to being engaging right from the start, it’s important to pay attention to your video analytics data to gain insight into user behavior. You can then tweak and improve your messaging.
New Trends in Video Distribution
The next important factor is where you place your videos. One of the major trends important to note in video distribution is YouTube’s declining market share. An increasing number of content marketers are opting to upload their videos directly to Facebook, rather than publishing them to YouTube and sharing the links on Facebook. See the illustrative graph below from Social Bakers.
The end result is that Facebook is retaining traffic at YouTube’s expense. Keep this in mind when deciding where and how to post your videos.
Quality Content
Next is the quality of your videos. As with all forms of content used in the marketing mix, quality counts. Here are a few tips for producing stellar video content which not only engages users, but can offer SEO benefits as well:
- Video content should solve problems and provide new information
In order to produce engaging videos which rank well, you need to solve user problems and provide new, useful information.
- Make videos user friendly
Make your video content easy to browse, link to and share. Create a user-friendly video section where your users can easily search and view your content. Try to focus on creating a separate landing page for each of your videos, rather than embedding several into a single page.
- Use interactive elements
Make use of interactive video elements to connect with viewers. These include in-video links, quizzes, surveys and forms, all of which can create engagement opportunities at the correct moment and prompt users to take desired actions.
SEO Content
You spend a lot of time and energy creating video for your audience, so make sure that you make the most of it by optimizing it for search. Well optimized and relevant videos can deliver traffic over a long period of time.
- Use Transcriptions
Transcriptions can have a major positive impact on your search rankings when utilized properly to improve indexing, usability and content quality. To unlock the content of your video, and make it available to search engines for indexing, include a transcription directly within the HTML of the pages that the videos are hosted on. This also benefits users who are unable to watch it or listen to the audio.
- Host Videos on Your Own Domain
This is possibly the most powerful tactic which can be leveraged to extract the maximum SEO value from your videos. Video sharing sites have their place, but by not hosting your own videos, you’re passing traffic off to other sites and giving away the credit.
- Allow Embedding
By making it easy for users to share and embed your videos on their sites, you’re essentially increasing the potential for building inbound links to your own site. This is a major bonus in terms of SEO, as well as increasing your exposure.
- Use Keywords
When creating your videos, remember which keywords you’re targeting in order to include them in your transcripts and titles. You then maximize your chances of generating traffic from search engines for relevant searches being performed by users.
- Create Catchy Titles
Making use of catchy titles in not only something reserved for content writers. By ensuring that your videos have catchy, memorable titles, you’re maximizing your chances of user engagement and driving traffic from searches.
- Provide Thorough Descriptions
When embedding or publishing your videos to social sites such as YouTube, it’s essential to include a thorough description (which includes your keyword) telling users (and search bots) what your video is about. This maximizes the chances of getting traffic and exposure from searches.
- Use Tags
When it comes to online video, tags make a difference. Consider using your keywords, as well as words which your target audience may use in searches when tagging your videos.
- Use Sitemaps
When embedding videos on your own site, it’s important to make use of video sitemaps to assist search engine bots with accessing and indexing your self-hosted video content. Google provides excellent guidance on this subject.
The Best in Class Video Marketers Agree
The Aberdeen Group’s research study of best-in-class marketers, highlighted that best-in-class firms are not only likely to incorporate video into the content marketing mix, but also that companies making use of video were more effective in content marketing. Additionally, they reported better performance across several key metrics. The research also highlighted a few other key factors which are worth noting with respect to video:
- Internal / Outsourced Mix of Getting Videos Made
No longer is video production confined to large companies with big budgets for resources and equipment. With the advent of modern technology, and outsourcing solutions, it’s becoming increasingly less expensive to produce video content.
- Make Quality Videos with Good Content
With the right content strategy, and combination of inexpensive production tools, it’s possible for small businesses to get onboard and produce high quality videos with good content.
- Videos Must Be the Appropriate Length
Depending on the nature and purpose of the video being produced, a video only needs to be long enough to engage the user and deliver the message in a meaningful and memorable manner. This can be accomplished with short videos of 3 minutes or less.
- 9% Increase in Conversions for Websites Using Video
The research conducted found that the average conversion rate for video content users was 1.9% higher than that of non-users.
New Trends in Video Distribution
One of the major trends important to note in video distribution is YouTube’s declining market share. An increasing number of content marketers are opting to upload their videos directly to Facebook, rather than publishing them to YouTube and sharing the links on Facebook. The end result is that Facebook is retaining traffic at YouTube’s expense. Keep this in mind when deciding where and how to post your videos. MavSocial recently wrote an article discussing this trend.
Predictions for 2015 from Industry Experts
Lee Odden from TopRank Blog recently quizzed a number of industry experts about their predictions for video marketing in 2015. It’s clear that the predictions support the evidence that video is becoming increasingly important part of digital strategy and that the medium will continue to mature and evolve.
DJ Waldow, Digital Marketing Evangelist at Marketo summed it up nicely. “2015 will be the year of HUMAN for digital marketers. Gone are the days of corporate-speak messaging and dull, boring campaigns. Instead, we’ll begin to see more marketers incorporate human-speak into their messaging – videos, pictures, humor, and human!”
Through this article you have learnt the importance of incorporating video into your digital marketing strategy in 2015 and how to get started. The important takeaway here is that it’s better to start now and get to grips with the medium, rather than start later and lose ground to competitors who are already taking video onboard. Make 2015 your year for rolling out an engaging content marketing strategy which includes video content, you’ll be glad you did.
MavSocial allows marketers to easily store, manage and publish videos and other rich media directly to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Tumblr, so why not sign up for a free account now and see how MavSocial can help make your social media marketing easier.
From MavSocial | Complete Social Media Visual Content Management & Publishing Software
