With the rise of Virtual Reality, 360 video, Facebook Live, etc, video marketing isn’t just the next big thing in marketing, it’s here and it’s exploded in popularity. If you haven’t started to build your video marketing strategy, there is a very good chance that you are falling behind your competitors. This trend is not going away and it will evolve extremely fast. We have seen our Facebook feeds be dominated by more video and live video, virtual reality is finally going to make its mark this year, major brands are already using augmented reality and 360 video is becoming increasingly popular by marketers. Plus, people are now watching 1 billion hours of YouTube videos per day.
No matter the industry in you are in, 80% of your customers’ time spent online is watching videos. What does this mean for you? It means that if you’re not creating videos now, soon enough you’ll be missing a serious opportunity to better engage your consumers.
Here are 5 Reasons Why Your Brand Needs a Video Marketing Strategy
1. Video Allows For Interactive Storytelling
Today’s marketers are storytellers. We have to paint the picture of our brand, product, destination and how consumers’ are benefiting from the product or experiencing the destination.
2. Video Content Has A Long-Shelf Life
Your video doesn’t have to be a state-of-the-art production, it can be simple and done in-house. When I was creating videos, I did it in house with a GoPro, a Canon handheld and my phone. Either way, your video will have a shelf-life of several years, even longer. It is also higher value content that you may be more inclined to utilize over a longer period of time. Plus, you can break your video up into short little snippets or gifs to use in social media. Videos are also shared more often than your standard text page, and tend to stick around in the social feeds longer because of this. This is especially true if it is directly uploaded to Facebook and Twitter.
I recently experienced this, as my friend Vicky Soderberg of Cygnet Strategies, used my Six Flags Great America Goliath video in her Tourism Trends presentation to a room of economic developers. Granted, it was probably on of my favorite videos that I created when I worked at the convention & visitors bureau, but this particular video was created 3 years. YES, 3 years ago!! It goes to show that if you produce great content, it will continue to viewed for a long time.
3. Video is Social
Every single marketer is a publisher now, in our own right. Today, your customers are hanging out on Social Media and the majority of your websites traffic should now be coming from social. I am not going to tell you how crucial social media is to your marketing strategy. You are now competing for everyone one of your customers’ attention, instead of against your competition. You can cut through the noise and capitalize on where your customers are most active with compelling video content. As long as you are providing genuine messages and answering your customers questions, your video marketing strategy will outshine your other marketing efforts.
4. Video Creates Brand Awareness and Shows Your Personality
In today’s world, your audience constructs brand perception based entirely on your brand communications. If you want your brand to be known for something, you need to show it. You need to provide your customer with what they are looking for before someone else does. Video content can be created in way that doesn’t just tell your brand’s story, but shows it. Creating a video that is lively and vibrant in its edit can help communicate the nature of your brand. Show the personality of your brand through your video, the more fun and inviting the more people with view it and share it. Be yourself.
5. Google Loves Video Content
By embedding videos on your site, it will increase the time spent on the site by visitors. The long exposure signals to search engines that your site has good content. Since Google owns YouTube, there is a significant increase on how much videos affect your search engine rank. Which is why you want to make sure that your videos on YouTube are optimized for SEO. You want to include things like, a link back to your website, products and services, and write interesting titles and descriptions. Provide your viewers with a way to take the next step. Explore the world of interactive video to encourage even more actions.
Video is extremely hot right now and should be included in your marketing strategy. These are just my 5 reasons on why your organization should have a video marketing strategy. How has your brand benefited from creating videos?
