Should You Invest in Video Marketing? How Can It Help Your Brand and Rankings?
When done right, video marketing can be a powerful tool to complement text on a page, especially as users remember visuals much more easily than written copy. However, you’ve got to be careful because videos, at the same time, can be annoying for users, which might cause them to bounce from your site rather than engage with it. So, getting the formula right is essential, especially if you want to keep customers engaged.
What the data tells us
- Businesses using video marketing grew their revenue 49% faster than those that didn’t.
- Videos generate significantly more engagement on social media than text or images.
- Videos are not appreciated as much on websites as on social media unless they are in headers and gif format.
- 90% of consumers reported video content helped them make their purchasing decisions.
- In 2019, 80% of internet traffic was attributed to internet videos.
- On average, Facebook generates 8 billion video views per day.
- YouTube reports that the number of users using mobiles to view videos has grown by 100% annually.
- Only 8% of users do not share videos with others.
- Videos on Facebook have a 135% greater organic reach than photos.
- A video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80%.
Why videos are good for business
- Videos humanise your brand and have a better chance to connect with users. Proof can be seen with YouTube entrepreneurs, who post informative content to help create a deeper relationship with their viewers – and it works!
- Video content makes content on web pages more digestible. For example, length articles can sometimes feel too much, and video content, in this instance, breaks it down in digestible form and motivates them to engage further into the page.
- Video is simply more memorable. It’s much easier to recall engaging videos you saw some time ago than recalling information you read.
- Videos help users stick with your product. How-to explainer videos help users get the most out of your services when they might have otherwise given up if they couldn’t easily figure out how to use something.
But don’t just jump on the bandwagon
As more and more brands see their competitors making videos and doing well, businesses hastily rush into developing videos for themselves – but they often get this horribly wrong. Many businesses make the mistake of making users interested in things like their story, mission, values, what they stand for, etc., especially when the brand is not recognisable.
Other websites on the internet will tell you to create a buying persona, write a script, use CTAs, etc, for a successful video, but none of that matters if what you create is not interesting to your target audience. Hence, we have an emergence of online content creators who don’t just get lucky with their videos (all the time) but have original thought and likeability.
Mistakes with video marketing
- Making a video just to make a video
- Not having a broader marketing plan and distribution strategy
- Not relying on professionals in this area
- Understanding or making different videos for different platforms
- Failing to brand your video
- Making the video too long (30-60 seconds)
- Not focusing on a single message or topic
- Failing to implement basic SEO practices
- Expecting instant results or that people will care
- Improper placement of selling points
- Incorrectly placing the video on your site, for example, autoplay on and looped videos that are not muted
- Not being creative enough and having no original thought
- Being too promotional or having a hard sell
- Not creating unique videos per channel
- Thinking going viral is amazing for business
Learn how to do video marketing the right way.
How video marketing can be good for SEO
Good marketers use videos to improve their Google positions. For example, websites that use video often see a search engine boost as it increases their page quality score and lengthens the time a user spends on the page and engages.
You might have noticed that videos take up a lot of real estate within the results pages, both on mobile and desktop, when using Google search. This can be annoying in some cases when you want a quick answer and don’t want to have to watch a video for it. But it does show how Google rewards and values video content. You’ll even find videos located within rich snippets.
