Video marketing is not “the next big thing!” It's happening NOW!

If it's not in your marketing strategy, it needs to be. Video marketing plan is to connect with consumers, engage with them and convert them into paying customers.

With an increased push for videos on social media platforms such as Facebook, and a staggering popularity of video on Instagram and Twitter, these video marketing statistics will blow your mind.

Video has evolved to become one of the most indiscriminate and indisputable mediums of content dissemination and not only do 87% of Online Marketers employ it, nearly 45% of online audiences consume an hour of it each week! These video marketing statistics not only demonstrate the current dominance of video, not just among marketers and the audience, but also show why it’s not declining anytime soon.

Over 70% of marketers plan on incorporating video into their Facebook marketing strategy, whereas on the world’s current king of video content, YouTube, over 90% of marketers vouch for its effectiveness.

Leveraging video marketing is a powerful strategy to promote, brand, and grow your business online. More consumers are interacting with videos today than ever before and, in 2019, it’s vital to boost and ramp up your video marketing to connect with your audience.

Videos have a compelling way of fostering engagement, yielding results like click-through, shares, lead generation, and sales. It is indeed one of the best tactics to bring more exposure to your brand while helping you achieve your bottom-line.

Marketing via video is the biggest way to reach people today. It is nearly unstoppable. Instagram, the photo sharing app phenom acquired by Facebook for X billion announced IGTV this week to add one hour “long form” video options to its platform.

It is rather obvious I am saying video in marketing is essential today. Most of us in business or marketing know this, but many are still sitting on the fence, not producing, not creating video. Partially, because it isn't easy to do and comes with a bit of a learning curve. It has a bit of fear factor to it. Many of us do not want to be on-camera. There are other options, of course, and many examples exist of product demos or tutorials where there is no person on-screen, just a voice. 

The Value of Video Marketing

Put simply, search engines, social media, and internet consumers have a love affair with videos. While written blogs still deliver value, it’s clear that the content marketing industry is trending towards more visual and less textual content. As a marketer or business owner, you’ll begin to extract more value from your content marketing efforts as soon as you realize this. In particular, here’s why you need to pay attention to video:

Search Engines

Google loves video. That much was clear when they acquired YouTube in 2006. If you need further proof, just look at the search results for a given query. Almost any “how to” search is returned with a handful of video results near the top of the page. Searching for a song? You’ll likely see a couple music videos. Search engines love video – and so should you.

Social Media

Today’s social networking sites are saturated with video. Not only is video content popular on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but entire networks – such as Vine, Snap-chat, and Periscope – have been developed around video.

Internet Consumers

Savvy internet consumers love video because it bridges the gap between online shopping and the traditional in-store experience. Video can be used to showcase products and give online shoppers a better idea of what they’re buying. Video is especially valuable for businesses that sell technical products and services at higher end price points.

As you can see, the value of video is more than a shallow attraction. From search engines to searchers, video is held in the highest regard in today’s internet marketing landscape. Regardless of whether you’re a local “mom and pop” store or a multinational corporation, your ears should be perking up right about now. Video is still largely underutilized and your business can gain a massive advantage over the competition by investing resources into video strategies in 2019.

Examples of Effective Video Marketing

For businesses that are unfamiliar with video marketing, it’s always helpful to see effective examples. While there are hundreds of different strategies – and no two videos are ever the same – the following three stick out for diverse reasons.

Dragon corporate video - Sometimes customers want to learn a bit more about a company before doing business together. This is particularly true in B2B industries where choosing the right vendor is everything. Instead of just writing a standard “About Us” page, Dragon Products, Ltd. decided to produce a high-quality corporate video. The feature video does a nice job of showcasing the business in a positive and professional light.

Taulia parody videos - Businesses have to be really cautious when it comes to infusing comedy into corporate videos. If you swing and miss, it can be costly. However, if you’re able to get it right, it can pay dividends, Taulia has found immense success in creating parody videos of popular TV commercials. In one video, the company mimics the old “Get a Mac” ads. It’s successful because it puts an interesting spin on a relatively dull topic.

Oracle’s Modern Marketing series - Once you start paying attention to video marketing, you’ll quickly notice that most brands mess up by failing to be creative. If you want to succeed, you can’t be afraid of trying something new. That’s exactly what Oracle did when developing a video series called “Modern Mark’s Journey to Modern Marketing.” The videos are unique, the format is different, and it works.

These three videos aren’t related to each other in any way, yet they’re equally effective for the sponsoring brand. Each video speaks to the brand’s target market and serves the purpose of educating or engaging. Video is a powerful content medium, and these videos show why.

How Analytics Is Defining Video Marketing Industry

Advances in video platform analytics have radically changed online advertising, most notably in the ability to measure user traits on various platforms. These days, almost every brand or business has hopped aboard the bandwagon of YouTube, Facebook and Instagram for their video marketing strategies.

And due to the complete freedom in the creative process unlike advertising on T.V, brands are creating more varied types of video content to engage their potential customers. One aspect that remains the same for all video campaigns is the usage of insightful/predictive analytics to create and market their ad campaigns.

Recently, a survey from smarterinsights.com showed that content marketing and big data are the only two marketing techniques that marketers will use in 2019. Plus, as per Forbes, 60% of businesses said they spend more than a quarter of their marketing budget on video. Thus, creating a content strategy using insights from big data analysis can accelerate the campaign performance by 80%.

For me, one of the prime examples of a brand using insightful analytics is Netflix. Apart from using an algorithm to predict viewing recommendations for its users, Netflix understands its users by evaluating insights based on their previous actions. In this scenario, Netflix has an advantage of analyzing its platform.

But, what about insights on other platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram?

Given today’s competitive environment, brands are looking for customized individual insights to stay ahead of the pack. It is important for platforms to understand what industries want and what they want to innovate into.

To assist media companies, brands and agencies to take smarter & accurate decisions on their digital video strategies. We have divided our analytics into five different factors, like media planning content strategy, market intelligence, audience insights, and AD insights. Using insightful/predictive analytics, we saw a significant improvement in the ad campaigns and provided content ideas for our client’s video commercials and insights for digital programming strategy.

To conclude, about 65% of Indian brands are already using video marketing analytics to achieve better ad campaign results. In the world of predictive analytics, every industry has its own requirements. Analyzing the level of impact on various trends on video platforms provides a competitive edge for a brand.

The beauty of video marketing is it’s accessible to businesses of any size and stage. This is why every brand is bound to use insightful/predictive analytics before they spend millions on ad promotions.

What's the future of video marketing in India?

Video marketing is primarily used to promote brands

Face-to-face video chat dramatically improves client service

Video chat works well for this interaction as a result of it helps you identify problems quicker through show-and-tell methods whereas building rapport with agents. Agents can guide customers through complicated or confusing directions and create the sense of presence that was lost when in-store workers began replacement on-line looking carts.

Video chat will increase your sales

Video is the next evolution of live chat. It speeds up interaction with your company and brings a face to the sales process, and it allows agents to gauge interest and pick up subtle sales cues through body language and voice inflection.

Video chat increases the chance that a customer will leave an interaction successfully due in part to the visual information and communication from the agents answering their questions. This means that you will have lower contact center costs

Strategies To Use Video In Your Marketing

And now that you know how effective it can be, here's how you can use video in your marketing strategy. These tactics are sure to provide you with the results you're looking for.

• Use videos to share your brand’s story. Allow viewers to experience your passion and zeal for the market you serve
• Live-streaming videos are all the rave now! Take advantage of Facebook Live, Periscope, and Instagram Stories to engage with your social media followers through sharing your blog content, reporting breaking news, or inviting them backstage to your next event
• Upload videos directly to Facebook versus sharing videos from YouTube to boost organic reach
• Create videos for each of your products, especially your flagship one. Illustrate how to use it, the benefits, features and specs. The more you educate your audience on its use, the better success they’ll have
• Re-purpose popular blog posts into a video series to extend its reach
• Include videos in your email content. Be sure to put the word “Video” in the subject line
• Use an editorial calendar to help you organize, plan and schedule your videos so it aligns with your business goals and keeps you consistent

Again, video is not just important, it is an essential part of marketing for our modern age. And, whether you’re advertising yogurt, music, or the next big social media platform, it’s important to have a steady stream (pun intended) of video content. Just ask the millennial's across social media platforms or their super-popular channels, or ask Instagram why they added the new IGTV. You can't live without video in your marketing toolbox. 

Tap into the Power of Corporate Video Marketing

The power of video permeates the internet. From search engines and corporate websites to YouTube and social networking platforms, video is everywhere. If you want your brand’s content marketing strategy to remain relevant in the coming months and years, it’s imperative that you begin leveraging video alongside your other efforts.

While traditional blogs may never go out of style, it’s becoming increasingly clear that video will play a significant role in content marketing in 2019 and beyond. Now is the time to start experimenting with it…you’ll be glad you did.

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