Video Marketing: Why You Need To Start ASAP!

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Fundamentally, the goal of advertising has always been to have your business stand out in your marketplace from your competition and be chosen (and remembered) by consumers. Most small to medium size businesses that I work with constantly have the struggle of wanting to do everything to stand out, while keeping a mindful eye of staying within a budget for their marketing efforts. Advertising your business in such a fragmented marketspace  today can get costly and without measures in place to determine what the best mediums to market with, it’s hard to figure out how you can capture a low-cost marketing ROI?  That answer is simple: Video Marketing.

When it comes to social and online marketing, video marketing has taken its place as a leader in attracting new customers. According to comScore, just over 45% of internet users viewed at least one video per month, and the average user is exposed to 32 videos per month. Companies are realizing that video has a dominant role to play in your content marketing-mix strategy. Video marketing captures the users attention and gives you the opportunity to deliver your message in an easy format that everyone can understand. Here are some great statistics on Video marketing:

90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60K times faster in the brain than text according to Zabisco. Invisia reports that viewers also retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.

•  52% of consumers say that watching a video makes them more confident in online purchase decisions according to Invodo.
• 92% of mobile users share videos with others according to Invodo.
• 87% of online marketers use video content according to Outbrain.
• 46% of users take ACTION after viewing a video according to Online Publishers Association
• 59% of executives would rather watch a video than read text according to Forbes.
• 800% increase in conversion on websites that have videos on their landing pages vs. websites without according to Orion 21
• Blogs that incorporate video attract 3-times as many inbound links as blogs without video.

One of the biggest questions I get asked when discussing video marketing is how long a video should be? Statistics show that 20% of users will click away from a video in 10 seconds or less. If your video is over 2-minutes, you can expect a 60% drop of users clicking away from your video. It seems like the attention span for desktop and mobile users capacity to watch a single video is about 2 minutes. The ? sweet spot ? for most custom video marketing pieces should be one minute.

If video marketing is great for local businesses to stand out in the marketplace, what is the best vessel to reach your current and prospects through video? Most individuals host their video’s on YouTube. Why? Google owns Youtube. Videos hosted on Youtube appear in more than half of all searches on Google. Makes sense to put your video on Youtube right? By creating a video, you can separately upload your video to social media networks like Facebook. Once they are uploaded, create or add these videos to your website through an embedding process. This can create a valuable link for your SEO on your website and hopefully increase your position on search engines over time.

How do I take advantage of video marketing? The best thing about video marketing can be the ability to connect consumers with your business without them even contacting you yet! They will understand who you are, what you do, what the inside of your shop looks like, and who might be answering the phone when they call. Due to this, there are companies that specialize in creating professional custom videos that take your business to the next level. This gives you an opportunity to connect what I call high-tech with a high-touch customer service while also putting your best foot forward for that all important first impression. I recommend AT LEAST ONE professionally crafted video to use when marketing your business.

If your business is on a tight budget, however, there are still great ways to take advantage of video marketing. Businesses can use their own smartphone cameras and create a ? grassroots ? video marketing campaign in their store or ? on-location ? for services businesses. They also can set-up product launches, special events or tutorials through video marketing and share that those on your website and through social media! What type of story can you tell that can fulfill a need in your local marketplace and position you as a leader in the industry while simultaneously building your brand?

Micro-videos have been a great tool for businesses to create a 10-second commercial, promotion or testimonial from their consumers and using that on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Vimeo and Instagram. Customers can quickly view messages on their social media feeds. Get your customers involved! Ask customers that had a great experience with your company for a quick ten second video reference! They almost never write a positive review on Yelp or Google, so capture their review through video! (Make sure you have them sign a waiver for legal purposes).

Video Marketing is here, and it is powerful! By 2017 video marketing will take up 74% of all online traffic according to Syndacast. Video marketing can be a cost-effective way to market your business with professionally created content as well as DIY marketing. Take advantage of a medium that reaches customers in an easy to understand format with statistically proven success rate! 

Author's Note: If you enjoyed this article please like, comment and share it and "follow me."

Alex Kowalkoski is currently serving as a Senior Account Manager within Dex Media Inc. selling print and digital marketing/advertising solutions to small and medium size businesses throughout the Chicagoland and area (PPC, SEO, Mobile Marketing, Custom Websites etc) . If you enjoyed this article please like, comment share it and ? follow me. ? If you are interested in learning more about marketing solutions and how I can help grow your business feel free to contact me at [email protected] 

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Video Marketing: Why You Need To Start ASAP!