7 Reasons to Use Video in Your Marketing

People are inherently lazy. That’s what a scrooge would say when describing the target consumer of all businesses out there. Thanks to widely available internet and mobile devices, most people, when confronted with a choice of either reading about a product or watching a video about it, will invariably choose the video. It’s faster, easier to understand and definitely more fun. Scroogy marketers know that, and use it to their advantage.

In reality, you don’t need to have a mind for sarcasm to see that there are benefits to using video in marketing and sales. Video delivers information quickly and efficiently; it’s engaging, and it creates an instant emotional connection between yourself/your business and your audience.

That’s important because, with so much variety and competition in every business sector, people aren’t choosing products or services based on their objective value. They purchase things because they like the stories behind those things. And videos tell the most compelling stories.

Need more convincing? Here are a few more reasons to use video in your marketing:

1. Boost conversion rates and sales.

We absorb most of the information around us through sight. Even though it’s not the most accurate of the 5 senses, seeing something will make an impression much faster than other means of communication. Some studies have shown that adding product videos on landing pages increases the visitor conversion rate by up to 80 percent!

But – yes, there is a “but” – make sure you’re producing good quality, effective videos. That means using a script and directorial cues, adding a CTA and maybe even A/B testing to find the best video for your product/page. Just like creating any type of marketing collateral, start by knowing your audience and your objectives.

2. Huge help in building trust.

As you probably know, content marketing is all about creating long-term relationships, by building trust in the minds of your clients. This is probably one of the most important reasons to use video in your marketing: trust-building.

Show your clients useful, interesting and entertaining content, and sales will happen almost like an afterthought. Get some YouTube influencers onboard, and you’re set. The trick with using video to build trust is to present your products or services in a conversational form, not as an obvious piece of advertising.

Get closer to people, relate to them, solve their problems and gain their trust. Only then will they buy what you’re selling.

3. Search engine friendliness.

Third on our list of reasons to use video is SEO. Sorry, we had to bring it up. Search engines (especially Google) are paying a lot of attention to how much time your visitors spend on your site. The longer they spend consuming your content, the more Google assumes you have good information on your site (since your visitors spend so much time on it).

Also, because YouTube is now part of the Google ecosystem, the videos on your website tend to help more with search ranking. Never forget to optimize for SEO! Even your YouTube videos can be optimized by adding interesting, keyword-rich titles, descriptions and links back to your site or specific landing pages.

4. Higher appeal with mobile device users.

Stats show that mobile device users are the main consumers of video. Bearing in mind the steady growth in the mobile device market and the number of views on mobile devices, we can conclude that using video for marketing purposes is a sure bet.

Moreover, according to the same stats, mobile device users tend to feel a personal connection with brands that use video in their marketing, sooner than TV or desktop users. It is important though, when producing said videos, to keep in mind that people use their mobile devices for personal experiences, so don’t spam them.

5. Perfect tool to explain anything and everything.

On YouTube, explainer videos have some of the highest rankings. That happens because average people tend to better and easier understand complex information about a product or service if it is presented to them in video form. Many companies that have explainer videos on their homepages can attest to the fact that those videos really work.

If you need to explain a difficult concept, think about using animated videos. But do your research first! Animated videos need a bit more initial work to get the perfect combo of simplicity, entertainment and nostalgia.

6. Great return on investment.

One of the more pragmatc reasons to use video as a marketing tool is ROI. It used to be pretty costly and time-consuming to produce a marketing video. Not anymore. Today, due to better mobile devices, and some fairly effective (and free) online video processing tools, video production has become accessible to everyone.

In addition, studies show that viewers don’t mind an “OK” video instead of a “perfect” one as long as the quality of the content is satisfactory. What that means is you can shoot and cut a video on a mobile device and, if people like what you say and how you say it, you can get away with the less-than-perfect technical quality of video.

Even if you opt for a more professional setup to produce your videos, given how effective they are when done right, you’ll boost your sales, and make your money back in no time.

7. Encouraging social media shares.

Because video marketing has turned out to be so successful, everybody is rushing to get in on the “video” game (sorry for the pun; couldn’t help it). The main social networks encourage the use of video.

Do you need more reasons to use video in your marketing? YouTube is the SECOND MOST POPULAR social network on the planet! That says a lot.

There is a catch, though. When using video in social media settings, you need to remember that, on social media, people tend to share emotions instead of facts. Don’t make a dry explainer video and wonder why it’s not shared. Create something with high entertainment value, a.k.a. “fun”. You won’t see direct benefits, but you will get more traffic to your website. It’s up to you to find creative ways to use that traffic, like structuring your landing page for optimal conversion.

If you need help adding videos to your website, to your landing pages and even to your emails (yup, that’s right, the new frontier of video emails is here), get in touch with one of us at NerdPilots by hitting the chat button one of the many contact options below.

And don’t forget to share your stories in the comments. Do you have more reasons to use video in your marketing? Any resources you’d like to share? We’d love to hear about them.