Why Marketers Should Integrate Video Marketing Into Their Content Strategy

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There’s no denying that we’re witnessing a shift in the way content marketing is delivered. The rise of “stories” on Instagram and Facebook has changed the way brands deliver messages to their audiences. While there was once a time when long pages of text (like this) dominated content marketing strategies, today’s market is shifting toward the ephemeral, the fun and the visual.

A recent study found that 83% of marketers believe that video marketing is becoming more important for reaching and engaging new audiences. Among millennial audiences, two-thirds of social media users reported engaging with a brand after watching a video posted on social media.

Clearly, video marketing has reached maturity, and all indications suggest that it’s here to stay. We at IronMonk constantly use and recommend video marketing for our clients. One of our clients in the travel niche, for example, saw a 120% increase in conversion rates for tour packages when we created short-form videos to promote each of those tours. The company also gained 5,000 YouTube subscribers in less than a year.

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In this article, we’ll discuss future trends in video content marketing and how your brand can capitalize on these growing trends in the year ahead.

What The Critics Say

Let’s face it: Email marketing isn’t as attention-grabbing as it once was. These days, our inboxes are jammed with Mailchimp blasts and “last-minute” ads for the hottest deals at every retail store you’ve ever been to.

I’ve heard critics who believe that video marketing is headed in the same direction. They suggest that the medium of video is becoming too highly saturated on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. As a result, videos command less of our attention, and eventually we’ll scroll past them without paying them a second thought.

What They Get Wrong About Video

What the critics don’t realize is that video content marketing and email marketing represent a classic apples-to-oranges comparison. On one hand, email marketing is a “push” technique that directly contacts individual prospects and customers and attempts to incentivize repeat sales. On the other hand, content marketing “pulls” new prospects to attract initial sales and leads.

An effective, diversified digital marketing strategy should include email and video marketing content. However, to suggest that video marketing will suffer from the same type of saturation as email marketing is to misunderstand the medium of video fundamentally.

The Rise Of Video Content Marketing And Its Growth Forecast

Many of today’s consumers want to be entertained. Rather than scroll through text or messages in an inbox, consumers may prefer to watch videos that are personalized to their interests. In fact, recent surveys indicate that over 50% of consumers are interested in watching videos from brands they support.

When done correctly, video content can make an excellent addition to your existing marketing strategy. According to a 2019 survey of business owners, 66% rank video as the most effective form of content for their marketing strategy.

I predict strong year-over-year growth in video content marketing engagement in the first half of the coming decade. There are two factors that point us in this direction. First, our mobile devices are becoming increasingly video-oriented; second, videos are most popular among younger demographics.

Video App Suite - 3 steps

We’re all committed to continuously supporting, updating and improving all Video App Suite apps behind the scenes, with no downtimes or disruptions, ever!

Rest assured that every app included with Video App Suite will just keep getting better and better in the future. Our developers are committed to keeping up with future innovations and technical changes as needed to keep all apps performing optimally!

And don’t forget, you’ll be able to easily access any app on your Video App Suite dashboard from virtually any browser, with nothing to download or install – ever!

More than 70% of the U.S. population (subscription required) owns a smartphone. And as the number rises, more consumers will be able to access mobile video marketing. Further, a recent report found that 85% of millennials have purchased a product after watching an online promotional video, a figure higher than any other demographic. The widespread popularity of, and engagement with, video content among this generation leads me to believe that video-based content will continue to be a dominant marketing channel in the coming years.

Getting Started With Video Content

Considering integrating videos into your content marketing strategy? Before you get started filming your first batch of content, consider that there are a variety of highly engaging video formats that make for easy introductions to the medium.

Interviews: Interview an expert in your niche or field. These videos should be one to five minutes in length. We love doing these within our company and for our clients. You’ll first want to come up with a list of people who are popular in your niche, and then send them each an email requesting the interview. It’s a win-win because the interviewee gets exposure, and you get a video with unique insights.

Company Culture: This is a slice-of-life introduction video to workplace culture and environment, and should be one to three minutes in length. This is the type of video you want to promote on your careers or jobs page. You can also add it to your custom Indeed profile so applicants can see how great your company culture is.

Product Introductions: Demonstrate a new product feature and its use cases in a 30- to 90-second video. Your Instagram and YouTube accounts are thirsty for these! Make sure these are professionally produced, as they can impact your bottom line directly. You can afford a little bit of amateurism while doing interviews, but aim for perfection when shooting product videos.

Webinars: A Google Hangouts-facilitated educational video conference can introduce prospects to your sales funnel. Keep these between 10 and 60 minutes. Webinars are great for educating clients or prospects about a new product or feature. They can also allow you to answer the most frequently asked questions by your users, as well as live questions. Use them to showcase your expertise and authority!

Is Video Marketing Right For You?

With the increase in video marketing, it’s not unreasonable to think that video content might be a bubble. However, analyses suggest that video is a booming market for tech-savvy brands looking to appeal to a younger audience.

Increased conversion rates, superior reach and the ability to personalize are three main selling points of video marketing. By incorporating video content into your content marketing strategy, you can capitalize on this growing medium and engage your audience before your competition does.

Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

Amine is a tech entrepreneur and writer. He is currently the CMO at Regal Assets and CEO at IronMonk Solutions. Read Amine Rahal’s full executive profile here.

Source: Why Marketers Should Integrate Video Marketing Into Their Content Strategy

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How Video Marketing Will Grow Your Business Into Profit

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You have a unique story to tell: maybe you’re great-grandmother started the business in her kitchen, and you’re continuing the tradition. Maybe you were down and out and developed an idea to help people improve their lives. Maybe you developed a brilliant tech solution and want to keep innovating. Whatever the backstory, video provides a way to tell it effectively and with impact.

According to Forrester Research, one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words! You don’t have to produce epic tales: use each second to connect with your audience, build trust, and grow your business.

In fact, with a little creativity and the right software, your videos can become an integral part of your inbound marketing strategy.

Software such as 23 allows you to turn your videos into points of conversion for your users. You can edit your videos with links to relevant supporting content on your site, as well as overlay forms right on the video!

For instance, if you have an educational series of videos, you can collect valuable information from your audience, so you can continually provide them with content that nurtures them through your marketing and sales funnels.

Using video in your growth strategy in 2020 will empower you to grow your database with engaged contacts and continue to deliver valuable and engaging content. Your videos will stand out and become your competitive advantage and give you the push you need to become the thought leader in your space.

Stay Top of Mind

People are busy. Surprise, right? Whether you are trying to reach consumers or business decision-making, time is of the essence. Your audience is more likely to watch a video than wade through a long article (at least initially: as they delve into the topic, complementing your video marketing strategy with a strong written content strategy is essential).

Video can convey key information in minutes; a text version of the same content could take up to 40 minutes. While your videos should be long enough to say what you need to say, remember you can say a whole lot in a minute or two!

Email is a great medium for using video. If you’re utilizing video on other marketing channels, there’s no reason you should exclude email. In fact, videos in email can lead to a 200-300% increase in click-through rates!

As with all things email marketing, you’ll need to relentlessly test your emails. Many email clients such as Outlook have fallen behind and don’t render videos directly in email. However, an image with a play button overlay conveys that there’s a video on the other end of the click and works just fine.

We’ve started doing this for a few of our clients and click-through rates have sky-rocketed. Campaigns with video have had click-through rates of 51% against the email marketing average of 12%. While we made sure we had a solid method of collecting contacts, it’s unbelievable how a simple video can drastically improve your email marketing.

Reinforce Your Brand and product Messaging

Whether you’re creating video marketing ads, brand stories, customer testimonials, or how-tos, your audience is paying attention. More than half (55%) of people say they pay “close attention” when watching videos, a higher rate than all other types of content.

Moreover, they retain significantly more. When reading, we retain about 10% of the content. When viewing a video, we retain 95%. That is powerful – and it is a great way to reinforce your brand message clearly and consistently.

As for your product messaging, as people are researching their choices on the internet, video can be a great tool to position your product or service as the right decision. In fact, 90% of users say that product videos are helpful in the decision process.

When you’re making these videos, focus more on the value your product or service will deliver. You want to get people to visualize themselves using it, and experiencing that value. Make it all about them instead of all about you.

When you position yourself as the right solution you empower consumers to choose you over your competition. Not only do people use videos in their journey towards a purchase, but 64% of people are more likely to buy something online after watching a video.

Capture their attention, engage them with value, and offer the opportunity to purchase.

Reach a Wider Audience

Social media offers a cost-effective avenue for brands, but results depend on how many people you can reach – and if you can do so organically, all the better for your budget. The good news is that Facebook videos get 135% more organic reach than a photo and significantly more than status updates and links.

As marketers, we like video marketing stats that blow our minds. The fact that social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined definitely falls into that category. That’s the power of video. Reach more people and engage them with your brand. Utilizing social media in 2020 to share your videos will generate massive engagement with your content.

When you invest in video marketing, make sure you’re utilizing social media channels such as Facebook to get your content in front of your community, so they can share it with their friends.

Demonstrate Your Value and Gain Buy-in

When looking for a product, almost 50% of people look for a video before visiting a store. Consumers who watch demo videos are 1.81 times more likely to make a purchase, and 39% of executives who watch a video contact the vendor.

Demos can be utilized effectively with both B2C and B2B companies, and they allow prospects to see how your product/service works and how it can enhance their lives.

Other types of videos can be potent as well: for example, searches for “how to” topics on YouTube have grown 70% year-over-year. It’s no wonder the video platform is actually the second largest online search engine. Consumers can get quite a great (and free!) education on YouTube. Be there. Give them the answers they need, and they’ll see you as the trusted authority – the go-to problem-solver they need. Capitalize on the fact that the video platform (owned by Google) reports a 100% increase in mobile video consumption each year and shows no sign of slowing down!

When you utilize YouTube correctly, it combines your content and SEO strategy perfectly. Search engine results pages now pull in video results from YouTube and other video platforms to provide searchers with the most engaging and relevant content.

Optimizing your videos with in depth descriptions, tags, and relevant links to your site will tell search engines what your video is about, and you can drive traffic to your engaging content.

When setting up a plan for video in your 2020 content marketing strategy, make sure you don’t dismiss the written word entirely. This is not only what search engines use to tell what your video is about, but it also gives users the choice between reading and watching. It’s all about creating a great user experience.

Capture interest with Video Marketing Ads

Video marketing ads are far less intrusive than other digital ad formats; in other words, consumers are far less likely to get irritated with you and furiously click the X to close it out. The average click-through rate for video ads is 1.84%, better than all other digital ad formats.

With compelling videos, you have the chance to make an impact on your audience – to stand out from the noise and deliver a message that resonates.

Need Help with Video Marketing in 2020?

The bottom line: video is good for your bottom line! Brands that utilize this tool grow revenue 49% faster (year over year) than brands that do not. If you want to grow your business, video is essential.

The first step to using video marketing to grow your business is to get started. Start incorporating video content into your 2020 digital marketing strategy so you can jump in and start seeing results.

If you’re unsure of where to begin, that’s alright! There’s a lot that goes into it. We’ve made video a huge part of our 2020 strategy here at THAT Agency, and can help you set goals focused on realistic and measurable business growth.

To see where video can take your business, reach out to our content team, and we can formulate a video marketing strategy for you.

Source: https://blog.thatagency.com/video-marketing-will-grow-your-business-in-2018

 

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