Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels
Where do you want to go when you need a step-by-step guide or tutorial for using a product? Where's the online place you rely on when it comes to product review? And where is the site you most likely visit when you need to learn about a brand in a matter of minutes? If your answer is YouTube, of course-- you're not alone. Over 90% of people surveyed around the world say they discover new brands on YouTube.
It should come as no surprise that this video-sharing platform has now become the second-largest search engine worldwide. And with YouTube's popularity, one thing is clear here: internet users love online videos.
Considering that the demand for online videos is at an all-time high, more than 86% of today's marketers utilize online videos as their marketing tool. This engaging marketing medium is seen to be more effective than traditional marketing methods; text-heavy ads, cold calls, email marketing, and more.
And the reasons? We've broken them down below for you.
#1. Google Algorithm Prefers Videos
One of the most impactful benefits of video marketing is that the Google algorithm loves videos. A website with a video on it is 53% more likely to be shown up in the top pages of Google's search results.
Google knows what format their users love so it can always give them a delightful browsing experience. That's why the most-used search engine prefers videos rather than your 3000-word, in-depth blog articles.
Not to mention that YouTube is owned by Google. So, when you search a specific topic using the search engine, related videos from YouTube are also most likely to show up on Google SERPs.
If your marketing goal is to boost your online visibility, reach more audiences, and generate more traffic, you need to start adding videos to your website or uploading them on YouTube. That said, only well-optimized videos can bring you the result you want.
#2. Create Bite-Sized Information
While your potential customers are constantly struggling with retaining complex information from your brand, you also are having a hard time creating snackable, easy-to-digest messages to get across to them. Of course, writing bulky paragraphs on your website isn't an effective solution.
In this case, video allows you to break down complicated topics into digestible bite-sized information by combining both visuals and audio elements. This is the reason why viewers tend to retain 95% of messages and remember them better when they absorb them through videos than plain text.
As video is powerful in delivering messages engagingly, many businesses in the healthcare, insurance, real estate, and technology or software industry rely on this engaging medium to ensure that they deliver a straightforward explanation and help their audiences to understand what their brands are all about.
#3. Highly Shareable
Once you create a professional-looking video, you can distribute them to different digital platforms, from your homepage to your social media profiles. This is how you expand your reach and appeal to broader audiences, which can lead to an improved online presence.
When your audiences find your video content valuable, they are more likely to share it with their followers, friends, or even families-- helping you to spread your brand messages even without you asking.
Also, when you share your videos, and a marketer finds it and they want to make it a resource for their next content, you can get a backlink from them. This, in turn, will result in a solid backlink profile that is helpful for your online credibility as a brand.
Not to mention that you can add the video on your email marketing too to give it a boost so it can stand out on your subscribers’ crowded inboxes.
#4. Budget-Friendly Marketing Tool
The beauty of video marketing is that you don’t need all those fancy equipment to create high-performing videos. You also don’t need to hire a professional video marketing agency to craft your videos.
Well, of course, professional-looking videos can make your brand more trustworthy and appear as a professional in your field. But, you can create a video even with scrappy production value with all those video tools available out there. This is definitely good news for small businesses with a shoestring budget.
Simply shooting the footage using your smartphone camera and utilizing a simple video editing app will do. The key here is the content you provide to your audiences. As long as the video has values or answers your audiences’ questions, it would make a powerful marketing video.
#5. Establish More Meaningful Brand-Customer Connections
Another benefit of marketing video is its ability to touch your audiences on an emotional level. Video marketing allows you to use tone and language, even jokes that match your audiences’ personalities and preferences. It offers you a great storytelling mechanism to humanize your solutions.
In other words, video marketing can be a great vessel to deliver light-hearted content that entertains and engages your audiences. Therefore, it would be much easier for you to make your content less hard-selling. For instance, you can use relevant voice-over and relatable scenes on visuals is a smart way to win your audiences’ hearts and make them trust your brand.
When you successfully create a strong brand-customer relationship, it means you have a higher chance to improve your conversion rates (skyrocket sales, generate more leads, drive more traffics, etc.) and customer loyalty.
#6. Stand Out From Your Competition
A winning video marketing strategy can do so much more than attracting more audiences, building a solid brand presence, it also will help you to gain a competitive advantage. With video marketing, you can cut through the digital noise and stand out among those impersonal, mediocre marketing content.
Remember that in today’s digital marketing field, many of your competitors have already jumped into the video marketing bandwagon to make sure that they don’t miss the opportunity to reach audiences and stay relevant. So, are you going to let your brand get left behind?
Final Thoughts
Now that the average internet users and potential customers prefer watching videos to any other form of content, why not give them what they want?
Video marketing is a powerful addition to your overall marketing mix-- regardless of your business size and the budget you have. With all of the video marketing essential benefits mentioned above, now you understand why you should not ignore this marketing strategy.
