Everything you need to know about video marketing

Visual storytelling is no longer an option - it's a given. We are constantly assailed by content - texts, commercials, news, viral videos, everything you want and don't want. The English called it infobesity, and the word speaks for itself: it is that moment when we are so loaded with information on a lot of topics that it is very difficult for us to make a decision or filter them efficiently to build our own opinion. In all this "jungle" of content, we return to the primary instincts to orient ourselves through the web of information, that is, we tend to look for images and videos.

The explanation is as simple as can be: people communicated before the invention of articulate language and the alphabet, and for this they used images. In The Power Of Visual Storytelling, Ekaterina Walter and Jessica Gioglio tell us that, in fact, images are a kind of shortcut to the core of the consumer's mind: visual elements are processed 60,000 times faster by the brain than text, and we process 90% of the information by visual representation.

So the preference for visual content is nothing new. It is not even a preference, but rather a necessity, as it arouses interest much more easily, and information settles much faster and more sustainably if it is presented in this form. Moreover, the right picture does much more than tell a story - it provokes our imagination, it arouses a certain emotion, it awakens our memories, it can even urge us to perform a certain action.

Figures and developments

If we listen to Social Media Today, by 2020, video content will generate 80% of online traffic. Live Q&A and AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions are becoming more and more popular and one of the simplest and safest choices for any company. 1:1 videos are also increasingly appreciated, an alternative to telephone or e-mail communication with customers. Through 1: 1 videos, a company thanks its customers for buying something, offers them assistance, personalized content or follow-up, practically everything needed to keep in touch with them and integrate them into its "family". Let's not forget video blogging, an older phenomenon that seems to stand the test of time and still remains in the top of consumer preferences. Whether you're doing it for your company or sponsoring a well-known vlogger in exchange for advertising, it's an alternative worth considering.

And if we still mentioned the difficulty of forming an opinion when we are under the siege of information, let's still throw some encouraging figures: it seems that 36% of consumers trust video ads, 25% used Youtube to search videos about a product they wanted to buy from the store and 64% are more inclined to buy something online after seeing a video promoting it, according to a Social Media Today infographic. Last but not least, according to a study by Hubspot, over 50% of consumers prefer to watch videos on a company's page instead of any other type of content.

The videos complement the other marketing approaches: they help you highlight the voice and personality of the brand and have a greater potential for engagement (on Facebook, the visual content is 65% more engaging, and the posts that include a video have 48 % more views than the others, as Hubspot tells us). They can also be used to achieve any goal, whether it is awareness, sales growth, reputation building, positioning and differentiation or encouraging customer loyalty.

There are many types of video to choose from, depending on the specifics of your business and promotion strategies:

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• demos, to present the specifications of a product and how it works;
• videos about the brand, which tell the story of your business in a more dynamic and relevant way for your audience;
• videos promoting the events;
• interviews with team members and other experts or influencers, to establish your authority and to cement the audience's trust in your company;
• educational videos on various topics of interest to your audience;
  • animations;
• case studies and testimonials, which show how your product or service has helped a customer specifically;
• live broadcasts;
• 360 °, AR and VR clips.

Reasons to include videos in your marketing strategy

The best part is that it doesn't have to be sophisticated: most users resonate with sincerity and spontaneity, so as long as you're authentic, you'll remain relevant to them. Instead, a minimum of effort can help you stay longer in the minds of consumers: 80% of them will rather remember a video ad. Also, if you communicate with your audience by e-mail, just by including "video" in the subject of the e-mail you will increase their opening rate by 19% and the click-through rate by 65%.

In addition, videos capture the attention of followers more than podcasts or blog posts. If you managed to get them to watch more than 5 seconds of your video, you've already won them. The effort to create a good video will bring you consumers who will stay with you on the site with 88% more, which means that most will probably consider and buy from you.

In addition to being a shortcut to the hearts of consumers, video content is also the shortest path to success on social platforms: a live broadcast on Facebook is better seen by the site's algorithm than any other type of post, and if you manage to you make users love your product enough you can encourage them to talk about it later - user-generated content has 10 times more views on YouTube than brand-generated content.

What you need to know before you start creating video content

First of all, you need to know where your audience is most active. You can establish this either by asking your customers to participate in a survey, or by deducting it from the demographic data you have available. Depending on your preferred platforms, you may have limitations on the length of videos or topics covered, so familiarize yourself with them and see what type of content works best. As an idea, it would be preferable to make them as short and concise as possible, because people have a duration of attention close to that of a goldfish, respectively 8 seconds.

Also from this point of view, it is preferable to give everything you can in the first few seconds, to make sure that you have won your audience. Don't forget that on both Facebook and Instagram, the videos that appear in the feeds have the sound automatically turned off, and most viewers watch them without clicking on them, so without turning on the sound. Make them as suggestive as possible! And don't forget to upload the most popular videos from your company's repertoire on YouTube - after all, it's the second most used search engine.

If you lack inspiration or if you have already filmed something and you want to work on post-production, we leave here a list of platforms that you can use to decorate and search before going out on the ramp:

• PlaceIt Video Maker
• Adobe Spark
• Magisto
• Biteable
• Animaker
• Promo
• Wistia
• Renderforest
• Typito

Here is an in-depth article that goes into all the technical details of the process and one that explains how to use your mobile phone to its full potential and how to embed a film set directly at your headquarters. And because we know how hard it is to always be inspired, we recommend this site with tips & tricks for the most successful videos and we wish you more to create!

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