What is Video Marketing?
Video marketing uses video to deliver information, engage customers, and create compelling digital experiences. The goal is to effect desired behavior changes, like signing up for a service, completing onboarding processes, and using self-serve digital tools. More companies and businesses are now leveraging the benefits of video marketing to attract customers, nurture and grow relationships, strengthen loyalty, and build brand trust and product awareness.
Powered by data and advanced technologies, videos generate empathy, connections, and value by creating individualized, relevant experiences and delivering important information where and when consumers need it. It has become a critical component of a superior digital customer experience strategy.
The choice of video is supported by consumer viewing behaviors. According to Cisco, video will make up 82% of internet traffic in 2021. SundaySky’s own data echoes this trend: In the past year, SundaySky video viewer engagement has increased by over 12% per video viewed. This tells us customers are choosing to spend more time watching what is relevant to their needs.
What are the Benefits of Video Marketing?
Done well, videos are a powerful tool for marketing, and one that promotes retention, engagement, and drives behaviors. After watching a video, viewers remember 95% of the message. Contrast that with text, where readers retain only 10%. Videos increase landing page conversions by 80%, and videos are also shared on social more than text and images combined.
1. Video builds trust and credibility
By providing relevant information when it’s needed, video builds trust and credibility, eases shopper uncertainty, and reinforces brand values. Businesses of all sizes use videos to build trust and improve the customer experience by delivering customer value, proactively answering questions, and addressing customer pain points.
Companies like internet retailer Select Blinds used videos to guide undecided prospects through the process of choosing, purchasing, and installing window coverings. The direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand saw increases in site traffic, return on ad spend (ROAS), and average order value. See their video below for shopper acquisition:
2. Video increases conversion rates and return on investment (ROI)
Throughout the customer journey, video marketing increases conversion rates. This holds true across the board, from email conversions to better return on ad spend (ROAS), and it’s one of the biggest strengths of using videos for marketing. Video performs better for conversions than landing pages—in some cases, seeing an 86% increase.
Cox Communications lowered the cost per acquisition (CPA) while also reaching its online revenue goals and improving website conversions. With video marketing, Cox had a 10x return for every $1 spent with the SundaySky Video Platform.
3. Video is recyclable
A value that is unique to video is the ability to recycle content without losing personalization and relevancy. Repurposing video can be done in several ways and with different goals in mind, including expanding channels and offering shorter versions as brief nuggets of information. The content modularity offered by SundaySky’s interactive video platform allows scenes, media, and assets to be used over and over, as many times as needed. Scene modularity is the most efficient, scalable, and cost-effective method to create marketing videos. Take a look:
4. Video improves customer loyalty and Net Promoter Score (NPS)
One of the powerful benefits of video marketing is that every individual’s personalized message they view can help foster loyalty and increase NPS. Learn more about earning and measuring healthy NPS, like online retailer 1-800 Contacts. The DTC brand uses video marketing to deliver value to their customers and guide them along their vision health journey. That focus on helping their customers has won 1-800 Contacts an NPS in the 80s.
5. Video is the optimal customer education strategy
Every business needs to educate prospects and customers about their products, the value they offer, and the commitment of its customer service. Video is an unequaled part of any customer education strategy because of its ease of use and accessibility—it’s better to show than to tell. This is particularly the case in industries with complex products and offerings, unfamiliar and technical language, and where making the right decisions is crucial, like financial services and healthcare insurance. For even the most technical information, videos can remain engaging and interesting while delivering that important guidance.
6. Rank higher in search results
Video used for marketing campaigns can help increase brand awareness and attract new customers by improving SEO rankings. Video helps companies appear higher up in search results because videos improve metrics, are prioritized by some search engines, and video thumbnails that appear as part of search results have high click-through rates, which, in turn, boost rankings.
7. Video can be personalized to reach decision-makers on an individual level
One of the more compelling benefits of video marketing is the power of data for personalized video production and audience-based messages. In fact, over 50% of customers will switch to businesses for personalized messages and over 70% of consumers would switch financial providers to receive video content.
“over 50% of customers will switch to businesses for personalized messages”
8. Video is a great addition to email marketing campaigns, improving open and click-thru rates
One way to improve email open rates by up to 13% is by letting the recipient know there’s a video included. This signals that they’re not receiving yet another generic message but a valuable, info-rich experience. Video marketing can be used to further enhance email campaigns and improve responses, like increasing click-through rates by up to 300% and brand awareness by 54%.
9. Video encourages social shares
Social media is now built for videos. Consumers interact with Facebook videos completely differently than traditional online video. Videos are shared, they become favorites, and they go viral. But one size doesn’t fit all, so marketing videos need to be created for different social environments to drive desired behavior change.
10. Video appeals to mobile users
More and more videos are being watched on smartphones— during commutes, in waiting rooms, during work breaks. By designing videos for mobile, brands can improve engagement and reach.
B2B Video Marketing
B2B marketing videos must be compelling, informative, and useful in order for brands to stand out from the competition. According to Forrester, 54% of B2B buyers will watch videos to help them decide what to purchase, yet only 32% of companies “pass” for using video on their websites to engage buyers. B2B marketing campaigns should also employ video to inform, guide, and deepen the relationship throughout the buyer journey. This could include promotional event videos for the “discover” phase, FAQ videos for the “buy” phase, and tutorials for the “use” phase.
Video Marketing Trends and Insights
Consumers prefer video content over reading
Our brains like pictures. Research from MIT found that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and that it takes us as little as 13 milliseconds to identify an image—60,000 times faster than text. Forrester says that one minute of video content is worth about 1.8 million words. For messages that stick, video is the winner by far.
Marketing Video Production
Creating personalized and compelling videos for marketing no longer takes tons of resources and expertise. The entire process is now much simpler, cost-effective, and scalable thanks to video marketing tools like dynamic video templates. From creating a video marketing campaign to analyzing the results, marketers have options now that will help them create professional and engaging videos for marketing.
Are there self-service marketing video tools?
SundaySky’s video creator The Editor enables marketers to create compelling, individualized videos easily and quickly. Designed to be intuitive to use and easy to customize, The Editor provides a full menu of options so that marketers can use the included scene templates and content or start their own from scratch. Either way, their videos can be tailored to their company’s branding and other details.
Here’s how The Editor works –>
TikTok and Beyond: The Rise of Short Form Video Content
The Growth of TikTok Marketing
The popularity of social media platforms comes and goes, but there’s one (relative) new entry that’s seen exponential growth. TikTok has taken off around the world, and that’s across demographics. Which makes it a great focus for video marketing—if marketers create campaigns and marketing videos that will work for this specific platform. Brands that make the effort to learn marketing for TikTok have seen great success.
Will Instagram Reels take TikTok’s video marketers?
To take advantage of the growth of video marketing, others are following TikTok’s lead. YouTube introduced YouTube Shorts, and Instagram has Reels. Even if Reels does bite into TikTok’s popularity, the similarities in the two platforms are evidence that the future of marketing is video.
How Much Does a Marketing Video Cost?
Yes, Super Bowl ads cost in the millions for a 30-second spot. But even the costs to create standard professional marketing videos can be pricey, ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 each, a cost that can quickly add up. Plus, that’s often a video that’s used only briefly before it’s shelved. Thankfully, video technologies now put video marketing campaigns well within the cost-effective reach of most businesses, as Forrester Senior Analyst Nick Barber discusses as he dispels myths about video production costs. High-quality videos for marketing are more accessible than ever. And video experience platforms enable individualization with scale, so resources and videos can be adapted and used over and over for every customer moment. So the math on that $50k can work out to less than $1 per video. How’s that for cost-effective?
Closing Summary: Why is video marketing so powerful?
The world’s digital transformation is accelerating even faster than predicted (thanks to a certain pandemic) and marketers would be wise to connect with customers by taking advantage of the benefits of video marketing. With the video marketing software available, marketing video production is accessible to businesses of any size. Video is the only medium that enables the automation and scaling of human connections, empathy, and emotion in our digital world. It’s time to move your digital experiences forward.
Join the video marketing revolution!
Meet your customers, current and potential, where they like to be—watching video. Learn more about the benefits of video marketing with SundaySky’s new playbook, “Take Your Video Strategy to the Next Level.” Then watch our on-demand webinar featuring Forrester senior analyst Nick Barber: “Embrace Video Now to Enhance Your Customer Experience.”
