There used to be a time when the internet was all about static images and slow websites. Fast forward to 2020, and you get to see an altogether different internet experience with video dominating the online landscape. Today, video has become the foremost medium for brands to spread the message across, and video marketing has become the de facto choice among online marketers.
This development is making video the preferred content-type for online marketing and is getting used by both B2B and B2C marketers.
Benefits Offered By Video Marketing
Video may have been around for a while, but there are businesses that are still plagued by doubts about getting video marketing implemented. Here we look at the benefits video offers to both B2B and B2C marketers:
- Increases Brand Awareness: The best way to grow your customer base is by reaching more people who recognize who you are and what you do – without getting lost in the crowded marketplace. Video precisely helps the brand to convey their core values and increase your exposure to potential customers through informative and entertaining videos that allow for improved brand recall.
- Immersive Experience: Video marketing combines images, brand messaging, music, and script to tell a story. This creates an all-round experience that lowers the barrier between the brand and its audience. A video lasts a few seconds and gives the audience a multi-dimensional idea about the brand and its attributes which is lacking in 2-D advertising. Videos allow a brand to tell a story and deepen the connection with existing and potential customers.
- Return on Investment: A great majority of online marketers agree to the fact that video performs better than any other content in converting the audience. This supported by research that suggests that 80% of video viewers recall brand-specific video advertisements and 46% among them took action based upon the brand message in the video.
- Cost-Effective Solution: When it comes to online marketing strategies, a paid search can be effective but comes with a high price tag. On the other hand, video advertising on YouTube is known to cost less than a dollar per view. On other platforms like Facebook and Instagram, video advertising will cost you pennies. This makes it a cost-effective solution that does not require a substantial marketing budget.
B2C Video Marketing
Video marketing is no doubt changing the face of B2C marketing; let’s take a look at how:
- Customer Review Videos: Consumers today no longer believe in advertising; rather, they go by reviews and testimonials by satisfied customers. Earlier written reviews used to get the job done, but not any longer. The audience today is more geared towards watching video testimonials on YouTube made with YouTube intro maker, which offers the necessary social proof for a skeptical audience.
- Product Based Videos: Product videos that showcase the product do not really serve the purpose anymore. Today videos have to be created with an angle that shows how the product can get integrated into a lifestyle. Brands have to show how a brand can improve the life of the customer, and videos are the best medium to convey that message.
- Sales and Discount Videos: A brand that is planning for a big sale would be best served by creating video content that gets the message quickly across to the targeted audience. Such videos are known to have to best impact if they are longer than 2 minutes, which is considered the optimum length.
- Influencer Marketing: This is all about partnering with a known influencer to create videos that would have an eager and available audience for easy consumption. This one of those strategies that is known to outperform others. This is gaining traction due to a simple reason that it works both ways, it improves the influencer’s standing among his audience, and the brand gets to create content that is attention-worthy.
- Unboxing Videos: Introducing a product into the market is best done through unboxing videos. This involves an element of influencer marketing wherein a vlogger or YouTuber is given the privilege and exclusive access to a new product. It is quite a popular practice on YouTube with close to 90,000 people doing unboxing every month. There is a keen set of audiences that look forward to these exclusive reviews.
B2B Video Marketing
It is a notable fact that B2B companies were late to the video marketing bandwagon compared to B2C companies who were rather quick to exploit the available opportunity. Let’s see how video marketing is changing B2B marketing:
- Sales Funnel Based Videos: This can be especially helpful in driving long-term sales cycles when they are implemented with careful consideration of the big picture. For instance, there can be videos made for each stage of the funnel – top (awareness), middle (conversions), and bottom (customer retention). These videos must be made with a suitable outro maker allowing the audience to continue watching videos associated with the brand.
- Live Videos & Webinars: This is a great way for a B2B company to connect with its core audience. It is one of the most effective ways to get the message about a product or service in a video format. Next, there are webinars, which are by far the easiest to produce, by using tools like Zoom, you can record a presentation and convert it into a webinar replay. These videos can be then added to YouTube or your website.
- A Blog to Video: This is mainly done by companies which have a long-running blog that serves for ready-made content for business videos. They would recycle their old posts and come with an interesting set of videos that can readily gain an audience. The brand would then upload these videos on YouTube and other social platforms like LinkedIn to reach a targeted audience who would possibly gravitate to the brand after watching these videos.
Conclusion
There is no doubt about the fact that video marketing is changing the way marketing is getting done. If a brand is not doing video marketing, it is missing out on a lot of emerging opportunities. It is estimated that by 2021, video is going to make 80% of all internet traffic. Hence it becomes imperative for all brands to have a coherent video marketing strategy in place as the future belongs to video.