Reasons Your Business Should Be Using Digital Video

Every day, people watch over a billion hours of video and generate billions of views. Video is powerful. It can tell a story and tap into human emotion to resonate and connect with the audience at a deeper level. Consumers like it because it’s easy to digest, entertaining, and engaging, and marketers like it because it can be very effective, especially when served to the most relevant audience. 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool and 93% of marketers who use video say that it’s an important part of their marketing strategy. But why?

Today we’ll dive into the benefits of video marketing and how it can be a powerful digital marketing strategy when used in blogs, email campaigns, social media posts, and landing pages by:

1. Increasing email click-through rate (CTR)
2. Increasing conversions
3. Improving SEM
4. Improving social media engagement

Video increases email CTR

We’re guessing your average email click rate is 2-3%, right? Campaign Monitor discovered that including a video (or link to a video) in your email can boost CTR’s by 65% and welcome email open rates by 96%. Hubspot found that adding the word “video” to your email subject line increases open rates by 19%. Videos shared from Vimeo reportedly perform best with an average of 8.13% CTR. YouTube comes in second with 6.62%. These are game-changing numbers!

Including video in an email or newsletter campaign is a great way to make emails a more personalized experience, communicate company culture, announce an event or product launch, and nurture leads. Every business’s audience is different, so consider A/B testing emails with and without video, as well as different versions of your video to see which performs best.

Video increases conversions

Let’s be real – consumers want to do as little work as possible when choosing products and services. According to Statistic Brain, the average attention span is a ridiculous 8.25 seconds. Yet studies show that 95% of viewers actually absorb the messages of the videos they watch. Consumers prefer watching video content to reading, and your landing page is no different. A study from a 2017 Eye View Digital reports that relevant embedded video content can increase conversions by 86%.

Aside from landing pages, over-the-top (OTT) video has massive conversion, brand awareness, and recognition potential. OTT allows advertisers to target specific audience segments through shorter, but more relevant videos. The lesson here is that even though consumers have short attention spans, they’re paying attention to video. Add a clear and direct call-to-action and keep your video 30 seconds to 1 minute, and watch your conversions soar.

Video improves SEM

Google really likes video. Adding video to your web pages allows you to increase the time visitors spend on your website because, as mentioned above, consumers prefer watching over reading. Longer exposure builds trust and tells search engines like Google that your site has content worth sharing. In fact, according to Forrester, video is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results than a traditional web page. And Brightcove reports that companies can expect to see on average a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines.

Adding video to your web pages can also improve the overall quality of the content on the page, generating high-quality backlinks which play a major role in increasing your rankings and organic website traffic. Incorporate the right keywords, create a strong meta description, and a compelling title to encourage SEO and engagement.

Video improves social media engagement

In 2020, over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to almost 4.4 billion by 2025. That means consumers are on social media, and we already know they’re watching videos like crazy. Social media users engage with video content on multiple platforms, with Facebook leading the charge. Tweets with video attracted 10x more engagements than Tweets without video. When people on see a video on LinkedIn, they are 20 times more likely to share it than any other type of LinkedIn post.

Adding video on social media also drives leads and sales. Animoto reported in their 2018 State of Social Video: Consumer Trends reports that 93% of businesses reported getting a new customer on social media thanks to video. Plus, almost 65% of consumers buy products and services after watching branded social videos. Remember to keep it short and sweet – HubSpot recommends the following lengths by platform:

• Instagram: 30 seconds
• Twitter: 45 seconds
• Facebook: 1 minute
• YouTube: 2 minutes

Elevate marketing ROI with digital video

Video is one of the most popular content forms in the world and it’s here to stay. Video storytelling is a powerful, meaningful, and emotional way to connect with consumers. When done well, video can be a versatile tool for sales teams throughout the entire customer buying journey, increase customer engagement, and build brand credibility.

To learn more about how video, OTT, Pre-Roll, SEM, social, and more can help your business achieve next-level engagement, schedule a demo today.

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