You’ve probably heard about video marketing before, and may even consider it as a new-age digital marketing strategy - beneficial, yet not absolutely crucial. During the last couple of years, some marketers have resorted to using video content more frequently and consider it a key component of their overall strategy, and it has worked wonders. We live in an age of short attention spans, constantly bombarded with rapid-fire content that is easy to consume and tempting to scroll through. With the rising popularity of platforms such as Instagram and TikTok - especially TikTok - the modern human eye has become accustomed to observe, rather than read. Does this mean that written content is irrelevant? Definitely not. But does it also mean that you should incorporate video marketing into your overall marketing strategy? Absolutely! And Ucraft is here to tell you exactly why video marketing is important.
Why use video marketing? (Insights)
Prior to discussing the benefits, it is necessary to understand the importance of video marketing in today’s digitalized world. We decided to take a look at some statistics, and came across some very interesting insights. Our team knew that video marketing was important, but the information we found on this topic really emphasized the necessity of this type of content. According to Smart Insights:
92% of marketers said that video content was an important part of their marketing strategy in 2020. This is a significant increase from 2015, when only 78% of marketers were incorporating video into their strategy.
An even more significant increase can be said about the percentage of marketers who believe that video content provides them with a positive ROI - 88% in 2020, compared to 33% in 2015.
Likewise, it was estimated that the average person will spend 100 minutes per day watching video content - an increase of 9 minutes from 2015. And this is only increasing by the year.
From a consumer perspective, 48% of consumers want to see videos about products/services they are interested in, and 43% would prefer for this process to be interactive.
It cannot be denied that both marketers and consumers alike value video content and see it as a way of quickly providing/consuming information whilst also being entertained to some extent. But aside from appealing to shorter attention spans, what actually makes video content so effective? Read on to find out.
Why is video marketing so effective?
1) It encourages higher engagement
Content marketers have mentioned that video content has one of the highest engagement rates. People tend to be inherently curious when it comes to watching videos, and they are more likely to watch until the end if the video appeals to them. Likewise, it is easily shareable, which is why video ads are often discussed and shared on social media, bringing in more recognition and curiosity regarding the brand. This is just an example of why video marketing works so well.
2) Improves conversion rates
It has been established that video content significantly increases conversion rates, particularly when used on landing pages or included in marketing campaigns. People want to see an overview of the product/service, and this is best achieved via video - at least to capture the interest of the viewer prior to them exploring the offer further. Likewise, text-heavy landing pages tend to underperform, so adding video content is a perfect way to mix things up a bit. Not only is this beneficial for your conversion rate, but including video content will also decrease your bounce rate.
3) Video is visually appealing
Quality videos will always be visually appealing to the viewer, which is why they are more likely to remain engaged and watch until the end. Good visuals captivate the user and create an enjoyable viewing experience, which - subconsciously - creates a positive association with the brand and encourages further research. Humans are visual beings as much as they are intellectual, which is why a good balance of visual and written content is always a win.
4) More convenient to consume
Considering that more and more people are consuming content on portable devices such as mobile phones and tablets, they prefer to watch rather than read some of the time, purely out of convenience. People will scroll through their phones during their daily commute, while drinking an iced coffee, during their work breaks, before bed and even first thing in the morning, so it would be a shame not to make the most out of that habit. Remember to include captions though, since headphones can be forgotten at home (the worst feeling in the world, mind you).
5) Provides better reach
According to Hubspot, 53% of consumers would prefer if marketers produced more video content. It sparks interest and drives attention to your brand, as well as being easily shareable. Videos have a higher chance of going viral - look how many ad compilations there are on YouTube with titles such as “Best Ads of 2020”. You don’t really see the same happening with written content, as important as it is. Releasing video content is more likely to introduce your brand to people outside of your existing customer base and increase your overall reach when it comes to building a wider community for your product/service.
6) Provides a competitive advantage
When it comes to the startup world, you can gain a significant competitive advantage by using video in marketing. Due to this strategy being more costly and time-consuming, many startups will disregard video content. This is an understandable move in terms of saving time and money, but something that these companies often overlook is that video content tends to provide a higher payback. It doesn’t mean that you have to blow your budget on producing the best video content out there - even a little goes a long way. Just one video can provide noticeable benefits, so start small. Trust us, this will give you a competitive advantage over other startups.
7) Good for explaining things
After realizing that customers were asking us many questions about our website builder, we decided to start a YouTube channel and upload explainer videos. The decrease in basic questions to our support team was significant, and people appreciated visual tutorials.
The challenges of video marketing
1) Video production can be costly
Depending on the equipment you use, video production can provide more of a strain on your budget. Considering that more and more companies are incorporating this into their strategy, everyone wants to be the best when it comes to quality and visuals. However, as we mentioned above, you don’t need to create a blockbuster-level film in the beginning. As long as the quality is fine, the visuals are good and the content is engaging, your videos will still provide your business with significant benefits. Calculate the minimal costs, plan your budget accordingly and you should be fine. Moreover, you can hire interns at the start and initiate a mutually beneficial partnership. Many young people are going into video production and would love the opportunity to produce content for a company. Sometimes, one person can produce better content than a whole production team if that person is passionate and skilled.
2) It can be time-consuming
It cannot be denied that creating video content is more time-consuming than writing a regular blog post or crafting a social media ad. A good video takes more time and effort to produce, and even more time to publish if several edits and changes are needed after the initial file is created. Nonetheless, the payout is also often greater than with written content, so it’s not a one-sided sacrifice.
3) Difficult to update
This is where the necessity of written content comes in. Once you publish a video, you can’t update it if something changes. You either have to release a new video or delete the old one if the update is significant and can cause confusion. Written announcements are necessary, and can be even formulated as captions to warn the viewer of specific changes. A good way to tackle this is to make sure to save all of your files and raw footage so that new videos are easier to release if necessary.
4) Requires more practice
Not all videos can consist of animations and voiceovers. Depending on the type (which we will discuss later on), some videos may require the presence of actual people. People often feel shy and uncertain about being filmed, so it is necessary to pick employees that are comfortable with this in order to avoid awkwardness when it comes to the final result. Likewise, employees who agree to being filmed should be assisted in becoming better public speakers, and this requires patience and understanding. Although this may seem new and anxiety-inducing in the beginning, most people tend to feel comfortable and confident after several takes.
Don’t overlook written content
The goal of this article is to highlight the importance of video marketing, not to disregard written content completely. Although video content marketing is more effective at helping you to reach certain goals, written content will always remain relevant. Here’s why:
1) Text is easier to produce
Written content is mostly easier to produce, especially if you have an experienced content writer on your hands. Whilst videos may take a couple of weeks (or more) to be filmed, exported, edited, reviewed and published, a blog post can be written in a few days. This is why companies tend to run blogs, and often choose written content for smaller announcements, whilst utilizing video content for large announcements. You have to really think about what news actually requires a video and what can be put into text.
2) Written content is inexpensive
When it comes to written content, the only costs are essentially the content writer’s salary (and SEO specialist if your company has one). You don’t need any additional equipment for written content, and the only editing consists of proofreading and reviewing. Plus, you don’t necessarily need to invest in “better content production” as your brand begins to gain more recognition. You might have to hire additional content writers, but that’s pretty much it.
3) Text is skimmable
Although video appeals to shorter attention spans, a viewer is more likely to become frustrated and click off if their question is not addressed in the beginning, or if the first few seconds are not captivating enough. People simply don’t have time to skim through a video in hopes of finding the information they need. This is different with written content. Not only can the user skim through the headings to get to the part they need, but they can also use “ctrl + F” and locate specific keywords.
4) It is easily distributable
Guest posts are a thing, and will be a thing for years to come. A great way to help your brand gain more recognition and create meaningful partnerships is to write guest posts for other blogs and participate in link-exchange. Likewise, you can also publish written content on large platforms such as Medium and gain more virality as opposed to competing for views on YouTube. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t post on YouTube in fear of not gaining views; in fact, using written content to promote your YouTube channel on your socials is the way to go.
5) Written content is reusable
It’s easier to reuse written content by making a couple of tweaks according to the platform you are posting on. For example, you can take a piece of text you created for Facebook and use it as an Instagram caption or Tweet by shortening the text and making the tone more casual. However, posting the same video everywhere regardless of the platform will simply not work. If your video is targeted towards Instagram users and has an “Instagram vibe” to it, so to speak, it might not suit your LinkedIn page as much.
6) Text is more SEO-friendly
As great as it would be, you can’t distribute keywords throughout a video. The most you can do is include a few keywords in the title and caption. However, with written content, you can distribute multiple keywords throughout the article or section of website content, which will significantly help when it comes to ranking. People tend to rely on search engines rather than media platforms to answer specific questions. In this case, an article has a higher chance of going viral than a video.
As it can be gathered, written content is still very important for your overall marketing strategy. Check out one of our recent blog posts on how to become a master content writer to polish up your skills.
Downsides to written content
1) Over-saturation of text on the web
As much as written content is important, it is not the end-all be-all of your marketing strategy. The internet is over-saturated with written content. Nearly every company has a blog (or at least a website) and a social media presence. If you want your content to be discovered, you need to go the extra mile. Although video can be more difficult to produce in terms of time and money, written content requires high quality text and meticulous SEO research to provide a benefit.
2) Less visually appealing
It cannot be denied that videos are more visually appealing. You can spice up your articles by adding images and infographics, but it is just not as captivating as a well-produced video most of the time. This is why many consumers prefer videos over articles - video is simply more appealing most of the time.
3) Not everyone is a reader
Some people just don’t like to read, and there is nothing you can do about that preference. This is why we suggest using video content for significant announcements rather than text because people are more likely to click on a video rather than an article. Attention spans have become shorter, and people are more responsive to visuals rather than text.
4) Difficult to emphasize certain points
When creating a video, it is easier to emphasize the most crucial parts with visuals and sound. This is more difficult to do when working with text, especially in the case of long-reads. You can use images, fonts and even infographics to achieve this goal, but then you risk going over-the-top and turning your article into an eyesore.
Is video better than text?
So, who is the winner? Is it the visually-appealing video content, or the concise and SEO-friendly text? Well, the answer is...neither. You need both types of content in your marketing campaign, and - when done right - the two compliment each other. After all, every video needs a script and a caption, and every large announcement is best introduced with a good video to encourage people to learn more. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that video content is necessary for your brand in 2020, so make sure to start now - the stats speak for themselves. Make room for video marketing in your budget and strategy and take your business to the next level.
Our video content marketing strategy
Wait, wait! We’re not done yet. We’ve covered the importance of video content and compared it with written content, but there is one more thing. Now that you know that video marketing is important, it’s time to learn about the different types of videos you can create for your brand. If you’re just starting out, here are 6 types of videos you should consider publishing for your business. Let’s use Ucraft as an example.
1) Brand Intro videos
This video should be dedicated to everything brand-related. What you are about, how your company started out, what you offer and so on. You can also speak about the company mission and vision, as well as milestones achieved over the years. A good introduction never goes unseen. After researching some of our competitors, we realized that all of them had a “Welcome To…” video, so we jumped on the video content bandwagon. Our video is pretty short, but we will definitely have a longer one out at some point where we will cover all of the points above.
3) Product/service introductions
If there is a particular product/service that you offer that you would like to be more recognized, creating a video is the way to go. For example, we really value our White Label solution, so we made a whole separate video for the service.
Likewise, we recently started creating videos for our new templates, and the results have been pretty good. Plus, they are a lot of fun to make.
4) Company-focused videos
Ah, the classic corporate culture video. As cheesy as this idea might seem at first glance, creating these videos is so much fun! Consider filming your office space and capturing people on camera while they go about their daily tasks - with their consent, of course. We created our first “Office Life” video last year, and it ended up being very rewarding. Not only do company culture videos introduce people to your company on a more personal level, but they also bring employees closer together.
5) Event recordings
If your company organizes or participates in various events, this is a perfect opportunity to film and upload the experience to your social media platforms and YouTube channel. For example, Ucraft organized a game conference back in 2019 called “Jump Design Conference”. It was a great event and we were very happy with how it went, so we decided to take our recordings and turn them into a recap video.
6) Case studies
This goes without saying. Most brands have regular/loyal customers that will be more than happy to talk about their experience on camera. This is especially beneficial for B2B purposes, since such videos will help your B2B clients gain more exposure, as well as effectively demonstrate how people can use your product or service. We’ve filmed a couple of case studies, but they are only in Armenian for now (you can turn on the captions). We wanted to branch out and film some videos with our international clients, but this will probably be delayed till 2021 due to the current semi-apocalyptic situation in the world.
We hope our examples were helpful in inspiring you to develop your own video marketing strategies and understanding exactly how video can help your business. Good luck!