To connect more effectively with their customers, business owners are always looking for new ways to promote their brands. The era of traditional, one-size-fits-all marketing, like billboards and ads, is over, as these methods have repeatedly shown to be less effective than today’s content-focused digital marketing.
Video marketing has emerged as the clear winner for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. It allows brands to capture their customers’ attention by sharing their story, engaging and building a loyal following.
Why is video effective? Because while individuals can glance at an ad for a second and move on, and websites have traditionally high bounce rates (how quickly they leave a site after entering it), videos retain more than a third of their audience through the end, 37% to be exact!
How do you utilize video marketing effectively if you are new to this? With the following tips:
Choose the Type of Video
According to a source, there are four types of videos that businesses use for marketing purposes:
- Explainers
- How-tos
- Product Demos
- Testimonials
You don’t need to constrict your company to using only one type of video, but you should consider which ones would be most useful to your customers. For example, a makeup brand can benefit from how-to videos that show customers the best ways of utilizing their products.
A medical office that wants to build a relationship filled with trust can share testimonials from existing clients that can attest to their services.
Choose the Best Time
Once you create the video, you want to maximize the amount of people who will see it. If you plan to market the video on social marketing, you want to post it at the peak time when users will be using the platform, otherwise, it will get pushed to the bottom of their feed and will decrease the chances of them seeing it at all.
One source found that Wednesday between 7 and 11AM PST to be the most advantageous time to share your video. Researching times based on your industry, time zone, and audience behavior is always helpful when sharing your content.
Utilize Personalized Video Technology
You likely know that a personalized email will amount to more people reading it than a generic one. Emerging technology allows business owners to utilize personalized video technology to customize video messages for their clients.
Personalized videos can include your customer’s name, company and even examples of how your services or products can help them.
This type of digital marketing changes the entire game because when individuals watch videos directed personally to them, it increases engagement and conversion to sales over traditional forms of advertising.
Real-Time Analytics
One of the most important steps to effective video marketing, and one that many business owners unfortunately skip, is using real-time analytics in their video marketing campaigns.
Instead of guessing what your customers may enjoy, you can use a data-driven approach to fine-tune your campaigns to their individual needs.
Real-time analytics allow you to monitor how your videos are performing across various platforms, as well as on desktop and mobile. Many platforms will provide you with information about “bandwidth consumption, ad request, ad impressions and video display” that will give you a deeper understanding of how many of your videos are being watched, by whom and on what platform, according to a source.
Video marketing is not a cheap endeavor and one that requires a financial investment. However, if done strategically, it can provide significant returns.