It’s a new year, which marks a new start for most marketers. But this time of year also inspires brands and marketers to look for ways to differentiate themselves and stand out to consumers in order to be noticed during the post-holiday timeframe.
Brands are busy competing by offering free shipping, big sales, buy-one-get-one offerings and more. Don’t get me wrong, incentives help. However, product/service marketers have three main goals – drive more traffic, help consumers buy more products and help customers buy more often. Today, more than ever, marketers can reach those three goals through video. Video that includes storytelling: engaging content that grabs the consumers and gets them to take action… is especially important.
Based on my perspective, video has become a key differentiator in today’s marketing arsenal because people love to consume it. Most studies estimate that one-third of online activity is watching video. A great deal of companies are doing video but very few are doing video well. At CRIMSON, we strive to help our clients be clear and concise about what they want their target audience to know about them. Then we “tell that story” with video, cutting through the clutter of the busy world we live with interesting, fun and easy-to-understand content – getting that audience to take action.
Customers love to watch videos and engage with them. Why?
- Engaging videos can increase the relevance of your website and attract more organic traffic
- Videos help educate customers about your company and your products
- Video views convert to sales. Period.
Here are some ways your brand can leverage video in order to reach your audiences:
Include Video on Your Website
Animoto found that one in four consumers tend to lose interest in a company if it does not feature any video on their website. The same study found that nearly two-thirds of consumers say brands that use video know how to reach their customers. In other words, consumers are more interested in your products/services when you have video content and they find your company more interesting because of video.
Show Products/Services in Action
Google “video marketing” and you’ll see that video drives purchases. You’ll also learn that consumers prefer video as their method of communication with businesses over any other content format.
There are many ways to make a video that is both informational and action-packed. Many brands use influencers or models to show off the way a product works or looks. A good example is Gap, which launched a campaign featuring social media personalities incorporating the brand’s clothing into their personal wardrobes.
The key is make sure the video is crystal clear on what you want the audience to know and tells a story about how your product/service is being used in action. Post it on your website, use in digital advertising, show on social media, etc. The video will drive action.
Use Video Analytics
When using video, you can gain data-filled insights that can be used for future campaigns and targeting. Today, there are so many ways to measure the performance of a video using data analytics. Based off consumers’ past or current browsing behavior, marketers can see what types of products consumers are interested in buying, the types of videos they’ve watched, length of videos they watched, which video content they clicked on, and even which views resulted in purchases based off of a specific call to action.
All this data gives companies a glimpse into what’s working and what’s not. Taking these findings helps companies learn about what will likely convert to a sale.
People Use Video to Learn About Products and Convert
As it turns out, videos have a big impact in the purchase-decision process. The majority of consumers find it helpful to watch a product video more than once before making a purchase. Additionally, MultiVision Media found 64 percent of consumers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.
Because inspiration can occur at any point in time online, allowing consumers more immediate access to products they enjoy increases sales and conversion rates. So, making the video link to your shopping cart or making it super easy to purchase a product is key. As you may have noticed, “swipe left” or “swipe right” to buy has been implemented by a lot of big companies in their videos.
Allowing customers to go from inspiration to instant gratification is no longer optional when it comes to online shopping, as the less time customers spend searching for a service/product, the more time they have to find new products/services to buy.
Competing in today’s marketplace can be tough. As videos continue to engage online customers, it’s important that videos are built into every consumer journey in order to impact the bottom line.
