The technological world today is based on quick, on the go sites. If you're not finished reading it within 30 seconds, you're going to put it down for later. And later will probably be reduced to never or thrown in a pile of "When I have time."
Video marketing is a new format of sales and advertising, where videos become one of the ways you communicate with your target audience. We've seen sites such as Youtube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion take off, with more and more people using their mobile camera applications or Webcams to post videos up on these websites. Customer feedback reviews, traveling videos, documentaries, tv shows can all be found online. More businesses are using corporate videos to showcase their business and to introduce you to the people who run the company.
With inbound marketing, companies ingratiate themselves into the lives of the people by sparking the interest of a potential client. These are the ways that video marketing affects your company, in a positive manner, and 6 reasons why you should start investing your time and energy into video marketing for the masses:
1-Mainstream marketing-
This is the way that people are communicating today. Whether it is through Skype, Facetime, or video, people want to see others with their own eyes. The visual agent is now a big time player in the marketing world, and companies have to be creative in the way that they catch people's attention. Which brings us to our next reason...
2. Attention span-
With our increasing focus on multitasking, its not rare to find someone texting in a group on their cell phone, watching a video on their laptop, listening to the TV in the background, and having a conversation with someone all at the same time. Though multitasking really isn't feasible in a work setting, we have grown up in a world that keeps adding distractions to our lives. Our attention span is becoming smaller with each generation, and because of this, if you don't catch someone's attention in a video within the first 30 seconds, they're going to go on to the next one. Coming up with unusual ways to approach people is a taxing mission, but at the end of the day, it makes you stand out. The population is video-crazy, and we're becoming more obsessed with the medium each and every day.
Trendhunter.com is a perfect example in how current news trends are the way to catch people's attention. Whether it be through video or another marketing tool, the attention span of the consumer is becoming more distracted with other information, and you need to stick in their minds in order to grow. Dare to be different.
3- Google Search
Google search utilizes universal marketing strategy with Universal Search by aggregating their videos to their google search rankings. If your key terms and video relates to a certain google search, it will appear in the google search results. For example, (and Yogi the Publicity Pug will appreciate this), I google searched "Cute pugs" and a variety of different mediums came up in my results. A "Cute Pug pics" tumblr, images, and videos of cute pugs appears. If you title and describe your videos with key terms, then your video can pop up in a variety of google searches. Video+google search results=Possible link to your website and company!
4-YouTube
Have you ever seen the commercial of the man who goes to get an acupuncture treatment, but has to jump out of the building mid-session due to a fire? Or maybe the bubbly music video to "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen? Or even the alternate version to "Call Me Maybe" with Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and others? These videos can all be found on Youtube. Different companies have Youtube Channels (or Vimeo or Dailymotion) channels to feature themselves, their company, their products, and everything that allows them to tell you their story. Whether you make your videos complex, professional, simple, heavily animated, or all by yourself, these video sharing channels can help you launch your company into the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vks1pyX9e1w - Acupuncture Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNu5va59N5E - Call Me Maybe Music Video with Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, and others.
5- Quality over Quantity
DollarShaveClub.com- Have you watched the video? The making of the video looks pretty simple. It's the creativity and humor that went into the script and the spokesperson that makes it fun to watch and to remember. Easy, simple videos are possible to make, whether all you have is a cell phone camera or if you're privy to a high quality videocamera. Part 3 of this blog series will be on different ways to easily make your own video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI - DollarShaveClub.com Commercial
6- Visual Assets-> Engagement-> Sharing
This is the equation to visual marketing. Proactivereport.com has a great article on using multimedia to tell stories, explaining that these three factors (plus more multimedia) can increase the views of your press release, website, product and anything else you're trying to sell or make available to others!
You're not just making a video and sharing it for the fun of editing and creating, you're making it to share your story so that other people can pass it on. Video marketing along with social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other blog posting sites are the source of consumer interaction. The video about your latest product, which someone bought and appreciated, could be that consumer's next status update. Their friend sees it, tells another friend about what they shared, and the cycle keeps on going. These connections are the basis of online word of mouth. This can help your company because the customers act as promoters for your product, and they're not even getting paid to do it! For example, I just shared a video on my facebook about a Sour Patch Kids commercial that I found incredibly funny. This is an example of the equation in action. I'm not getting paid for it, I just thought that others could use a laugh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yU4EiFQb9w - Sour Patch Paintball Commercial
As you can see, video marketing is a huge playing field that you can either dip your fingers in or immerse your marketing strategy around. From personal experience, I can attest that consumers can see the immediacy and popularity of a certain product from videos. It is also cost-effective and a widely distributed marketing tool.