Valentine’s Day is only a few days away, and it’s another chance for content marketing campaigns to woo their audience so they fall in love with their brands. In a video marketing business trends survey last year 93% of marketers said they were using video, but more significantly 82% stated it was effective. So, with video becoming increasingly important for marketers it got us thinking about the relationship between content marketing and video, and why it’s a love match.
Your audience loves videos
Brands want love from their audience, and videos can help them achieve that. In 2013, more than one billion unique visitors headed to YouTube each month to watch more than six hours of video content. That’s almost an hour for every person on the planet, and 50% more than the previous year. That’s a lot of love.
And your audience aren’t just on YouTube, they’re on Vine too, and with every five tweets containing a Vine it’s worth giving short-form content a go too. Among the stumbling blocks to a good romance are rival suitors, otherwise known as your competitors, and the chances are they’re already using video. Thus you need encourage your audience to hang out with you and your brand, and video can help you differentiate yourself and create content that your audience loves and shares.
Video content to suit every brand personality
Video is versatile. Just as there’s someone for everyone out there somewhere… there are video marketing campaigns which will work for your brand. Video can tell stories in a variety of ways to match and reinforce your brand identity.
You need to consider which kind of video format will work to achieve your campaign or business goals. Do you need a promo for your website homepage or a video to attract attention at a conference? Does your new app justify a viral campaign or could a video to explain your service help reduce customer calls?
From short-form content, such as Vine or Instagram video, to long-form video, there is a format for everyone. You can think of your videos as beats in your brand story, whether emotional or logical. Your audience can watch each beat anytime, anywhere. The crucial takeaway is that each beat needs to tell your brand story, no matter what format or length.
A moving picture is worth 1.8 million words
That’s according to Dr James McQuivey of Forrester Research. Visual content is becoming more popular online for the distracted online audience, and video packs an extra visual punch as it can tell visual stories. As we’re in between Superbowl and Valentine’s Day, it’s appropriate to include this clip from Budweiser’s successful Puppy Love ad.
At the time of writing, it has over 46 million views on Budweiser’s brand YouTube channel, and has been shared 1.38 million times. The ad uses music effectively to pull on the heartstrings as well as playing on the emotions through storytelling and the cute unlikely animal friendship.
Video helps you get out there
Once you’ve created your content, you need to deliver it to your audience by seeding your content via key influencers and choosing the right media channels whether paid or earned. But video can also help the right people find you through SEO.
According to Forrester Research, video increases the probability of a Google page 1 listing by 53 times. In 2012, video appeared in almost 70% of the top 100 Google search listings. Videos are also shareable, which not only helps to spread your brand message, but also works with SEO strategy as social signals are important for SERPS rankings. Over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter per minute.
Go on a second date
We think that once you start using video marketing you’ll want to use it again. It is fun to make a video of course (we love our job). But that’s not why content marketing loves video. It’s because it works. Again the stats speak for themselves.
– 3 out of 5 consumers will watch a video that educates them about a product they plan to purchase (Marketingcharts.com),
– 4 in 10 shoppers visited a store online or in person as a direct result of watching a video.
– Shoppers who watch video are 174% more likely to buy the product than those who don’t (Retail Touchpoints, 2012).
Video can help you meet your marketing goals, but be clear about what you want your video campaign to do for your brand, whether that’s views and shares, donations, visits to a landing page, and ensure that the CTA is clear and easy to act upon.
