:format(webp)?_w=1440)
Video is fast becoming the go-to medium when considering a digital marketing strategy these days, with a whopping 81% of businesses using video for marketing purposes in 2018, compared to 63% in 2017.
Although companies and marketers are aware that jumping on the video bandwagon is a necessary measure, it can be overwhelming to do so, if you haven’t engaged with video for your business before.
But consider this; as of 2018, 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day, and 300 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute.
And as Digital Marketer David Rodnitzky put it in a recent article and Q&A for Think with Google, by not including video you are "literally missing billions of opportunities to engage with people".
You probably already know all about the SEO potential of video and the engagement it elicits on social media.
Video grabs audiences' attention thanks to compelling visuals, inspiring or energising music, and evoking emotions in viewers in a way that text can't really do.
However, now Search Engine Marketing and Video Marketing are joining forces – and you don’t want to miss out.
If you consider that YouTube, a Google property, has become the second most-used search engine, you’ll realise that video isn’t just for entertainment purposes anymore.
It’s a means to look for answers, follow the news, learn from ‘how-to’ videos, browse products (we’ve all watched ‘unboxing’ videos) and watch reviews to help influence your decisions. With that in mind, shouldn’t you consider this platform for your next campaign?
And as the power of video progresses, so does the availability of video marketing tools. In fact, Google has been working on a number of tools to make your video marketing efforts even easier.
For example, you can now use search-engine-collected data on YouTube to target users with an ad for something they had previously searched on Google.
You can add CTA buttons straight onto your videos through TrueView for Action, and thanks to Customer Match you can use shared information to reach your audience across several Goolge platforms such as Gmail, YouTube, Google Search and Google Shopping.
Plus between In-stream ads, In-display ads, Bumper ads and Homepage ads (to mention a few), the options to deliver your video are countless.
The conversion rates also show hat video isn’t just trendy now, but is a strong and effective marketing tool which influences its viewers.
Keep in mind that it's not just clicks you should be looking at when measuring ROI. Even when people don’t click through, views and impressions on their own can sometimes do the trick.
Commenting, sharing and subscribing are good indicators of engagement and – more often than not – glancing over a video can often encourage people to perform a search, purchase, as well as increase brand awareness and popularity.
There are so many reasons to use video in your marketing strategy. So, what are you waiting for? Don’t hold back from embarking on your video adventure. Contact one of our strategists today!