We’ve all fallen down the YouTube rabbit hole on occasion, or realised we’ve wasted far longer than a grown person should watching Facebook videos of people doing stupid things. So, it’s always a surprise to me when I encounter a supposedly forward-thinking brand that’s still dragging its heels about integrating video into their content marketing strategy.
A DreamGrow infographic on the power of video marketing recently caught my eye, thanks to its neat summary of a few vital statistics we should all be aware of. Firstly, there’s that old chestnut of a prediction that 80% of consumer internet traffic across the world will be video by 2019. Then there’s the fact that more than two in three people prefer to watch a video to learn about a product or a service over reading text and, perhaps most importantly, 
more than three in four people have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a video.
For a long time, people have been saying that video is the future. Well, guess what? The future is now. Here are a few of the strongest arguments I can think of for getting on board the video marketing train…
1. Video boosts conversions
Let’s start with perhaps the biggest reason out there – video has been proven to boost conversions and sales. DreamGrow reported that simply adding a product video to your landing page has the ability to increase conversions by a whopping 80%. Impressed? You should be. It’s a well known fact that visual content marketing offers high returns due to the fact that we are visual beings – psychologist Albert Mehrabian revealed that 93% of all communication is non-verbal. Vision is our dominant sense, which is why video conveys messages and grabs attention and sticks in the mind like no other form of communication.
2. Google gives video the thumbs up
Seeing as everyone’s favourite search engine – Google – just so happens to own YouTube, it was hardly a surprise when Moovly stats revealed that a brand is 53% more likely to show up first on Google if it features an embedded video on its website. It’s safe to say a little bit of video marketing can’t hurt your search engine rank. Plus, if you get your videos right and visitors are lingering on your site for longer, this also signals to the search engines that your content is doing a good job. Just make sure that you pay close attention to optimising your YouTube videos with the right keywords, tags and links back to your website.
3. Mobile users love video
I wouldn’t be surprised if you were reading this post on a smartphone right now. Most of us seem to be permanently attached to the things these days and, according to reports from YouTube, it appears that mobile video consumption is on the rise by 100% every year. Interestingly enough, research from Google has also found that smartphone users are more likely to feel that sense of personal connection to brands boasting video content than those who view video or ads via desktop or even TV.
4. Video makes everything clear
A great first foray into the world of video is to develop an explainer video to show off your goods or services. According to Wyzowl, 98% of users say they’ve watched one to get their heads round a product or service whilst 93% of businesses believe it has increased user understanding of their offering. What’s more, nearly half of businesses (45%) who use video, feature an explainer video on their home page and of these businesses, 83% say that explainer video is effective. The stats speak for themselves – explainer videos are a great place to start with your video content experimentation.
5. Video delivers ace ROI
The idea of spending valuable money on producing a high quality video is understandably daunting to brands who are unconvinced of the benefits. True, to get video right, it isn’t the cheapest of tasks. But the benefits are clear – video delivers excellent ROI. In fact, Wyzowl found that 76% of businesses who use video agree with this statement. With some things in life, you get back what you put in.
Wyzowl further reported that 15% of businesses not using video believe that it’s too expensive to play with whilst 10% lack the time to create and promote video content. If either of these reasons are holding you back, I suggest you get in touch for a chat about what M2 Bespoke can do for you.