Why is video marketing so important?

Once YouTube launched in 2005, video marketing became a vital tool. The internet has shaped our lives, communication, company engagement, and personal interactions since the onset of the internet. Who hasn’t searched online for an answer to their problem? Or watched a video to learn how to do something they haven’t done before? Finding videos to make our lives easier is an everyday occurrence for millions of people. 

Considering that in 2002, the average time people spent watching online videos escalated to 19 hours a week, no wonder video marketing is the essential marketing strategy your company needs to hone and perfect.

A staggering 86% of companies use video in their marketing strategy.

And 92% of marketers say a video is a valuable tool in their marketing. Then when you add that 96% of people are searching for videos to learn more about a product or service and 78% are more likely to purchase a product or service after watching a video, the compelling evidence for using video in your marketing strategy is crucial.

What do you need to evaluate when assessing your video marketing strategy? Is there a “best” video marketing strategy, and what should be included in your video marketing? What’s the best video marketing strategy for social media? And, really, what makes video marketing such a powerful marketing strategy? Let’s get into answering those questions.

What is a video marketing strategy?

A video marketing strategy is a plan your marketing team will develop that will map out what videos to create, which videos to use, and where to use those videos to reach your target audience. When you’re developing your video marketing strategy, you’ll need to consider some key components.

• • Budget. Determining your budget is paramount, and you’ll need to know your purpose in marketing videos, who your target audience is, where you can best connect with your audience, and how many videos you’ll need to create. This assessment will help in allotting money value to your campaign.
  • Timeframe. Once you know your budget, what’s the deadline for executing your video marketing strategy? 
  • Platforms. What platforms will you use to reach your target audience? 
  • Videos. The platform you use to post your marketing videos will guide what type of videos you make.
  • Goal. What’s your end goal? When deciding your budget, you review your purpose and ultimate goal, but how will you track your success? You can track the number of views, video-play rate, click-through rate, number of comments and shares, complete viewings, and your conversion rate. You can also look at unsubscribed rates, bounce rates, page views, and time viewing. 

What makes video marketing a powerful marketing strategy?

Let’s look at the statistics around video marketing to understand why video marketing is a powerful marketing strategy. 

Videos are the number one way to engage your audience since 73% of people will watch a video over reading a pamphlet or other medium. Only 11% want to read about something, whether a hard-copy article or online. A meager 4% are interested in infographics, and even fewer, 3%, want to listen to a pitch, attend a webinar, receive a sales call, or have a product demonstration. 

The average time people watch videos online has almost doubled from 2018 at 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours in 2022. And videos are at the top of the list when it comes to what people like to share on social media. Actually, “people are twice as likely to share video content with their friends than any other type of content, including social media posts, blog posts/articles, and product pages.”

If we evaluate what other marketers are doing and their results, video marketing is the go-to marketing tool. How about increasing brand awareness? 93% of marketers say video is the best for raising brand awareness. Increasing leads? A solid 86% say video marketing culminates in more leads. What about a consumer’s understanding of a product or service? A substantial 94% say consumers better understand their product or service after watching a video.

What if you want to increase traffic and engagement on your website and social media platforms?

87% of marketers say video is the best way to grab people’s attention. 

Another reason to utilize video marketing is to lower your customer support calls. Actually, 49% of marketers say video marketing decreases the number of calls for support, which makes sense because people better understand a product or service after watching a video. Plus, a video can be saved and replayed later.

Additionally, when using videos on your website, blog, and social media sites, search engine optimization increases, which is a game changer. There are 63K search queries on Google every second, and DuckDuckGo gets over 96 million daily. Millions of users use search engines to find what they need. Anytime you increase your search engine optimization, you make headway in being noticed and remembered. 

There’s a 51% conversion rate if you add videos to your email marketing. You can embed or include a link to your marketing video in your email and watch your engagement and followers increase.

A big reason for using video in your marketing, especially on social media, is that people love sharing videos.

Social media users interact with 6.6 social media platforms regularly. They are more apt to share a video than to call or text. And when you take in that 4.48 billion people are currently using social media worldwide, you’re starting to step into a win-win situation, one you shouldn’t waste banking on.

After running through these statistics, it’s easy to see why video marketing is a powerful strategy your company should utilize immediately if they haven’t already.

What should be included in video marketing?

We know what video marketing is, and we understand why video marketing is a powerful strategy, but what should be included in your video marketing? First, let’s start with the three essential components of a successful video marketing strategy.

• • What videos are you creating and why? If the initial part of video marketing is creating videos, then your marketing team needs to decide what videos they will make. And a big question to consider is, What’s the purpose behind your videos? A good starting point would be reviewing the 4 P’s of video storytelling to help you hone down your core reasoning behind your video and who your target audience is.  
  • What marketing videos will you use? You’ll need to determine which marketing videos to use. Which video adheres to your company’s purpose, and which video represents and best explains your product or service? And most importantly, which video triggers an emotional response in your target audience? If you want to motivate your audience into action, you need to pull them in, and the best way to do that is with their emotions.
  • Where will you use your marketing videos? It is essential to determine the best placement for your marketing videos. You can increase your conversion rate by almost 80% if you place a video on your landing page. Consider posting your video on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, the most popular social media sites with consumers. Add your video to your email marketing campaign. And while you’re at it, schedule your posts so you know in advance what you’re posting, where you’re posting, and when you’re posting. 

Now that you’ve hammered out those three questions . . .

Overall you’ll need to consider some finer points to develop and market an eye-catching marketing video that can engage your audience and motivate them to act.

1.  5 Elements of Storytelling

We’ve already touched on the 4 P’s, and they are essential, too, but let’s take a quick peek at the 5 elements. When you’re writing the outline of your video, you’ll need a plot, setting, characters, point of view, conflict, and resolution. Assessing these elements and the 4 P’s will help hone your storyline to the most compelling and engaging point for a successful marketing video.

2.  Great scriptwriter

The scriptwriter you hire must grab people’s attention and deliver an engaging and succinct script. Remember, most marketing videos are a few seconds to 4-minutes in length, preferably around the 2-minute mark. Because of this, your script must be tight and powerful.

3. Types of marketing videos

Knowing the kind of video you’ll be creating is essential. Is your video an explainer video? How about a product video? Maybe you want to develop more of a storytelling video. Are you using animation, voiceover, whiteboard, live-action, or actors?

4. Using music and/or narration

What music you choose to use can make or break your marketing video, even if it’s background music. Your music needs to be memorable. The same goes for your narration. Who you hire to narrate your video must actively pull your audience in.

5. Hire the right filming crew

The filmmakers and camera crew you hire are the fundamentals behind your video. They will create the marketing video that can potentially wow your audience and motivate them to buy your product/service or make your video go viral.

6. Inclusion and diversity

To stay competitive in today’s market, you must consider incorporating inclusion and diversity into your video marketing strategy. And this doesn’t just mean your videos but also what you’re doing as a company. Consumers are more apt to research a company’s diversity and inclusivity practices to decide if they want to buy their products/services.

7. Don’t create a cookie-cutter brand story

If you were to remove your company’s logo and name, would consumers recognize your video as your company’s? This is where the 5 elements and 4 P’s really help because they challenge your marketing team to honestly assess your company’s story, purpose, and target audience.

8.  Hit the ground running

Your video must pop the first second someone plays it. Remember to show, not tell your story, be bold, and keep it short. 

9. Get your CTAs out front and often

You’ll have a few seconds to 2-minutes to deliver your company’s story, product, or service, and the ultimate goal is to get your audience to act. Engage, inspire, and motivate.

10. SEO

Using keywords in your video descriptions is an optimal way to rank higher on search engines, especially Google. Also, make sure to use the tagging feature on YouTube, which categorizes your video as a “related video” to other videos.

11. Customer-generated content

A phenomenal way to involve your customers is customer-generated content. Ask them to use your product or service and make a video. Everyone wants a bit of fame, right? Plus, their videos will be shared, and your company will get continuous exposure, increasing brand awareness and leads.

What is a video hosting platform and who should you use?

A video hosting platform is basically a home for your videos, and a good reason to use one is that videos use a lot of data, which determines how quickly data can transfer. Storing videos on your own site can be problematic: diminished video quality, slow load times, and poor playback. Also, depending on your hosting plan, you may go over storage limits, so it’s beneficial for a company to use a video hosting provider.

The hosting platform you choose will determine what you can do with your video, where you can share it, and the authority over your videos.

Let’s take a look at three particular video hosting platforms. 

1. AudPop

With us, you can seamlessly upload videos to our platform. Once you create a video creator portfolio, you can access advanced video stats: plays, votes, shares, watch times, comments, and downloads. Each week you can upload 2 to 20 GB and up to 1 TB per year, depending on your membership option. You can see social sharing stats and play-through reports. You’ll have authority over who can see, comment, download or embed your video. Additionally, you can post videos directly to your social platforms. We offer two membership options: Pro Membership ($14 per month) with all the bells and whistles and a Basic Membership for free.

2. YouTube

Everyone has heard of YouTube. They are the largest video hosting site on the internet, with 1.9 billion logged-in users. Big doesn’t necessarily mean the best, though. YouTube is great for individual users, but it’s lacking when it comes to businesses. For one, they use a bunch of ads, and they will put their ads before your videos. Their ads will even interrupt your videos, which may cause the viewer to move on or lose interest. Also, sometimes the “related videos” they display alongside your video could be your competitor or not be related at all. 

3. Vimeo

They offer four different plans, and their benefits vary depending on your choice. Some benefits include analytics, password protection, restricted video access, download/embed video, private videos, lead generation tools, and more. Vimeo plays fewer ads than YouTube, which is a bonus. Pricing for their plans ranges from $12 to $55 per month, or you can talk directly to sales and set up an Enterprise account. 

Another video hosting platform you can check out is Vidyard, catering specifically to businesses. There are also free video hosting platforms, just like AudPop’s free Basic Membership. Free plans come with limits to data storage and perks, so do your research before committing.

What is the best video marketing strategy?

You can utilize different channels and sites to share your marketing video. Some of your marketing videos will hit all channels and sites, whereas others won’t. You might need to consider the site for a particular video. For example, some social media sites’ statistics support sound on a video for best viewing engagement, whereas others don’t, so you’ll need to know which ones and schedule accordingly.

1.  Website

Your website is a great place to start, and adding a marketing video to your site can increase traffic. Search engines love video. Make sure to add keywords to your video’s descriptions to best optimize search engine results.

2. Email marketing

Adding marketing videos to your email marketing is beneficial because it’s a quick way to engage your current customers and those that are interested in your product or service. You can add an Explainer video to demonstrate what your product does or add a Storytelling video to inspire and connect with your audience.

3. Social media platforms

Sharing your marketing video on social media sites is vital. Below is a breakdown of social media sites and the overwhelming benefits of posting videos on these sites. 

4. Blog

If you have a blog, add videos to your articles. Firstly, people like to watch videos more than reading about what they are trying to learn. Secondly, as was noted above, search engines love video, so add keywords to your video’s descriptions.

5. Paid media

Generating leads is number one for a company because it creates endless growth and expansion possibilities. You can pay to boost your videos on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. With some paid media, you can target your audience based on particular specifics. Display Ads are another paid media strategy, but these aren’t the best ways to get your videos out to the public. Display Ads are too familiar and easily dismissed.

The best video marketing strategy is to use all avenues of distribution. Upload a marketing video to your website, share it on social media platforms, include it in your email campaigns, and post videos on your blog. Boost your videos based on a reasonable budget, and be willing to readjust your budget to the results you’re receiving.

What is the best video marketing strategy for social media?

When creating a video marketing strategy for social media, it’s helpful to consider the statistics. Looking at what other marketers are doing can help you see where they are getting the best results.

About 88% of video marketers use YouTube, 68% use LinkedIn and Instagram, 65% use Facebook, and 33% use TikTok. And when you add that 88% of people want to see more brand videos, there’s no reason not to use marketing videos throughout your social media.

Did you know that videos get 48% more views on social media than other posts?

Just that alone is a reason to post marketing videos on social media. What an easy way to engage and inspire your audience base. People gravitate towards those videos that compel an emotional connection, which doesn’t just mean inspiring but entertaining, too. Actually, 73% of people want to watch a funny or lighthearted video.

As you’ll notice below, when we look at each social media platform, there’s a difference between videos with sound and videos without sound. Interestingly, it depends on the site you use; like with Facebook, sound is big, but on LinkedIn, not so much.

Let’s break it down further.

YouTube

YouTube is essential to include in your social media strategy. They have 38 million active channels, and 15 million are content-generated channels, coupled with 22,000 of those content-generated channels having more than a million followers. Did you know that 500 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every minute? And then, when you consider that 62% of Google searches are videos and 8 out of 10 are YouTube videos, you start to see that regularly uploading marketing videos to YouTube could be a great way to broaden your audience base and generate leads.

LinkedIn

An interesting piece of information is that videos on LinkedIn are shared 20 times more than on other platforms. Many videos are created without sound because 80% of viewers on LinkedIn don’t turn the sound on. These no-sound videos usually include captions or text of some kind. The video length for LinkedIn is best kept between 30 to 90 seconds, which is definitely shorter than the standard 2 to 4 minutes. And brands bank on LinkedIn when it comes to comments and reactions–7x to 24x more interaction. Fewer marketers post on LinkedIn (38%), but 75% of those marketers reported success.

Instagram

Posting videos on Instagram, primarily Instagram Stories, will guarantee twice the engagement of non-video posts. Interestingly, 60% of videos are viewed with sound, so you’ll need to keep that in mind. And there’s been a substantial increase of 80% in watching videos from 2017. Want to increase viewership overall? Add stickers to Instagram Stories, and viewership will increase by 83%. And here are other benefits: 30% of viewers have bought a product after watching a video, and 7 out of 10 have clicked on a link in a brand video.

Facebook

Here’s a huge number: 8 billion. Yep, that’s how many views Facebook records each day. And when it comes to branded content, Facebook hits the mark with 49% of consumers more engaged than any other social media site. Interestingly, a whopping 85% of people don’t turn the sound on when watching videos on Facebook. A staggering 75 million people are on Facebook Watch, averaging 20 minutes of viewing daily.

TikTok

There are over 800 million people actively using TikTok throughout the world. Those people are watching more than 1 billion videos daily. Take Americans. They watch videos on TikTok every day for an average of 46 minutes, adding up to a resounding 37 million video views monthly. Most marketers don’t use TikTok, 1 in 10, but 66% of those say it was successful.

Of course, the above-mentioned social media sites aren’t the only sites to utilize. There’s Snapchat, with more than 10 billion videos watched daily. According to Social Media Week, 12% of marketers use Snapchat and boast a 50% success rate. And there’s Twitter, with 2 billion video views daily, and videos on Twitter receive 10 times as much engagement as non-video tweets.

How can AudPop help you with your video marketing?

AudPop is a unique video marketing production company in that we have a 75K global creative community we can tap into to help generate unique, eye-catching content for your company’s video marketing campaign. Not only do we have access to phenomenally talented creatives, but we also are creatives ourselves, so we know what we’re looking for to deliver the best marketing videos for your company. 

What you get when you work with us . . .

Reasonable budgets. We’ve worked with large companies like Dell and 21st Century Fox and smaller businesses to nonprofits, so we know how to scale a budget that works and gets the content you want.

Variety of services. Our services include video-contest marketing, social media components, content-production strategies, content-production partnerships, and managed services. 

Access the creatives you need. Our 75K global creative community comprises filmmakers, directors, actors, scriptwriters, voiceover artists, animators, and more. We can put together a talented crew from our direct-hire list, contests, challenges, and our own AudPop filmmakers. 

Inclusive and diverse company. Inclusion and diversity are important to us, so we make sure our team is diverse and inclusive. Our streaming platform engages our worldwide creative community. There’s no country we don’t have contact with. 

Unique, not cookie-cutter. We can help you create a video that uniquely captures your brand’s story, product, or service. Distinct and eye-catching videos are our bread and butter. Through our creative community, we can find a creative that will work wonders on your video marketing project. 

Customer-generated content. If you’re looking to connect with your audience and want consumer-generated content, we’ve got you covered. 

Video hosting platform. Tons of storage, access to advanced video stats: plays, votes, shares, watch times, comments, and downloads, social sharing stats, play-through reports, authority over who can see, comment, download or embed your video, and post videos directly to your social platforms. 

AudPop offers comprehensive and sound video marketing strategies. Essentially, we’re your one-stop video marketing production company. Working with us will give you a leg up in creating striking and dynamite video content. 

Again, why is video marketing so important?

We’ve highlighted statistics on why your company should include video in your marketing strategy. Let’s review why video marketing is essential in engaging your audience, generating leads, and increasing sales.

Firstly, the average time people watch videos online is 19 hours a week, which is substantial considering the number of people worldwide. Video is a quick, effective way to grab their attention and deliver information. People are more likely to share a video with their friends and family, and 73% of people want to watch a video over other forms.

Additionally, 93% of marketers say video is the best way to raise brand awareness, and 86% say video creates more leads. And 94% of marketers say consumers better understand their product or service after watching a video.

Using video throughout several social media sites is a great way to raise awareness and engagement with your target audience. Basically, using marketing videos on social media is the best way to grab your audience’s attention and inspire them to act. And that’s the ultimate goal, right? All companies want their target audience to purchase their products or services. 

Creating a short and memorable marketing video to utilize throughout your marketing strategy can draw your target audience in, broadening brand awareness, generating leads, and increasing sales.

Let AudPop help you with your video marketing needs.

We’re experienced and know how to implement a successful video marketing strategy for your company. Our 75K global creative community is here for you to access. We’re adept at video-contest marketing, social media components, content-production strategies, content-production partnerships, and managed services. AudPop can help you create an impactful and engaging marketing video.

Don’t wait to give us a shout. We’re here to help. 

ABOUT AUDPOP

At AudPop, we’re filmmakers, designers, marketers, strategists, and writers. But mostly, we’re dreamers! Dreamers who believe stories can change the world. Our mission at AudPop is to connect partners with creators. Filmmakers with partners. Audiences with authentic stories to facilitate collaboration and change.

How do we do that exactly? It’s simple.

If you’re a partner or agency looking to create original premium video content, we’ve got you. We can connect you with over 75,000 diverse and talented filmmakers. Are you a filmmaker ready to share your stories with the world? We can connect you with partners and audiences hungry for quality, authentic content. Do you want to watch quality video content with real stories? We have over 12,000 videos from filmmakers from 190 countries. All with unique stories to tell.

Dreams start here—and together, we can make them come true. Check out AudPop.