With consumers viewing more than 8 billion videos per day on Facebook and YouTube, it’s increasingly critical that businesses include video in their marketing strategy.
In a recent survey conducted by Animoto, we asked more than 1,000 U.S. consumers how they interact with and feel about businesses that use video in their marketing. Customers prefer video — in fact, one in four consumers actually lose interest in a company if it doesn’t use video. Read on to see where video can be used most effectively and how you can incorporate it into your marketing mix, in a way consumers will respond:
Boost email open rates
Our survey revealed that consumers are nearly 50 percent more likely to read email newsletters that include links to video. Additionally, more than half of consumers said they’ve watched a company video that came through email.
Embedding video in emails directly can be tricky, and won’t work with most email clients. So how do you go about using video in newsletters and other emails? Here are a few tips:
- Link to the video hosted on your site rather than embedding the video in an email
- Make it clear you’ve included a video by adding a still frame and linking the image to your video; superimpose a play button on top of the image to get more clicks
- Use an animated .gif of several frames of your video to grab readers’ attention — this can replace the static image
- Use the copy in the email to let readers know what the video is about
- Mention the video in your subject line, especially if it’s a prominent feature in your email
Encourage engagement on social media
Videos shared on Facebook are proven to get more engagement than other types of media, and consumers are proven to interact with them. 84 percent of consumers said they’ve ‘Liked’ a company video in their news feed, and nearly half have shared a company video on their profile. A recent study from Socialbakers found that videos posted on company Facebook pages see an increase in organic reach of 135 percent, on average, over photos.
Use Facebook to engage existing customers with videos promoting special deals, exclusive insider looks at your products and short, fun clips that show off your company’s personality. To pique the interest of new customers, feature a video about your company, along with videos related to your industry. This video, posted by photographer Kelly Brown on her Facebook page, has been viewed over 17,000 times and received over 600 likes, 71 shares, and 40 comments.
Little Pieces Photography by Kelly Brown – Brisbane Newborn Baby Photographer from Kelly Brown on Vimeo.
Drive sales on your website
Video is a great way to move customers through the sales process — and especially to provide more details about your company and product offering. In a Video Commerce Report earlier this year, Liveclicker found companies that featured product videos on their websites saw larger average order values (AOV) than companies that did not.
What should you include in the videos you host on your website? The Animoto survey found consumers prefer these types of videos, in this order:
- Videos showing how a product is made
- Customer testimonial videos
- Videos about your company
Consumers want an inside look: 80 percent of those surveyed said a video showing how a product or service works is important.
Today consumers respond to, and even expect, video marketing on the web, via social, and in email. It’s the perfect time to start incorporating video into your marketing strategy.
As founding CEO of Animoto, Brad leads the charge in driving Animoto to be the global standard for automated video creation. Prior to co-founding Animoto in August 2006, Brad spent eight years with Onyx Software, an enterprise software company. Through Brad’s career at Onyx he saw the company grow from a 17-person start-up to an 800-person public company, and eventually an acquisition. Brad graduated from Dartmouth College and currently resides in Oakland, California, with his wife and their two children, both of whom are stars of his frequent Animoto video creations.
