If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s the value of a video? Turns out, someone has actually done the math: According to Forrester researchers, a single minute of video is worth about 1.8 million words. Even if you’re someone who writes every day, it would take you at least 10 years to write that much.
All those words add up to cold, hard cash. Using video in your email marketing can make readers 96 percent more likely to click through, (according to Implix.) Seventy percent of the top 100 search results have video, and Internet Retailer tells us people who view videos about products were 85 percent more likely to buy.
We all know time is money. So why aren’t more companies investing in video marketing?
There are a lot of reasons, and we cover four of them in this video.
Perhaps some of these will sound familiar to you.
Is your accounting department halting video projects before they even begin?
Most likely, the accountants have your company’s best interest at heart and are just doing their jobs, but as a key decision maker, it’s your job to present your case.
First, scrap the notion that you absolutely need to hire a professional or use expensive production equipment. You can find a quality digital camera these days for less than $200 and a microphone for less than $20.
Add in a couple of lamps for additional lighting and an inexpensive tripod (you can find some decent ones for less than $20), and that’s really all you need to get started. Try using your smartphone, and you’ll save even more.
Most Macs or PCs come with a built-in video editing software, such as iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, and they’re so intuitive, anyone can use them. Need a hands-on tutorial? Ask your kids.
Video marketing is hardly a fad; the statistics show it’s here to stay.
By 2017, video will account for almost 70 percent of all consumer Internet traffic, according to Cisco. A whopping 93 percent of marketers used video for online marketing in 2013, and more than three-fourths are planning to add video to their site if they haven’t already.
Plenty of serious companies incorporate video into their inbound marketing strategy.
Here are three examples of B2B companies that have nailed the art of effectively using humor in their videos. One of them, Cisco, has a social media producer who got his start as a stand-up comedian.
“I am a big believer in having a solid global strategy where there’s room for white papers, product information and demos,” Tim Washer told Forbes in an interview. “But at the same time, if you take a very small part of your budget and say, ‘Let’s just entertain people and give our community a gift of laughter without necessarily a call to action,’ others will share your story for you.”
Considering the humor in your customers’ pain points is a great way to start, but your videos don’t always have to be funny. They can be helpful how-to videos, advice from executives or snippets of news.
And they certainly don’t need to be long. Three minutes is about as long as most people want to watch, so if your videos are much longer than that, you probably need to rethink them.
For more advice on how long a marketing video should be, check out this post by Kuno's multimedia producer, Steve Beller.
If you work at a small company where the people in charge are running every aspect of operations, from sales and marketing to service calls, that reluctance is understandable. This is where a series of how-to videos can be a perfect solution.
Focus on creating something that’s helpful to your customers so they can fix day-to-day problems themselves—like home repairs or using software tools—but they’ll know who to call when they have a bigger problem.
Like any other initiative, a video marketing strategy is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes you just need to take the first step.
So don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone and experiment a little!
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