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By now, even the smallest businesses have invested in content marketing, social media, and SEO. It’s quite clear that those three elements are incredibly important components of successful internet marketing. However, if that’s all you’re focusing on, you’re missing out on one of the most promising and lucrative mediums: Video marketing.

 

Six Reasons Video Marketing Deserves Your Focus 

For many years, video marketing was a sort of crude and somewhat mysterious area of internet marketing. The successful ones were those that experimented around the most and essentially got lucky. That’s no longer the case anymore, though. The most successful businesses in the world now have a keen understanding of the value of video marketing – do you?

Here are a few of the top reasons why video marketing deserves your attention and focus in 2015 and the years to come:

1. Huge reach. Perhaps the biggest testimony to online video’s huge reach is this statistic: 32 billion videos were watched in Q2 of 2014 alone, 42% higher than the year before. That’s not all, video’s reach keeps growing day-by-day, with an increasing number of people dropping television for online channels like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube.

If you’re new to video marketing, YouTube is the best place to start. Via YouTube, you’ll have access to more than one billion users in 75 different countries. Not too shabby, right? Each year, the number of hours of video people watch on YouTube per month increases steadily by 50 percent.  That’s absolutely incredible and makes advertising on YouTube a must for all marketers.Screen Shot 2015-06-09 at 3.37.26 PM

 

2. Versatility. Video marketing is great because it’s highly versatile and has thousands of potential uses beyond advertising. From realtors and landlords conducting video tours and listings to major corporations releasing product teasers, the possibilities are endless. Compared to display advertising, video marketing is a far more dynamic and interactive medium to work with. It allows you to increase engagement and stimulation with your customers in a subtle way. The only thing that limits the potential of a video marketing campaign is the amount of creativity the production team has.

3. Mobile. The future of internet marketing is mobile and video is one of the easiest forms of content for users to consume via their mobile devices. In fact, there are an estimated one billion mobile video views per day on YouTube alone. If you’re looking to reach your audience on the go, video is a solid choice.

4. Easily searchable. Did you know that 70 percent of the search listings on Google include video results? That makes video one of the most easily searchable forms of content in the world. If you’re looking to enhance visibility, here’s your answer. Furthermore, YouTube is second largest search engine in the world after, you guessed it, Google. Given these stats, optimizing your video content for search is absolutely a must.

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5. Increased engagement. From a practical point of view, video does something text and pictures cannot. They are incredibly engaging and emotionally powerful. Even a two or three second clip can encourage a viewer to respond. Assuming that engagement is one of your primary goals of marketing, video is one of your most powerful tools can use.

6. Social virality. Want to conduct a quick experiment on the social virality of videos? Scroll through your Facebook newsfeed and count how many videos you see in 15 seconds. You’ll probably have to use two hands. People love sharing videos, which relieves much of the burden on your end.

How to Incorporate Video Into Your Marketing Strategy

Now that you’re up to speed on the value of video marketing, let’s take a look at some practical tips for how you can actually begin to incorporate video into your existing campaigns and overall strategy:

1. Start with YouTube. As mentioned, YouTube is the best place to start. You already have a captive audience, you just have to figure out how to attract and engage the right users. Create a YouTube channel, upload videos, and optimize them for better visibility. Some of the on-site optimization factors include relevant keywords, titles, video tags, description, video transcript, thumbnails, and channel authority.

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2. Connect with Facebook. After showing your YouTube account some love, go ahead and use Facebook to drive traffic to those videos. If you have a strong social following, this should come pretty organically. Otherwise you may need to end up working on strengthening your Facebook page before it can become an effective at generating awareness.

Facebook also offers its own video options, which are advantageous when used in addition to YouTube. The benefit of Facebook videos is the ease of viewing. Users don’t have to click an extra link or visit an external page – it’s fully integrated. And with new auto-play features, you can actually have your video play without the user even clicking.

3. Add videos to email marketing. Are you already invested heavily in email marketing? You can drastically increase the efficiency of these campaigns by incorporating video. Ideas include providing a weekly news roundup, showing behind-the-scenes clips, previewing a new release, and creating tutorials.

4. Make your site interactive. On-site videos are always good. This is especially true when you can find ways to incorporate videos on product or service page listings. These videos can showcase individual features or explain difficult to grasp concepts in a more cohesive manner. On landing pages, videos have been shown to increase conversions by as much as 80 percent. This is a result of video’s ability to keep people on the page longer and increase trust.

5. Give live videos a shot. Thanks to major shifts in the social landscape, live video is now a very viable option for video marketing. Platforms like Periscope and Meerkat let companies post live streaming footage of anything they’d like and broadcast it out to thousands of users. Many brands are already using these new tools to do things like live event look-ins, product demos, and question and answer sessions with company leaders. All you have to do is sign up and use your webcam, tablet, or smartphone to get started.

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Invest in Video Today

Video marketing is not the easiest form of internet marketing. If you’re looking for simple, try something else. However, if you’re looking for high returns, increased leads, and better overall visibility, video marketing should be your preferred tool. Don’t delay any longer – invest in video today!

 

Kathrina  Tiangco is a content specialist with a decade of experience in writing, editing, and managing teams of writers. She enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters.