future of content marketing – With online video quickly becoming a key means for people to satisfy their information and entertainment needs, small businesses that fail to include video content production in their internet marketing strategies will do so at their peril.
If it’s not already, video is the future of content marketing. There’s much research that shows more than half of companies are already making use of the medium – a figure that’s predicted to rise as more and more realize the potential. It is said that 64% or marketers expect video content to dominate their strategies in the near future. It’s easy to see how and why.
Video is unrivaled when it comes to prospective reach. YouTube receives more than one billion unique visitors every month – that’s more than any other channel, apart from Facebook. Well-produced video content can give you a ticket to the party. What other form of marketing can do that? The success stories of videos that have gone viral are vast and now legendary. A recent campaign from Volkswagen, for example, saw a trio of its videos viewed a combined 155 million times. In the event that such numbers appear to be out of compass for organizations without 12-figure income streams, they at any rate show video’s intrinsic shareability. Connect with your viewers and they will tell their friends and there in lies the secret and the power of successful video content. The spider web effect. They will spend longer on your site and additional time immersed with your brand. For any online networking effort, any SEO exercise, video is without uncertainty one of the best ways to grab people’s attention and then keep it. It can be wholly captivating and, during a time of data over-load, it’s essential for small companies to offer substance that is anything but difficult to process; if not, consumers will just proceed onward.
It’s no wonder then that Axonn Research found seven in 10 people view brands in a more positive light after watching interesting video content from them. But is video really possible for small businesses? Absolutely. Production costs have fallen significantly in recent years and you no longer need to have a large crew of people to create TV standard video production. Apps such as Twitter’s Vine, with its six-second maximum clip length, have dramatically increased the opportunity for companies on a limited budget to have their say and get their story out there. Of course, if you’re to gain a viable return on your investment, you will need to keep the following in mind:
- Always consider the audience you are trying to reach and ensure the video is relevant to them. If it’s not the most appropriate means of getting your message across, you are probably wasting your time.
- Do not disregard social media and be sure to broadcast across multiple channels. If you want to get the most out of your video content’s potential, you must make it easy for users to find and share it. Don’t forget about mobile either. It is said that a tenth of all videos played happens on smartphones and tablets, and it’s an increasingly important sector, with mobile phones holding 41% more share of video consumption at the end of June 2013 than at the start of that year.
- Finally, be creative, not only with the videos themselves but also in the campaign strategy you build around them. Creativity wins over the cost of production every time. Get that bit right and video won’t just be the future of content marketing; it’ll be the future of content marketing for you.