Why Video is So Important for Taking Your Business to the Next Level

Video content is an essential part of a successful marketing strategy for any business. In fact, it’s been proven in multiple studies just how crucial videos are to building a winning marketing strategy.

Let’s break down some numbers that highlight the importance of videos and how using video effectively in your marketing campaigns can take your business to the next level.

 

Video for Business Marketing is Huge, and it’s Only Getting Bigger

  • Practically everyone watches video. A staggering 85% of all internet users in the United States watched online video content monthly on one of their devices (Statista, 2018).
  • It’s not just for entertainment. Studies show that 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support (HubSpot, 2018). With this spike in interest for video from consumers, it only makes sense that you should get ahead of the curve. People’s attention spans are in short supply, with research confirming that the average attention span dropped from 12 seconds down to a mere eight. By using video, you have a more effective, and efficient way of getting your point across, so use what little time you have to your advantage.
  • A 2019 report stated that 87% of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool (Wyzowl, 2019). If you’re not using video for your business marketing and other businesses are using videos effectively in their campaigns, you run the risk of not only missing out on opportunities, but of looking out of touch and letting the competition get ahead of you.
  • Consumers expect—and want—video. More and more, whether it’s via Instagram ads, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, or embedded video on blogs, internet users are expecting to see video. It’s become a ubiquitous part of online browsing. In fact, a study showed that videos are a consumers’ favorite type of content to see from a brand on social media (Animoto, 2018). And based on the 2018 State of Social Video Marketer Trends report, 73% of consumers claim that they have been influenced by a brand’s social media presence when making a purchasing decision. So, it’s in your best interest to produce those videos, because consumers not only expect them, they want them!
  • The potential ROI is huge. At the end of the day, what matters is ROI. If you sit down and crunch the numbers, 88% of video marketers report being satisfied with the ROI video for business marketing on social media (Animoto, 2018). The report goes on to state that 80% of marketers are satisfied with the ROI of social media video ads, which drives home the importance of video.
  • Video marketing is a great lead generation tool. According to Optinmonster, video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year (Optinmonster, 2019). They also found that videos result in a 54% increase in brand awareness, and 93% report an increase in customers due to videos on social media. The numbers don’t lie: if you invest in video content, video can be a great driving force for your marketing campaigns.
  • Video equals purchasing power. Wyzowl put together a survey, and the results astoundingly showed that nearly eight out of every ten people surveyed have purchased a product, an app, or software after watching a video about them (Wyzowl, 2018). So it goes without saying that it’s not just about getting buzz for your product. Videos do work, and they result in actual sales!
  • People consume a lot of video content. In 2019, users spent a weekly average of nearly seven hours watching online videos—a 59% jump from 2016 (Limelight, 2019). With many people cutting cable and spending more time online, current trends indicate that weekly averages are going to go up. When it comes to daily usage, the global average was a massive 84 minutes as of 2019. That number is expected to go up to 100 minutes by 2021. Not to mention, it’s predicted that by 2022, 82% of the global internet traffic will come from video streaming and downloads (Cisco, 2019). That’s up from 72.3% in 2017. People are consuming a lot of video content, and they’re right there: waiting, willing, and ready to engage with your business. You just need to figure out how best to address your customers and the types of videos for your business that work best.

It’s simple once you look at the stats: video is so pervasive and so ubiquitous, that not only is virtually every company using it in their marketing campaigns, but consumers expect it, and often enjoy it, which means that video is a great tool to help build up your brand awareness, promote customer loyalty, and boost your sales.

You shouldn’t hesitate to start using video ads on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and more, and exploit a format that people love—the visual medium of video. It’s also been cited that people retain information better with video, rather than long-winded text. One great type of marketing video for your business is an explainer video, especially an animated explainer video—something Explainify specializes in.

Animated explainer videos, and explainer videos in general, are so effective because they do an amazing job of marrying dynamic and engaging visuals and animation with simple and easy to understand language. Explainer videos condense everything you need to say about virtually anything into a small, bite-sized clip that’s often no longer than a minute or two long—making it easily shared and remembered.

 

Using Video for Your Business Has Great SEO Potential

Another key thing about video is its discoverability and its potential to go viral. Take, for example, this video from Alibaba about a Kenyan ice hockey team. A few years ago this video exploded in popularity and was widely shared on the internet due to its heartwarming content, and its sheer ability to make people simply feel good. But it had a message to it, too, and Alibaba smartly made sure to let people know that it was with their backing, and their brand, that they helped make a dream come true. So people associated their brand with that ad, and buzz built around Alibaba.

There are countless other examples of viral video campaigns working absolute wonders for marketing teams, and brands, which further highlights the importance of videos in your marketing campaigns, and why video is important for business marketing.

 

Types of Explainer Videos that Can Help Your Business

Explainer videos can be a marketer’s best friend, as they essentially cut out all of the extraneous details and get right to the heart of things, plus they catch the eye with dynamic, engaging visuals.

There are a handful of different styles of explainer videos, and we’ll explore all of them and their specific nuances in more detail, but they all follow very similar templates: present a broad, relatable idea or problem to an audience, narrow the focus down on a concept, product, or brand (that’s you), forge a moment of connection with the audience, and finally present a call to action.

 

1. Animated Brand Videos

Animated brand videos, essentially introduce audiences, and often customers, to new brands or relaunches of existing brands. These types of animated explainer videos can focus on the story of a brand: how the brand came to be, why it came to be, its humble beginnings. Brand videos are also great for brands or products that haven’t launched yet but will be launching shortly, to build up buzz.

It helps put a human face to a name for people to give a background story to your brand. From there, you can expand on what your brand does, and what makes you stand out. Maybe you work in a very niche market and you need to create a brand video because not many people know about your existence. Or you do something vital that many people take for granted. Or you’re a start-up that’s working in a relatively small field that’s still pretty new in the grand scheme of things. It’s a great way to get yourself out there.

Take, for example, a weekly food delivery service: it’s still a relatively new phenomenon in the grand scheme of things, but enough people know about it to know what it is. You don’t have to go into great detail to explain what your company does, but you need to establish how you’re different from other brands.

Perhaps you work in an incredibly-niche field that no one knows of, but impacts people’s everyday lives? Then you need to sell yourself more, and you need to sell not just your brand, but your purpose for existing. Finally, you need to follow up by giving your audience a way to engage with you. Do they follow you on social media? Do they get a discount for sharing videos? Tell them what you want them to do with your CTA.

 

2. Animated Product Videos

Animated brand videos and animated product videos are very similar in some key ways: they’re both trying to sell the audience on something—in the case of a brand video, simply put, it’s a brand, but with a product video, it’s a product, often made by that brand. They’re both trying to appeal to and forge a bond with their potential customers, to trust them, and, in the end, to engage via the call to action. Product videos and brand videos can, depending on their demographics, their aesthetic, and their niche, sell the “lifestyle” of their brand or owning a product just as much as the actual product itself. Brand videos are a bit more general and are used in video for business marketing campaigns at the beginning when initial buzz needs to be at its highest. Product videos come out when you’ve got a product.

Product videos also often break down into a formula: You present potential customers with a relatable, everyday problem. Say, for example, that their sink always gets clogged. You’ve already related to them. You then present your product, and position it as the best solution to solve a problem they either A) didn’t know they even had, B) didn’t realize they couldn’t live without fixing, or C) didn’t know your product solves in the best possible way.

Then you back it up because people could justifiably be skeptical about it. You can back it up with testimonials from customers, illustrated demonstrations of how your formula breaks down clogs in sinks so much better than other competing products. You can also use expert analysis, and scientific data, and in the case of products like this, you should.

You need to sell yourself and your product as something great, something reliable, and something people need.

For example, you might need to sell the lifestyle of owning a luxury car. Present your car as part of a lifestyle that’s only possible with this exact car.

Finally, call people to action. Offer them special deals. Get them to engage on social media. Cross-pollination on social media is another great way to increase viewership and the potential of your videos going viral, which, again, is why video is so important for your business.

 

3. Animated PR Videos

Animated PR videos can cover a wide variety of topics and can be used either as public-facing videos or internally in a company, but their main purpose is to address issues that are complex, nuanced, and possibly controversial.

Using animated explainer videos for these kinds of topics is great because you avoid any kind of hang-ups, questions, you don’t need to worry about misrepresenting yourself, or others, or getting caught up in the moment, and saying something out of turn. Your words can’t be misconstrued if they’re carefully considered, and you can also handle messaging.

This isn’t to say that animated PR videos ought to be replacements for difficult or ongoing discussions, but they’re great starting points. PR videos can be good introductions to hard topics, as well as simply good videos to use when something needs to be said about anything that impacts public relations.

Animated PR videos are also great training tools for important HR and work-related issues. They avoid the logistics of bringing in guest speakers or using your team members when people may not be comfortable or particularly knowledgeable about certain subjects. Doing this over video also means that people can consume them on their own time, and at their own pace, rather than having to gather everyone together for long, possibly contentious, and awkward meetings. Some people are also just much better visual learners than they are at learning via seminars or lectures, so animated videos are a great tool, and these short videos cut out all of the fluff.

 

4. Animated Sales Videos

Finally, we come to animated sales videos, which are used, generally, for two purposes: reporting sales data and teaching. Reporting sales data can be dry even to the most number-crunchiest folks on your team, so it can be a lot to ask of people to sit through quarterly earnings reports where people are just reading off numbers. That’s where animated sales videos can come in, explaining how much you’ve grown in a quarter, and crushed it while making it visually interesting to look at, and cutting down on the time you and your team have to worry about going over numbers.

Much in the same way, teaching new sales techniques can be much more effective and efficient via video if you cut out the fluff and present the techniques and results in interesting, dynamic ways via your animated sales videos.

 

How Do You Make an Animated Explainer Video

We’ve covered why video is important for business and how using video for business marketing can take you to the next level. You probably want to make an animated explainer video because the numbers don’t lie: the importance of videos in your marketing campaign is huge.

Making a video can be a huge ask, and a lot of work, on top of your already hectic job. The process behind making an animated explainer video isn’t exactly easy. Even with an easy-to-follow template, results will be cookie-cutter, and they’ll undoubtedly look like they’re from a template.

There’s the process of scripting your video, of storyboarding how you’re going to shoot it, animating it, possibly learning how to animate it, editing it, narrating it, and then actually marketing the video itself. Plus you might need to invest in software or hardware. Do you need new computers? Microphones? Sound-proofing equipment? Then there’s hiring professional voice actors or scriptwriters? It’s undoubtedly a lot.

That’s where Explainify has your back. After all, it’s our job, and we specialize in this kind of thing. Every day we make all kinds of award-winning explainer videos to help businesses both big and small take the next step on their journey to the top. After a short consultation, we’re ready, willing, and able to take on as much or as little as you need, and help you produce the best-animated explainer video possible to take your business to the next level.

Ready to get started? Get in touch and we’ll help you use video to amplify your marketing strategy.