Ecommerce has been steadily rising; in fact, it is now the norm. If you know what is best for your enterprise you must take your business digital. In the digital world the rules of engagement are different – I mean that both literally and figuratively. In this article, I will be looking at the use of videos in your digital campaigns. As you go through the article it will become abundantly clear why you MUST use video. Remember that content is broadly comprised of 4 broad clusters namely, text, audio, images, and video.
Why Video Content Rules
There are several reasons why video content rules and I will highlight some of them here.
Some Supporting Stats
Studies conducted all over the world have repeatedly shown some core truths. One, on average, over 60 per cent of digital platform visitors who do so after watching a video are most probably going to buy. Over 50 per cent of marketing experts state that video content brings about the best marketing results. Over 50 per cent of online buyers indicate that videos boost their basis for making a purchase. Well over 80 per cent of consumer-centric traffic online is in the form of videos. Over 85 per cent of businesses operating online place the most emphasis on video ads. These are some of the stats that point to how much of a big deal video content is.
Video Superior To Other Forms Content
It has been demonstrated, by researches, that video content is at least 30 per cent more potent than other forms of content. By potent I am referring to the influence and effectiveness video content has in bringing about actual sales. You will even notice that whenever you do a Google search for anything, it is video content that appears first at the top. This actually shows you that incorporating videos on your social media sites and or websites increases their chances of ranking higher in search engine searches.
High Retention Of Information And Engagement Levels
Scientifically videos have been shown to achieve the most retention of information. When one watches a video they are most likely going to retain over 95 per cent of its contents. Given how you want prospective and existing customers to grasp the contents of your video, this is a huge attribute. On social media, it has been noted that a video is more likely to be shared (in comparison to other forms of content) by a factor of a thousand. This is borne from the fact that video is quite engaging and people love to share them. Let us now look at how you can use video to boost digital sales.
Ways To Use Video To Boost Digital Sales
The Art Of Storytelling
If you want to effectively use videos in your marketing then use storytelling. In general, storytelling is now one of the single most used strategies in creating content for business marketing. By using video you more than treble the efficacy of the strategy. The Volvo ad I will reference at the end is an example of that. Typically people have low attention spans but virtually anyone loves the chance to follow a great or well-told story. This effectively means you can get away with creating a long video especially if the story is alluring and engaging. No wonder why comedy video skits are now popular in Zimbabwe as a marketing tool. This is because people love a good story and a good laugh.
Augment Your Videos
By augmenting I am referring to host of things you can do to make your videos more engaging. For instance, the embedding of links on your videos is one way to augment them. For instance, you can embed a link to your landing page(s). This will streamline your sales funnel such that people easily get to make a purchase right after watching a video ad. You can also use tags and hashtags – these go along in promoting share-ability which will boost brand awareness. You can also deliberately incorporate keywords in the titles or captions. This helps in making the video easy to find and also to rank high in search engine searches. These are just a few examples but the ways to use here are quite many.
Take Advantage Of Video-Sharing Sites
You can make video ads by simply using some of the popular video sharing sites. Two immediate examples that come to mind are YouTube and TikTok – of course, Facebook, Instagram and the like allow for video sharing. Such sites are already popular which means people will go there in search of a variety of things. Thus if you place your video content there it is more likely to be discovered than elsewhere.
These are some of the ways you can use to boost digital sales using video. Already you know that video content rules, so what is left for you to do is to work on creating alluring and engaging content in your videos.
One of the cardinal rules when it comes to video content is an appropriate length. People generally have very limited attention spans – if you cannot engage immediately and for the entire duration, you will miss the plot. Studies have shown that it takes the first 10 seconds of a video for someone to decide on whether to continue or not. Thus if you fail to get them in those first 10 seconds then you are doomed. The trick in doing substantially longer videos is, for instance, story-telling – kindly check out this Volvo video ad. That is an example of a well-crafted video ad which is relatively long but quite engaging.
