As marketers, it is our job to question trends and their ongoing relevance. One notable trend that hasn’t shown any sign of slowing down is video marketing. It’s the medium of choice for marketers looking to distribute interactive content and increase engagement to consumers. 

Video marketing can be used for everything from telling your brand’s story, to building customer rapport, to promoting your brand’s products or services. More and more businesses are taking advantage of the opportunities that video presents and choose to use it in a variety of ways from showcasing product specs, providing tutorials, live-streaming events, to displaying customer testimonials. Delivering this type of content unveils and sheds lights on the brand’s personality to consumers, and let’s face it, we’re visual creatures that are also attracted by graphics and movement.

It’s estimated that by 2020, video will make up 82% of all global internet traffic, up a massive 75% from 2017. So whether you’re creating videos for social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or even your website, video marketing is a top-notch and incredibly impactful tool to get a grasp of. 

Video marketing trends and effective examples

Any great marketing campaign will be designed to trigger emotions, and no medium can deliver on that more than video. Have a look at some of “GoPro’s” previous campaigns where they have developed user-generated content to educate the viewer about what the product can do, and how it can make you feel. The brand was able to authentically (not to mention, cheaply) communicate its passion and beliefs and resonate with the fans and their lifestyle. Ultimately, the campaigns were able to spark inspiration and create a reason for the user to click and learn more. 

American insurance company “Geico” created a simple but genius YouTube pre-roll ad. Geico knew that humans have a short attention span, and discovered that 94% of all pre-roll ads on YouTube are skipped. So they decided to put the emphasis on those first 5 seconds, creating a sense of expectation in the viewer that made them unable to stop watching. They saw an opportunity to do something out of the ordinary, and it paid off by sparking much discussion. Overall, this quirky video marketing campaign attracted loads of attention and was unique enough to make viewers smile, instead of being frustrated at the unskippable ad on their screen.

Tips for successful video marketing

If you’re looking to mix things up and add to your marketing strategy, here are some tips to ensure that you create compelling, inspiring and actionable videos for your audience. 

Don’t be bland, touch on a bit of humour during your video if appropriate of course. Your audience wants to laugh. They want to see something on their morning commute to work or when they get home after a long day that simply makes them giggle and briefly forget about reality.

Optimise your video for SEO purposes. It’s your job to ensure your videos are tagged with relevant keywords, unique meta descriptions, and titles. You want your video to be easily discoverable and ranked highly.

Educate your customers. If you want to inform and teach your customers about the potential benefits of your latest product or service, a brief how-to, or product demonstration video could be the solution. It’s more effective to do this through video as 65% of your audience will be visual learners, and this is your chance to take full advantage of that. 

So there you have it – our perspective on the use of video marketing for your business and why this trend isn’t going anywhere. How are you already utilising components of video marketing? What other digital strategies do you like to use?