The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” was coined in 1911 by a newspaper editor. Before Instagram and Facebook, before smartphones with cameras, and even before computers, images were recognized as more powerful than the written word. We’ve come a long way in these past 100 years and while images still play an important part in marketing strategies, videos can now play an integral role in reaching target markets. According to Forrester research, a minute of video is worth 1.8 million words. We’d argue that’s better than a measly thousand words.
As the internet continues to become saturated with content, search engines have struggled to deliver meaningful results. They’ve moved from meta tags and quick, back-end tricks to rich content that takes much more time to curate and deliver. Having a static website is not going to land you on the front page of Google’s results. This means that regular, quality content updates will be rewarded in search rankings. Blogging is a great way to stay ahead of the game. If you’d like to do one better, mix in rich media. Especially video. Did you know that by 2019, 80 percent of all internet traffic will be video? Google has been favoring video for several years now but it seems this shift is becoming much more widely accepted and advertising budgets are making more and more room for video. In fact, spending on digital video ads in the US increased by 42 percent to $7.46 billion in 2015.
There is more to this shift in advertising spending than simply SEO rankings. As video becomes more popular, the tools necessary to create video are more widely available. Some small businesses with very limited budgets can create videos with their phones and post them instantly to their social platforms. With a little more room in their budget, small business owners or marketing agencies with little video experience can hire a production company like Real Digital Productions.
A professional production company can craft a video that accurately captures your brand story, fundraising message or your event’s highlights. A video like this can be a major player in your marketing strategy. Of the businesses that have a video marketing strategy, 85 percent have found success.
A major part of success comes from how you distribute the video after it is created. If you plan to use video in your newsletter campaign, make sure you use the word “video” in your subject line. By using that keyword in your subject line, you will boost open rates by 19 percent, click-through-rates by 65 percent and reduce unsubscribers by 26 percent. If you plan to incorporate video into your social media strategy, you should know that daily Facebook video views are up to 8 billion from 4 billion in April 2015. Either way, the message is clear: using video increases SEO results and ROI. At least, 51.9 percent of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
