How video can save your business during the pandemic

Video marketing is one of the best forward-facing marketing strategies that involve a perfect integration of video content in your marketing strategies.

It is an effective online marketing technique that helps businesses build customer rapport, promote brands and the products and services they offer. Not just that, video marketing is the perfect tool to provide value to your target audience in the form of customer testimonials, live-stream events, how-to’s and so much more.

But, how does it work?

Well, it’s quite simple to understand the functioning of video marketing.

It involves creating branded videos that one way or the other leverages the principle of ‘Engage, Entertain, and Educate’. The video content is used to promote brands, drive sales, raise awareness and engage customers.

Video marketing is a data-driven marketing technique. Therefore, you can improve your video marketing efforts using analytics tools that provide actionable insights about campaign performance and customer engagement.

What are the Benefits of Video Marketing During COVID-19?

Ever heard the saying ‘Pictures are worth a thousand words’? Well, a video speaks a million.

To better understand the benefits of video marketing during COVID-19, you should take a look at some of the latest statistics regarding the same.

1. The percentage of marketers claiming video as an important marketing strategy - 92%

1. The percentage of marketers that claim video marketing provides them with positive ROI - 88%
2. The number of minutes people will spend watching video in 2021 - 100 minutes per day.
3. The percentage of marketers that will continue to use video in 2020 - 99%
4. The percentage of marketers willing to explore video marketing in the B2B ecosystem - 41%
5. The percentage of marketers that use Live video - 57%

Now that you know how important video marketing is today, you are all set to understand the benefits of video marketing in 2020. Let’s discuss them in detail.

1. Social Platforms Thrive on Videos

Almost 48% of the online social media users have said that they’d share video content with their network of friends if they find it engaging and useful. What it means is that the marketers need to leverage the present market penetration of video content to make an impact on social media. And the opportunities to use video content is growing too. You have Facebook Watch and Facebook Live, Instagram Live, IGTV, Twitch, TikTok, and so many other platforms to push out video content. Even LinkedIn is updating its algorithms to provide a better reach for video content.

2.   Mobile Users Enjoy Consuming Videos

Oh, they love it! As the smartphone and Internet penetration across the world increases, consumers are more likely to consume video content and get hooked to the magic of it. Even today, Americans collectively are used to checking out their phones almost 8 billion times a day! And to top that, almost 75 percent of the world population loves consuming video content on mobile. What this essentially means is that video is the only way forward. It is the right time to adapt to meet the demands of your target audience.

3. Video Content Commands More Attention

Did you know that an average online user spends 88% more time on a website that has video content on it? Well, that’s how it is today. The demand for consumer attention is never going to drop. And there’s only so much consumer attention to go around. This makes it even more important to execute video marketing strategies for your brand because it used both visual and aural stimuli to capture online attention. This can lead to exponential growth in brand awareness and marketing ROI.

4. Video Strengthens Emotional Connections

It’s all about how relatable the content you put out is to your target audience. One of the marketing practices we would definitely recommend you is to create emotional connections with your target audience. During COVID-19, it is so important to maintain communication with your target audience. Showing that you care and are making changes to how you function in order to provide the same value will help you strengthen the business-customer relationship. Video is the best form of content that can help you create brand loyalty over time. We are talking about 94% of the consumers who claim to recommend a brand that they feel more connected to. Video content helps you to influence the audience at an emotional level and successfully push the message across. Your target audience is more likely to recall an advertisement that made them emotional (laugh or cry) even if they watched it years ago. Videos are that powerful.

5. Video Content Drives Organic Traffic

Here’s another important statistic you should note. Video will be the source of almost 82% of all organic traffic on the Internet by 2021. Brands will be more likely to get ranked on SERPs if they have video content on their website. Google wants to provide value to its online users. And it understands how effective video content is. Therefore, the importance of video marketing in the coming years cannot be ignored. You must do everything it takes to rank your video content on the first page of Google’s search engine.

Video Marketing Strategies You Should Use During COVID-19

So, what strategies should you employ to make use of video marketing during COVID-19? In this section, we are going to discuss exactly that. Here are the video marketing strategies you must use during COVID-19.

1. Facebook Live

Facebook Live is a feature that marketers and business owners can use to reach their target audience on the biggest social media platform. We all know how the organic reach on Facebook has gone down the drain. Even to reach your own followers, you will have to put money behind the published content. Well, the best way to cope with this is by going live. Live streams on Facebook have immense reach at the moment and we highly recommend you to communicate with your customers through Facebook Live.

2. Instagram Live and Stories

Instagram is another social media platform that provides great reach to trending video content. If you have a great follower base on Instagram, you should definitely go Live with them and interact on a personal level. The use of video can also be done through stories where you can post behind the scenes, bloopers, and whatnot. With the launch of IGTV, you can even post videos that are longer than one minute.

3. Virtual Tours

We are talking about a sequence of videos and still images that allows prospects to view the product in subject without having to be physically present. The virtual tours have background music or voice-overs that helps the viewers understand the product better and know the points of interest. The virtual tours can be controlled by the potential customer with the help of play/pause buttons. A virtual tour is essentially a 360° image of the area or the product on sale. Why shouldn’t it be confused with a video tour? Well, video tours make the viewer focus on a single viewpoint at any given time. Virtual tours provide a panoramic view of the area and the ability to zoom in to look closer. Thus, virtual tours can really help during COVID-19 as people are reluctant to leave their homes due to the pandemic.

4. YouTube Live Stream

YouTube is the most popular video marketing platform there is. It is also the second most popular search engine on the Internet. YouTube is where people are searching for specific how-to videos in order to gain information about the products and services they are considering to use. They might even have problems they want to solve. Since video makes it easier for marketers to communicate and for the audience to understand, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t market on YouTube. During COVID-19, your video content must be geared towards communicating with your customers and interacting with them on a regular basis. This can only be done effectively with the use of YouTube Live Streaming.

5. Webinars

Have courses or training programs to sell during COVID-19? Webinar is the best way to do it. Since a huge percentage of the consumers have nothing to do at the moment, it’s the perfect time to draw their attention towards your products and services through one-on-one communication. Webinars and other online events can be conducted to make the best use of your target audience’s free time.

However, it is important to figure out where your target audience spends most of their time online before you start running your video marketing campaigns. This will save you a lot of time and money.

Wrapping Up

There you have it. We have mentioned everything you need to kick start your video marketing campaign during COVID-19. However, we would like you to make sure that the messages you send across do not persuade the consumers to take actions that might make them break the government’s guidelines during the pandemic. Use video marketing responsibly.

FINDING THE RIGHT COMPANY

Forming the right partnership is important for the success of your business and to ensure you are talking to local customers. Visit PHENYX Media today so we can help you create videos that are appealing, informative, and engaging to the customers who live in your community.