89% of video marketers say video gives them a good ROI. 83% say it helps them with lead generation. And 87% say video has increased traffic to their website.
That's according to stats from Wyzowl.
With stats like that, why wouldn't you start using video in your sales and marketing?
After all, not only does video work well in sales and marketing, it's easy to get started, and it doesn't cost as much as you probably think it does.
The fact is, while video is way easier to start doing than you think, if you've never done it before it can be difficult to know where to start or what you should do to create videos that are useful and people will watch.
So, to help get you started, here are five things you can start doing today, like right now, to make your sales and marketing videos better.
Ok, this isn't going to help you with your performance or camera skills, but this is the one thing almost everyone starting with video overlooks.
Would you be surprised to know that 85% of all videos viewed on Facebook are muted?
The fact is, whether people are watching your video at their desk or on the go on their phone, they still feel self-conscious about other people hearing what they're listening to.
So, videos with captions and subtitles perform better than those relying only on people listening to the audio.
Asking someone to just "make a sales and marketing video" is a bit like asking someone to just make you a cake.
There are so many options to choose from, and what you make depends mostly on the preference of the people you're making it for.
What type of video you should make depends mostly on the answers to these two questions:
- Who are you making the video for (which buyer persona)
- What information are you trying to give them
For instance, if you're making a video to show someone how to do something with your product, you'd be better making an instructional video with you filming your screen as you demonstrate how to do whatever it is.
A talking head trying to tell someone how to do the same thing wouldn't work. So keep that in mind and you'll instantly start to see better results and create better videos.
The first three seconds of any social video is crucial to overall performance.
Remember, people are time poor so you have to get their attention and keep them engaged for as long as you can.
You don't have to act like a hyperactive child who just downed a pot of coffee or anything, but how likely are people to stay on a video that opens with a monotonous tone of voice?
You may be selling brown rice, but if you make it interesting for at least three seconds, you will have much higher engagement rates.
Once someone has watched the first three seconds of a video, they are essentially invested and feel they may as well finish the content.
If you can capture attention quickly, the chances are you can hold it.
One thing you can guarantee with content and video is that, like fashion, the way we like to consume content changes with the times and often things that fell out of fashion not long ago, soon come back.
TV has been in decline for years, we've been told, but viewing figures haven't tanked and are actually still pretty high with revenue from TV ads still worth multiple billions of pounds a year.
Digital videos are remaining ever more popular and now live videos are becoming a go-to for audiences, particularly with the increase in webinars we've seen.
Just be careful not to give people video fatigue as I'm sure we can all relate to the fact we could do with a break from webinars right now.
If you're still looking for some good webinars we've got a library of previous workshops we've run, including a couple of using video here.
But getting back to it.
Research shows that 80% of brand audiences would rather watch live video than read a blog, and 82% prefer live video to social posts.
When TV was first created it was all live, and as we know trends often work in cycles. Just look at how reality TV and gameshows has been repeated ad infinitum.
Adopting live broadcasts may not work for every vertical, but where you can, try and include it.
This may be a conference speech relating to your industry topic, or a product test display.
There are more way to benefit from live video marketing than you might think.
Just avoid doing this on company nights or around inappropriate members of your team (we all know one…)
So now you've got your videos shot and edited, and you're seeing some good engagement, do you just sit down and give yourself a pat on the back?
No.
Now you use retargeting to funnel all this engaged traffic.
You can tell a lot about a lead from their interaction with your video.
For instance, only 4-5% of viewers on average will watch 100% of a video, whether it’s 30 seconds or 30 minutes long.
Your goal shouldn't be to force all viewers to stick it out to the end - instead, consider what learnings you can take from their engagement style.
In Facebook audiences, you can look at the metrics of video engagement by time watched and percentage of your video completed. Break these out into various products and stages of the buying cycle.
For instance, if someone has watched 50% of product A’s video, then you put them in retargeting list A – urgency builder. If they have watched 75% of the video, put them in retargeting B – incentive offering.
By tailoring your audience lists to different stages of video marketing engagement, you can create segmented lists that allow you to fit the content to your lead.
Ultimately, video marketing is an easily accessible and increasingly important medium.
If you're not using it already, you should be experimenting and adapting it to fit in your existing channel mix.
With some simple builds and experimentation, you can make highly engaging content that can boost existing activity - and if nothing else, at least you get to mess about with some funny gifs.
Our free guide to using video in the sales process can give you a full understanding of creating better videos for sales and marketing including: