The popularity video has gained amongst advertisers is because video gives them a positive return on investment (ROI). A survey confirms that 87% of video marketers report that. Video content is convincing; it attracts attention and helps the human mind decipher the message companies want to send to their audiences.

If you are guilty of watching every other video on the Internet to devise a perfect marketing plan, why do you think your customers would settle for something different?

Videos offer the viewers a unique perspective with a human touch, making the purchasing process relatable and convenient. 82 percent of all consumer Internet traffic will come from online videos by 2022.

Video marketing is the new norm in the ever-evolving world of content. Video generates 12 times more shares than text and images combined, especially when it has subtitles embedded.

Here are some stats that help us understand the importance of this comparatively under-utilized yet extremely powerful medium. 

• Video is an important component of any successful marketing strategy. More than 80 percent of businesses use videos to make their content stand out. 
• Video on a product page increases conversions by 80%

Videos help spread brand awareness. They provide consumers with effortless information. 

• Video is the most popular type of content among consumers of various brands in countries like the US, Germany, Colombia, and Mexico, and Latin America.

It can be difficult to keep up with the changing trends in the marketing world. Here are the top five tips to stay atop.

1.  Utilize User-Generated Content 

Marketers can manipulate consumers with unrealistic situations to make more sales, marketers, and advertisers. On the other hand, research carried out by TurnTo Networks indicates that user-generated content is 90% more effective. UGC is an integral part of a successful marketing strategy.

User-generated content or UGC is the content produced by someone not related to your company or brand. This can be an influencer sharing their experience with your product or service or someone reflecting on the results after purchasing your brand. UGC can be in the form of a video, podcast, status update, or review. The basic idea of UGC is to assure potential customers from existing ones that they are moving in the right direction.

Pantone used UGC for advertising aesthetically as can be seen in the image above. With a consistent visual identity, they create stylized content for their feed. And the overall effect is really impressive! 

UGC campaigns are a good way to engage customers with your products and, at the same time, increase brand awareness. Essentially, a sound UGC campaign should consist of the following steps. 

Begin With a Strategy

A sound campaign strategy is the only way that your UGC will bear the desired fruit. For this, you should have a clear idea of your goals. If your goal is to increase website conversions, asking for product reviews from existing customers is a good way to get started. If you are looking to create brand awareness, an Instagram campaign with an appropriate hashtag can get you desired results. 

The main purpose of UGC is to share the experiences of your customers. The more the details, the easier it will be for potential customers to make a decision. Hence, UGC is more than relying on Instagram pictures. Video reviews can be an excellent way to share experiences and stories. 

Choose a Collection Method

Before you start with a UGC campaign, be prepared to handle all the content that comes your way. You can begin by dedicating a hashtag to your UGC. However, this option can cause some legal problems.  Collection of user content on social media sites can be difficult as it can cause ownership problems. Content collected through an app or portal does not have any legal or ownership issues related to it. 

UGC & Giveaways

Offer giveaways to your customers so that they are willing to be part of the campaign. Clearly convey to your customer what s/he would be getting for their contribution in simple and plain words. Avoid technical language and long sentences and stay focused on what is being offered in return for UGC. 

Educate Yourself on the Legal Aspects

UGC ownership rights and their usage can often be problematic on social media. In addition to this, rules regarding giveaways can be subject to change depending upon your location. It is best to educate yourself about the legal aspects before you start the campaign. 

Fishing Out the Best

UGC can be both positive and negative. While it is important to acknowledge the users’ negative experiences to improve your product,  you shouldn’t share content that overly criticizes your brand. Sometimes, the users do not have the best intentions, and it is important to fish out the best content from the pool to make your campaign successfully realize the goals. 

Top brands such as Target, Coca-Cola, Adobe, Netflix, and Starbucks have used UGC campaigns. User-generated videos can give amazing results if used appropriately. 

2. Increase Retention With Animated Explainer Videos

According to a HubSpot Digital Consumer Trends Report, video attracts the most attention of customers. Imagine a video that provides a solution to your queries with appealing animations. It is a total winner. 

What Are Animated Explainer Videos?

Animated Explainer Videos are usually placed on the homepage or product page of the website. They are short videos – from 60 seconds to 2 minutes – and detail facts about your brand or a particular product. Animated videos are the first choice by marketers when they want to explain tech-related products or software.  Including an explainer video on your website can increase your conversion rate up to 144%.

Here is an example of an animated explainer video by Microsoft. 

You can create a compelling animated explainer video with the help of the following steps.

Jot Down the Script

Begin with jotting down the script. Your script should be short and to the point. It should clearly identify the problem and provide a sound solution. For this, you should understand your audience and their problems. Ideally, you should write the script yourself to put yourself in the shoes of the audience and provide them with the most effective solution. 

The script of the video should include:

• Your product overview and its functions
• The problem 
• How the product provides the solution
• Call to action
• Reviews from previous clients

Record Voice Overs 

The next step is recording the script. You can do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. Some sites where you can look for voiceover artists are Fiver.com and Voices.com.

Production

The third step is production. Since everyone is not familiar with animation, hiring someone to do it for you is a good idea. You can look for a freelancer or hire a team for creating an animated explainer video for you. However, if you are on a low budget, you can still create an animated explainer video with the help of PowToon. 

Add Music and Sound Effects

Once you are done with the animation, you are ready to prep up your explainer video. If you are working on the video yourself, some places where you can look for appropriate music or sound effects are YouTube.com, AudioJungle. 

Always choose copyright music that is free to use and distribute to avoid any legal problems. 

Monitor the Result

Once you have the animator explainer video up and running, you can easily gauge its performance. YouTube Insight, Google Analytics or Wisita are good tools to help you analyze the results. With these, you can keep track of all insights and make changes as required. 

Some important things to consider 

• Keep the video short and precise.
• Be direct. State the purpose and the value proposition in the first half minute. Your customer should know why he is watching the video. 
• Use simple sentences and a conversational tone. Always address the consumer in 2nd person. 
• A touch of humor can make complex videos appealing. 

When done right, your animated explainer videos can help you

• Increase conversions 
• Double page viewing time
• Improve social media presence as these videos can be shared on different platforms.

3. Grow Audience With Live streams on Facebook & Instagram

Even though live streaming has been here for quite some time, it has been brought into the mainstream with TwitchTV. With the help of TwitchTV, users have shared their gaming streams with millions of viewers. With increased content production during the pandemic, live streams have also witnessed a surge, and now users are tapping on this outstanding medium to share their products and brands. Marketers and influencers share different content types – from podcasts to exercise sessions to cooking ventures to musical performances – everything is available on live streams now. 

Live streaming is interactive and spontaneous. It provides the audience with the chance to be part of the conversation by leaving live comments. It is an excellent way to give live updates of important events in front of a big audience. 

Facebook and Instagram both have live streaming options. Which should you choose depends upon your followers on each platform, your goals, and the duration of the live stream.   

Facebook has an option for a 4-hour long live mobile stream which can be saved on your personal or company page for later viewing. If you are going live from your desktop, the stream can be 8-hour long. However, an Instagram live is accessible for 24 hours only. 

Another added benefit of Facebook Live is that you can add other participants to the live stream using its split-screen option. 

If your Instagram has more followers than Facebook, consider using Instagram Live. But if the reverse is true, then it is best to incorporate Facebook Live into your marketing strategy. 

Live streaming can include tutorials, workshops, reviews, discussions, or a simple interaction session with your audience, depending on your brand or product. 

The biggest benefit of live videos is that it helps you connect and engage with your audience while interacting with you in real-time. 

To make the most out of your live videos, you should keep the following in mind:

• Incorporate live video events into your content strategy. This way, you will have a particular schedule to connect with your audience. 
• Identify your goals. Whether it’s sales or brand awareness that you want to increase, your content matter should be aligned with what you want to achieve out of the live session. 
• Choose a format and stick to it. You can live stream a Q/A session, or you can invite a guest and have a discussion on a pressing issue. Or you can mix and match the two. Whatever you plan on doing, consider announcing beforehand so that your audience knows what they are in for.
• You can get the most of your live videos by promoting them a day or two before the session. Communicate with the audience about what you will be talking about so that your followers can get ready and be part of the conversation. 
• Keep repeating the purpose of your live stream so that the viewers who join later can catch up with the session. 
• Assign someone to respond to the comments. This way, you can carry on with the live stream without worrying about responding to the viewers. 
• Keep live videos live. A robotic conversation will make your stream feel fake. If you pause to think or stutter once or twice, this will only add to the genuinity of the stream. 

4. Create Omnichannel Video Content 

The biggest benefit that comes with video marketing is that it is an effective form of omnichannel marketing. If you have seen a video about your favorite brand on Facebook, you won’t be surprised to notice the same content on Instagram. 

Nowadays, no one limits his social media experiences to a single platform. We all move across channels and find similar content shared and re-shared. This is a way for marketers to make desired content easily accessible by consumers. 

It is important to bear in mind that consumers strive to achieve different goals from different platforms. However, a sound content strategy can help provide the consumer with what he is looking for with the help of suitable video content that can be shared across different channels. 

You can create and share your video content across different channels such as:

TikTok

Instagram Reels

Facebook Watch

DailyMotion

Right now, TikTok is on top of video-sharing platforms. It has user-friendly features, making video creation and editing extremely easy. 

The pandemic has seen an exponential rise in its users, and many other social media platforms and websites are in the race to keep up with it. 

5. Improve Dwell Time With Videos

Dwell time is the total time a visitor spends on a website. It can be seconds, minutes, or hours. Dwell time is often mistaken for time-on-page. The two differ, however.

Dwell time starts and ends with SERPs. It is the total time that the visitor spends on the website. On the other hand, time on page is when the visitor spends on a single page before moving to the next page, website, or link. 

Short dwell time means that the visitor wasn’t satisfied with the content he got on the website. A good dwell time is somewhere between 2 to 4 minutes. 

While Google hasn’t been keen on emphasizing the importance of dwell time, it is no mystery that a higher dwell time helps with higher rankings. 

Calculating Dwell Time

Dwell time is not mentioned in Google Analytics. However, it can be determined in the following manner. 

• Sign in to Google Analytics.
• Click “Behavior”, then “Site Content”, and then “Landing Pages.”
• In a “New Segment”, opt for “Organic Traffic.”
• Click “Average Session Duration.”

How Does it Help?

“Average Session Duration” helps you gauge the effectiveness of your content on different pages. If the visitor spends a few seconds on one page but has a dwell time of two minutes on another, notice the content displayed on the page where he spends more time. 

Dwell time depends largely on the content strategy of your brand. And what can be the most effective way to convince your customer to stay on your website than to have a visual conversation with him? Video content is an exciting way to improve your dwell time. 

Most videos are one to two minutes long. This means that the visitor will be staying on that page for that long, as long as he finds them interesting or meaningful. If you use text with video, this will increase the chances of the visitor staying till the end of the video. Incorporating keywords in the video title can also increase the chance of a higher ranking on Google. 

Where Can You Use Videos?

Now that you know the trends, it is time to determine where you should place your videos. Good places to consider are:

• The landing page on your website to convert leads into sales
• Email marketing campaign with embedded videos to give your potential and existing customers more familiar with your brand
• The “About Us” page detailing facts about your business and brand
• Google My Business page with a live tour of your company or business site

Conclusion

Video is one of the driving forces of content strategy. Creating visual content can drive business growth, but it requires creativity to engage with your target audience. The key is to keep the message short and precise with a clear call to action. 

Your video marketing strategy should be optimized for search engines by adding SEO-friendly descriptions and captions. The video should also be optimized for mobile. This will give it more views and ultimately more conversions. Different channels have different features, and to get the most from your video marketing, be ready to embrace them wholeheartedly.