So, you’ve been thinking about getting a video for your website, Facebook page, Yell.com listing or for your online store. You’ve been thinking about it for a while, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog. Maybe you’ve had a look at what your competitors are doing and want something similar for your own business. And that’s great, because you should use video for your online marketing. It’s incredibly effective and much easier than most people think. So why haven’t you made one yet?
Well you’re not alone. A lot of companies are still to start using video and it’s probably because you’re thinking one of these things:
- I don’t know how to make a video.
- It will be really expensive to pay someone else to make a video.
- It will be a real hassle while it’s being made.
- I can’t really see the benefit to my business of a video.
Here’s the statistics bit. Bear with me, it’s important and it shows you exactly why you should use video marketing for any and all online sites.
- 65% of executives visit a vendor’s site after watching a video (Forbes Insight).
- 70% of marketing professionals say video converts better than any other medium (Vidyard.com).
- Putting a video in your email marketing increases click through by 200% – 300% (Forrester Marketing group).
- On average users spend 88% more time on websites with videos (Mist Media).
- Customers are 64% more likely to buy after watching a product video (comScore).
- Placing videos on a landing page increases conversion by up to 80% (Mist Media).
- Research indicates that one minute of video has the same informational impact as 1.8 million words. Just to put that into some context that’s like reading War & Peace three times, or The Lord of the Rings three and a half times.
As you can see the power of video as a marketing tool is enormous (that last statistic seem particularly crazy but you don’t have to take my word for it. Read about it for yourself here). So the next question then becomes is it worth the hassle?
Yes. Yes it is.
It’s worth it because of the huge benefits I listed above and because it’s actually not that much hassle. If you hire a production company (I’ll talk more about this in a little bit) it will be no trouble to you at all because they’ll take care of everything for you. And, if you go for an animated video, motion graphics or use stock footage there won’t even be any filming. Don’t get me wrong, the production process will require your input because the video has to capture the essence of your business or product, it is your business after all. No-one knows it as well as you do and the production team will need to have access to your knowledge of your products and services and your customers. Once they have that understanding you can be involved as little or as much as you want. It is your video. I find that most of my clients, after we agree the script and production plan for a video, don’t involve themselves again until I send them the first cut of their video. Then they are able to tell me what they like, what they don’t like, what they want to change, what they want to take out and what they want to add. An experienced film maker will be able to craft a video for you that will require far fewer amendments than you may think, usually because they will spend more time at the planning stage understanding your business and your customers. Then they will craft a story and a visual style that will capture the essence of your business in a way that appeals to your customers. Of course this is where we have to talk about cost because as with any profession, experience and talent costs money.
Having a video made for your business can be as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be. Honestly. If you want to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a glossy TV ad with state of the art effects and A-list actors, you can. You can also spend just a few hundred pounds, and get some incredible work for that little money. There are so many film-makers around who know exactly how to make you an effective video (or series of videos) for a price you won’t believe. And of course, you can always make your video yourself.
It seems like YouTube has been around forever. But it hasn’t. YouTube is just 10 years old. If you want a glimpse of just how effective video communication is, stop to think for a moment and consider how far YouTube has ingrained itself into our culture. Then remember that the vast majority of the content on YouTube is made by amateurs… for fun. If they can do it, so can you. In my next blog I’ll be talking about just that: how to plan and produce your own video.
