Digital video content is growing in popularity faster than its creators can seemingly accommodate. Consider these stats:
- 65 percent of consumers are visual learners and the brain processes visual data 60,000 (!!!) times faster than text alone.
- One minute of video content has the same impact as 1.8 million words, according to Forrester Research.
- 45.4 percent of internet users watch at least one piece of digital video content per month.
- 80 percent of consumers who watched a video online in the past month can recall its basic message.
- An email that includes a video component has a 96 percent higher chance of the reader clicking to the brand’s website from the email.
With the available technology, it doesn’t take a lot for any brand to create and publish content with ease – but how can you make that content stand out from every other piece of content in cyberspace? Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Keep it interesting. The jury is still out on just how long digital videos should be in order to prove effective. On the surface, it would seem like shorter videos would see higher completion rates than long-form ones, but the stats do not back that up. A study by FreeWheel based on short, medium, and long form digital video content in the third quarter of 2013 found that the videos that were 20 minutes or longer (the long form ones) saw the highest completion rates of the three categories. The best rule of thumb is to make your information as concise and entertaining as possible. Do not let your video content meander or else the attention span of your watchers will wander too. Stay on topic and find ways to surprise and intrigue watchers.
Don’t take it too seriously. As a marketing tool, digital video should be taken very seriously – but that does not mean that your content should be dry or void of personality. The print publication Mental Floss has seen more than 81 million views on just 88 YouTube videos since February of 2013, with numbers that well surpass bigger-name outlets like Wired. How did Mental Floss do it? By offering weekly eight-minute trivia videos hosted by YouTube star John Green. It is not in every brand’s best interest to post videos with off-topic trivia, of course, but the lesson here is to tap into the fun part of your business and find creative ways to share it with video watchers.
Watch your metrics carefully. Keep a close eye on the digital video content that is working and the content that is being passed over. You will want to know the number of times something is clicked, how long watchers are staying on your particular videos, and how often they are completing them (and which ones). These metrics will help you better guide your video content campaigns moving forward and make it an even more effective marketing tool.
How do you incorporate video campaigns in your marketing?
Photo via Flickr on Creative Commons
Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.
