The short answer: Extremely

A 2020 study has shown that 88% of marketers claim that video gives them a positive return on investment. This is a sharp contrast to just 33% in 2015!

This itself could be enough to convince you to include some form of video content in your marketing strategy.

However, the type of content and where it is used is a major factor in how rewarding it will be for your business. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as filming some footage and putting it online.

In this brief article, we’re going to highlight the benefits of using video and how these benefits can change depending on your platform of choice.

HOW PEOPLE CONSUME CONTENT

The first thing to get across here is that, overall, consumers want video content in any form, with 53% of people wanting to see more video content produced in the future.

Yet the intricacies of video content become highlighted when you consider the importance of optimising your uploads for the needs of different platforms.

Videos embedded directly onto your website, or videos uploaded to sites like YouTube, benefit from long-form video content. Whereas social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter benefit from short-form video content, or even snackable content if the video is super short.

People with a couple of minutes spare can hop on their phones, open a social media app, and consume a lot of content within a short amount of time.  

Conversely, people with more time on their hands, or people who you have already reached with another form of video content (more on that later!), will be more inclined to commit to, and engage with, long-form content.

So, if you were thinking of uploading your slick new promotional video to all your business sites and profiles to please your audience in the hopes of a catch-all improvement to your ROI – be warned!

You should do your research first, know where your audience are and what type of video content they prefer to see, then you can decide what platforms are best for you to use. This will limit your cost of production and editing for channels that aren’t worth pursuing and give you more time to devote to promotional channels that work for your business.

ARE LONG VIDEOS EVEN WORTH IT?

You may be thinking then that short-form video content sounds like a perfect way to engage with audiences at a low-cost and with relative ease, so why should I bother with long-form content?

Well, assuming that you’re accessing the right platforms for long-form video, a whole new range of benefits can be reached for your business.

One of the most desirable of these benefits is the boost to your organic search results.

Studies have shown that websites with video content have a 41% increase in organic search engine traffic compared to websites that don’t.

This widening of the net which you use to reach people acts as the first step in increasing conversion rates by using video. Engaging video content on your landing page then boosts the number of digital touchpoints for potential customers, increasing conversion rates by over 80%.

If you’re using a piece of long-form content that your business has invested a lot of time and resources into, then consider supplementing your marketing campaign with some syndicated short-form pieces too.

This can be more effective than advertising through text posts as 95% of a video’s message is retained by viewers, whereas this drops to just 10% when reading text!

By doing this, you get the most bang for your buck and drive potential customers to your marketing centrepiece. An assortment of short-form adverts or promotional videos will also add variety to your campaign and extend the life cycle of your main long-form piece of content.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It is clear that video is crucial to the success of your marketing campaigns. However, it is important to remember that video isn’t just a magical tool that will increase your ROI overnight with no effort.

You have to have craft when producing video. Even short-form pieces of content need a strong sense of narrative to effectively engage audiences.

You want to leave them with a positive perception of your brand. While we have focussed on the brilliance of including video in your marketing campaigns, if done poorly then customers will notice and, with 62% of consumers more likely to have a negative perception of your brand if you publish a poor-quality video, this is something you definitely want to avoid.

Fortunately, if you believe in yourself, love your work, and do your research, adding video content to your marketing tools should be a doddle, and you’ll reap the rewards in no time!

MORE TIPS

• Video content often comes with reams of useful correlating data, such as average watch time, which can be a big help to understand how people interact with your content.

• Everyone can benefit from using snackable content. Supplement this with short and long-form content when appropriate.

• Consider writing up a transcript of your long-form videos on YouTube or your website. This will not only provide additional accessibility options for your content, it will also increase your SEO performance.
• Create a bank of footage (sometimes called B-Roll or stock footage) that you can use to recycle content over multiple posts across different platforms – your editor will thank you!