Techblog
Why SMEs need to regard online video as the future of marketing
The way content is being marketed is ever-changing in the age of working digitally. Video is now vital to marketing strategies. Here’s a look at the role videos play in today’s marketing landscape.
According to a recent Cisco report, IP video will take up 79 per cent of all consumer internet traffic in 2018, up from 66 per cent in 2013.
Growth of video in the marketing landscape
In an increasingly digital world, where customers are exposed around the clock to multiple forms of content on smartphones and portable electronic devices, traditional advertising has fast been losing its hold, and videos are now vital to a marketing mix.
Television, a major platform for conventional advertising has seen steadily declining viewership over the last few years, as consumers move on to watching programmes online, or via streaming services.
Concurrently, YouTube, which has more than 1 billion users, is experiencing a 50 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of hours people watch videos on the site every month. This translates to billions of views, which marketers take advantage of to reach millions of consumers.
Pre-roll video ads, which are commercials shown before the actual television show or film online, have also beaten banner ads with their higher click-through rates. In fact, marketers are now being advised to leverage this format fully by including an interactive component in their ads.
Online videos are also easily consumed because it is a way for people to satisfy their information and entertainment needs with just one channel. If businesses manage to connect strongly with a sizeable number of customers through a successful viral marketing campaign that uses video, a brand can garner significant amounts of attention with very little effort or initial investment.
New practices for online videos
In today’s fast-changing digital landscape, social media is the latest platform for getting videos across to consumers. Facebook’s launch of autoplay videos is providing stiff competition to YouTube’s figures, while native videos on Facebook and Twitter present opportunities for companies behind video apps such as Vine, Meerkat and Periscope.
Consumers are also not far behind in the video trend. The internet today is awash with user-generated video content (UGC). Some of this content crosses over into the marketer’s territory. For instance, promoters of the recent Mayweather-Pacquiao fight had to contend with illegal free Periscope streams eating into their revenue.
UGC videos are changing the definition of social media marketing, therefore it is important for marketers to track any UGC videos which talk about their brand, and to also appropriately steer marketing campaigns so as to engage consumers to create and share videos of their own.
Marketers are also beginning to find that shorter ads work better on the web. The more succint and relevant video content is, the better the reach to its audience, and the more likely it is to be spread.
How can SMEs get in on the video marketing mix?
Clearly, online videos are here to stay. Internationally, there are numerous examples of small businesses that have used online videos to communicate their messages to customers.
Contrary to popular belief, cost does not have to be an obstacle. To start with, small businesses can make use of free apps, such as Viddyad and Vine. The next factor to consider would be the actual content of the video.
A small brand can always make a product or service stand out if the content stays true to what the business is trying to achieve. Besides talking about the USPs of a brand or service, a small business’ video(s) can be seen as an opportunity to connect its key people to customers straight away.
Evidently, online videos have become a crucial and highly effective marketing channel that businesses should pay attention to.
For businesses that want to cut through the clutter with their online videos, content should be authentic, searchable and shareable. It should also leverage UGC and every other emerging, profitable trend in this rapidly evolving space.