Ninety percent of all information transmitted to the human brain is visual and a whopping 40 percent of people respond better to visual content than they do text-based content. With this in mind, it’s clear that making good use of visual content in your marketing is pivotal.

But what kind of visual content is best? Visual content is broad, after all, including everything from images to videocasts and beyond. While all types of visual content are important and deserving of their time in the spotlight, we’re going to focus on one type of content in particular today – video content.

As Neil Patel puts it, most people would rather watch a movie than read a book and this carries over into marketing. Video is a powerful form of content that’s capable of transmitting a huge amount of information quickly while also grabbing user attention and demanding shares.

If you think you might be neglecting video in your content marketing, read on to learn more about how to incorporate this powerful form of content easily and effectively.

Why Video Content Rules All

We don’t need to tell you that Facebook and Twitter are two of the biggest social media networks in the world. It’s no coincidence, then, that both of them have recently installed auto-play features in their feeds. Facebook touted this as a way for marketers to “tell stories” more effectively and it seems to be working. The auto-play feature makes for a rich, interactive, dynamic Facebook news feed and helps brands get their message out to customers quickly and in a highly shareable format.

Developments like the Twitter and Facebook auto-play features are indicative of the future of content marketing. According to Cisco, video content will account for 69 percent of all consumer web traffic. What’s more, 64 percent of all marketers expect their content marketing strategies to focus more heavily on video in the near future. This means that marketers who want to get ahead of the trend would be wise to jump onboard now.

5 Ways to Use Video Content Effectively For Your Brand

One of the reasons that more marketers haven’t taken advantage of video content is that video content can feel unfamiliar and scary. Fortunately, there are many ways to use video content effectively in a digital marketing strategy. Here are a few tips to help you get started:

1. Use video for branding purposes

Video can be a hugely effective tool for branding your company. Because video is capable of telling a rich, complex story in a short, easily digestible format, it’s perfect for telling your brand’s story. Consider DollarShaveClub, for example, who does this beautifully in their company’s launch video.

There’s simply no way that the company could have delivered the same message in a text-based format without first jumping off from the video. The reason for this is that video content submerges your audience in the story in a way that blogs and articles simply cannot. In today’s marketing environment, video content is an effective way to offer an engaging summary of your brand’s value proposition in a quick, digestible format.

2. Use video to customize your sales funnel

One of the great things about video content is that it can be used to customize every aspect of your sales funnel. Specifically, video can be used to explain the purpose of your landing page, issue a call to action, introduce a new product, provide user reviews or highlight the key points of a white paper or course to pique customer interest and increase conversions. Videos for this purpose can be hosted on your site or through a third-party site like YouTube, which can increase shares and expand the video’s reach. Additionally, video can be embedded in e-mail marketing materials or on your blog for an enjoyable customer experience.

3. Use videos for PR purposes

What could possibly be a better way to offer a quick response to hot-button topics than a video? Videos allow your company to fully address an issue, offer solutions, and emphasize the points of the content you want emphasized in a way that is far more effective than is possible in text-based content. Additionally, videos can be used to provide tutorials for product use. Because video content allows for the simplification of complex issues and allows the user to stop the video and work through a problem at his or her own pace, it can be a much more effective form of education and problem resolution than articles or statements.

Finally, videos can be used to address customer concerns or provide a broad-scale answer to commonly received questions that a FAQ can’t fully address. While it’s important to address your company’s PR and customer service concerns in a variety of formats, adding video content to the mix can be an effective way to provide the best possible service to your customers.

4. Use videos to enhance buyer trust

While it’s easy to fake a review, it’s tough to fake a video. By definition, videos are very authentic and unless you’re going to insert elements via visual graphics (which we don’t recommend) it’s easy for users to see and trust exactly what you’re presenting to them in a video. Therefore, videos can be a powerful way to gain the trust of your buyers. To do this, you can either feature video content within which customers review your product or (and maybe better yet) you can feature video content that shows customers using your product.

When consumers set out to buy a product, they want to know all about it. They want to know how it feels, the quality of the material, how the product will feel in their hand, how large it is, how sturdy it is, where its potential pitfalls are, etc. Although more customers currently prefer online shopping to in-store shopping, one of the foundational drawbacks of online shopping is that it’s tough to answer the above questions when viewing a product description online. While customer reviews are helpful, they often fall short of giving the would-be customer the whole story about your product. Consider clothing think-tank Betabrand, which uses video to give customers the entire experience for one of its newest products- the Kimono Wrap Dress.

This video not only displays the product, but it gives would-be buyers the full product experience: the way the dress moves, how easy it is to style, how the product falls, etc. While this may seem unnecessary, having a video makes all the difference when it comes to a consumer trusting your product and brand. It’s hard to fake a video and when your product looks great onscreen, your customers can’t help but notice.

5. Use video to educate your customers

Video is an incredibly effective form of educational content and can be used to help your customers grasp a new topic or learn new information. With that in mind, use videos to educate customers on a topic or issue that runs parallel to your brand. Take outdoor clothing giant Patagonia, for example, that regularly uses video content to educate its customers about conservation and outdoors issues, as they did in this video, which looks at the connection between trail running and conservation.

Possibly one of the greatest strengths of video content is that it creates an immediate, emotional connection between the viewer and the subject and, when a company gets it right, video content can create a long-lasting company/customer relationship that centers on education, passion, and connection.

Conclusion

By now, you know that one of the most important aspects of running an effective content marketing operation is to include many different types of content in your strategy. Brands can benefit from including text-only content, visuals, images, interviews and audio content in their strategy but, if the increasing popularity of video content is any indication of the trends of the future, brands will be well-served to focus their efforts more strongly on video content in the coming years.

In addition to packing a considerable emotional punch, video content is also a powerful educational, branding, PR, ad sales funnel tool that can serve to enhance your entire brand and expand your reach into new markets. If content is king, video content is the right-hand man that keeps the entire empire running.
Julia Spence-McCoy is the CEO of Express Writers, an online copywriting agency that began in 2011 with thousands of web content pages written to date and more than 50 talented writers on the team. Her passion is copywriting and all that pertains, including the ever-changing game of Google algorithm updates.