In this post, we’ll explore the importance of storytelling in video marketing and how it can help your brand thrive in a crowded marketplace.

An Introduction to visual storytelling

Visual storytelling has been a powerful way to communicate messages for centuries. Humans have always looked for stories from the earliest cave paintings to modern-day advertisements. This fundamental tendency makes up modern branding, as businesses recognize the power of narrative to engage and persuade their target audience.

In the digital age, storytelling in video marketing has become an essential tool for businesses to communicate their brand message effectively. Using visual storytelling techniques in video marketing, companies can create emotional connections with their audience and stand out from the competition.

For example, Nike’s “Dream Crazy” campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick is a prime example of powerful visual storytelling. By weaving together images of inspirational athletes with Kaepernick’s message of empowerment and perseverance, Nike created an emotional connection with their audience while promoting their brand message of “Just Do It.” This campaign generated significant buzz and helped solidify Nike’s socially conscious and progressive brand position. It even won an Emmy, illustrating just how powerful its approach was.

Ways to leverage storytelling in video marketing

Nike is but one example, however. So before delving into its sheer value, here we’d like to explore ways in which you may use visual storytelling.

Offer visual social proof of your business.

Initially, storytelling through video marketing can be a powerful tool to showcase social proof through customer reviews and testimonials. By featuring customer stories in video form, businesses can give their target audience a visual representation of their product or service’s positive impact on real people.

This helps build credibility and trust with potential customers and creates an emotional connection that can drive engagement and conversions. The advantages of customer testimonial videos are that your customers can contribute to your video marketing efforts by sharing their experiences with your product or service in a way that resonates with your target audience. By featuring these stories in your video marketing content, you can leverage the power of social proof to build brand credibility and trust while creating engaging and compelling content for your audience.

Humanize your brand through video.

Second, storytelling in video marketing is an effective way to humanize your brand by showcasing the people behind the business and their unique stories. By highlighting the experiences of real people, companies can connect with their audience on a deeper level and create a more personal relationship with their customers.

For example, the online retailer Zappos has used visual storytelling to humanize their brand by featuring employees and their personal stories. In one video, Zappos employees talk about their passions outside of work and how they translate to their company roles. By doing so, Zappos not only showcases the personality and values of its employees but also highlights its commitment to delivering excellent customer service. This helps create a more personal and relatable brand image, ultimately building customer trust and loyalty.

Capture more leads using video marketing.

In addition, storytelling can be a highly effective way for businesses to capture more leads – as video marketing trends show. By crafting a compelling and engaging narrative through video, businesses can attract and convert more leads.

For example, a company selling a fitness product might create a video telling the story of a customer who struggled with weight loss until they discovered the product, highlighting its benefits and how it helped them achieve their goals. By showcasing the transformative power of the product through storytelling, the video can inspire potential customers to take action and sign up for more information or make a purchase. By leveraging storytelling in video marketing to create compelling and engaging content, businesses can capture the attention of their target audience like never before.

Increase website conversions using visually attractive content

Finally, visual storytelling can be a powerful tool to increase website conversions by creating visually attractive and engaging content. By incorporating compelling narratives and visuals into their video marketing strategy, businesses can capture the attention of their target audience and drive them to take action.

Research strongly supports this notion, too. According to a study by Vidyard, businesses that use video on landing pages see an average conversion rate of 86%. By using compelling storytelling and incorporating calls to action within their video content, businesses can increase website conversions by capturing their audience’s attention and compelling them to take action.

The Power of Storytelling in video marketing

While the examples above have likely outlined the importance of great storytelling, here we can consolidate it further. In no particular order, consider the three following perks it brings.

It promotes branding

First, visual storytelling can be a powerful tool to improve branding efforts. According to a study by HubSpot, 54% of consumers want to see more video content from brands they support.

By showcasing their brand as relatable and authentic, businesses can build a stronger connection with their audience, increasing brand recognition and loyalty. Ultimately, it can be a powerful tool for companies to build a brand identity that resonates with their target audience.

It increases brand awareness and improves lead generation.

In addition, storytelling in video marketing is a powerful way to increase brand awareness and improve lead generation. Businesses can create emotionally resonant content by creating engaging and shareable content that resonates with their target audience. Video content is also highly shareable, with social video generating 1200% more shares than text and image content combined.

Furthermore, according to a study by Vidyard, video content generates 66% more qualified leads per year than other forms of marketing. By creating shareable video content, businesses can increase their brand’s reach and awareness, leading to improved lead generation and conversion rates.

It increases conversions

Finally, visual storytelling is a highly effective way to engage website visitors and increase conversions. A study by EyeView corroborates that of Vidyard, finding that including video on a landing page can increase conversions by up to 80%. By incorporating visual storytelling into their conversion strategy, businesses can create a more engaging and compelling user experience that drives visitors to take action and ultimately grow their bottom line.

Video content is also highly effective at communicating complex ideas and concepts in a simple and accessible way, making it an ideal tool for educating and informing potential customers. Video engagement rates confirm this, as a study by Wistia finds that videos that are up to 2 minutes long have the highest engagement rates, with an average retention rate of 60% for a 2-minute video.

Conclusion

In conclusion, storytelling in video marketing is a powerful tool that businesses can use to create engaging, emotionally resonant content that drives results. By incorporating compelling narratives and visuals into their video marketing strategy, businesses can capture the attention of their target audience and drive them to take action.

As the digital marketing landscape continues to evolve, the importance of visual storytelling will only become more significant. In today’s highly competitive marketplace, businesses need to find new and creative ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors and connect with their target audience. By embracing the storytelling opportunities video marketing offers, businesses can improve their brand awareness, lead generation, and, ultimately, their bottom line.

We hope you found this article on storytelling in video marketing informative. If you have a video marketing project that you’d need specific help with, please contact us today. Our teams are available seven days a week and will be more than happy to assist you.

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Collect customer data

No matter what marketing approach you take, collecting customer data is an essential step. You can do this process in a couple of different ways. Some of the more efficient ones are:

• Online surveys: This is the easiest way to collect customer data. You can create an online form that will be presented to the user while they are browsing your website. It can happen when they hit the home page, search for specific items, or make a purchase. You can also send survey forms via email one to two weeks after purchase to ask for feedback.
• In-person feedback: If you own a retail store, you can hand out feedback cards to your clients and ask if they can fill them in. Or, you can leave them throughout the store or at the checkout. This is a very personal approach, and it requires a lot more engagement on the employee side. They need to know how to approach customers properly without seeming too pushy or invasive.
• Website analytics: If you are running an eCommerce video marketing strategy, a good thing about online businesses is that every click your customers make gets recorded. You can analyze the most important metrics, like visited pages, clicks, views, and so on, to better understand your customers.

You should also do your best to record the name of the person leaving the feedback. That way, you have specific data tied to that customer, which will help you during the content creation process.

Once you have collected enough customer data, you can analyze it to outline the most important information. That is what you will use in your personalized video marketing campaign.

Segment the audience

While it is sometimes possible to target one specific customer, when we talk about creating a campaign for broader audiences, it is necessary to segment them into different groups based on the collected data. You can do customer segmentation based on the following:

• Demographics: Age, gender, education, income, etc.
• Geolocation: Country, city, region, neighbourhood, language, culture
• Purchase behaviour: Type of purchased products, money spent, type of viewed products, etc.

These are just a couple of examples. Segmenting customers into these groups is crucial because then you can create tailored content to match that group of customers. For example, if you are selling clothes, you will have to split your customers into different groups based on their years and create a unique marketing approach for each group.

Create personalized video content

All the steps we have covered are crucial for the video production process. If you do not know what your customers want, you cannot create engaging content. Now that the base is covered let’s see how to create engaging and personalized video content.

First, think about the type of video you want to use. Some types include product reviews, customer testimonials, tutorials, how-to guides, etc.

It is also important to consider the length of the video, which will directly depend on your audience. For example, if you are targeting a business person, you want shorter videos with relevant and valuable material. They do not have time to spend on long videos with a lot of fluff that only have 5 minutes of watching content.

If you want to target teenagers, it is a good idea to consider shorts of 5-10 seconds or minute-long videos. Their attention span is short, and they will quickly switch to something else if they are not entertained in the first few seconds.

When creating content, we must also mention that you want to use the best video editing software. This is necessary to ensure high quality. While there are many different tools to create quality content and a variety of some of the best video editing software, you need to consider the features you need and also the pricing.

The final step is to develop the type of content you want to present. This will substantially depend on your research and the segmented groups. Keep in mind that each group must feel that tailor-made touch. You will need to mention a specific location or a different segmentation factor, depending on the group you are talking to.

Optimize content for different platforms

This is another crucial step. Think about what you are trying to achieve with the video. While you are marketing your products, it is also important to think about how the audience will react to videos and whether they will share them or not.

For example, creating a 5-minute video for YouTube might not go for Instagram or TikTok video marketing. You will need to make it shorter to fit the format of that specific social media platform. This is where another segmentation group comes into place. You could do a survey to learn what social media apps your customers use the most. Based on the result, you will have to optimize your content for that many platforms.

Perform A/B testing and measure the results

The final step in any marketing campaign is testing and tweaking the ads. Once you have your videos made, you want to do A/B testing. That means you should post two similar videos with one small difference. Observe the reactions and see which one has the better result.

For example, today, creating short videos that loop is very popular so that you can watch them continuously. The first sentence in the video should be the continuation of the last sentence. A good idea would be to create a looped video and a non-looped video and see which one performs better.

Utilize a personalized video marketing strategy to grow your business

Once you develop a personalized video marketing strategy, you should build a template for future use. Remember the process, and try to improve it every time you create a new video. If you invest your resources into personalized video content, your business will have a high chance of success!

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That said, like most marketing tools, video marketing comes with both universal and industry-specific benefits. While everyone can reap the former, increasingly more marketers focus on the latter. For them, entertaining a new tool comes down not to its general appeal or performance but to what it can do for them. If you’re among them or otherwise involved in the eCommerce industry, this article is for you.

Key benefits of video marketing for eCommerce

Since video marketing comes with an array of benefits, here we’ll highlight the seven most notable ones for the industry. In no particular order, our picks are the following.

#1 Higher conversion rates and more sales

Starting with the ultimate metric of success, video marketing directly increases conversion rates and final sales. Many web professionals and Website Design Companies would vouch for the fact that video marketing improves conversion rates. In turn, more sales improve customer lifetime value (CLV). Notably, using CRM alongside it also has the potential to be quite valuable toward this same goal. Delivering valuable, relevant video content throughout the customer journey is exactly the goal video marketing seeks to achieve, after all.

The impact of CRM on customer lifetime value would warrant its own article to cover thoroughly, but simply consider video marketing’s standalone benefits to conversion rates:

• Using video on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%
• Websites that use video have a 4.8% conversion rate, compared to 2,9% for those who don’t use video
• 44% of potential buyers are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it

There’s no doubt about it; video marketing boosts sales.

#2 Better customer retention 

Conversions aside, video marketing also directly enhances customer retention rates. As outlined above, it finds applications throughout the sales funnel, including:

• Initial marketing, e.g., social media video content
• On-page experience, e.g., product videos
• Post-sale engagement, e.g., tutorial/how-to videos

In combination, these applications significantly improve the user experience (UX) and help foster loyalty. This is among the key benefits of video marketing for eCommerce, as it’s a vital metric for the industry. To illustrate this, simply consider the following:

• It costs 7x more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one
• Despite being 21% of one’s customer base, loyal customers account for 44% of total revenue and 46% of orders
• Existing customers are 50% more likely to try out a new product than new customers

In turn, loyal customers often become brand ambassadors, raising your brand awareness.

#3 Better search engine visibility

That said, conversion and retention begin with lead generation. A vital series of practices in this regard is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as it boosts online visibility.

If you’re unaware of the practice, SEO optimizes content and pages for search engines. It does so by adhering to search engines’ ranking criteria, primarily including page authority and content quality. In turn, it allows businesses to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract more traffic.

In this regard, too, video marketing shines through. Websites using video are 53 times more likely to rank on the first page. In addition, the average user spends 88% more time on pages with videos. Time on page is a key user engagement signal which enhances SEO – so the more you satisfy customers with video, the more likely you are to attract more customers through a better SEO score.

#4 Improved lead acquisition

Once you’ve attracted the attention of potential customers, the next step comes in lead acquisition. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the benefits of video marketing for eCommerce also extend to this phase.

As the above sources show, video marketing directly enhances engagement and facilitates lead acquisition. Examples of relevant statistics here include:

• Adding a video to marketing emails can boost click-through rates by 200-300%
• 50% of online consumers start considering a purchase after seeing a product video
• More than half of social media users engage with brands after seeing a video

These types of interactions all constitute an engagement with your brand. Whether you’re using video marketing on TikTok or email, many marketing channels stand to benefit from it – and acquire more leads.

#5 Raising brand awareness 

Still, before all marketing optimization efforts can begin, your brand needs to become known. Through robust SEO, word-of-mouth marketing, and other means, all businesses’ first and most crucial goal is to generate awareness. Almost half of all marketers cite brand awareness as their campaigns’ primary goal.

There are two primary ways to generate brand awareness; SEO and social media marketing. And as we highlighted above, the benefits of video marketing for eCommerce make it a perfect fit for both:

• Pages with video rank higher in SERPs. They allure visitors to stay longer and often incite engagement. All of these factors reassure search engines of a page’s quality and boost its SEO score.
• Social media marketing thrives on video. Most platforms are strongly visual, and video attracts the eye; Facebook alone has more than 8 billion video views per day. Video incites engagement, often generating leads – which is why influencer marketing is thriving.
• On-site video content caters to both crowds. Whether visitors make it to your website through search engines or social media links, videos will keep them engaged and make their visit memorable.

No matter which way you go about it, video marketing can be an invaluable asset for your brand awareness campaigns.

#6 Building credibility and trust

Beyond first impressions and positive initial awareness, businesses need to establish themselves as credible. Search engines value credibility, and so do customers. Here, too, video marketing can help immensely.

Consider such types of trust-building and trust signals as:

• Showcasing your expertise on video. Use educational videos, as they best demonstrate that you’re an authority in your field, and customers appreciate them dearly.
• Offering customer testimonials as trust signals. Most customers read reviews, and customer testimonial videos are a highly digestible form of trust-building.
• Proving your professionalism through video production quality. No matter the type of video or its use, high production quality speaks volumes about a business all on its own.

Once you establish your credibility, customers and search engines alike will prefer you over the competition.

#7 Future-proofing for mCommerce

And finally, rounding up the benefits of video marketing for eCommerce, we can conclude with its affinity for mobile devices. After all, this is a highly notable perk for the eCommerce industry regarding future-proofing.

Indeed, mCommerce seems set to make a sizable impact on the industry. As increasingly more consumers use mobile devices to make purchases, in many ways, it already is:

• This year, it’s expected that 8% of all retail transactions will take place on mobile devices.
• Since 2017, mobile traffic has consistently surpassed desktop traffic, according to Statista.
• Shopify forecasts that social commerce will rise by 5.2% this year, reaching $101.1 billion.

In specific cases, this trend may be even more notable. In 2016, for example, Google outlined a shopper who saw 89% of all her e-commerce retail interactions occur on mobile devices. If this is indicative of where consumers are heading, mCommerce will indeed emerge shortly.

What this trend outlines is the need for businesses to better cater to mobile users. Thankfully, video marketing aligns itself perfectly with this need. More than 60% of YouTube’s views are on mobile devices, and studies show that users prefer to consume video on mobile devices. For them, video marketing produces higher view completion and engagement rates, driving brand awareness to success.

Conclusion

In summary, leaning into video marketing today is, arguably, the best way to future-proof eCommerce. It’s a powerful marketing tool with an inherent affinity for both SEO and social media marketing. The benefits of video marketing for eCommerce expand to brand awareness, lead acquisition, customer retention, and more. While brief, we hope you found this article informative and, hopefully, inspiring. If you have a video marketing project in mind that you’d need specific help with, please feel free to contact us today. Our teams are available seven days a week and will be more than happy to assist you.

Description: From higher engagement rates and credibility to enhanced SEO, discover the most vital benefits of video marketing for eCommerce.

The post Key Benefits of Video Marketing for Your eCommerce Business appeared first on COLDEA Productions, LLC.

But video marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Video content is ever-evolving and consumer demands are consistently changing. As such, it’s important that any marketer looking to optimize video understands upcoming trends and patterns. Here, we outline a few of the most exciting and promising trends that video content will experience in 2022:

CGI will be more prolific

Whereas before only bigger brands would be able to enjoy the benefits of CGI, in 2022, animation can be adopted by almost anyone. Aside from CGI technology becoming more affordable, animation is also easier to pursue thanks to a 4% growth in professionals with digital media skills. Armed with training in motion graphics design, these designers can expertly realize a brand’s vision into an animated video that can be adjusted for different budgets. According to surveys, animation can increase landing page conversion rates by up to 90%. Research released in 2021 even revealed that 83% of marketing professionals deem animation as a medium with growing importance.

Video tutorials will increase

Recent studies show that 68% of consumers prefer and recall more from video tutorials rather than written ones. This is also perhaps why videography is becoming commonplace in the education sector. Among marketers, tutorial-type videos are also some of the most effective at reaching audiences. Since videos are easier and more entertaining to consume than most text, viewers are more likely to use them. That’s why video marketing tools are now becoming popular over the years as marketers use DIY software to create their content. Thus, instead of your usual FAQs published on websites or social media, marketers will be better off creating information-rich videos on all their platforms. These can be tweaked depending on the medium, but the commonality is that they should be clear and accurate. Since tutorials are also based on existing internal information, they’re also some of the easiest to produce.

Viewers will crave longer stories

For years, marketers have been creating videos that aim to be short and sweet. On one hand, this was done to fit into expensive 30-second ad slots. On the other hand, shorter videos were also created to allegedly cater to shorter attention spans. However, contrary to popular belief human attention spans haven’t shortened. Rather, our ability to decide what is interesting has changed. If a viewer deems something uninteresting, they’ll keep scrolling or change channels, regardless of video length. That said, since 2021, over 50% of all online views have come from videos over 15 minutes. This support for longer-format videos is believed to come from an audience craving for storytelling. As such, when planning out content, see if you can extend it to a longer vlog-style video that weaves an engaging story instead of being rushed through.

Live-streaming creates more conversions

When people think of video marketing, the informality of a live stream may not come to mind. However, live streams are incredibly effective content that can improve conversion rates. Because consumers have been demanding more personality and engagement, live streams have become a happy medium wherein brands can connect while still curating the conversation and production. Statistics on live streaming have even stated that up to 80% of consumers prefer live videos to other forms of content. On top of this, almost 70% of live stream audiences say they’ve been influenced to make a transaction after watching video content. For brands looking to add a more “human touch” to their video content, live streaming will be a valuable option.

In closing

As powerful as video marketing can be, it can also be tricky to properly pin down. Due to changing consumer preferences and market trends, 64% of marketers say video is the hardest content to create. Therefore, aside from studying video marketing trends, you should also look into getting professional help. At COLDEA productions, we provide you with expert guidance, perfect for your brand.

By Celeste Dailyn
Written for coldeaproductions.com

The post Video Marketing Trends This 2022 appeared first on COLDEA Productions, LLC.

It’s an excellent way to improve your marketing strategy. There are many benefits to using video marketing over more traditional approaches:

1. Video Boosts Sales
2. Video Shows Amazing RIO
3. Video Is More Trustworthy
4. Video Is Amazing for SEO
5. Video Is Appealing to Mobile Users
6. Videos Encourage Sharing
7. Videos are Engaging
8. Videos Are Superior to Other Marketing Forms.

Videos are made to be watched and watched they are. Over five million videos are watched daily, just on youtube. Here are some video production tips to help you create your videos in a professional and engaging manner.

Story-Driven Videos
Story-Driven videos are a great way to generate sales and make a meaningful ROI. Lots of videos focus on selling, but you need to encourage that point, not shove it in everyone’s face. Your video should have a compelling and story-driven narrative. Remember, the studies show that video content is king!

Make them Short and Interesting
Video marketing tips might sound hard to learn, but videos sure are an effective marketing tactic! You need to make them short, compelling, and catchy. One-fifth of your viewers will leave your video is nothing less than 10 seconds. Make sure you keep them hooked and tell your story quickly!

Be Funny and Up With The Trends
You need to be up with the trends in order to keep up with the competition. Users don’t love anything quite as much as up to date businesses and up to date humor. Remember, video marketing is essential!

Utilize memes, funny images, humor, and friendly, conversational approach in order to improve your SEO, ROI, and possibly get a new customer to your business.

Tag Your Video
What good is your high-quality video if it is not SEO optimized? You need to place enough tags in your videos to make sure they are seen by lots of people. Host the video on your own domain, tag it, share it, and make it easily shareable my enabling embedding. Keep sitemaps in mind as well.

Invest Into a Good Camera
One of the essential parts of good video production and quality is getting yourself a quality camera. When you are choosing a camera for your business, you need to make sure it can deliver high-quality video. If you have a good camera, you have finished half of your work already.

Inform, don’t Annoy
You need to inform your customers without annoying them. Most of your customers are visual learners, and you really need to convey your message in a friendly and informative manner. You don’t need to be overbearing, keep it simple, and tell your story!

Video marketing might be the most important marketing tool in your arsenal. Any size business can prosper by using this tactic.

The most important part of video marketing is doing it correctly. If you plan on doing video marketing yourself, quality is of the utmost importance.

Having a bad video can not only ruin your marketing tactic, but it can also harm your business. You need to make sure you’re providing only the best of the best.

If you are making the video yourself, you need to take care and make it HD, HQ, quick and simple.

If you don’t want to do this yourself, hiring a professional video editing and production company might be the better option, but it will cost you.

Do not take this cost as an expense – it’s a much-needed investment. The ROI of good video marketing is impressive. A professional video production company will produce a high-quality video that you can use to stay one step ahead of the competition.

If you opt to make the video yourself, you will need to know some tips and tricks to do it properly. Don’t worry, we’ve got your back.

Plan Ahead
You can’t just make it on the spot – the process requires some intense planning. Think about organization, sets, costumes, lighting options. Research what you are doing thoroughly, and you will be able to make the most out of these video production tips.

Effects!
The effects are amazing and can make your video that much better. They can be used to enhance or decrease any part of the video you like and can give real-life realism to the video you are shooting. Vibes and themes are everything, and adding quality effects to your videos can really give them a new life.

Sound Matters
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when producing their own material is making a great video with poor sound quality. Use a lapel or lavalier microphone to make sure that your sound is terrific, and that it is going to perform well with the video.

Quality is all about consistency! If the sound is terrible, you can try to fix it yourself in the editing process.

Lighting
Another extremely important aspect of any quality video is the lighting. You can have the quality camera, editing crew, and writers working 24/7, but if your video has bad or poor lighting, it is doomed to fail. You don’t want to overlight your video either, having a proper lighting rig or setup is essential.

Utilize Tech
A fantastic way to prove your point and improve your video production quality is by utilizing the latest tech. You don’t want stiff, monotonous and one angled video, do you? Drones are a great option you should consider investing in!

Frame Your Work
When you have shot the best video in the world, the only thing that remains is to frame it properly. Cropping is your friend, and before you get to the editing process, you should keep it in mind. Shooting your video while thinking of the editing process makes for the best product.

In conclusion, you need to know the ins and outs of videos to make the best ones. You can utilize these video production tips or hire a video editing service to make your life that much easier.

You need to be consistent with the quality and provide a quality video, to establish a quality service. If you’ve done everything right, your business should be booming, and your ROI should be incredible.

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