GUEST COLUMNIST: How businesses can soar in video marketing

Video marketing is rising, it’s now one of the most profit-making and an effective tool for businesses.

Accounting for more than 68 per cent of internet traffic from the year 2010, it is projected to rise by 80 per cent by the year 2020.

If you look closely, you can see how many people around you are watching a video on their mobile devices. I bet you just did!

Cisco projects nearly 17,000 hours of video content will cross the network by 2021.

On Facebook, there are over 500 million watching videos every day. Over 300 hours of video content uploaded on YouTube per minute while more than 1.5 billion logs in and view videos every month. Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice president of European, Middle Eastern and African operations, was quoted on 2016 having said that in five years, Facebook “will be probably all video”.

What is the scenario in Africa? Where internet users across the continent increased by more than 20 per cent in 2018 and costs being an all-time high. Surveying in 60 low and middle-income countries, the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) reported, at the end of 2017, only 24 met the UN Broadband Commission’s target of affordable cost of a gigabyte of data not costing more than 2 per cent of average monthly income. This means, in Africa, average monthly income to spend 1GB of data is 8.76 per cent.

It would, therefore, take ingenious and feasible planning to provide internet coverage with regards to regional needs. The bottom line is, brands have to be cautious in creating short and well-narrated stories in video format.

This brings me to my main premise; how can businesses leverage video marketing as a content strategy? This is integral & most essential plan marketers have to use, why? It’s because four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than reading about it (Source: B2C). I would, in fact, do the same.

May I remind you, video viewing has cost implications, it makes the audience shun watching more videos or unsubscribe from your channel completely.

Here are how businesses can make optimal videos while keeping viewers interested.

Produce exciting short (10-15 seconds) testimonial videos for your product or service. According to WebDam, customer testimonials have the highest effectiveness rating for content marketing at 89 per cent. In between go ahead and create emails for your clients or customers. Sources say emails that contain video links have a 50 per cent chance to be read with a click-through rate of 200-300 per cent (see; go.forrester.com) Enrich social media news feed with valuable video content. Consider publishing frequent video posts on your time feed to improve engagement & expand reach. You can also use live videos as well to amplify your message.

Still not convinced yet? Well, here is how it gets really interesting. A video has the advantage of producing audio, text, animation & music at the same time.

Dr James McQuivey, a researcher at Forrester once estimated a one minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words.

Therefore, consider creating a compelling story of your brand’s work. Remember! The first 10-15 seconds count. In your messaging, always bear in mind that ‘Consistency is key’. Create a video with a message that doesn’t contradict the other video. They must align with your brand voice and values.

Approaching video marketing at the outset is to understand target audience top questions and provide detailed responses. In return, you can become a go-to source or expert on that particular topic and be remembered by your audience.

An effective video marketing strategy can get you the highest Returns on Investment in any brand’s digital marketing. Make videos memorable, emotional and sharable. Go beyond by leaving your viewers wanting more of it.

Before you begin creating your first video, consider asking yourself a few questions: Who is your target audience? What is your business goal(s)? Where are you going to upload/go live with your video? What is your budget? As experts suggest, your videos should demonstrate how other content formats such as white papers, articles, blog posts, etc. can be transformed into a “snackable” video series.