Top 15 Benefits of Video Marketing [with Tips for Better Content]

Are you doing video marketing? No?

That’s a shame, considering the considerable influence of video content on consumers these days. Besides, if you do your research a bit, you’ll notice that probably the majority of your competitors are doing video marketing in one way or another.

Indeed, investing in videos can be hard on your wallet. Apart from that, the video production process can be quite daunting, and you’ll also have to invest in video editing software to work on hours of video footage. However, the benefits of this content marketing strategy outweigh the disadvantages, and we are here to prove that. 

Here’s the list of 15 video marketing advantages, along with statistics, research, and examples to prove the point that videos deserve your attention. 

P.S. If you want to learn more about what video marketing is and how to build a successful strategy, make sure to check out our guide first.

Benefit #1: Improves Conversion Rates

It would be silly to deny that the number one reason to invest in video marketing is to boost conversions. However, no matter if you’re hiring a team of videographers or organizing a filming process yourself, producing marketing videos will be expensive.

So, is it worth the shot? Does video content really improve conversion rates?

Looking at the stats is always the best way to figure out the answers to questions like these. 

First of all, video marketing, in general, is capable of improving your conversions. The research by Aberdeen Group found that companies that added videos to their content marketing strategies enjoyed a 66% higher website conversion rate. The authors of this research also pointed out that video marketing had an average CR of 4.8%. Just to compare, blogs with opt-in sidebars have average conversion rates of 0.5% to 1.5%. 

If we take specific uses for video marketing, Wishpond, with reference to the study by Eye View Digital, says placing videos on landing pages can increase conversions by up to 86%. The company involved in this study doubled its CR after posting a video on its landing page. 

So, as data shows, videos absolutely can improve your conversion rates. But what about revenue? Let’s take a look. 

Benefit #2: Increases Revenue

Naturally, if your conversions are up, i.e., a prospect becomes a paying customer, the revenues go up as well. 

But let’s not throw around empty claims and get to some numbers. For instance, according to the research by Vidyard and Aberdeen Group, marketers who incorporate this content type grow their revenue 49% faster year by year than those who don’t invest in video marketing. 

In case you’re wondering about real-life case studies involving companies who actually managed to increase sales with videos, check out this one by Crisp. This company helped The Jacobs Law legal firm use videos to draw more qualified leads, which increased their revenue. 

So, both the stats and the case study show that high-quality video content can drive more revenue. But why does it happen, exactly? Let’s answer this question.

Benefit #3: People Love Watching Videos

So, from the fact that video marketing improves conversions and drives revenue, we can assume that internet users prefer this content type over others when introduced to a new product or service. 

But why do they prefer it? 

Let’s deduce the answer by looking at the following stats by Wyzowl:

• 90% of people watched an explainer video to get more information about a product
• 86% of respondents say a brand’s video encouraged a buying decision
• 78% of people downloaded a piece of software after watching a video about it
• 73% prefer to watch a short video such as a product demo to learn about a brand and what it offers

By looking at these numbers, we can conclude that people watch videos to understand the value a product or service delivers and match it with their own needs. Videos are illustrative and show a product in action so that the users can visualize how it works and what benefits it would bring if they buy it. 

Thus, it’s clear why people love watching videos – they help them learn more effectively. But is there another perk for the brand to invest in this type of content marketing aside from revenue and conversions? Let’s investigate. 

Benefit #4: Increases Brand Awareness

Video marketing is a unique way to showcase not only your product but your brand as well. It’s not just an outlet to market lucrative offers – it’s also your chance to get more people to remember you and think of you as a leading player in your niche and industry. 

That’s why brands invest in making videos, not just because they want more customers and money but because they want to improve their online presence. And, we must admit, it works – 85% of marketers say videos proved to be an effective way to get attention online. 

By the way, brand awareness doesn’t come only from videos on YouTube and your landing pages – your social media activity counts, too. For instance, Chobani ran video advertising on Instagram and Facebook and saw a 4.6-point increase in ad recall and a 1,9-point boost in the  message-brand association. So, there is no doubt that regular investments in video marketing will bring more brand recognition and awareness. 

But does awareness always mean trust? Do brand videos make your company more trustworthy? The next section will answer this question. 

Benefit #5: Builds Trust

The stats by Wyzowl showing that people bought products from a brand after watching its videos proves that this type of content makes consumers trust businesses more. So, videos are a great way to make a potential buyer believe that a product is worth splurging on. 

Video content marketing also builds trust in a brand itself. The same statistics by Wyzowl show that 43% of brands managed to reduce the number of calls to their customer support by implementing more explainer videos. The same is reflected in Animoto’s survey, where 93% of consumers said post-purchase videos with instructions helped them use a product to its full potential. 

So, we can safely say that you can incorporate video content at any sales funnel stage, even after a prospect becomes a customer. In fact, you can use videos to guide a prospect through the entire customer journey, from lead generation to nurturing and even turning them into a brand ambassador, thus increasing customer loyalty. 

With this benefit clear, let’s move on to how video marketing can help improve your search engine optimization efforts.

Benefit #6: Helps Improve Your SEO

Did you know that Google likes videos as much as consumers do? Here’s some data to prove it. 

First of all, the fact that videos took 62% of all Google universal search results back in 2012 already shows that even back then, video content was considered as something of more value to consumers than all other content types. 

Apart from that, back in 2009, Forrester has found that a video has 50 times more chances of appearing at the top of search engine rankings if it ranks for the keywords for which Google offers video results. In other words, a video is 50 times more likely to bring you more organic traffic than any other source. 

Finally, the dwell time (aka the amount of time people spend on your website) also matters for SEO, and videos can help you catch your visitor’s attention for longer. According to research by Wistia, people spend 1.4x more time on pages that have videos. So, adding this type of content to your website pages can definitely help reduce the bounce rate and get you to the top of SERPs. That is if your videos bring value, of course. 

Now, we’ve mentioned earlier that video marketing is an investment that can make a hole in your pockets. Thus, the question is, what would be the average ROI for this marketing strategy? Should, for example, small businesses or startups invest in it, considering they don’t often have the budget? 

Let’s figure out the answer. 

Benefit #7: Brings Good ROI

Among all types of content marketing, videos are the ones that have the most potential to pay off. We can deduce it by simply looking at the data we’ve reviewed in the previous sections, but let’s consider some more statistics to make our point more convincing. 

First and foremost, the odds of your investment in videos going down the drain are pretty low. According to Oberlo, with reference to an Animoto study, 88% of video marketers say they received a positive ROI from their videos, and it doesn’t just apply to website videos. The same resource also claims social media ads have brought a good return on investment, with 80% of marketers confirming this fact. 

Let’s take a look at a case study for a change to see how specific businesses get top-notch results from video marketing. 

For instance, take the case of Greater Minds, a British media publishing company. It decided to use Biteable instead of their trusty old Windows Movie Maker (a real OG if you ask us) to produce eye-catching marketing videos. A well-defined approach and a thought-through strategy made their videos viral, with one receiving over 60 million video views, 1.3 million social shares, 287K reactions, and 33K comments. However, it’s not all they managed to achieve. 

Zina Magomet, a marketing manager at Greater Minds, says the website’s traffic and product sales have increased by 110% over the 30 days after achieving success with their effective strategy. The ROI is definitely more than positive in this case. 

Now, what if your goal is to reach prospects that differ from your current target audience? Can videos help you with that?

Let’s try to figure it out. 

Benefit #8: Video Content Can Engage Almost Any User

So, suppose you want to reach different generations of consumers and sell them your product. Is video marketing a good strategy to achieve this goal?

To find an answer, we need to understand how different generations consume video content in general. 

First come Millennials and Gen Z – the most tech-savvy generations, so here are some numbers from Adobe to understand their relationship with video content:

• Millennials spend on average 1.5 hours a day watching content on streaming services as well as social media channels, including YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. 
• Gen Z-ers prefer social media more, with 65% of this generation’s representatives watching content on Instagram and 60% on TikTok daily. 

By the way, speaking about TikTok, if you’re planning to use this platform for live videos, make sure to check out our guide.

Alright, back to generations. Now, what about Gen X and Baby Boomers? 

A study from Deloitte covering the period from 2013 to 2018 showed that Gen X representatives have grown to like watching videos online, and so did Baby Boomers, though not as much:

This data covers mobile videos, but the research also confirmed that Gen X and Baby Boomers started watching diverse content on different platforms more. 

So, the conclusion is, yes, video marketing can help you reach any audience and generation you want. However, make sure you really know your ideal customer persona first. 

Now, let’s discuss the connection between video marketing and email marketing.

Benefit #9: Enhances Your Email Marketing

The blend of video and email in marketing is called video email marketing, and it’s an effective strategy to employ if you’ve noticed that your emails have been underperforming for a while. Here’s what the statistics have to say about the effectiveness of adding videos to your email messages. 

First comes the data round-up by Snov.io, which claims that:

• An initial email with a video has a 86% click-through rate
• Adding a video to an email can boost CTR by up to 300%
• The word “video” in a subject line increases open rates by 19% and reduces the unsubscribe rate by 26%. 

If you’re not sure what all these email marketing metrics mean, make sure to read our article.

There are various ways of including a video in your email – you can either embed, host, or upload it (although make sure it’s not too heavy – people don’t like it when emails load for too long). Whatever option you choose, it’s going to make your email strategy deliver better results – a video thumbnail alone can improve subscriber engagement by 41% when it appears in an email.  

Since we mentioned that videos drive engagement, let’s look at some data to understand this benefit better.

Benefit #10: Boosts Social Media Engagement

Social media marketing is one of the greatest outlets for brands to promote themselves and their product. Social media platforms allow you to post both static and dynamic content, but as research shows, posts that include videos bring in more engagement. 

First of all, video posts enjoy 48% more views. And, if you want a more specific example, when you add videos to Instagram Stories, they get a tap-forward rate of 0.80% lower than Stories with images, meaning that social media users tend to skip video Stories less.  

We can also prove that videos on social media bring more reach than simple posts with links and text. Take a look at this post in the Digital Olympus Facebook group – it contains an image and a short caption, and managed to reach only 14 people:

Now, take a look at the reach a post with a video managed to deliver:

As you can see, the number of people reached is way higher, plus, the engagement went 50% up. So, you definitely should diversify your social media marketing strategy with videos if you want more people to take an interest in your content.

By the way, if you’re struggling with building a successful social media strategy, check our latest article with tips – you’ll find many great recommendations there, along with inspiring examples. 

Now, let’s talk more about the connection between video marketing and SEO, in particular, how videos can help you get more backlinks.

Benefit #11: Can Bring More Backlinks

Videos belong to those content types that can turn the attention of others to your website and blog. Similar to infographics, charts, and other similar content, videos carry high value, making them highly shareable. That is why the chances are that a blog post with a video will get more backlinks than the one without. 

A study by Moz has confirmed this idea. Reportedly, posts with videos get three times more linking domains than plain text posts, and if you dare to include images, videos, and lists, your post will get six times more backlinks. 

We were curious to check whether the results of this study applied to our blog and investigated the backlink profile to our video marketing and content marketing guides, which were posted approximately at the same time. The content marketing guide got 52 backlinks and 28 referring domains, according to Ahrefs. It doesn’t include videos, only images, and screenshots:

The situation is different with our video marketing guide – it has plenty of video examples, bringing it 48 referring domains and 84 backlinks:

The reason for such difference could be attributed to the fact that videos add dynamics to blog posts, making the text more engaging. So, if your blog lacks attention, try to combine this strategy with video marketing to improve results and get more backlinks. Also, to speed up the backlink acquisition process, consider hiring a link building agency with a great marketing portfolio. After all, not every backlink is good, and an agency will help you keep your backlink profile clean. 

Now, let’s talk more about the connection between video marketing and branding.

Benefit #12: You Can Easily Communicate Your Brand’s Message

Aside from helping you promote a product, video content is also a means of communication. If you use it right, it can help your brand reach more people and spread your message across various audiences. 

But here’s the thing – even the most engaging video will not deliver your brand’s message to the right people if it doesn’t resonate with your target audience. So, as always, ICP (ideal customer persona) research is a must if you want to deliver something relatable. 

Once you understand what your target audience wants and needs, it will be easier for you to connect your brand’s message with their pain points and inspirations. As a result, this message will go through all your videos like a thread. Nike definitely succeeded in using this approach, as all its video marketing campaigns focus on motivation and support – the key message the brand wants to deliver. This video featuring Kobe Bryant is a great example:

So, conveying your brand’s message in a video involves a lot of research. You should know your brand values well enough to communicate them in a clear way and understand who you are reaching with your message and whether these people can relate to it. 

Next, let’s talk more about getting the attention of the right people with your videos, in particular, the decision makers in B2B companies.

Benefit #13: Reaches Decision Makers with Ease

If you’re wondering whether there’s a place for videos in B2B content marketing, the answer is yes. This content type plays an important role in how decision makers in SaaS, manufacturing, and other B2B industries research a product and make up their mind to buy it. 

Here’s a study posted in Search Engine Journal to prove our point. According to it, 58% of B2B buyers confirmed they used videos to research a product or service. Check out some other interesting findings:

• 97% of respondents said they would be more receptive to sales communication from a company after checking out its online video content
• 88% of surveyed B2B buyers said they watched a video telling about a product or service in the past three months
• 95% of interviewed decision makers said video content played an important role in moving on with a purchase

So, video marketing is not just for B2C companies and e-commerce businesses; it’s as effective in the B2B. Apart from that, considering how complex some products sold by B2B businesses (such as software) can be, having educational videos to explain how they work is a must. 

By the way, educating people is another benefit video marketing brings to the table. Let’s take a look at it. 

Benefit #14: Educates Potential Customers

As you know, every sales funnel stage has its own purpose. However, at each of the stages, you need to educate your potential customers. For instance, at the awareness stage, they might want to learn more general information about your brand and what your product is, and at the consideration stage, they already want to know how your product can fulfill their needs. 

Most types of videos can be used for every sales funnel stage as a source of educational information. Take a look at HubSpot, for instance. For the awareness stage, the brand offers a video explaining what HubSpot is in general terms:

Next, for the consideration stage, there is a HubSpot product video for beginners, which goes a bit more into detail to explain the essentials of using the brand’s CRM:

The great part is that you can also reuse this video to educate new customers to help them navigate all the opportunities offered by this marketing tool step-by-step. Testimonials, video conferencing, webinars, and podcasts also work great for the consideration stage. 

Thus, we can safely say that video content is versatile enough to reuse it for different purposes since its educational value is very high. Now, off to the last one on our list of video marketing pros.

Benefit #15: Matches Any Brand Style

Speaking about the versatility of video content, it can also match any brand style. No matter whether you want to sound corporate or more light-hearted, you can tailor your video marketing plan to follow your preferences. 

Let’s get to some examples. If you’re looking for a brand with style for humor and fun, consider State Farm. Its videos have been featuring the main character, Jake from State Farm, for ages, and all of them come in a storytelling format:

By recreating real-life situations through a humorous approach, State Farm also educates its viewers. Besides, such videos stick around in the viewers’ memory for longer. 

Another option is to take a ‘professor at a lecture’ approach to educate your audience. You can see many SaaS brands following this style in their videos, and Ahrefs is a good example:

This style is appropriate if you have a complex product with updates coming quite frequently, so you need to keep educating your audience on the new features and how they can help them. 

We’re done with all the video marketing benefits, so let’s quickly go over a few tips on how to make better video content.

5 Tips for Better Video Content

So, we can safely say that videos are worth investing in, as they can help you achieve any goal, from lead generation to brand awareness and increasing your online presence. However, not every video is a good video. You could be pouring thousands of dollars into your video marketing strategy, but it doesn’t guarantee it will perform exceptionally well. 

For all those struggling with their video strategies, we’ve prepared five tips that will help you get the most out of video content:

• Know your audience. As we mentioned earlier, no matter what message you want to convey with your videos, it won’t reach the right people unless it resonates with them. Besides, knowing what your audience wants will help you choose the right video format. So, make sure you know your target audience really well before developing any content strategy, including video. 
• Optimize your video based on the platform. Every video hosting platform has its rules regarding the content brands post there. For instance, according to Sprout Social, the ideal length of Instagram videos is 26 seconds, and for Twitter, it’s 15 seconds or less. The maximum length of a video on LinkedIn should be 10 minutes. Your videos will also need optimization for mobile devices. 
• Harness the power of storytelling. Stories are relatable, that’s why they can make your video more memorable. So, try to incorporate more storytelling in your videos – it helps improve brand awareness and educates your audience in a more effective way. 
• Hook the user in the first seconds. Facebook revealed that if you can get a person to watch the first three seconds of your video, they will stick around for another 30 seconds. So, an engaging hook at the very beginning of your video is a must for better engagement. 
• Always include a CTA. A call-to-action tells the viewer what to do next with the information they received from the video. It’s also a mediator that brings a potential customer from one sales funnel stage to another. 

In general, when looking for the video marketing approach that works for your brand, focus on value. The more informative and educational your videos are for the viewers, the your marketing efforts will pay off. 

Over to You

So, did we convince you to invest in video marketing?

Great! It’s an exciting journey, full of creativity and interesting projects, so you’ll definitely have fun. However, at the same time, you should be ready for some failures, as, like with any digital marketing strategy, you won’t be able to find the right approach to video marketing right away. However, once you embrace it, it will quickly become an inalienable part of your branding strategy. 

Would you like to learn more about video marketing or online marketing in general? Check out our blog!