5 ways video and animation can win you more customers

We are watching more video nowadays than ever before. That’s not entirely surprising. We’re visual animals and we connect with this kind of content with natural ease and plenty of gusto.

It’s been greatly helped in recent years by the development of smartphones and tablets as well as wide ranging Wi-Fi connections and hot spots which means we can view content on the move. You’re just as likely to catch someone binging on The Bodyguard as you are to find them playing a game.

Here are some telling statistics from the world of video marketing that should convince you to include it in your strategy in the future:

• Research carried out by HubSpot discovered that 78% of us watch an online video at least every week. More than half of us watch one every day.
• Other research by Forrester found that a minute of video content is the equivalent of over 1.8 million words. That’s astounding if you’ve spent the last few years building up a written blog.
• Over half of video plays are now carried out on mobile devices. And why not? They’re portable and always on us.
• Video has spread seamlessly to social media in recent years. 100 million hours of video are watched each day on Facebook alone.
• And, according to Google, half of people will check out a video in relation to a product or service before buying or hiring it.

Marketers have understood that video is a vital part of reaching out to customers for some time now. If it’s something your business hasn’t seriously considered, now might be the right moment.

We can help with your video and animation production if you need it.

Here are five ways that video can help people engage better with your product or services:

1. Video explains things very quickly

We’re all pushed for times nowadays. Whether that’s true of everyone or not, getting your point across as quickly as possible is important in marketing.

Even if you have a pretty complex message, it’s a lot easier to explain everything with a video.

Explainer animations have become increasingly popular as marketing tools simply because they are 1) likely to be watched and 2) get detailed information across in a short space of time. In short, they are entertaining and informative.

Video helps bring your idea to life, simply and elegantly. Most businesses that have an explainer video on their home page find that it contributes positively to the process of attracting customers.

2. A good video creates trust

No business succeeds unless customers are able to trust it. The first thing that video can do is humanise your content and make it more accessible. This is often not about pushing products and brazenly selling to customers, it’s about delivering something valuable that a potential buyer of your product is looking for.

An explainer animation showing how your service works can quickly help someone come to terms with whether it’s for them or not. A slick video showing someone like them using your product can make a potential customer feel a greater connection to your brand.

3. It’s suitable and shareable

We’re searching and exploring the online world more and more through our mobile phones rather than using a traditional desktop. Whether you have a website or an app, video is actually perfectly constructed for mobile and smaller screens.

Video is also one of the most shared media on the internet today. It’s content that is more likely to be shown to friends and family. Research shows that video is 1200% more likely to be shared than any text or image driven content. Make it quirky, useful, engaging or simply visually stunning and you can expect viewers to pass it around and share with their peers.

4. Google likes video

Google as a search engine has developed a lot over the last few years. You are 53 times more likely to show up on the first page of listings if you have an embedded video on your business website. That could well be down to Google having bought YouTube, the world’s most important video sharing site.

It could also be because, when people watch a video, they tend to spend statistically longer on your site, providing evidence of trust and reliability which search engines like Google like too.

5. It works even for lazy potential customers

Many customers (we could call them lazy) simply don’t want to read through substantial amounts of text to find out about a product. It’s too much work. They’re busy. They want instant gratification.

A video or animation gives you an in to those less focused buyers who just need a little push to go that step further into your sales funnel and purchase your product. All they have to do is sit and watch – it’s then your job with that video content to bring them onboard and boost their engagement.

Where can you use video?

One of the key things about video is that it has many different applications across marketing. Whether you are developing your website or an app or simply want to engage customers on social media, video has been proven to work.

Here are just a few examples:

• You want a quick introduction to your app when people first open it up. An explainer animation means that users don’t have to flick through different screens and risk getting bored.
• You have a great new product and you want to show how it’s going to benefit your customers. A slickly produced video can make all the difference and create a strong connection between your brand and the individual in as little as a minute.
• You provide a service like legal advice and you want to quickly show that you have a high level of expertise and are a trustworthy company to deal with. A head and shoulders shot of your lead solicitor explaining what you can help with can work wonders and build and immediate bond.
• You want to run a video to promote your product in Facebook Ads – did you know that video has a 1.84% click through rate? That’s the highest of all the digital media.

The good news is that video can be used and repeated across different channels quite easily.

The introduction for your app, for instance, can be transferred to a site like YouTube or put on Facebook to further promote the product. All this means that you get a good return on investment with this type of content, whether it’s a slick advertising promo or a simpler, but no less engaging, explainer animation.

If you haven’t considered including video and animation on your app or your website, now could be just the right time to bring it into the marketing mix. Learn more about how we can help you with this.