What do most successful Hollywood films have in common?
A great script? A talented director? Diligent producers?
Maybe. But by and large, the thing that most successful films have is a star. Someone whose presence and charm leaps off the screen–someone who ties together the writing , directing and producing–and someone who, most importantly, influences consumer behavior. The star gets people to buy tickets and go see the movie.
Believe it or not, the same is true for your company’s landing page. Except you don’t need Johnny Depp or Julia Roberts. You need a different kind of star. You need someone or something to convince visitors to take action. Sign up for a demo. Subscribe to a service. Buy a product. And, in this digital era, that star you need is video.
Why Video?
Anecdotally, we’ve all heard video marketing success stories and, conceptually, there’s some logical to the argument that “if a picture’s worth a thousand words, imagine how many video is worth?!” But, with a healthy dose of skepticism, one can’t help but wonder if those explainer video success stories–for companies like Dropbox, Groupon and Salesforce–are merely outliers? Simply put: is video really that effective?
The answer is Yes, but it’s Yes-With-An-Asterisk. Because, like so many things in life, it comes down to execution. The importance of skillful execution (of content creation, call to action, distribution, etc.) are things we discuss routinely on this blog, but today’s let’s really focus on that yes and explore the value of making video your star.
Conversions
As we mentioned at the top, the primary goal of any landing page is to influence the visitor to take action. Sign up for a demo. Subscribe to a service. Buy a product. As a result, at some point between when the visitor arrives and when the visitors leaves, the ultimate goal is conversion. There are tons of variables that influence the possibility of that conversion, but statistically speaking, video is by far the most effective. Consider the following:
- People who view a video are 70% more likely to make a purchase (via Invodo)
- 92.6% of people said that visuals are the top influential factor affecting a purchase decision (via Vouchercloud)
- Landing pages with video have a conversion rate up to 800% higher than the same page without a video. (via Orion 21)
- 70% of marketing professionals believe that video converts better than any other medium (via MarketingProfs)
Engagement
One of the main reasons why video is so great at conversions is because of its uncanny ability to engage visitors. That engagement manifests in many ways–increased interest, trust and time spent on webpage–but has an additional hidden value as well. It’s something that we touched on last week in Meet Mr. Whiteboard Animation: Andrew Park, where psychologist Richard Wiseman talked about how an animated video of a speech (as opposed to just the audio) resulted in a “huge increase” of obtained and retained information. For a company that’s looking to build a long-term relationship with the consumer, that ability to convey and store messaging is unquantifiable. But, for now, let’s look at a few things that are quantifiable:
- 59% of senior executives prefer to watch video instead of reading text (via Forbes)
- The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video (via Mist Media)
- Visitors who view videos stay on web sites an average of 2 minutes longer than those who do not. They are also 64% more likely to make a purchase (via ComScore)
What’s Next?
Because of figures like those above, it’s no surprise that video marketing has increasingly become a bigger discussion. And, in many industries, some kind of landing page explainer video has already become a best practice. Whether that’s true of your industry or not, there’s no better time to think about video than now. Because its influence only continues to grow…at an astounding rate. From 2014 to 2015, video views grew by 42%.
In addition to effectiveness, another reason for this terrific growth is the increase of mobile. According to eMarketer, mobile now accounts for most of the time that US adults spend with the Internet. Interestingly enough, with viewing habits changing from desktop to mobile, video seems to be the common denominator. In fact, Cisco predicts that video will account for 79% of all global internet traffic by 2018. By any metric, the one thing seems clear: video is a star and its future is shining bright…
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