Jawad Khan 4 Ways Smart Content Marketers Use Videos To Boost Engagement and Conversions Jawad Khan
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2016 will be remembered as the year video content took over the internet.
From Facebook and YouTube to Periscope and Snapchat, people are watching and consuming more video content than ever before.
Facebook alone gets more than 8 billion video impressions every day. Video consumption has grown so fast that Facebook is planning to become a video only platform in a few years, and has already predicted the end of the written word soon.
How exactly are you coping with these developments as a content marketer?
According to a recent survey by Content Marketing Institute, 62% of content marketers consider video very effective for audience engagement and lead generation
But how exactly are marketers using video to their advantage, and how can you do the same? Here are a few practical examples to help you get started.
Embedding videos in long blog posts to increase engagement
Almost every leading content marketer recommends creating longer and more in-depth blog posts rather than thin 500-word articles. Longer posts, when created the right way, deliver more value, help the readers take action, and help you build a stronger brand image.
Neil Patel, one of the biggest advocates of long-form content, regularly publishes articles exceeding 5000 words. He has used it to build a strong brand image and a blog that generates more than $1 million/year.
But since everyone seems to be doing it these days, the perfect way to separate yourself and deliver even more value to your readers is by embedding relevant videos in every post.
Brian Dean does this perfectly on his blog.
Most of his posts are longer than 5000 words and have at least a couple of embedded videos. How exactly does this help?
Two ways:
- Longer content can easily get boring, so a video in the middle keeps the reader interested in the content.
- The time readers spend watching videos on your blog boosts “dwell time” and reduces the bounce rate of your page which positively impacts your search engine ranking.
According to RebootOnline, blog articles with embedded videos receive 30% more inbound links than articles without videos.
So if you’re creating a blog post on “11 Tips to Increase Traffic,” you could create videos to explain one or two points. Or you could repurpose the whole post as a video and embed it at the start.
Whichever way you go, embedding videos in blog content is the new way to keep your audience engaged.
Using Facebook Live for idea generation and creating anticipation
Did you know that 65% of online adults are now using Facebook? And most of those users are spending 3x more time watching Facebook Live videos as compared to the recorded ones
Facebook Live has been a game changer for many marketers since it has allowed them to directly interact with their audience, answer their questions and establish a much deeper connection. But many leading marketers are using Facebook Live videos to help their blogging objectives as well.
For example, Kim Garst uses Facebook Live videos to not only connect with her audience and build a stronger relationship, but also to build anticipation for her upcoming content.
If she has an article coming up on “11 Facebook Marketing Tips,” she’d share two or three best tips in her video and ask the audience to visit her blog for the remaining tips.
You could also approach this the other way around and use Facebook Live videos to generate new ideas for your blog articles. Ask your audience directly about their biggest pain points and respond to their questions live. When the session is done use that video to create an even better and more comprehensive blog post.
Clever, right?
Facebook has significantly reduced the organic reach for regular posts but it’s different for videos, especially live videos. The moment you go live on Facebook, most of your page fans would see it in their timelines.
So it’s a great opportunity to cash in on this organic reach to strengthen your content marketing strategy.
Using Videos to Sky-Rocket Your Email List Engagement
No matter what anyone says, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach your audience and drive more action. I’m not talking about buying email lists and bombarding people with sales offers – that’s spamming, of course.
But if you’ve built an email list from scratch and regularly engage with your subscribers, there’s no bigger asset for your business. Video will make it even better.
Several experiments show that using the word ‘video’ in email subject lines and including a video link in emails significantly improves email open rates and click-through rates.
For example, Wisitia included videos in their emails and immediately saw an increase of 300% in their campaign CTR.
Hubspot did the same and achieved 583% higher CTR than the industry average. Here’s a snapshot of that email.
You can’t directly embed a video in your emails, but you can use a snapshot of your video and link it to the original video hosted on YouTube or your own website (as shown in the snapshot above).
Using videos to boost landing page conversion rate
Selling online depends heavily on the level of trust between you and your prospects. When people trust you, persuading them becomes much easier.
Visual content in general, and video specifically, does a fantastic job at building trust and credibility. Video content allows you to look directly into your prospects’ eyes and confidently describe the benefits of your product. It has a much stronger impact as compared to simple text content.
This is why most experts recommend using at least 1 video at the top of your landing page.
Another study found that landing pages drive almost 45% higher conversions when a sales video is placed above the fold.
The quality of your video and the delivery of your sales message also need to be top-notch of course. But when all other factors are constant, adding a video to your landing page will always improve the conversion rate.
You can set up video landing pages using a WordPress landing page plugin or free apps like GetResponse landing page creator.
Wrapping Up
Most experts believe that video is going to dominate the content marketing trends for several years to come. As more marketers start realizing the value of video content, the competition is only going to increase. Which is why it’s crucial that you become a part of this change as early as possible and start creating more videos.
The best time to start was 2013. The next best time is right now.
Do you use video in your email marketing efforts or have you received an email with a video? Did you watch it? Let us know in the comments below.
