Video marketing reigns supreme in digital age

Content-driven digital marketing is taking on a distinct avatar. Videos are capturing consumer attention like never before. Video marketing, hitherto limited to YouTube, is now the most crucial channel for brands that look to engage with a millennial audience and enhance their outreach and revenues.

Recently, uber luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Moschino, Prada, Hermes, as well as the mass market food brand KFC, have all entered the video gaming domain by engaging with game developers to create games that are engaging and interactive and intended to draw ultimate attention to the brand products.

Says Sabyasachi Mitter, Founder and MD, Fulcro, an integrated digital marketing and communications agency, "the mobile games market will be $1.1 billion in India by 2020. Brands are not launching their own games but taking advantage of games like Fortnite, Overwatch and League of Legends and are tapping the premium video game community as a new audience."

"However video gaming is just one niche in the overall video marketing space. More common and popular are videos on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube that play a crucial role in brand awareness and coax customers to visit the website and establish a relation with the brand, all of which eventually can trigger sales, " say experts.

Sangram Dasgupta, co-founder and senior vice president, BuzzOne Influencer Marketing, says a strong marketing campaign for brands today incorporates videos into the mix. "Customer testimonials, videos from live events, how-to videos, explainer videos, corporate training videos, entertainment videos, the list is endless.''

According to Parinaz Driver, associate director of marketing, communications & eCommerce, Sofitel Mumbai BKC, video marketing and content personalisation are tools that are expected to make it big in the future.

Says Dasgupta, "video content is far more interactive than static images or text and helps in establishing brand connect. Also, videos are more easily crawled on Google than other forms like images and articles. Videos can increase search engine rankings, click-through rates, and conversions."

According to Driver, strategic use of videos on a business website translates to lower bounce rates, longer visit times, improved engagement and considerably better conversion rates. "Web video marketing is and will continue to be a real game-changer. In the hospitality sector, for example, today guests plan every element of their trip much ahead through their smartphones and the internet. This has literally bestowed in the hands of customers the power to affect promotional results."

The Brightcove 2018 video marketing survey states that over 53% consumers engage with a brand after viewing one of their videos on social media. Brightcove is an online video platform. Moreover, as per estimates by Smart Insights, which shares digital marketing statistics, when text and video are presented on the same page, 72% people prefer to watch the video. Facebook and Instagram are the two most popular channels for video marketing with brands as it often results in consumers taking action such as visiting the brand's website to learn more. Experts state today all brands, irrespective of whether they are premium or mass market, need to leverage video marketing effectively. "Today's customers have a high disposable income and understand the value of brands. And brands like to display their brand sense not just in the physical world but also at a digital level. For luxe brands, selling licensed merchandise on these channels can be a revenue stream. A premium brand may get a customer hooked in the digital world and then have them moved to the physical product," says Mitter.

Experts state that there are mainly three types of videos that brands can work around. "Firstly, the direct brand videos where the brand conveys the brand message directly to the audience. These types of videos contain television commercials (TVC) by brands where the communication clearly focuses on the message. For example Amazon releases its TVC before every sale season in which they talk about what all products are available on discounted prices," says Dasgupta. Secondly, there are videos where the focus is on brand integrated content, where the brand is integrated in a web-series or a webisode. "In the web series, 'Permanent Roommates Season 2', Ola is integrated with the web series. There is a mention of the brand in all the episodes of the web series," adds Dasgupta. Then there are influencer videos that carry a subtle or direct brand integration wherein the influencer talks about the brand while highlighting its features.

Experts say that besides making use of these three broad types of videos, brands can leverage video marketing when it comes to email marketing and case studies. As per industry estimates, merely adding the word "video'' in the subject line of an email can pump up the email open rates by as much as 19%. Fashion brands like Patagonia often use brand videos in their emails to up their customer engagement quotient. "Case studies are another major channel for video marketing. Case studies are a crucial aspect of brand storytelling and building a case study in the form of a video can be very impactful," say experts.