Today’s marketing scene is dominated by video content. It appears that videos will continue to rule the roost for a while longer at least.
Videos are the preferred form of content for marketers and businesses because no marketing goal can’t be achieved using video content.
- Want to create awareness about your brand? A brand introduction video will help you achieve the goal.
- Want to show a software product and explain its features? Create a product tour video.
And the list goes on.
But, bear in mind that using video to increase conversion isn’t a new marketing technique. To create the maximum impact with your video content, you need to innovate and optimize. Let’s learn how.
Why You Must Work to Keep Your Readers Longer on a Page
The term ‘Audience Engagement’ sounds simple enough. But, only marketers know there are tons of metrics to accurately gauge page engagement.
Marketers might be too focused on page views, bounce rate, and new vs. returning users; they might give the ‘time spent on page’ a slip.
All the other metrics are important. There is nothing wrong with focusing on them. But, improving the time spent on a page has a direct bearing on boosting audience engagement.
The amount of time spent on a page is a good indication of how the visitor feels about the content. If people are not spending enough time on your page, then something is wrong – most probably the content. This needs to be fixed.
As marketers, we can’t just ignore the ‘time spent on page’ metric. That’s because abandoning visitors leaves a parting gift in the form of a high bounce rate. And, this will lead to a reduction in conversions and ultimately a decrease in sales and profits.
Besides, search engines take the ‘time on page’ metric seriously. This is one of the metrics that is based on merit and cannot be manipulated.
You can improve the average time on page by boosting audience engagement. Feed the visitors with the best content possible and engage them with their favorite form of content – videos. Most organic visitors to your webpage will stay longer if it has a video.
Nowadays, every website, digital agency, and business uses video content. Hence, to boost audience engagement, you need a video strategy to make visitors stay long enough to learn what you have to offer.
Here are a few tips to make the best use of video content to boost audience engagement.
4 Ways to Use Video Content to Boost Audience Engagement
Effective audience engagement is vital to make a good first impression with the new visitors, keep them coming back, develop loyalty, and build long-term relationships.
But, you aren’t the only one using videos on the website. According to Hubspot, 81% of all businesses use video as a marketing tool. Moreover, more than 500 million users watch videos on Facebook each day. Also, YouTube users watch 1 billion hours of video every day.
Your video page needs to stand out. Let’s find out what you need to do to achieve this goal.
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Adding Tutorial Videos to Connect the Brand With the Reader
We all have gone to YouTube at one point or another seeking help in understanding a product/service or learning to do something. You must have probably watched hundreds of hours of tutorial videos every year.
Tutorial videos are quite popular with marketers and businesses because they work. We’re after all humans; we seek simple and easy solutions for problems. Tutorial videos are considered the pillars of video marketing because they are entertaining and informative.
With the help of tutorial videos, you could break down complex topics and tasks into easily understandable steps.
Also, tutorial videos have the incredible ability to effectively convey brand personality. When the customers see the protagonist of the tutorial video explain a brand with a smile on the face and in a friendly way, a feeling of trust and affection develops for the brand.
The tutorial video is a powerful marketing technique because making the customers think, laugh, or inspire them can generate positive thoughts about the brand in their minds.
Once you create an excellent tutorial video, the next step would be to spread the content on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to achieve your marketing goal. This is easily achieved without much time and effort using social media automation tools.
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Create Custom Thumbnails
The video – created with much love and effort – has to produce the desired results. In video marketing, the production of the video is just one of the many elements.
One simple thing that could greatly boost the chances of a video’s success is its thumbnail. The video thumbnail is the first thing you’ll see on the page. If the thumbnail is good and effective, you don’t have to search for the video; the thumbnail will attract your attention.
Besides, when someone types your main keyword and your video appears on the search engine results page, the thumbnail along with the title help draw visitors to your page.
As much as we may want to deny, first impressions matter to us. When online, we expect instant gratification and make a quick judgment about everything.
The decision to watch a video or not could depend on the quality of the thumbnail. The company Yobongo changed their video thumbnail and saw a 70.9% increase in conversions.
Some might still prefer an auto-generated video thumbnail. We like to give three reasons for you to discard auto-generated and pick a custom thumbnail:
- Even a short – 2 to 3 minute – video will generate thousands of frames. Frankly, even if the video is great, most of the frames might be unflattering. Such frames as thumbnails will do more harm than good.
- Through the custom thumbnail, you could present a lot of information. This can be used by the visitors to decide to play the video or not.
- Finally, you can select any one or more of the frames from the video. Then use a thumbnail creation tool to tweak the frames to bring out its best features.
How to find out whether the new thumbnails are increasing click-throughs? With the myriad of marketing tools available online, you can track the performance of every element of the marketing campaign, including the video thumbnails.
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Use Short Videos
Marketers are learning that short videos produce better results than their long-form siblings. The other day, we heard someone say our attention span is worse than that of a goldfish. The person may be exaggerating the problem. But there is a touch of truth in the statement.
Some experts recommend keeping the video shorter than 3.5 minutes. Then some experts say that the completion rate drops significantly after just 30 seconds of the video. If you still need reasons to use short videos on your web page, then here are five more:
- According to a report released a few years ago, our attention span has shrunk to just 8 seconds. That said people prefer short videos because they are easy to consume, like, share, and remember. Bite-size videos have more ‘viral’ potential.
- With the short videos, you can get to the point without padding the video with fluff content. Many believe that complex content is received and understood better if supplied as short chunks. Important topics that can’t be squeezed into a one-minute video can be sliced into multiple short clips that can be consumed at one’s leisure.
- By cutting the duration of the visual content, you’re also making video production cost-effective. Although short videos require extensive planning, they consume fewer resources, lack pretense, and are easy to make. Because of its cost-effectiveness, even small businesses can leverage the power of video marketing.
- Truth be told, short videos are harder to produce than the longer ones. In short videos, the focus is on quality and not on quantity. Professionally made visual content lasting a minute has a higher value and greater impact than longer videos of lesser quality.
- Businesses and marketers are all using videos to capture the attention of the consumers. No platform is spared. We see video content dominating on all social media platforms. There are more videos to watch today than there ever was. With so much content available online, marketers find it easier to attract and market their product, service, or idea with short content.
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Use Video Content Early in the Page
There has been a lot of talk about the placement of the video content on a page.
The centuries-old concept of posting the most important content at prominent portions or above the fold of the newspaper is still relevant. But, some claim, where the video content is placed doesn’t matter anymore.
Let’s make an important point clear – the search engine algorithms have no clear preference on where the video is placed. Hence, the decision should be based on the kind of video used and the user experience.
If a visitor is on the page chiefly to watch the video, then making him or her scroll the page will only force the user to bolt from the site.
For example, always place visual content such as a whiteboard animation video early in the page. That’s because whiteboard animation videos are better at explaining technical and important topics. It’ll be easier for you to engage the audience with a 3-minute whiteboard video than a 2500-word blog post.
Video content is the Star of the page. It is placed early and prominently on the page. Preferably, above the fold or in any eye-catching place that’ll encourage the visitor to play the video.
However, if a video is only supporting another – a more important video – on the page; if it’s purpose is to support and enhance the value of the first video, but don’t add a great deal of value on its own, then it’s acceptable to not place the video early in the page.
At the end of the day, let the purpose of the video dictate its position. You can use website analytics tools to gather an array of information about the viewers, CTR, or watch time. If the video aims to engage and convert – emphasize the content by positioning it early on the page.
Final Thoughts
Video content is the best tool to engage the audience. It is used to drive traffic, create awareness, explain a product/service, and provide customer support. By following the simple tips mentioned above you can augment its impact.
