Is video a nice-to-do or a must do?

Emails and newsletters are a cornerstone of most customer journeys. But how much has video evolved from a nice-to-do into a critical tool for engaging your customers or prospects more cost effectively?

Regardless of where you stand on the question, the business case for video now means it’s a medium that has moved beyond the fringes of marketing. Consider the evidence: the preference for video content is no longer limited to streaming Netflix shows and watching YouTube clips.

In fact, recent research shows that more than 50% of consumers are demanding more video from the brands they support – even in preference to the emails and newsletters and social content that are key to nearly everyone’s contact strategy. (source: HubSpot)

We now have the attention span of goldfish and information needs to be instant. Brands are having to grab attention in 4 second pre-rolls. And it works – a user’s positive experience with a video ad increases their purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%.

Video engages an audience, incites action, prompts shares, presents quick and rich content, provides the best search engine results , enhances social communication and finally reaches the widest market.

So if we’re asking ourselves which is better, ‘Video or text’, video will never completely replace all mediums, but it will continue to expand as the most popular content consumed globally – so we’d better get onboard.

This growing demand for video content can be met with groans and rolled eyes –  it’s costly to create, right? But it’s a myth that video is expensive to produce. After all, you can shoot 4K quality on a smart phone and consumers crave authenticity. Did you also know that 85% of videos on Facebook are viewed without sound?

Cost is always relative to the business results created, and increasingly our clients are seeing for themselves that digital video delivers a better ROI. This is supported by new research from a number of sources such as HubSpot that found that more than 80% of marketers, globally, attest that video content has the best ROI.

So if customers crave more video as it makes messages easier to consume, as well as more entertaining and engaging, and we like video because it can boost the ROI of our marketing, video is now a must do not a nice-to-do.