78% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales and it’s not hard to understand why! With 78% of people watching some form of online video each week and 55% of people watching an online video every single day, the appetite for video content is high and so is the opportunity to leverage video to help your sales process.
We’ve been making engaging video content since 2013, so, as the experts, we’ve delved into the reasons why video content is such a great tool for selling.
Video allows us to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’. Businesses know their products and services inside and out and can often write thousands of words on why their offering might be better than competitors. However, a video can show in a moment what it might take paragraphs to say.
90% of information transmitted to the brain is completely visual, and video content leans into the visual side of learning whilst also not being restricted by text. This opens it up to different age groups, those with sight or comprehension issues or individuals where English might not be their first language.
With products, you can use video to showcase how easy they are to use, the numerous features that are available, or the pain points purchasing might alleviate. With services you can showcase how your customers feel after working with you or the end result of a project.
Successful video content aims to entertain, engage and inform and this is often done through storytelling. By communicating via storytelling, messages can be infused with entertaining and informative content, making consumers more likely to watch it and in turn more likely to share. In fact, people are twice as likely to share video content with their friends than any other type of content.
The entertaining aspect of video content is also part of the reason why two-thirds of people (66%) said they’d prefer to watch a short video when asked how they’d most like to learn about a product or service.
If you have internet access, mobile devices make it quick and easy to consume videos on the go. We now have more access points to engage with video content, from social media via mobile device, to more traditional platforms such as video screens in shopping centres and sports stadiums.
The increased accessibility of video content points to why people are now watching an average of 16 hours of online video per week, and we are so used to this style of content that out of every 10 people, 6 would rather watch online videos over terrestrial television.
We’re emotional creatures, especially when it comes to sales. That’s because the emotional section of our brain processes information in one-fifth of the time it takes the cognitive section to process.
One of the easiest ways to convey emotion is through video. By combining the power of communicating via visuals and the strength of storytelling, video content allows us to tap into emotion for the benefit of sales.
The key is to use a number of triggers to tap into emotion, from visual cues such as colour, facial expressions and movement, audio cues such as music or sound effects, or story cues such as character and plot.
Depending on the emotion you want to evoke, you can blend these cues so that your video resonates with your viewers, making them more likely to remain engaged and easily retain the core video message.
Video content can help improve your website’s SEO. Search engine algorithms see video as high-quality (as long as it’s optimised), so using it on your website can be beneficial. But video's website benefits aren't limited to SEO as 81% of video marketers say video has helped increase the average time their visitors spend on page.
Using video content on social media can also be smart as many of the platform algorithms are weighted towards video content. Of those using YouTube 83% of video marketers said it had been successful for them and of those using Facebook 85% of video marketers said it had been a success.
Video can also improve both open and click through rates as well as conversions in emails. Using the word ‘Video’ in a subject line can increase opens 19% and use of video thumbnails in the content of the email can help increase clicks by 50%.
These are just some examples of how using video content alongside other tools in sales can help your bottom line.
Video as a medium is growing all the time, and the ability to use it to benefit your business is only increasing. Now we’ve looked into some of the reasons why it can be such a crucial tool for sales, we hope you are starting to see where you can use it in your own business.
Not sure how to get started using video for sales? Our expert team provides both video and animation production to help you create engaging and informative video content to help sell your products and services. Click on the link below to book a 1-2-1 with one of our team.