October | 2017 | CreativeWorks Marketing

In the last of our “What Does It Really Mean?” series, I’d like to explore the term Video Marketing. Although you may not be familiar with the term Video Marketing, you’ve no doubt come across video while interacting on social media platforms, using mobile apps or watching television. Video is everywhere and becoming more popular by the day! A Cisco study predicts that by 2019 video will represent 80% of all Internet traffic.

What is video marketing and what can it be used for?

Of all the terms we’ve delved into in this series, Video Marketing is the simplest to explain. It means using video to promote or market your brand, product or service. Video Marketing is incredibly versatile and it can be used very effectively on your website, social media channels and YouTube for many things including:

Promoting your brand
Product demonstrations/information
Testimonials
How- to videos
Corporate training
Live stream events
Entertainment
And more

What are the benefits of Video Marketing?

There is an abundance of data proving that Video Marketing can raise awareness of your brand/products/services, promote your company, drive sales and/or engage your customers.

Video is an SEO gold mine, helping build backlinks to your site, boosting likes and shares (which can affect search rankings), and driving traffic to your site (Content Marketing Institute)
Adding a video to your website can increase the chance of a front page Google result by 53 times (Comscore)
Almost 75% of marketers agreed that video is key to driving conversions (Demand Metric survey)
After watching a video, customers are 64%-85% more likely to make a purchase
Some statistics indicate that on Facebook, a video post offers a whopping 135% greater reach than a post with a photo (Demand Metric survey)
Email subject lines that include the word “video” see a 19% increase in openrates, and a 65% boost in click-throughs (Content Marketing Institute)
Marketers who are using video are seeing 49% faster growth in revenue (Aberdeen Research)

Are major brands using Video Marketing?

Absolutely! Major brands worldwide have jumped on the video bandwagon. A well-planned, well-executed Video Marketing campaign is a great way to showcase your brand, differentiate you from your competition and help you build an emotional connection with your audience in 60 seconds or less.

Brands including Nike, Hotels.com, Airbnb, Under Armour, Coca Cola and Toyota are just a few that have embraced Video Marketing with a passion. In fact, major brands are not only creating their own YouTube channels but 61 of the top 100 brands now embed YouTube videos on their websites (Content Marketing Institute). Some brands are combining professionally produced content with user-generated content like candid reaction videos. The results both engage and entertain, and that’s the goal.

Should you be using Video Marketing?

Video marketing is so effective that I recommend that every marketing campaign incorporates video into the mix. However, this is not as simple as point and shoot. A badly done video is worse than no video at all. Although user-generated video can be used with professional video in a campaign, it should not be used on its own. Producing a video requires a professional expertise that’s not typically found in-house.

Our production arm, CreativeWorks Productions, is a full-service video production company with well-seasoned producers, and a highly skilled crew with decades of experience working on video productions for private companies to public ones such as the CBC, CTV, Rogers, and Alliance Atlantis. Contact the professionals at CreativeWorks Marketing today to discuss how we can integrate Video Marketing into your marketing and deliver professional results.

electronics-1851218_1280 Next in our “What Does It Really Mean?” series is the term Mobile Friendly. I admit it sounds odd to think of mobile in terms of it being friendly or unfriendly. However, the reality is that for most businesses to succeed in this competitive marketplace, understanding what Mobile Friendly is all about is very important.

What does it mean to be mobile friendly?

We typically think that mobile friendly means responsive design – a website detects the screen size of the user and delivers your site’s content in a way that’s optimized for that screen size. However, mobile friendly refers to more than just websites; it means that all aspects of your marketing and sales efforts play well on mobile devices. After all, don’t you engage with your customers via email and on a variety of social media platforms? These forms of engagement can all be impacted by mobile.

According to Google, a website must include the following features to be classified as “mobile friendly” by their Googlebots:

It avoids software that’s not common on mobile devices (like Flash)
Uses text that is readable without zooming (don’t make users pinch to zoom)
Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped (design for the fat finger)

Why is it important for your company to be mobile friendly?

Last year, the CRTC stated in its Communications Monitoring Report that there are 28.8 million wireless subscribers in Canada. As well, a new Pew Research report states that 67% of Canadians own a smartphone. As the use of mobile devices increases, Canadians are spending more time on mobile apps than ever, even as global growth in mobile app use slows down. And, you need to be where your customers are – on mobile devices. According to Flurry, Canadian mobile app use grew by an average rate of 74% in 2016, far exceeding the global average of 11%. The top five categories of apps all had 55% growth or more:

Health
Fitness
Shopping
Business
Finance

How being mobile friendly improves the customer experience

The best way to differentiate your company from the competition is by providing an exceptional customer experience. Being mobile friendly is an increasingly important part of that customer experience. With more of your customers engaging on mobile devices, you have to ensure that not only your website, but your company, is mobile friendly. Your customers’ experiences have to be consistent across all devices. You want your customers engaged and coming back for more. Unsatisfied customers look elsewhere.

Geo- location targeting can also enhance the customer experience. A mobile device can identify its location and report it to an ad server that maintains a database of location data and ad campaigns. When a customer enters a particular location, the ad server will send relevant ad notifications to their mobile device. Have you ever walked in a store and immediately got a text message offering you $10 off on your next purchase of $50 or more? That’s geo-location targeting.

Marketing campaigns use geo-targeting to reach the right audience because location does impact demographics and buying behaviour.

In order to reach your customers on all devices and provide them with a stellar customer experience, I believe that it’s important for every company to be mobile friendly. If you’re interested in learning more about becoming mobile friendly or are ready to take the plunge, contact CreativeWorks Marketing today. We have the technical expertise to ensure that your customers are engaged and coming back for more. And we’ll be to explain everything to you in real people-speak and work with you to determine the best approach for your company.