Video marketing has become a trend now with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Having become a crucial part of marketing today - Videos can have a critical impact on your business; be it branding, customer engagement or promotion, videos are everywhere.
Video is the most consumed media format on the internet and is increasingly becoming more and more of an immersive rich experience by the second.
According to a 2016 survey by Gartner, top-tier companies, on average, allocate about 9% to 12% of their total revenue to marketing.
So the question begs: Is it all really worth it?
Can videos create a significant impact on the success of your business?
Does it have an acceptable or optimum Return On Investment (ROI)?
Let’s find out!
Before we start, let’s get one thing out of the way.
Every business investment you make is for one and one specific reason only - to multiply the money invested and get a return that is higher than the initial investment either in a long or short term.
Campaigns that are targeted at ‘Below the Funnel’ audiences focus on short-term results and aim to convert your MQLs into buyers, whereas, nurturing campaigns are long-term investment schemes that aim to keep your existing customer base content and happy.
All types and sizes of businesses make investments - be it in marketing, sales or their human resources.
And it is only the efficient and profitable use of these resources that enables a company to grow and excel.
Well, it is quite simple actually, mathematically it is the percentage of profit made on a particular investment.
Take the investment gain and subtract the investment value from it.
Then take the total investment gain and multiply it by 100 after dividing it by the difference.
The ROI simply suggests how much money you made in return for your investment.
Now that we understand the basic idea of ROI, we need to consider the factors that drive ROI gains and implement them effectively in your business.
Some of the few factors that determine the ROI of your brand are listed below.
It is no surprise that more customer means a better return on your investments.
That is the main goal behind your campaigns and indicates that your strategy is working.
Although a spike in sales is preferred, the ROI on your marketing efforts could be determined as successful if its generates considerable number of leads.
As the leads can then be nurtured along the way to becoming your customers.
It is essential for any business to have a clear channel of dialogue with their audience. It is an important cornerstone of any business.
If your customer thoroughly understands your approach to the work, the process and the details that go into providing the service, he is more likely to make a purchase.
AI chatbots can be a great way to provide customers with the information they need in a timely and efficient manner.
They can also be used to collect feedback from customers and improve the overall customer experience.
Thus, it is important to familiarise your audience with your brand values that resonate with them and builds trust.
This is also true for existing customers, as you want to update and educate them about your latest ventures and plans for the future.
This acts as a great feedback system and helps you strategize and improve your ROI further.
Naturally, The more people that know your brand, the more likely they are to engage and make transactions.
And there is no better way of creating brand awareness than using a video to highlight brand values and showcasing what it stands for.
Even top brands that have monopolized their market realise the value of brand recall and put in considerable amount of money in brand awareness campaigns.
Investments in awareness programs are one of the most common kind of investment, as every brand is looking to grow and reach out to newer audiences.
Ultimately, sale numbers determine the most direct ROI of all your efforts. Grow your sales by placing a video on your landing page or a prominent area of your website that draws high traffic.
Monitor the online activity and compare it to the sales reports to get a clear picture of how your marketing campaign is performing.
If you’re looking for an increase in sales, video marketing is the way to go.
This was exemplified by General Electronics when they decided to take off almost all of the text-heavy articles from their website and replace them with explainer videos which led to a huge spike in their sales within the next 4 months with some videos receiving as many as 2 million views.
So we know videos increase your sales, engagements, awareness and thus overall ROI.
But knowing that isn’t enough.
To successfully implement these strategies into your marketing plan and eventually improve your ROI, you need to understand what makes an animated explainer appealing and what should be kept in mind while making one for yourself.
Make your videos relatable and fun. None wants a minute long lecture on how they should manage their business.
Use your narrative to provide your audience with interesting insights and most importantly solutions that would ultimately add value to the interaction between you and them.
The goal is to make the audience really care about your characters and your brand and gain their trust.
The first thing people are going to notice about your video after the thumbnail is the title.
So it would be better to keep it interesting in terms of the audience you’re catering to.
The title of your video must always be offering some kind of information that your audience is looking for.
Although the video is all about the solution, it is important to put it up there on the title to captivate your audience as they scroll by the post.
This idea simply is to use a title that would urge your audience to check the video out as soon as he reads it.
It is hard to keep people interested for a longer period of time. Thus, it is important for you to give your audience a reason to stay.
Offering incentives are a great way to ensure that your viewers stick to the very end of the video and is a fairly common practice on platforms like YouTube and other online video streaming sites.
Usually offering a fun hack for their pain points, a free downloadable E-book, some kind of coupon or giveaway the most common ways to incentivize your video content.
To engage with anybody, you need to understand the perspective of that person. The same is true when you’re dealing with your customers.
You need to understand what your customers aspire to do, what problems they face, how they plan to solve them and what factors they might consider while making a decision, and then plan your narrative approach based on that.
If you are able to strike the right chords you gain their trust.
Marketers are increasingly gravitating towards animated videos to showcase their products and services as they are efficient and cost-effective to produce.
It helps cut out the cost of hiring an endorser.
Animated explainer videos have become the default choice for marketers when they want to explain and educate their consumers about their industry, process or challenges.
The creative liberty of animation provides marketers with a number of unique approaches to choose from.
With freedom to mold the tone and feel of the video to better suit their audience, these videos help marketers create opportunities for generating more leads and thus higher sales by engaging the audience in a meaningful way.
This is further supported by studies conducted by Video Brewery and Vidyard that conclude that an animated video increases a purchase intent by up to 97% and tends to keep your viewers on your page for more than 2 minutes.
Every aspect of animated videos can be controlled inside the friendly confines of any room. Also, the simplistic nature of animated videos makes it intrinsically more engaging to watch and consume by audiences at large.
This helps you create a deeper connection with the audience, and allow them to use the opportunity to fill in the narrative gaps with their own personal experiences.
What’s more - being indefinitely cheaper than to produce live action videos - animation results in a lower investment to begin with and thus keeps your risk low at achieving commendable returns.
Having an animated explainer video not only helps you promote your company in an engaging way, but it also works as a powerful tool for increasing sales that ultimately define the status of your brand.
Watching a good animated marketing video can make your visitors feel compelled to buy your product or service. But to what extent does it really affect your business?
Conversions are what primarily drive your ROI. And animated explainers are great at ensuring conversions.
73% of the audience are more likely to buy a product if they saw an explainer video first.
A right explainer video will combine dedicated target insights, narratives, and characters for optimum results.
Poor SEM efforts result in a high bounce rate. But videos can change the game.
Search engines actively prioritize video content as more credible and sites embedded with videos tend to appear higher on the search list.
Plus having videos on your homepage also brings in more visitors and increases the session lengths further signaling the search engine that your site credible.
This improves your SEO ranking and makes it easier to find. As people start spending more time on your website, your chances of converting them increases.
Custom illustrations and animation always provide you with a unique branding look that you need.
Animations can help you define your brand.
This involves choosing your color palettes to match your brand image, creating characters that your audience identifies with and telling your story with a script that reflects your big idea.
Your explainer videos can also be used in a number of ways besides being candidly engaging.
You can publish on the website, post them on social networks, embed them in your marketing email and even use them for a sales presentation.
The possibilities are virtually endless.
This is due to the versatile nature of animation videos which can always be repurposed by simply redefining the messaging in it.
A simple explainer video can go a long way in making your brand a recognizable one in your industry and establishing you as a thought leader in the market that consumers can trust.
This, in turn, drives your sales up and gives you a great return on your investment.