Yes, video is the most powerful form of content. This doesn’t mean it’s always the right tool for the job. You still need to be strategic about when to use it. Otherwise, you spend more money on creating video than it can generate in return. And that’s why you should only create a video when you have an opportunity to take advantage of one of these 4 advantages.

So what are they?

The first and most important is attention.

You already know that without it, nobody’s going to hear your message which, in turn, means no shares, no search rankings, and of course, no sales. Unfortunately, attention is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. Your target customers are already bombarded by over 3000 different marketing messages each day. So how can you get your message heard over all of that noise? The easiest way to stand out is with video. Researchers found that people are four times more likely to watch a video than to read text. Email video thumbnails have been shown to increase clicks by 200 to 300%. Basically, people prefer video and if you use it to communicate your most important sales messages more of your target customers are going to pay attention to it. That means you get your message heard, understood and, of course, acted on. That’s why Morgisbord recommends that you prioritise creating videos that help move people through your sales process because those videos they’re going to have an immediate impact and you can use them long term which results in much higher ROI. If you already have a good size audience, that video can also work really well for driving traffic and generating leads. That’s because your current audience can share and engage with your videos introducing your company to more people.

Emotion is our second most important advantage, and by combining your marketing messages with body language and music and other visual elements, videos transfer far more emotion to your prospects than other content formats. If you know anything about sales psychology, you already understand that people make decisions based on emotion and only then do they rationalise those decisions with logic. It’s like that friend we all have, you know, the one who’s always asking for advice but never really takes it. That’s because they’ve already made an emotional decision and they’re hoping that your advice is going to rationalise that decision. It works exactly the same way in sales. So when is the right time to use this particular advantage? Whenever you need someone to take action. Especially in your sales content, you’ll still need to craft a smart argument to prevent buyer’s remorse, but it’s emotion that packs that really persuasive punch that gets your prospects to convert. Emotion is also the most significant factor determining how frequently your content gets shared and linked from other websites. So if you’re targeting a very competitive keyword on Google or trying to create a viral piece of content, you’ll definitely want to make video a part of your content strategy and for bigger brands, in particular, video can help create your brand identity by associating your business with strong and positive emotions. When you see most TV commercials, that’s all the brand is really looking to achieve. You can do the same thing on the web with better targeting a lower cost per view and a similar path to purchase because people actually click through to your website after seeing the video, which is impossible to do with TV ads.

Okay, now let’s move on to the third advantage, which is clarity. If people don’t understand your product they won’t be able to rationalize their buying decision or even share your message via word of mouth. Plus, it’s hard to have a positive emotional reaction when you don’t really understand what a product does or how it works. You see, videos ability to both show and tell is a huge advantage because it makes your message clearer and easier to understand. Since 1971 psychologists have known that combining verbal and visual information at the same time improves comprehension and memory recall and that’s because the viewer is able to create stronger associations between spoken words and the visual elements. In other words, video ensures that your message resonates with any type of learning style. So when does increased clarity justify the added cost of video? The most obvious use case is when you describe how your product or your service works but another situation when video can enhance the clarity is when you need to communicate ideas in a precise order.  You see people rarely read from the top of the page, all the way down, we tend to skim and skip around only consuming a small percentage of the words all the way down the page. Videos, on the other hand, they’re not easy to jump around in which helps you retain more control over the order in which your information is processed. You can resolve most common misunderstandings or even objections, immediately, if you address them as soon as they arise and that’s one of the advantages of writing video scripts strategically.

Now, the fourth advantage of video is the important concept of perceived value. To explain, imagine you have two products. One is a video and the other is an ebook. They both say exactly the same thing. Which one are you going to pay more for? The video, obviously, because it has a higher perceived value and that happens to be our fourth advantage. It makes sense. People think videos are more valuable because they’re more entertaining and harder produced than text-based content or even images. But how does this perception of value affect you as a marketeer? You could use video to turbocharge your email list growth by converting your ebook white papers into videos (we should really get around to doing this). Videos have a higher perceived value which means you can count on more people opting in which drives down your cost per lead and permanently makes all of your lead generation efforts, more efficient. It’s essentially a force multiplier for your business and because people are more likely to share things that they perceive are higher in value, you can expect your content to get shared more on social media to another situation where perceived value is important, is when your product is higher price than the competition. Prospects are going to associate the quality of your content with the quality of your product or your service. In other words, first impressions, they matter a lot. So when you need to demonstrate a higher value to stand out in your industry, make quality video production a priority.

It doesn’t end there at perceived value. It can also factor into things as simple as getting more emails open, more clicks onto your links, and ultimately more sales. So while video isn’t always the right tool for the job. There are many situations in which videos offer a significant advantage and those are all the opportunities to get higher returns on your investment.

Want to know more? Our contact details are in the menu at the top right of your screen. Got a bit of an idea about what video you’d like to make? You can start completing our free consultation/brief builder form by following this link.