How much would you pay for all the answers to your content marketing strategy?
The entire purpose of content marketing is to create touchpoints that nurture and guide prospects to a purchasing decision. To do this effectively, content must be helpful. Every interaction must provide needed information; explain how a product or service will solve a prospect’s pain point; prove that your brand is the best choice. Guess what? This isn’t even the challenging part. No two prospects are the same.
No two content consumption patterns are the same. Prospects are hyper-sensitive to being “sold” to. How are you supposed to know what type of content and message to deliver to whom at what time and in what place?
You can’t go wrong with high-quality video. Audiences prefer video over every other content type (e.g., blogs, infographics, eBooks, etc.). 59% of executives choose it over text (insivia). And nearly 50% of internet users consciously seek out videos about a product or service before shopping in-store (insivia).
Why do audiences love video so much? First and foremost, it provides them with quick information that’s easy to digest, remember, and recall. Information that reaches our brains via one sensory channel isn’t nearly as potent as information that gets processed by multiple senses. Video is the only form of content capable of combining visual imagery, audio, and text. Interactive video pushes this concept even further, enabling viewers to exercise their hands-on learning in addition to reading, seeing, and listening. Finally, video is more entertaining and therefore, more engaging. In a society that’s struggling with 8-second attention spans and multitasking like there’s no tomorrow — marketers need every advantage they can get.
This brings us to the question of the day…What is the value of video in the content journey?
Over 50% of global marketers name video their No. 1 driver of ROI. But the high-level answer is — it’s priceless. Video informs the who-what-when-where-why conundrum. Not only does it nurture and guide prospects through every stage of the buyer’s journey, but it also informs your content marketing strategy and supports content mapping, which helps marketers overcome the challenge of getting the right message to the right person at the right time and place.
At the awareness stage, “about us” or “how-to” videos provide memorable entertainment and an opportunity for your brand to practice disruptive storytelling. At the consideration stage, audiences want explainer videos that clarify how your product or service is the optimal solution for their pain point. At the decision stage, little is more powerful than validation from people who already made the purchase. In fact, 90% of online shoppers say their buying decisions depend on online reviews (Relevance). Testimonial videos are a compelling way to connect audiences face-to-face with satisfied customers.
Unlike text or static imagery, video provides an abundance of “intent data” to inform your overall content marketing strategy. Information like:
What videos get watched
How long a video gets watched
Whether or not a video was re-watched
Specific segments of the video that got skipped or re-watched
This information tells us volumes about a prospect’s wants and needs. Intent data is also a powerful way to qualify leads and determine where they’re at in the buyer’s journey. Finally, video helps us create more content that is either complementary to a prospect’s wants or fills an information gap they need to continue moving through the content journey.
Like I said before, no two content consumption patterns are the same. That means marketers must be agile. Here’s the kicker — every move you make must be calculated, which means you need content that feeds as much data as possible back into your content strategy.
When done right, video is a powerful generator of data, and universally favored over other types of content.Still need convincing?Click herefor 9 more reasons why video should lead your content marketing plan.
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