Still not convinced that you want or need a video marketing campaign for your company? Rather then just wax poetic and tell you how awesome video marketing is, we’re going to show you some stats that we’ve compiled to help show you how important and vital a good online marketing video can be.

Whose Watching Online Videos?

According to both Accenture and Search Engine Journal, 85% of internet users in the United States view online videos on a regular basis. In March 2011 alone the United States viewed 5.7 billion videos online, which included 4.3 billion online video advertisements (Comscore, March 2011 Online Video Rankings).

That’s a lot of people watching a whole lot of videos, including advertisements. And while we all tend to skip past annoying ads on the television with our DVR sets, viewers tend to be more receptive to online ads. One simple reason is that online ads don’t last for 3+ minutes.  At most, an online ad is a short 15-45 second blurb that is thrown in between different online videos. Often times you can’t skip through them anyways, so people are actually watching those videos, unlike TV.

Videos Can Help Conversion Rates

So we have billions of people viewing videos and advertisements online every day. That’s great and all, but what makes it even better is that videos have proven to increase conversion rates exponentially for a number of different companies, and in a number of different niches worldwide.

In January 2009, the online retailer Shoeline decided to add videos to help showcase their products, and are they ever glad that they did! Adding videos to their products had them seeing a 44% increase in online sales conversions (Internet Retailer, January 2009). Zappos reported similar numbers, seeing an increase of anywhere from 6% to 30% in their sales for products that had a video accompaniment (ReelSEO, December 2009).

The increase in conversions shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Having a video on a website has proven to increase one’s time on the site. Internet Retailer reported that videos not only boosted conversion rates for the online retail site Living Direct, but it increased the time spent on the site by 9%.

Comscore released even more revealing stats, proving that retail site visitors who are there to view videos will stay on your site an average of 2 minutes longer than if there is no video, and they are also 64% more likely to purchase than other site visitors.

Going Mobile

So what does this mean? Marketing firms and businesses alike should be considering mobile users as well.

What do smartphone users prefer? Video. Why? Because it’s faster to gather information and it’s seen as a more trustworthy source than text on a page. But here’s why smartphone users are important to you:

  • By the year 2014, there will be more mobile internet users than laptop and desktop users (Microsoft Tag Mobile Marketing Report, 2011)
  • 50% of all local searches are done on mobile devices (Microsoft Tag Mobile Marketing Report, 2011)
  • 46% of shoppers who are using mobile devices in stores are using them to compare a competitor’s website (Forsee Results, 2010)
  • A recent Demandware survey revealed that 83% of smartphone users all considered their phones to be more valuable than any other in-store technology for shopping, and only 16% of shoppers believed that the sales associate was the best source of information.  43% of consumers will place more trust in a sale in their mobile device than any other device or sales associate (Point of Sale News, May 2011)
  • 77% of mobile video viewers are watching more video than they did a year ago (eMarketer 2010)

The bottom line: everyone’s going mobile, and mobile users are savvy shoppers. Videos on your site will help sell your items and build the trust and confidence that a mobile user needs in order to purchase your products over the competition. If you don’t have a video marketing campaign, then it’s definitely time to change up your company website and start implementing one today.

Key Takeaways

When you really think about video marketing and what it does, none of these stats should come as a huge surprise. In the rather faceless and anonymous world of the internet, having a video allows something that once seemed intangible to be more tangible.

You can see what it is that you’re considering buying. You can see what it does, how it performs, what it looks like from every angle. Videos allow your leads to visualize themselves using that product or service, and it helps them trust it more so that they feel more compelled to make a purchase.  And, with any luck, your video may go viral, which will bring in more traffic than you could ever imagine!

Need Help?

If video marketing is something you are interested in but are having trouble getting started, contact us today to schedule your free marketing analysis.