By 2019, online video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic reported Forbes contributor Mark Templeman. But the costs, time and resources needed for creating videos are often a barrier. Publishers agree that adding video along with text articles can drive engagement and the amount of time spent on a website.Hubspot’s study highlighted that video significantly increases dwell time on websites. Another study — which was conducted by Wistia — also pointed out that people spend 2.6 times more time on websites with video than those without.
Publishers have been mostly relying on video platforms such as YouTube and Facebook Video for embedding content. But publishers are unable to customize the video player and monetize the content simultaneously. Plus the algorithms of both platforms are unable to match video to the text of articles in a relevant way. JW Player and SpotX also have similar solutions as YouTube and Facebook Video, but both of their video players do not have a solution to link content to relevant articles.
Recently, the company called Powr which enables publishers to embed relevant videos into their content in order to drive engagement and creators to monetize their videos. Powr president Kevin Hillman said that the company is focused on building a video platform that provides “a video for every story.”
So if you are reading an article about food recipes for a July 4th barbecue, then Powr’s video player will automatically show the best barbecue recipes on that same article page. Hillman pointed out that “it becomes an extension” of the content. Powr’s video player algorithm is able to determine the most relevant video from a wide library of content created by publishers like Cheddar, NowThis, Fox and Billboard. The creators and publishers are able to benefit from pre-roll and mid-roll video ads through one sophisticated video player.
Hillman added that Powr built this platform due to the frustration publishers faced over the “splintered solutions” on the market. Creators are always looking for new ways to generate revenue. And website visitors are more engaged with the article if a relevant video is displayed.
The seamless connection to brand-safe video content is already bringing a major uplift in revenue for publishers like Odyssey. “Since implementing Powr on our site, we have not only eclipsed our first monthly video views benchmark of 10 million, but we have also seen a 59% increase in revenue, 30% increase in effective CPMs and 28% increase in monetized impressions compared to other platforms and players” said Odyssey’s director of ad operations Eric Fernandez. And Odyssey’s chief corporate development officer Brent Blonkvist said he was amazed about how well Powr is able to match contextual video content with the company's articles.
In the same study mentioned above, Hubspot said that consumers tend to watch 1.5 hours of online video per day. And 15% of the survey respondents said that they spend over 3 hours per day watching online videos per day. As consumers gain better access to contextual video content, it will drive more value for creators and publishers.
According to a Hubspot study, 83% of consumers would consider sharing video content with their friends if it is specific to their interests. This is why many media publisher companies are adding videos to their websites. However, it can be challenging to deliver relevant content due to the cost of creating quality custom videos.
That's right that Video Can Raise Customer Engagement and Revenue
The power of video is growing by the day and companies that are not using video are missing a big opportunity to engage with their target market.
Did you know that:
Online videos will account for more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic by 2020 (CISCO, 2016).
Over 8 billion videos or 100 million hours of videos are watched on Facebook every day (TechCrunch, 2016; TechCrunch, 2016).
10 billion videos are watched on Snapchat every day (Bloomberg, 2016).
More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube every day (Business Insider, 2016).
The way consumers interact with brands is changing and video is leading the way. As a brand marketer, you can either get on the band wagon or be left behind.
Video Enhances Customer Engagement
If you are serious about engaging with your target market video is one of the most effective ways to do so. Video puts you in the ‘now’ and extends your organic reach. Video is a great way to build a relationship and engage consumers in every step of the funnel.
Videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement (Wistia, 2016).
65% of people who watch the first three seconds of a Facebook video will watch for at least 10 seconds, and 45% will watch for 30 seconds(Facebook, 2016).
55% of people consume videos thoroughly — the highest amount all types of content (HubSpot, 2016).
Facebook is rated as the most impactful social channel for video — 8.4X higher than any other social channel (Animoto, 2016).
A Facebook video receives, on average, 135% more organic reach than a Facebook photo (Socialbakers, 2015).
Videos are 6X more likely to be retweeted than photos and 3X more likely than GIFs (Twitter, 2016).
Adding captions on Facebook video ads increase video view time by an average of 12% (Facebook, 2016).
Impact on Purchasing behavior
Video has a direct impact on purchasing behavior, data shows that consumers will follow the advice of the video creator on what to buy, and prefer to watch a video about a product rather than read about it.
Additionally, with the ability of mobile phones to allow videos to be available 24/7, many shoppers turn to video content for research and product reviews. Brands that discount the value of video do so at their own peril.
6 in 10 YouTube subscribers would follow advice on what to buy from their favorite creator verses a favorite TV or movie personality (Google, 2017).
4X as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than reading about it (Animoto, 2015).
4 in 5 millennials view video content when researching a purchase decision(Animoto, 2015).
70% of millennials are likely to watch a company video when shopping online (Animoto, 2015).
ROI
Many companies assume that creating videos has to be an expense endeavor, this is far from the truth. There are many solutions today to create custom videos that are very affordable, include music tracks along with the ability to add captions and more. Its as simple as adding a few image captions and title cards to narrate your video is easy to create and takes no special skills.
Many of these solutions cost as little as $20 a month with the ability to create unlimited videos in 1080, with your company logo on the video.
Knowing that video drives engagement and revenue, at a nominal cost, its hard to not make the move to add video to your marketing tool box.
Below are a few stats to help you analyze the opportunity:
Companies which use videos in their marketing grow revenue 49% fasteryear-on-year than those which don’t (Aberdeen Group, 2015).
76.5% of professional marketers and SMB owners are seeing results with video marketing (Animoto, 2016).
73% of B2B marketers say that video positively impacts marketing ROI(Tubular Insights, 2015).
Having a brand logo in a video can increase purchase intent by 9% (Twitter, 2016).
Companies which use videos in their marketing enjoy 27% higher CTR and 34% higher web conversion rates than those which don’t (Aberdeen Group, 2015).
As a marketer, we are all busy and pulled in many directions every day, however if you knew that you could impact revenue adding a 49% year-over-year growth rate, increase you web conversions by 34% or CTR by 27% isn’t video an opportunity you should embark on?
Opportunity Verses Time and Resource Constraints
Eighty three percent of marketers said they’d like to create more video content if they didn’t have restraints such as time and resources and 30 percent of marketers are looking to spend more time focused on Facebook video in 2017.
We are all busy, doing more with less daily. That stated knowing the ROI of video it makes sense to reallocate resources to add video to the tool kit. The impact on engagement and the ROI in brand awareness, website traffic and revenue growth is well worth it.
Did you know, for example, that Facebook video receives, on average, 135 percent more organic reach than a Facebook photo? Or that 73 percent of B2B marketers say that video positively impacts marketing ROI?