In the world of marketing communications, whether it is online or otherwise, the use of media like photographs and videos play a huge role. For websites in particular, which are already visually driven mediums, photos and videos play a huge role in the success of a business’s marketing. For the longest time, photos have prevailed as the go to media. They are easier to use, more affordable on a per unit basis, and they work. But if one image works, it seems that thousands of images working together, paired with audio, would work even greater. In fact, it does. Video production has become easier with the increase of affordable, quality production tools, and with websites like Youtube and Vimeo that give free distribution versus the traditional form of broadcast television. Finally, having dynamic content on your site like a video will be more engaging to you customers, and also look better to search engines like Google, therefore can give you great SEO benefits as well.
Affordability
Getting a picture on your blog has always been a good way to help make it look more attractive. Having professional pictures taken of your company for marketing purposes is also a great way to promote yourself. While pictures are cheap on a unit price, you hardly ever hire someone to take one picture and pay for it individually. For the same price you can now invest in quality equipment to do promotional videos for your company. While the videos might not have the same look as a professional, one decent looking video speaks louder than a few amazing photos. The bar is set lower for production quality not because videos aren’t important, but because companies are very drawn to companies that produce their own videos. You get a more well rounded approach than a single image, and it can do wonders for your marketing efforts.
Distribution
To start, this is another area in which companies can also save money now. Videos used to need broadcast distribution to ever be seen by the public. Now with video hosting sites like Youtube and Vimeo, companies can directly upload videos to the outlets and have a built in audience. These accounts are free, although you can upgrade, which is recommended depending on how often you want to churn out videos. That is another benefit there. With videos now, you don’t have to worry about only putting out one every few months due to budgetary restraints, but you can keep putting them out there. You can then embed them on your site for all visitors to see without having to locate them on other sites. If you can self host video on your site, this is even better as it looks more professional.
More Dynamic Promotional Material
This is really want it all comes down to. When you make the switch to video marketing, your work will really stand out. That’s really important for companies like independent producers, local satellite providers, and really any other company that plays a role in video. For these companies it is more important for them to produce promotional videos than photos because they need to accurately represent their industry. While photos play a role into the web design, these companies want video resources to be the forefront of their marketing campaigns. For all other industries, having this dynamic material gives a big boost to their search marketing efforts because videos are seen by search engines as having a lot of weight. So if you get a video passed around linking back to your site, it’s like getting tons of backlinks from one source. It has the incredible ability to boost your website rankings the way photos don’t
So if you’re in the middle of retooling your marketing strategy, particularly marketing materials, give some serious consideration to video. It is not the outrageously expensive endeavor it used to be , and can really get you some great results on and offline. You will get great brand recognition, have an easier way to spread your whole message versus photos, and you can get some great digital marketing done as well.
Good luck, and happy filming!
Jordan Mendys is a video producer and digital strategist working out of North Carolina. His love for film and video has led to him getting an M.A. in Film and Video from American University. He’ll be finishing in December of this year.
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