Welcome to the New Year. Online is very much part of our daily internet experience. But how many companies are utilising the power of video for their business? Whether it’s for internal or external use, video is so much more personal than written communication. Video can convey emotion far better than the written word. You can say much, much more in a one minute video than you can on a written page. This is an absolutely essential element of successful online marketing, where you have precious few seconds to capture your target’s attention.
There are lots of statistics available that demonstrate how people who watch a video are five times more likely to retain the information. In addition, people are more likely to buy or offer you their contact details if they see a video on the website rather than just plain text. And yet so many organisations neglect the use of video in their communications, or don’t exploit its full potential. Throughout my career I’ve heard numerous reasons for this, but several keep coming up over and over again.
The first is cost.
Although it can seem quite expensive to produce a video, the benefits of a high-quality, professionally produced video more than justify the cost. While it’s perfectly possible to make a video for £500, the results will probably reflect it. A well-produced video takes time, money and skill, but an experienced video producer will know exactly how to dig deep into what you want to communicate and make sure the finished product does that convincingly.
The other objection I commonly hear is that it’s simply too hard. This isn’t the case at all if you have thought carefully about what you want to achieve with video and how you’d like to go about doing it.
It’s for this reason that the first thing you consider if you wish to successfully implement video communication within your organisation is the end goal you have in mind for each video. A training video will be extremely different to a video introduction for your homepage, for example, so if you’re as clear as possible on what you want the result to be and what image you wish to convey, it will make both you and your producer’s lives a lot easier.
The third is that those responsible for communications within an organisation simply can’t see the use in video beyond simple things like website introductions. But there is far, far more you can do with video beyond simple tasks like that. Please watch the video below I have produced explaining how video can help your business. Video online is only going to get bigger and bigger this year. Make sure video is part of your communication strategy in 2014.