The purpose of marketing is to connect your business with current and future customers. And while there are a lot of ways to do that, today’s digital marketing best practices center around content and its many forms for starting a conversation about your brand and products. As one of the newest elements in the marketing mix, video, especially personalized video, is an opportunity to take that conversation to the next level. In 2018, many businesses are recognizing the opportunity for personalized video for providing increased acquisition, retention and conversion for their campaigns. As a leading personalized video solution, Doxee Pvideo ® is providing customers with a unique platform to bring their messages to life and to connect with customers like never before.

But why video and why now? Let’s look at the path to video and the benefits of it for supporting your digital marketing best practices.

 

The power of video

Customers now prefer videos over any other types of content, according to a report from HubSpot. In the US, consumers spend 38 hours watching video content each week. Regardless of where users are watching it—Facebook or Twitter, on the website, in email or via mobile—video is becoming a key strategy for brands to connect with customers, with 81% of companies using video for marketing this year.

Whether it’s for introducing customers to your product and how it works, walking them through using a new feature, or demonstrating how to read their new digital electric bill, videos tell a story and, effective videos bring the viewer—the customer—into the story.

New personalized video technology like Doxee takes this idea even further, making it possible for brands to completely adapt the storyline to the relevant characteristics of the audience, with text-to-speech features that speak to the customer in their language.

 

Why video?

We largely have smartphones to thank for the popularity of video. And while watching videos on our phones is hardly new, it has taken a few years for mobile to provide a suitable level of video performance and the complete user experience that we are accustomed to today. According to eMarketer, mobile is the primary device for watching video. Bigger screens, faster connections, and cheaper mobile plans are just a few factors that have driven the preference of mobile phones over laptops as the device of choice for video watching, leading to a tremendous increase in hours spent on Youtube and other online video platforms.

 

A unique opportunity

The entertainment factor accounts for one reason why videos are popular with consumers. Psychology can also help us understand why videos are such an effective medium for communicating with customers. Observers of a video will remember more information when represented on a video than written in a document. The Huffington Post reports reports that the retention rate is around 95% for a video, while reading plunges to 10%!

For marketers, video presents a unique opportunity over other forms of content for connecting directly with customers. We know that videos help customers make buying decisions, and that 64% of customers buy a product after they’ve watched a video about it online. Hubspot tells us that 62% of users will pay attention to video content and they are more likely to consume it thoroughly, versus skimming as with other mediums such as blog posts or ebooks.

With video, marketers can also enjoy advantages for traffic and conversion rates. According to Dreamgrow, businesses using video benefit from a 40% increase in organic traffic, along with a 20% increase in the conversion rate. While it must be noted that sales are not a necessarily a consequence of increased traffic, it does show a willingness for customers to engage with video.

 

The power of personalization

Speaking of engagement, personalized video offers an opportunity for brands to engage with customers in entirely new ways. Earlier this year, Shopify’s Aren Orendorff predicted that personalization and interactivity will impact video marketing in 2018. At Doxee, our Pvideo ® service makes the power of personalization available to your communications and leverages the effectiveness of your contents. Our data shows a very high interest from email users for engaging and interactive video content, and we recently worked with Club Family Hotel to deliver personalized, interactive video communications designed specifically for each viewer and their unique requirements.

 

Digital marketing best practices: Cross-channel effectiveness

In digital world, a responsive design is fundamental. In fact, the best quality content might lose its effectiveness (in terms of UX and conversion rate) if the device or the browser do not perfectly support the format of the content. Because video is compatible with most platforms, this doesn’t impact the viewing experience, and videos can be streamed with the same quality on every type of device.

On a strategic level, understanding the future of marketing will give you a competitive advantage even in the short term. Videos are not just a trend of the moment. They have become an important part of a marketer’s toolkit, especially for industries like insurance that are using personalized video to aid customers in the policy onboarding process.