7 Video Marketing Trends to Watch

Marketing is a rapidly evolving beast. There are so many moving parts to marketing that it almost doesn’t even make sense to look at it as a single organizational function anymore. With all of the digital tools at our disposal, every employee in an organization is expected to be an ambassador for the brand, no matter the job title. The tools and trends change so quickly that it can be tough to stay on top of it, even within video marketing.

It would be careless, though, to simply look at the hot video marketing trends without really considering why video marketing is so important. I forced myself to answer that question as a first step in putting these words together. Here are my top three reasons:

1. Video is an effective communicator. No matter what your business is, it helps to think of your organization as a media company. Other people are talking about your brand, so you should be too. It makes good sense to control the message, and nothing does that with more impact or clarity than video.
2. Video is proven to generate greater engagement. More than pictures or text, people engage with video. It’s more attention grabbing, it generates more clicks, creates more leads, and converts more customers.
3. Customers expect it. I don’t know about you, but a website without at least one video seems weird to me. It’s like…what are you hiding? Consumers rely on videos to see how a product works and can benefit them. Personally, I often immediately just start scrolling down a page until I come to a video, because I know that if care was taken to produce and feature a video, that’s where the most important information can be found.

If I’ve convinced you that video marketing is important (or if you were already convinced) let’s explore a few video marketing trends, shall we?

1. Video Strategy: As video has exploded in popularity in the marketing world, strategy is more important than ever. Since more and more advertising budget dollars are getting wrapped up in video, it has become more important to have a roadmap with measurable outcomes for video marketing. You’re starting to see job titles like Video Content Strategy Manager or Director of Video Strategy pop up in organizations. When you see video expertise required for senior level positions, it tells you something about the priorities of a company. For more on this, see our strategy post.
2. Video Funnels: You’ve probably seen the good ol’ marketing funnel, right? Lots of companies realize that video can help them at the top of the funnel to create awareness, but many miss out on the opportunity to use video to escort customers all along the sales journey and beyond.
3. Quality: It might seem weird to think of quality as a video marketing trend, but quality takes precedence when the landscape is crowded. And it certainly is getting crowded out there. The quantity of online video is increasing very quickly. Marketing spend on video is increasing. So now that everybody’s doing it, it’s more important than ever to produce high quality content if you want to get noticed. Publishing video just to be doing it isn’t enough anymore.
4. Be Vertical-Minded: While the majority of B2B searches are conducted on the desktop, mobile continues to lead the way for B2C. Again, default back to your strategy for who you’re trying to reach and how they’re likely to find you.
5. Live Video: If you’ve been paying attention to video marketing trends, you’ve no doubt encountered live video. At this point it’s not a new technology, but I expect to see brands using it more and more to increase their touch points with target audiences.
6. LinkedIn: For reaching professional decision makers, there’s still nothing that beats LinkedIn. And that’s true for video, too. LinkedIn outperforms other social media channels when it comes to generating warm leads.
7. 360º Video and Virtual Reality: Time will tell how this technology develops, but I see a powerful opportunity here to create virtual video experiences for both education and entertainment.

Obviously this isn’t an exhaustive list, just a handful of trends that I think marketing managers will have to consider when planning for growth. I’d love to hear about other video marketing trends that you see on the horizon!

Are you interested in staying ahead of the game with video marketing? That’s where Spotted Yeti Media can help. Contact us today to setup a meeting. We’ll help you discover how video can help to “show the world you exist.”