There’s something magical about good video content — especially if you can find that perfect balance between entertainment, education, and persuasion.
Like that one time you were supposed to be working and you spent two hours watching cat videos, viral challenges, and the latest dances. Those are the kind of videos that prompt you to share a link to all of your Facebook friends and Twitter followers.
That is the precise reason why I love engaging videos — they somehow manage to cut through all the noise that exists online, and make you laugh, cringe, and sometimes cry about the things that happen in our lives.
But what’s the secret to creating a video that really grabs your ideal audience’s attention? If you’re interested in digital marketing and keeping abreast of what’s new so you get better performance, read on. We’re sharing the most important trends impacting video marketing today.
What All Marketers Can Learn From Blockbuster Video
By now we’ve all heard the story — at least the broad strokes — a million times. Yet, there are still valuable lessons to be learned from Blockbuster’s failure.
How did such a dominant company go from king of the mountain to bottom of the heap so quickly? At least part of the reason is that Netflix helped usher in an era where consumers could rent videos on demand, avoid late fees, and never leave the house.
In other words, as consumer preferences changed, Blockbuster, and most of the video rental industry stayed complacent. It wasn’t long before Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010.
Let that be a lesson for savvy digital marketers: the way we watch video is always changing and it doesn’t pay to get left behind.
Can you really afford not to step up your marketing efforts?
Why Trends Matter in Video Marketing
There are some very important reasons you should keep up-to-date with what’s happening in digital marketing and changing consumer preferences.
For example, once you learn to spot trends, you’ll be one step ahead. Studying industry challenges and trends will give you a competitive edge.
Perhaps the most important is that if you don’t keep abreast of these trends, your videos won’t engage your most important audiences.
Not to mention, every significant trend has a tipping point, after which, it is no longer a growing trend but the new status quo. If you stay ahead of the curve, you may be able to reap disproportionate results from your marketing efforts before everyone in the industry hops on the bandwagon.
So you’ll be glad to know…
5 Trends to Watch in 2019 for More Effective Marketing
Brands need to embrace this new reality and change their video advertising strategies accordingly. To help you stay abreast of these trends, here are the five of the most important trends impacting digital video marketing today.
More self-directed discovery — There was a time where most of us watched videos because a friend, family member, or coworker brought it to our attention. Now, more and more people are discovering their video content through their own feeds, scrolling through video platforms, or in the case of YouTube marketing, finding content to watch on the YouTube homepage.
Over-the-Top (OTT) services growing in influence — In addition to growing their market share, Over-the-Top (OTT) services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video are growing in influence, developing original content and partnering with content creators who previously would have only worked in television or big budget movie productions.
The shifting balance between TV and digital video — Once upon a time, everyone watched the same video programming at the same time, on the same channel, on the same device (a TV) but no more! People are accustomed to watching whatever they want on any device, at any time, from anywhere they want. For nine of the top 10 network TV shows the median age of viewers was over 50 years old suggesting younger viewers prefer to view their content elsewhere.
Consumer demand for more personalized and relevant experiences — As the lines between desktop, mobile, television, and film continue to blur, consumers are becoming increasingly more picky about what they’ll watch. This means if marketers don’t want to be ignored, they need to create video content that their audience actually wants to watch.
Longer viewing sessions & sensitive to the frequency of ad breaks — Despite all the outcry about shorter attention spans, data from YouTube marketing shows that consumers are watching more video, yet they dislike multiple ad breaks while watching that content. This has led YouTube to experimenting with alternative ad formats that appeal to viewers.
With so much video online consumers are becoming increasingly more picky about what they’ll watch. That makes it even more critical for marketers to adapt their strategies and tactics based on the changing habits of consumers.
If you need help figuring out how to make this happen in your business, call us — we’d love to help.
