5 challenges of video marketing

Summary

Video is the most important tool for digital marketing today. It’s about reach and familiarity, attention span, effectiveness of communication and understandability. And it’s the audience itself that wants more and more video. But what are the 5 challenges of video marketing today? 

1. Designing an omnichannel strategy that is optimized for different devices and communication channels. 
2. Expanding the audience, starting with positioning on search engines. 
3. Knowing how to move in the gigantic and bustling arena of social networks.
4. Finding a balance between adaptability to different channels and consistency of brand image.
5. Embracing the turning point of personalization. 

According to extensive research by Cisco, video will make up as much as 82% of total internet traffic by the end of 2022. In 2017, the figure was already at 73%, but the growth has been truly impressive (Source: Cisco). Also at the end of last year (2021), there were about 2.3 billion monthly active users on YouTube worldwide. And more than 1 billion hours of video are viewed daily on YouTube (Source: Oberlo). 

These are mind-boggling numbers, which we selected from many other studies that all point in the same direction. This data alone explains why video marketing is a top priority for companies in every industry. 

Again, there’s another statistic that confirms it: according to a report by Hubspot, video is the preferred content of marketers, the one that is most often put at the center of strategies.

The reasons are simple: it’s the most engaging and effective digital medium, it’s able to stimulate the attention of the recipients, the one more than any other that manages to make communications between companies and customers happen in an immediate and memorable way. 

A couple more statistics on the subject? Here they are. 

• 55% of people pay more attention when watching video than any other type of content (Source: Omnikick).  
• When viewing a video, the average user retains 95% of the message it contains; when it comes to text, that percentage dips to 10% (Source: Covideo). 

Now, after these premises, it’s hardly surprising that 87% of marketers use video in their strategies (Source: Wyzowl). Nor is it surprising that 86% of companies use video as a key tool in their marketing mix. In 2020, the percentage was 85%. In 2016 it stood at only 61% (Source: Smartzer). But there’s one more fact that we should pay close attention to: 54% of people want to see even more videos produced by the companies they follow and love (Source: Hubspot). 

In summary: video is everywhere, it’s the digital medium we’re most familiar with, and its online presence is growing every year. They are the most effective, engaging, and functional medium to convey messages. They’re a top priority for digital marketers. And audiences want more and more of them.

However, beware, that there is also another side of this coin. A downside that has to do with overcrowding. In short, the challenges of video marketing today are complex, multiple, and more decisive than ever. We have collected them in 5 key points that you’ll want to consider before designing your strategies and campaigns. 

1. Design an omnichannel strategy 

The first of the challenges of video marketing has to do with a fundamental and preliminary aspect: every digital marketing strategy must first be omnichannel. Why? For a very simple reason: we are accustomed, in our daily lives, to following an online path that winds through different channels and different devices. This is especially the case when it’s a path that leads us to purchase goods or services. And the period of pandemic that we are leaving behind has done nothing but reinforce these habits. 

In concrete terms: we can view brand videos through our smartphone, while we’re on a train or a subway. Then find ourselves on our desktops, in the office, while working. In the same way, the same video marketing campaign could be viewed on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok…and each of these social networks correspond to very different technical and communicative characteristics. 

In short, it all adds up to the absolute necessity for brands to have an omnichannel video marketing strategy. One that is optimized, automatically, for every type of device, platform, and channel. Before going any further, we feel it’s important to bring back some data to support everything we’ve just described. These points are taken from an extensive report by Omnisend. 

• Marketers who use three or more channels for a single campaign experience a 287% higher conversion and purchase rate on average, than those who use only one channel. 
• The purchase frequency of a single customer is 250% higher when the campaign is omnichannel. 
• The average value of an order is also 13% higher, again on average. 
• The Customer Retention rate is 90% higher for companies that adopt an omnichannel view compared to those that do not. 

 

2. Broaden your audience – starting with SEO 

The second and equally decisive challenge of video marketing is about expanding the audience of your campaigns. The competition, as we’ve seen through the numbers, is fierce. And in the midst of this bombardment, the attention threshold of its recipients is increasingly low. So what can brands do to counter this trend? 

We’ll give you a hint: it’s mainly a matter of reversing the perspective. It’s about not targeting an overly broad audience, but identifying the potential and actual recipients of your communications in advance…but we will return to this turning point, that of personalization, in the final item on our list. Upstream of this, it remains essential to try to address the widest possible audience. 

There are many ways to do this. But here we want to focus on the two we feel are essential: SEO positioning and social media campaigns. We remain, once again, anchored by data. Let’s look at three points in quick succession: 

• The top five organic results on Google’s first page garner 67.60% of all clicks (Source: Martech). 
• In contrast, only 0.78% of Google users click on results that appear on the second page (Source: Backlincko). 
• On average, videos rank 50 times better on organic search engines than text-only links (Source: Seoinc).  

What does this tell us? First of all, that without positioning on Google, you won’t go anywhere; you won’t make yourself visible; you won’t reach a wider audience than the one you are already in contact with. And that videos are the best allies for improving your SEO positioning. Of course, it’s not enough to just upload a video on a page. It’s mostly about: 

• Building a relevant and consistent context. 
• Taking care of technical and backend aspects. 
• Paying attention to thumbnails. 
• Keeping the quality of content high. 
• Valuing Q&A and how-to videos. 

3. The social network arena 

Along with search engines, there’s another huge playing field that can help expand your audience: social networks. 

• In January 2022, the number monthly active users on Facebook exceeded 2.9 billion (Source: Datareportal). 
• At the end of 2021, Instagram counted 1.22 billion monthly active users (Source: Hootsuite). 
• In 2021, the most downloaded app worldwide was TikTok, the social network that intercepts the youngest audience and which, not surprisingly, is all about micro-video production (Source: Hootsuite). 

These numbers are impressive and speak for themselves. Let’s get to the next question. What is the most effective content on social networks? Again: video. In this post, we provided you with some data that support the use of video in social networks.

4. The right measure between consistency and adaptability 

We now come to one of the most delicate challenges of video marketing, and one for which – let’s face it – there is no universal and immutable recipe. The digital world, by definition, is vast and fluid. We’ve already seen this when we addressed the need to have an omnichannel strategy. And all of this impacts the construction and implementation of video marketing strategies and campaigns. So, how to orient yourself? 

It’s all about balance

First of all, we need to start from the end: set the general objective of your campaign very clearly. It can be growing your audience; or about consolidation and building loyalty of existing customers; or, again, upselling or cross-selling operations, it can be about strengthening of the brand image, or, on the contrary, a change of identity…these are just some examples. What is important to underline is that each objective must correspond to a different strategy. But that’s not all. 

The general strategy must be executed in the most effective or functional way according to the different channels

What works in an email marketing campaign, for example, may not work for a social media video campaign. And, narrowing the focus even more, what works on Twitter won’t work on TikTok…and so on. So: it’s about finding a balance between two different forces. On the one hand, one’s own identity and recognizability; on the other hand, what works best according to the different channels (with their technical limitations and their opportunities at the target level). 

This balance has to do with many aspects: from graphics, to tone of voice, to storytelling methods. But, above all, it has to do with one’s target audience. And it is on this aspect that we conclude the post. 

5. Win against the challenges of video marketing: use personalization!

The most important challenge of video marketing has a name: personalization. What are we talking about? 

We are talking about the transition from a one-size-fits-all approach to one-to-one communication. The ability of a brand to put the customer at the center of its strategies, to adapt communications based on the recipients. And to do all this in an automated and maximally effective way. Where do we start? 

From data. The digital world, in fact, is the world of Big Data. Everything is recorded and traceable, so companies can tap into a treasure that has long remained submerged: in-depth knowledge of their audience.

By learning to collect and interpret the digital traces of their actual and potential customers, companies can divide their target audience into increasingly specific groups based on common characteristics and behaviors. Until you get to the real turning point: personalization. 

Today, by relying on specialized platforms like Babelee, you can produce personalized videos, tailored to individual recipients, that adapt to their individual characteristics and browsing choices. This is the ultimate boost for video marketing. This is the way to win the video marketing challenges of the future. To learn more about the personalized video tool, see here.