Start-ups cannot afford anything less than colossal growth. Therefore, they require rapid revenue-generating results that would prevent their finding from drying up. It happens because investors look for significant returns on their investment now, more so than before, while backing start-ups.

Although an exceptional product or service is the fundamental building block of a company’s success, start-ups can’t depend solely on their offerings to achieve significant and rapid growth.

Nowadays, robust marketing is the only solution that helps start-ups thrive in this highly competitive market. However, it is hard to find and employ marketing initiatives that would be consistently impactful and effective, like video marketing. 

Growing Video Trends

A few years ago, people used to think of video marketing as one of the most expensive advertising methods. It was only in 202 that a whopping 92% of the digital marketers stated that video marketing is a vital part of marketing activities. 

The question is: what are the video marketing trends that have evolved for the last few years?

Various businesses and companies are now using video marketing immensely, which has made consumers watch more and more videos every year. As a result, studies show that by 2022, an average individual would spend at least a hundred minutes watching videos every day.

Nevertheless, these changes do not indicate that the trend of video marketing has been stabilized. The industry of video marketing would continue to change and experience constant shifts in advertising options, platform offerings, and viewer preferences. 

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Here we will guide you through some of the most prominent video marketing trends that are here to stay.

Snapchat Stories

Snapchat was the first social media platform that launched the “story.” Other social media networks had followed it instantly for fear of missing out. 

The story did not change form and could be uploaded in GIF, photo, or video form, but the users’ perspective changed.

What made users take it as the ultimate social media activity is its availability feature that allowed the story to stay up only for twenty-four hours; otherwise, it’s gone. And just like that, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook excited the ‘story’ trend and opened up multiple new marketing opportunities.

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Stories have also evolved and are now used as vlogs that will continue to be like shortly. However, stories taken as vlogs are captured as “in the moment” videos that are also low in quality. 

Hence, overall, viewers’ expectations are also common. However, stories also open more space and opportunities for advertising with effective results.

Instagram Videos

Among the various social media platforms, Instagram has become one of the most popular and most prominent social media platforms among consumers worldwide. 

As stated by Backlinko, Instagram has more than 1 billion active monthly users, where 250 million among them post stories daily and almost 500 million use Instagram daily. 

One can only imagine the marketing potential that Instagram holds. Over 65% of online marketers use Instagram in 2021 for posting their videos.

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Besides videos and stories, Instagram also introduced its IGTV feature in 2018. They aimed at creating an alternative solution to YouTube, but it would only support videos with a duration of up to sixty minutes. 

Although IGTV did not start well, added features and recent updates like regular appearance on Instagram feed and horizontal videos, IGTVs is expected to be more popular by the end of 2021.

LinkedIn Video Marketing

LinkedIn is the perfect place where one can present their brand and business to their professional network. LinkedIn videos are now widely used as marketing tools. Two out of three online marketers aim to use videos on LinkedIn in 2021, as stated by Wyzowl.

LinkedIn videos can range from three seconds to up to ten minutes and even thirty minutes if it is an ad video. 

However, short videos tend to get more attention on LinkedIn. You should, therefore, talk about your objective at the video’s beginning. 

LinkedIn’s Digital Marcoms Manager, Jane Fleming, recommends capturing viewer’s attention within the first three seconds in an article that explains the dos and don’ts of a LinkedIn video.

There are multiple uses of LinkedIn videos. It would help you present your company, business venture, features, or products within a network of potential clients or other professionals.

Video Authenticity in the B2B Markets

You can now use videos in various industries and not just visual businesses like traveling and fashion. Although understanding Return On Investment can be challenging, different new video platforms make it easier for people to measure their viewer engagement.

Individuals can check the parts that interest their users enough for a rewatch and even link their marketing platform to direct the viewers to the sales funnel.  

When it comes to video marketing statistics of the B2B industry, they suggest that the B2B video content campaigns leave more impact compared to others. 

As millennials have the maximum control over business decisions these days, a good video marketing campaign has the power of changing the way your business would access market space.

Almost 72% of B2B researchers and buyers watch videos that would help them make better buying decisions, as stated by a Google research conducted a few years ago. 

Moreover, considering the rapid growth in the number of millennials running business decisions in the B2B sector, this percentage is expected to rise even high in the upcoming few days. 

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Furthermore, researchers also state that buyers do not watch only videos and skip the content midway. Nearly half of those buyers watch a minimum of thirty minutes of content.  

Therefore, it is vital to create original B2B videos. B2B should have a more specific outlook like customer care instead of a typical mill demo that features a tedious product description. Some of the good examples of B2B videos are when enthusiastic hosts capture’s peoples’ attention to a particular product. 

Even Taulia’s funny videos are also a good example. It uses modern, relative pop culture for massively increasing video appeal.  

TikTok

In 2019, TikTok won the “most downloaded non-gaming app” title on Apple Store. Having more than 800 million users, TikTok has caught the attention of many marketers. 

Hence, one can only imagine that advertising on TikTok can gain a lot of attention and popularity.

Initially used for video-sharing, TikTok started encouraging their users to upload short videos that would mostly last for 15 seconds.

The growth of TikTok videos, both numerically and in popularity, leads to a variety of videos and a diverse user base. But most importantly, TikTok has successfully brought the attention of marketers to Gen Z and consider them as active and essential consumers.

Nevertheless, TikTok users show a significantly higher engagement rate compared to other users on other platforms. TikTok users have an engagement rate of 52.1%, as stated by the research conducted by CloutMeter. 

Although almost 41% of the Tiktok users range between 16 to 24 years, TikTok will remain at the top of the marketing ladder and keep shaping the future of video marketing trends. 

Here are five reasons why you need to adopt a video marketing strategy if you are a start-up and wish to rope in the Millenial generation. 

Reason 1: Effective Storytelling

It is undeniable that videos are one of the most effective methods of communication. It is just as the saying goes, “A good product without a good story is like a good engine without a steering wheel.” 

If you want to tell your target audience about your brand story, videos would be the best content form for you to choose from. Videos are now the favorite content medium of consumers. 

This is because human emotions and sentiments are easily appealed to by visuals. You can surely invest in generating excellent sales copies but connecting to your existing and prospective clients to ensure that they purchase your products is more important than just throwing some pretty sales words around.

This further helps in differentiating the consideration, awareness, and buying decision stages that consumers go through. 

While written content is needed, without high-quality videos complemented with suitable background music and visuals that would explicitly convey the message, your business would find it challenging to grow. 

Reason 2: Improve brand awareness

The best way to make your brand known to everyone is by using videos. Compared to the other digital advertising methods, videos have the potential to acquire more attention. 

Optinmonster conducted a study that found that videos help in increasing bread recognition by nearly 54%. This is because internet users tend to experience a decrease in their attention span with time, which reduces their ability to go through long written content.

Hence they are more interested in watching, commenting, liking, and sharing short video clips that would only take them a click of the button within split seconds. This means that videos would help in getting your business more brand awareness.

Furthermore, Oberlo predicts that video marketing would drive nearly 82% of the internet traffic worldwide. 

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Such a figure is expected as it is easier for the consumers to consume video content rather than written content. In addition, videos help in displaying deliverables that make them appear tangible and authentic to the consumers.

Nowadays, consumers want businesses to show instead of telling them what their brand or business is all about. 

Therefore, it does not matter to the consumers whether they come across your videos on your blog posts or YouTube. 

Even the laziest consumer would watch these videos than engage in the tedious work of reading paragraphs of pretty words stating what your brand is offering.

You can be sure of getting social shares once your marketing video seems appealing to your target audience. Moreover, videos also help in increasing your competitive advantage.

Reason 3: Expand audience reach

As more brands and businesses are engaging with their target audience via social media, blogs, and email, it would be a wise decision for you to use one of these methods for staying afloat in the middle of this intense competition. 

Sometimes videos may be capital, energy, and time-intensive, but they are worth giving the best ROI. It helps in providing your brand expos to your large target audience.

Studies also show that almost one-third of worldwide internet activities involved downloading and watching videos. In addition, consumers care for more than five billing videos on YouTube daily, with 53% of the viewers requesting more videos.

Your start-up can significantly benefit from one viral video and give your brand engagement all the boost needed.

For instance, the Dollar Shave Club grew from a start-up to a billion-dollar company by just one viral video. By 2015, the video by the Dollar Shave Club had more than 22 million views. They crossed a valuation of US$615 million along with a 1.1 million customer base in 2015.

Thereby, just like that, your start-up might also be just a viral video away from turning into a billion-dollar company.

Reason 4: Boost sales

You can use the exposure that your brand has gained from adopting video marketing and channel it into your sales funnel to increase your conversion rates. 

For example, an average internet user tends to spend at least 88% more time going through a page with video, which improves the engagement ratio of your website. 

Hence, when you have videos embedded in your website, your views would automatically stay longer and engaged. That way, you would be able to capitalize on this traffic for generating leads and boost your sales on the website. 

Hence, do not make the mistake of undermining the potential of videos in a buyer’s journey. On the contrary, videos play a significant role in the decision-making process of a buyer. 

They have the power to increase an individual’s purchase decision by nearly 93%, as well as brand engagement by almost 139%. 

According to recent statistics, 8 out of 10 people make their purchase after watching a product video. Moreover, the video content’s quality also helps in increasing lead generation. 

Reason 5: Videos Are Informative And Educative

Through videos, you would convey complex information into simple, bite-sized pieces that would be easier for the consumers to recall. For instance, you can use specific short-form videos on the FAQ pages of your website for reducing inquiries. It also benefits you by allowing you to help you, consumers, without paying for customer service. 

Over 75% of customers purchase after watching a video on a particular product or service. Hence, if you think your services or products are complex, you can explain your target audience the same by using video content. 

To help your target audience make well-informed and happy purchase decisions, add relevant video content on the website’s landing pages. 

For instance, if you are offering real-time locating systems to your consumers, you can have an explainer video. 

This would help beginners in understanding this slightly complex system. You can even simplify your explainer videos further by using animation.  

Your video marketing strategy can include 

• creating customer reviews
• product demos
• how-to-videos
• promotional videos and
• vlogs in the initial stage.

Then, you can upload these videos on multiple distribution channels such as your email broadcast list, website, and social media handles.

Conclusion

Hence, it is evident that video marketing is an effective digital marketing tool that your business can significantly benefit from. 

When you plan to launch your brand, product, or services online, making videos about them is the best way to reach your target audience. 

Although you can still make blog posts and web articles, incorporating video marketing in your overall marketing strategy would work as the icing on a cake.