by Rebecca Streeter, VP of Integrated Marketing
Video is changing the face of marketing allowing schools to connect with their prospective students in unprecedented ways. Are you investing?? If not, what’s holding you back? Video is growing at amazing rates. According to Limelight’s State of Online Video, online video consumption grew 34% from 2016 to 2017 and is projected to continue to climb for years to come. If that’s not enough to convince you, maybe the following 6 reasons will do the trick.
The rise of new and better technology has allowed users to consume video easily on the go with less buffering and delays than historically experienced. This has led to some astounding usage stats.
Video is one of the most powerful ways marketers can evoke emotions online from their potential customers. Video allows you to bring your brand to life online and create an immediate connection between brand and consumer. And why is this important? Authenticity and connection has been shown to drive purchase intent. According to Cohn & Wolfe’s Authentic Brand Study, 62% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that authentically expresses itself. Great ways to build this trust include telling your brand story (what makes you special?), student testimonials and live videos.
Video has some really important search benefits. First, videos have been shown to increase the time users spend on a website. Increased time on site send important trust signals to Google (and the other search engines) that your site is providing relevant valuable content to visitors. This is one of many factors that go into rankings. Good video is also more likely to gain valuable back links for your website. These backlinks provide search engines with signs of importance and popularity which helps Google and the other engines know how to rank your site. In fact, Google seems to really love video. According to Comscore, adding a video your website can increase the chances of a front page Google result by 53%. Of course, video must be SEO optimized to get the best results. This includes optimizing titles and keywords, transcribing video content and usage of appropriate markup language. Thruline can help with all of these so reach out to see if your video is SEO optimized.
A prospect’s journey from passive looker to active student can be a long one filled with numerous touchpoints. Video allows you to gain more important touchpoints within that journey. But don’t take my word for it. The experts agree.
Good video is one of the best ways you can the valuable attention of prospective students (especially in today’s crowded marketplace). 65% of viewers watch more than ¾ of a video (https://bit.ly/2205Cg6). Imagine how much you can communicate about your school with a potential student in 30 seconds, or 45 or even 90. The possibilities are endless.
Videos have been demonstrated to help increase the understanding of your brand and its unique position in the marketplace (https://bit.ly/2w6j3Pr). Consumers watching video have been shown to retain 95% of the message compared to just 10% of text ads. (https://bit.ly/2BeTnFM). All of this leads to users being 64% more likely to make a purchase after watching your video (https://bit.ly/2hHAexC).
A word of warning before you run out and add just any old video to your site. Video quality does matter and bad video content can cause as much harm as good. Make sure your videos contain truthful, authentic messages that are relevant to your users and their journey. Before posting any content, ask yourself “would I want this info if I was looking to go back to school?” If the answer is no, don’t post. Video is not a cure-all for all marketing ills. However, if you have a good message, good delivery and a good product, video can be full of rich benefits for your school.
