The rise and importance of Video Marketing

We live in the screen generation. Whether mobile phones, tablets, laptops or Smart TVs, society is dominated by their use. We live in a purely visual world where images are the primary input. Video consumption is increasing year after year, and users have changed the way they consume video: in this context, video marketing, and more specifically YouTube, takes centre stage. 

Video marketing is a tool based on videos on different platforms to achieve digital marketing objectives.

What opportunities do YouTube video-centric strategies offer brands?

YouTube is a massive platform with great potential and reach. Moreover, YouTube campaigns are more cost-effective than any other platform. YouTube, and online video, in general, play an essential role in consumers’ purchasing decisions throughout the conversion funnel.

What does the data tell us?

More than 90% of YouTube users discover new products on YouTube.

More than 50% of shoppers say online videos help them decide on a particular product or brand.

More than 70% of YouTube campaigns result in increased offline sales.

How can we use YouTube to achieve our marketing goals?

The first thing you need to do to be practical using YouTube is to define your marketing objectives. Marketing objectives correspond to three consumer journey stages (the so-called funnel): awareness, consideration and action. So the question you have to ask yourself is, which of these three objectives do I want to improve: do I want to increase awareness, increase consideration or generate leads or sales?

Once this is clear, you have to adapt your strategy to achieve these objectives through the solutions offered by the platform. In the case of YouTube, it will be necessary to take into account the following:

• Measurement: This will help us to understand the type of customer we have and, above all, to define the main KPIs.
• Creativity: Good creativity contributes more than 50% of the campaign and influences more than 60% of the increase in sales.
• Messaging: It is necessary to create messages in line with the target audience, influencing more than 30% of the campaign results. Therefore, conveying the right message to the right user is crucial to achieving better results.

The marketing objective will also depend on the format we use to direct the audience through the marketing funnel. Therefore:

• Awareness: if we want to focus on understanding, i.e. a more upper funnel strategy, we will use higher coverage formats such as CPM (cost per thousand) campaigns, i.e. campaigns based on the number of impressions.
• Consideration: if we target the mid and upper funnel, we will use streaming formats such as TrueView or Discovery, with a CPV (cost per view) type of bid, towards an audience with more purchase intent. 
• Action: Finally, to achieve user action, we will need a format that helps to reach the final conversion, such as the purchase of a product. Here we will use another format, such as TrueView for action, to maximise conversions.