It’s difficult to undertake something if you don’t see the benefit. That applies to anything, from marketing strategies, to company vision, and even video marketing.

Perhaps you have a budget for video marketing, but when you look at the expenses, and calculate the time invested on it each week, you may find yourself wondering, what’s the point?

Why bother with video marketing?

Video marketing isn’t just about making funny, smart, entertaining, or educational content–those are all means to an end.

The end goal to video marketing is brand building via customer engagement.

That may not be what the stats and time logs are telling you, but it’s the truth. Video marketing is becoming the #1 way for a brand to engage with their audience.

Every video you produce is one step closer to realizing that vision. Without video marketing in your content arsenal, engaging your audience will be real tricky.

Perhaps you haven’t drafted a video marketing strategy yet, because you’ve haven’t seen the full benefit of video. What makes video so engaging? What makes it worth the time and expense, in ways other forms of content and promotion can’t match?

Video offers something that no other form of content can–a personal connection.

A blog can start and enhance a connection, but from a reader’s (or potential client/customer’s) perspective, it’s a stranger writing content. The reader hasn’t met the writer or seen their face, unless you count a headshot. At times, posts on a blog don’t even have a writer’s name attached, so there’s no attachment to any human being.

Even with still images, like in an ad, which can show what the people behind the content look like, a reader can’t interact with those people. You can’t read emotional cues or facial expressions in one, set-up photo.

Then, there’s a video.

Yes, video provides an image… but wait – there’s more!

Video communicates information like a blog post, but also provides a personal connection through a person talking directly to reader/viewer. Video does reveal the face behind the content, like a photo, however, when they say a picture is worth a thousand words, a 1 minute of video is worth 1.8 million words!

What can you do with a 1 minute video worth 1.8 million words?

The end point is brand awareness, through customer engagement, via a personal connection. Viewers have an opinion about the person on the video. It’s human nature to respond to someone talking to you… viewers see personality, respond to facial and voice inflections, and connect to the person they hear and see.

Video is the main medium to deliver that promise.

Video offers variety and flexibility!

Video can create a platform for customer engagement, and it can provide a personal connection to viewers. It also provides variety of content, from serious to educational to humorous, and its flexibility covers all of a company’s products or services. The flexibility and variety can be to a company’s benefit, if organized well.

It’s not only about a YouTube Channel.

The magic happens when your videos are organized.

Let’s take Dick’s Sporting Goods as an example. Just about every sport is represented on their website and in their stores, so naturally, their video marketing reflects it also. On their YouTube channel, they’ve created playlists for each sport, to reach every athlete through their video marketing efforts.

 https://www.youtube.com/user/DicksSportingGoods/playlists

Through the medium of video, Dick’s Sporting Goods can reach every athlete in their audience using different kinds of videos, rather than alienate some due to focusing on one specific sport, or boring them by including every sport in every video.

If you’ve broken down or segmented your target audience, video is the best medium to reach all of them. It offers a cohesive variety that no other content medium can offer.

What’s really the point of video marketing?

•        Brand awareness
•        Customer engagement
•        Personal Connection
•        Flexibility
•        Variety

Video marketing creates brand awareness, through customer engagement, via a personal connection. It accomplishes this in a way no other form of content can, because the medium is flexible enough to allow plenty of variety. This means all segments of your target audience can be reached, rather than just one niche.

As you ponder the line item on your company’s budget for video marketing, recognize its true worth!

Your company, and your audience, will be better off for it.