Advertisements are a highly effective way of promoting your brand or product. Executed correctly, they can cause a spike in generated revenue. However, how do we execute it correctly?
Each choice we make when marketing impacts the overall performance of your brand. It is advisable to make decisions carefully. One of the biggest dilemmas of marketers is- video or image advertisements?
Most companies prefer image branding over videos. They are only a single frame, and more importantly, cheaper to create. Bad news for these brands- according to research by HubSpot, 54% of consumers preferred video ads, while only 41% supported images. The massive difference should be incentive enough for companies to start funding video creators.
A follow-up question- why are videos so successful? Lucky for you, in this blog, we will be discussing just that.
Table of Contents
1. Encourage Audience Engagement
Generally, videos constantly incorporate movement. Each frame is different from the last. The human eye is trained to detect them. This demands the viewer’s attention, especially videos using bright and different colours. Images are still pictures of content. This hinders the ability to attract the audience.
More often than not, videos have audios play with them. Choosing the right audio is vital. This can heavily impact the performance of your video. One can play soothing or heavy music to interest the audience. Many use this opportunity to simply describe the product. This enables keywords to catch viewers’ attention. Videos provide an opportunity to engage two sensory organs. On the other hand, images can only be appealing to the eyes.
2. Communicates Purpose Clearly
One constantly depends on voice tone, facial expressions, and body language to fully understand a message being communicated. This is why texts are often mistaken, causing severe misunderstandings hampering many relationships. Videos use all three communicating mediums to convey a message. Images, however, only can capture facial expression and body language for a single frame. This disables the marketer from sending a clear message.
Videos are highly preferred over other content in the market. This is because it encompasses all the mediums possible to market. Whether it be a text blog, an image, or podcasts, it can have it all in one media file.
A study claims an individual is 97% more likely to purchase a product with a product video. This is because the content from a video is memorable and sticks with viewers longer. This study alone proves how effective videos are.
3. More Informative
There is only so much information an image can share. Attempting to convey more than two points in each image has shown a drop in audience. These images may come off as pushy. Most engaging videos last up to 2 minutes. Videos provide a stage to speak for a more extended period. They allow one to significantly express more with a single video compared to an image.
Reading is considered more taxing and time-consuming than visual and audio content. Images can only convey messages through text. Videos deliver multiplied amounts of image information effortlessly. Automatically, images are put at a disadvantage here. An additional factor- videos allow us to share information in the most traditional way, that is, verbally. This familiarity itself persuades the viewer to accept the knowledge retained.
Brands share key aspects one should know before making a specific informative purchase. Answering frequently asked questions to clear doubts is a great idea. Often, these doubts become obstacles preventing the user from buying the product.
4. Likely to Go Viral
Most video ads today can be found on YouTube along with the social media platforms shared initially. These allow the videos to be shareable without platform limitations. With just a few clicks, one can share the link to the YouTube video, increasing audience reach. To give you a number to work with, on the popular social media platform- Twitter, more than 700 videos are shared every minute. This illustrates the potential reach your videos can have.
As mentioned earlier, video content is extremely engaging. Consequently, viewers are more likely to like, comment, follow and share. To boost audience reach, many companies create video ads related to current trends. Some even are simply witty. These qualities make the video extremely likable and entertaining to watch. The video content alone is enough to share, making it go viral.
When creating a humorous advertisement, it is essential to remember that your promoting subject plays a role. Many brands neglect the issue to promote itself, which generates less traffic than its true potential. These are missed opportunities and can cost the company millions.
5. Every Body Prioritizes Videos
Videos are notorious for being frustrating to create. This discourages most content creators from working on videos. In comparison, image and text content are comparatively significantly more produced every day. This forces the competition for image and text SEO to be extremely rigorous and challenging to top.
However, due to the lack of video content (for now, at least), your video may be the first result to pop up. To secure the top result, it is crucial to maintain relevance to the keywords and content claimed. The search engine is most likely to rank your video higher than most images.
In a research, it has been seen 81% of Americans use YouTube while 69% utilize Facebook. This goes without mentioning, the exclusivity of video content on YouTube makes it more desirable than other platforms.
All of these points play a key role in popularizing video ads over images. Every experienced marketer should be aware of these advantages. This is not to say; image advertisements are of no use. These are still effective for marketing through billboards and newspapers.
Mentioned before, companies choose images due to their lower fund requirements. Rest assured, the investment shows results that amount to cover more than the investments. Leads, customers, and brand recognition are spiked with a simple video. From this blog, one can figure— If there is a choice between images and video ads.
