The author is Vice President, Content Services, TO THE NEW.

With the advent of the digital revolution, online consumer behaviour has changed drastically. Today, the online consumer is transitioning from reading textual context to clicking online videos. In this age of information overload, with minimal efforts, videos are being consumed more quickly by the end-consumer. According to a study by Syndacast, videos will capture 74% of all internet traffic by 2017. This surely speaks volume about effectiveness of videos as a content distribution channel. In fact, video is the future of content marketing.

There is no doubt that videos with search engine optimised (SEO) titles, descriptions and keywords earn a higher ranking over images and text results in Google search. Also, videos with eye-catching thumbnails tend to encourage more clicks.

For one of our clients which is a leading multi-channel digital entertainment network, we provided end-to-end video SEO services and optimisation tactics to promote their video content to the relevant target audience. This helped them increase their monthly subscriber growth rate by 254% and monthly watch time growth rate by 1320%. Such is the power of video SEO and digital music distribution.

Video content can be easily embedded on corporate websites, shared with prospective clients in email campaigns, and used for internal communication and training programmes. They can be easily repurposed for multiple viewing platforms including smartphones and tablets. Video embraces cross-platform marketing – be it Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube or Instagram. Optimised repurposed video thrives on all channels and are easily shared for social consumption.

In the contemporary digital landscape, videos are emerging as a quintessential marketing tool for brands. As a marketer, you can deduce useful insights about your targeted consumers by analyzing data such as number of views, likes, demographics, geographic locations and watch-time. Video marketing can also be leveraged to convey the brand message by selectively choosing voice tone and branding style. Not only this, videos can easily be leveraged as active lead-generation tools. Adding an email gate to the start of your video or a lead collection form to the end allows you to create new, well-qualified leads who are interested in your content. Thus it becomes really crucial for brands to start incorporating video marketing as part of their digital marketing strategy.

Even though digital video marketing is at a nascent stage with the right tools and strategies still evolving, the problem arises when marketers try to apply the same traditional marketing concepts to a video digital order that changes in real time. Marketers should not forget that digital video marketing is more nimble, engaging and participatory than traditional marketing. To make video marketing work, there has to be a two-way sharable connection between marketers and consumers.

It can’t be denied that adding videos to your marketing efforts can generate more leads and sales for your brand.

Being visible on video streaming channels opens your brand up to new audiences and, therefore, new potential customers. Digital video marketing is easy to adopt, if implemented appropriately. There are a few vital steps in digital video marketing value chain which marketers must adopt to minimize inefficiencies and failures and to maximize ROI.

* Firstly, marketers should incorporate videos in their content strategies, clearly defining target audience, target markets, platforms, video metrics and ROI expected from video campaigns.

* Marketers must stress on creating custom SEO videos by embedding best-in-class search and discovery tools (including metadata, keywords, tags and transcripts).

* There must be a meticulously planned video distribution strategy, ensuring a seamless distribution of video content to relevant target audience via various social media channels. Videos should also be embedded with social sharing functionalities and customized call to actions in the form of overlays, annotations, linear messaging or branding features.

* Finally, distributed video content must be monitored and measured against defined goals and video metrics, thus implementing the learnings in real time. Whatever be the case, video are the new “in” thing and marketers can’t afford to miss riding this bus.

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