Video rules the internet. It’s a point we’ve been making on this blog for at least the past two years.
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, and videos account for roughly three-quarters of all web traffic. By 2019, that number should reach 80 percent.
That doesn’t mean that video needs to dominate your company’s marketing efforts. In this blog post, we’ll talk about why a well-rounded marketing strategy needs both video and text to work.
1. People Still Respond To Text
We’re not saying video shouldn’t matter. We shoot videos for our clients, and for ourselves. Every so often, we’ll forgo writing a blog entry in favor of a video blog post.
Still, there is an audience for text. Video lets us sit back and absorb information, but some of your visitors will want to spend time analyzing your content.
Reading makes us active participants, writes Liraz Margalit in Psychology Today.
“When we read an article, we don’t just look at the words in front of us — we create thoughts about that content, activating our mental structures,” she says. “Reading requires the production of ‘inner voice,’ which dials up our attention span. That means that careful reading is not an automatic process, but rather occurs when we actively process what we are reading.”
When key decisions are involved, people respond better to text, because it allows them to control how they interpret information.
2. Different Visitors Respond To Different Content
Your website gets visitors who are there for a specific purpose – so-called “goal oriented” visitors – and those who may have just wandered there.
Goal-oriented visitors are there to learn more about you and make some form of a decision. They’re working on a higher cognitive level, and more likely to respond to the written word.
3. “I Want That In Writing.”
Text underlines your point and makes it more permanent and substantial. When visitors hear your pitch during a video, they can make their own interpretations. When they read it in black and white on the page, there’s no room for ambiguity.
4. Search Engines Like Text
Search engines are powerful, but they still run on text. Without adding things like keyword-rich descriptions and metadata, search engines will have a tough time ranking your video.
But What About Video?
- Putting the word “video” in an email subject heading increases open rates by 19 percent, and click-through rates by 65 percent.
- More than three-quarters of all small business owners who used video marketing say it has a direct effect on their company.
- More than 60 percent of small businesses plan to boost their video marketing efforts this year.
- Nearly half of all consumers want to see companies using more video.
As video becomes more and more popular, your customers will expect to see you using it. Let IQnection help. Our digital marketing experts can work with you to create content that engages readers, whether they want something to watch or something to read.
