Video is Disrupting Growth Marketing - TikTok, YouTube and More

Creating video content may not be the easiest marketing strategy because it is time consuming and requires a lot of resources, but video marketing is becoming the go-to method due to the results that they provide. 

The statistics don’t lie and 89% of video marketers agree that video increases ROI, 87% claim that video has increased organic traffic, whereas 80% have chalked up video content for the reason sales have increased. 

Youtube and the birth of Video Marketing

It can be said that Youtube spawned the birth of video marketing. In 2005, Youtube added a whole new dimension to cyberspace and opened up a sector of digital marketing. As technology evolved alongside the incorporation of sharing culture and social media, it became increasingly easy to make videos as well as consume that form of content. 

Today, the average user spends over 19 hours a week purely for video watching purposes. The statistics do not include any other social media or browsing activities. The most popular app for viewing video content is Youtube with 2.1 billion users, followed by 1 billion users on TikTok. TikTok is the English counterpart of Chinese developed DouYin and it has amassed a huge user base. 

Marketers have noticed that videos retained more audiences, create a more lasting impression, and also generated more leads and engagement, which led it to become so successfully incorporated into marketing campaigns. 

How Video Marketing has changed Growth Marketing forever

It’s easy to measure the success of a video via its virality and how much engagement it gets. In order to maximize marketability, the audiences and their behavior are analyzed in order to create content that continues to resonate with them. 

Never before has there been any other form of media that drives engagement as strongly as video marketing. Viewers find videos much more relatable and it drives a stronger response. 

In fact, when video is added to websites, it improves SEO immediately. People are more likely to spend more time on the page because of the video. By meeting that consumer’s need to connect, it will create a higher chance of converting them into a customer.

Growth marketing is targeted at the customer instead of the product and data is constantly being analyzed and the campaign or product constantly tweaked accordingly. But it isn’t all about closing that sale - videos are a great resource for educating customers and for building trust. 

In such an information-rich environment, it can be hard to filter through the noise and find what is accurate, which is why videos are one of the go-to formats for tutorials. People can write whatever they want or manipulate images, but videos are much more reliable. While it doesn’t mean that there aren’t any misleading videos out there, Youtube has created a strong culture of information sharing and many creators are encouraged to create authentic and genuine content in order to become sustainable. 

Has TikTok changed consumer behavior patterns?

TikTok is much more interactive than its traditional predecessor - reacting or remixing a video is a function that is directly accessible to TikTok users. In fact, the biggest TikTok star doesn’t say a single word in his videos and simply reacts by gesturing silently to videos that have already been posted on TikTok. The reception he received is a direct commentary of the cultural trends of our digital age and how it affects marketing strategies. 

Consumers are looking to connect in a real and relatable way. HubSpot Research released information that “consumers and customers prefer lower quality, "authentic" video over high-quality video that seems artificial and inauthentic.”

How does quality factor into videos in the current landscape?

As mentioned above, lower quality videos offer a more authentic experience for consumers, but that just means that current generations do not enjoy videos that are scripted or high production. That doesn’t mean that the quality of the content should be overlooked. Content is king in this era more than ever due to the need for authenticity and connection. It has to strongly resonate with consumers, which will in turn, build trust and a meaningful connection with audiences which is extremely important for Millennial and Gen Z consumers. 

This is beneficial for businesses because professional video production can cost a pretty penny. Today, large corporations can get away with filming a dancing video on their employee’s smartphone and have it go viral, which is worth so much more than spending a large sum of money on a professionally produced video that doesn’t connect as strongly. 

Video and current consumers have become intertwined

Since video plays such a large role in the lives of current consumers, the behavior and expectation of consumers should be taken into consideration for every marketing campaign. As current generations prefer a more authentic experience, it is crucial to adopt growth marketing practices now more than ever.