BIA/Kelsey has released a new report called “Video, the Conversion Medium,” which explores the impact that video is having on modern marketing efforts. Although the video advertising of years’ past (think interruptive ad spots) is long defunct, video production costs have fallen by over 90 percent in the past decade, rendering video advertising an affordable marketing option for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

According to the BIA/Kelsey report, video is slowly becoming a powerful marketing tool, as SMBs are coming to realize that not only does it have the ability to capture attention but also create a sense of customer intimacy. In fact, according to BIA/Kelsey’s 2014 Local Commerce Monitor survey, video marketing returned more than 5 times the cost of production for 57 percent of reporting companies, with 16 percent of companies seeing a return of 20 times the initial investment.

One aspect the report looked at was what media were being used for advertising and promotion by those SMBs that reported using video marketing. Here are the top 10:

  1. Facebook pages (71.4 percent)
  2. Website videos (65.7 percent)
  3. YouTube videos (55.2 percent)
  4. Email marketing (53.3 percent)
  5. Website (50.5 percent)
  6. LinkedIn (43.8 percent)
  7. Twitter (42.6 percent)
  8. Direct mail (38.0 percent)
  9. Facebook ads (33.0 percent)
  10. Video Other (32.4 percent)

The other major takeaway from the BIA/Kelsey report is that video simply converts better than other marketing media. In fact, the report revealed that SMBs using video focused primarily on conversion, spending 3 times more overall on marketing than the average SMB while achieving substantially higher conversion rates. These companies also report using a broader range of marketing media overall, with video on average only composing 17.6 percent of their marketing budgets. Video markets also aim for much higher conversion rates in their marketing strategies, aiming to convert traffic at a rate of 34.1 percent from discounts and promotions, whereas non-video marketers only expect 23 percent conversion.

Finally, the report also demonstrates how video is being used by successful SMB marketers to address specific customer concerns, facilitate learning, build community, and support goods and service delivery.

You can download a complete copy of this report.

Reference:

Ratcliffe, Mitch. “Video, the Conversion Medium: A New BIA/Kelsey Report.” BiaKelsey.com. 9/3/15.