The Pros and Cons of Putting a Marketing Video on Your Website or Landing Pages

Why Use Marketing Video in Your Website

As its name implies, marketing video allows you to tell your brand story visually and connect with your prospects quickly, rather than force them to read a lot of text to get your  mesasge.

When you’re given the option to read a large wall of text or watch a short video on a sales page, you’d probably click on the video first. With videos, you can observe a person's body language, micro-expressions, and other non-verbal cues.

It's no surprise that many website visitors read only 20 percent of page text on average.

On the other hand, 65 percent of viewers watch more than three-fourths of an online video.

If those figures aren't enough, Animoto also found out the following in their Online and Social Video Marketing Study survey:

• 4X as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.
• 1-in-4 consumers tend to lose interest in a company if it doesn’t have video.
• Customers are nearly 50 percent more likely to read a newsletter if it includes links to a video.
• 4-in-5 consumers agree that videos showing how a product or service works is more important.

Additionally, senior marketers plan to invest in video more than any other type of content in the next five years.

Broadly speaking, it's not a question of whether or not marketing video really works. It's a question of how you can make marketing video work for you.

Anatomy of a Marketing Video that Converts

A marketing video that converts begins with careful planning. It requires time, attention, and most importantly —a solid strategy as its backbone. In fact, the lack of an effective strategy is the most challenging obstacle to video marketing success, according to almost half of the respondents surveyed by Ascend2.

Before you go looking for someone to help edit your video or sign up for a video editing software plan, take a big step back and ask yourself — what should your marketing video look like to ensure that it’s going to boost conversion rates?

A marketing video that builds brand buzz, grows your social media reach, and generates web traffic should have the following three core elements:

Highlight your product or service’s key features, benefits, and USP (Unique Selling Proposition) in your videos.

Think about the common problems that your customers typically present with when they look for solutions such as your product or service. For instance, a testimonial video is one of the best ways to build trust with prospects by showing them how your company has helped existing customers.

Come up with a well-written script.

A well-written script does more than just convey the value that your brand offers, it should also cover objection handling. Working with experienced copywriters can help you come up with a concise yet persuasive copy.

Record high-quality video and audio.

When was the last time you actually watched and finish someone’s webcam video?

Perception is everything. You can either hire a pro to do it for your or make sure that you have the right set of equipment to come up with great video content.

Take a look at these 7 Best DIY Video Production Resources for Making Marketing Videos For Business.

Pros of Marketing Video On Your Website

Now that you’ve learned how videos can possibly boost your lead generation efforts, let’s take a look at its specific advantages:

1. Videos quickly capture your prospects' interest and gain their trust faster than blocks of text. Additionally, viewers are more likely to buy if the person speaking in your videos is friendly, confident, and excited about the product or service.
   
   
2. Videos allow you to get your point across a lot better than blocks of paragraphs. This will help rev up engagement and subtly nudge prospects towards the next stage of the buying cycle.
   
   
3. Videos can help you convey information using various communication styles (special effects, closed captions, etc.) that you can't use with text.
   
   
4. Videos can be repurposed and repackaged in conjunction with your other relevant marketing content.
   
   
5. Videos work well in both long and short formats —ranging between 2 to 30 minutes. You don’t want a video that’s too painfully long for people to watch, but neither do you want it to be short and lacking enough information to get your message across.

Cons of Video Marketing on Your Website

On the other side of the coin, you might consider the following drawbacks of adding videos on your website:

1. A low-quality video or poor video execution possible cheapens your brand and offering. 

Spammy sites tend to use cheap-looking videos on their sales pages. If you’re not careful, your videos may feel like they were produced by your Aunt Edna who just discovered Windows Movie Maker.

2. A video can be an overkill or a distraction when it's too long. 

On average, nearly 20 percent of viewers will abandon a video clip within the first 10 seconds of playback. And even if a user has the time to watch the entire video, they might be browsing on a mobile device using a data plan, and they don’t want to use up their bandwidth limits by watching the entire video.

3. An autoplay video might be annoying for users if the website is visited frequently by your prospects and customers. 

This could potentially increase a page's bounce rate.

4. In some instances, an image (meme, infographic, etc.) can be more interesting than a video, especially if your target demographic is less inclined to pay attention to videos.

5. Producing top-quality marketing video will require hours of learning new skill sets. 

You and your team may have to invest time and money to master the video creation process.

Putting It All Together

The technology behind creating marketing videos is moving fast. Before you can weigh in on the pros and cons and decide if video marketing is for you, new tools and techniques are introduced.

With that said, the single most important step for brands who are considering video marketing is to start now. The best way to figure out if it’ll work for you is to create, test, and get feedback from both users and analytics. For instance, you may perform a split test with these two elements: an autoplay when a user lands on the page, or a video where a user can decide if they'll hit the play button themselves.

As with all types of content out there, don’t just produce videos because you’re supposed to stick to an upload schedule. Before you hit record, think about the specific value that you put forward in your marketing video.