Video content drives sales and customer engagement, in B2B or B2C.  Here are 15 reasons why you need video as part of your marketing mix based on the latest research:

1. Youtube has just overtaken Facebook as the most 2nd most popular site to visit (Google is still first) this shows that customers are looking for video content in preference to any other type of content (CNBC)

2. YouTube has over a billion users, (almost one-third of all people on the Internet according to their YouTube stats). YouTube has launched local versions in more than 88 countries and you can navigate YouTube in a total of 76 different languages (covering 95% of the Internet population). This means that if you make a video it will have global reach.

3. On mobile alone in an average week, YouTube found that it reaches more 18-49 year-olds during prime time TV hours than any cable TV network and astonishingly, two-thirds of YouTube users watch YouTube on a second screen while watching TV at home. 

4. Users aren't just looking for entertainment videos but information videos too - this is why businesses large and small are using video and why according to the latest Hubspot data 48% of marketers plan to add YouTube to their content strategy in the next year. 

We can see from these stats that people are watching a lot of on-line videos, but what impact does it have on viewers?

5. 4X as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. (Animoto, 2015)  

6. 53% of smartphone users feel more favourable towards companies who provide instructional video content. (Google, 2015) 

7. Online videos will account for more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic by 2020 (CISCO, 2016).

8. Globally 25% of people watching online video every day (Mill for Business, 2018).

9. Almost 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store. (Google, 2015)  

Not only can video be a game changer for your website or YouTube channel, but video should be a key part of your social media content

10. Visual content is 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. (Buffer, 2014) 

11. 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter and 90% of Twitter video views are on mobile. (Twitter, 2015) 

But what about return on investment?

12. Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. (Aberdeen, 2015) 

13. 55% of people consume video content thoroughly (the highest amount of all types of content) and 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers. (HubSpot, 2016) 

14. Over 51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI. (DMB Adobe)

15. Videos spread like no other content type out there because its content that people like to engage with. On Twitter, video is the most shared media type. Videos are 6X more likely to be retweeted than photos and 3X more likely than GIFs (Twitter, 2016).

In summary - the way consumers interact with brands is changing with video leading the way - just try to make sure that you are not left behind! 

Do these 15 reasons make you want to consider Video for your content?  What to start looking at different Video formats?  Why not take a look at whiteboard animation as a Video format - that is particularly suited to helping people retain and share complex and dry content?

RICHARD WISEMAN: DRAWING KNOWLEDGE

The Psychological Impact of Whiteboard Animation

We decided to run some research, which Professor Richard Wiseman very kindly designed and ran. Of course we made a short Whiteboard Animation to present our findings.