4 Key Benefits of Creating a Video Marketing Strategy

Videos are widely considered to be the most effective means to engage and reach out to audiences. Whether it is just a thirty second commercial or a few minutes of promotion, a visual medium attracts buyers much more than any other form of marketing. Fortunately, not only has video marketing become effective, but affordable. 

Here are a few key reasons why you should look to integrate this strategy into your campaign;

• High Engagement – It’s well documented that people share and interact with video content much more versus text. The average consumer watches around 200 videos per month, and the figure is constantly growing.

• Webinars - For B2B enterprises, webinars can be an incredibly effective video marketing technique. A weekly webinar on different topics helps customers to access a free or inexpensive means on how to grow their business. This could in turn lead to someone employing your services directly.

•  Hangouts - Google Hangouts is a growing avenue for brands to promote their services and products by the means of online meet-ups. This is useful for businesses with a customer-centric brand, whose followers can use conferencing tools such as ‘Click Meeting’ to connect with their customers.

•  How-To and Demo Videos – Empower your audience with knowledge on how to resolve a problem. A video representation is infinitely easier to follow than a written step by step guide, which may not prove to be as thorough to a novice trying to do something for the first time. Watching someone in action will ensure you follow their methods exactly.

Whether or not someone reaches out to you directly as a result of your video marketing efforts is only part of the reason to adopt a vide approach to marketing. The links it will generate back to your website will increase your relevancy in the eyes of search engines, which ultimately will rise your website through the search results pages. 

With the potential for volumes of potential new customer to find you, especially if videos are posted to YouTube, video marketing is one marketing strategy that cannot afford to be overlooked.

3 Trends for the Future of Web Development

With so many exciting IT fields out there, I believe web development is the most exciting one. When smartphones made their successful debut a few years back, web development had to adapt to the changing needs of the average internet surfer.

2016 is just around the corner, and it’s time to get ready for what web development has in store for us.

• Responsive web design

With a mobile-first future, new needs for usability are in demand. The introduction of tablets and smartphones means web developers must develop a website for both mobile devices as well as desktops. Since Google announced changes to its algorithm in April 2015, this is fast becoming standard. A mobile friendly web design enhances the user experience, which encourages the user to engage more with the website, ultimately leading to increased profitability for those sites that cater for the mobile market.

• Design Features Will Become More Constant

When designing websites for different screen sizes, there are many common elements web designers can adopt. This has two implications - firstly, that all websites will have similar functionalities, with UI all but standardized; and secondly, web designers will have to look to be more independent, to seek new ways to make their websites look different; more unique.

• Semantic Web

The Semantic Web is an extension to the World Wide Web, and is an idea that it can become more intelligent - intuitive almost - in better identifying a web user’s needs. You can implement this by using Semantic Markup, which allows you to tell search engines via HTML tags, what a specific piece of content is about. This allows search engines to understand more quickly and accurately, thereby caching your content sooner. You’ll also receive a small ranking boost as a thank you of helping making their job easier!

It’s not just optimized Website development that every business needs; in order to establish a strong online identity, you need a considered web design, a customised digital marketing campaign and engaging content - the ideal blend for creating a strong brand and a successful business.

At Five Rivers, we offer all web-related services. Dial 0203 397 7545 for a free consultation, and see how we can help move your business forward.

4 Problems of Modern Web Design

Building an engaging, user friendly website can be a real challenge. Most web designers often forget that they are not creating a website for themselves, but for the user, so they allocate more importance to creativity, rather than usability and practicality.

However, when it comes to web designing, modern web designers have plenty of advanced tools to make a website look appealing to any web visitor. For example, ambient video, interactive animation and parallax scrolling, are but to name a few of the more interesting features available.

However, it’s important not to overdo it – too much, and it becomes overbearing, or too little, and the site can seem bland.

• Confusing Animation

Animation is being requested more and more by clients – many business owners understand that it keeps a user on their site for longer. However, using this tool as a way to explain everything can easily backfire – people need text as well as video, in order that if there’s something they haven’t understood, they can easily just re-read it. It saves on having to rewind the video to an approximate point where they thought this information could be found.

• Difficult navigation

Every website has mere seconds to grab a user’s attention. If navigation isn’t as intuitive as they would expect, they just simply leave, or “bounce”, from the website. There are plenty more companies who may have the right balance, therefore it’s crucial to consider a menu navigation that allows the user journey to continue, without them having to think too much about how they want to find what they’re looking for.

• Missing Call-to-Action

Every website should have a strong call-to-action on every page. If your website has no real call-to-action to encourage the user journey through your site, you’re not giving them enough reasons, or time, for them to find something that they do like.

• Speed and load-time

Many web designers forget to keep website speed and load time in mind.  Slow loading websites frustrate many of us, and, naturally, this becomes the main reason behind page abandonment. According to Kissmetrics, the majority of users will wait for up to 10 seconds. Even a 1 second extra delay can drop the conversion rate by approximately 7%. Major aspects are potentially responsible for slow speeds, but many of these are too technical to go into here. It’s best to visit a site like GT Metrix, which will analyse your page for you, then pass the results over to your web development company to look into the issues for you.

A modernised web design can be relied upon to maintain your professionalism, and also shows that you are still operating and wish to compete against the best. An outdated website suggests that the light is on, but no-one is home, and web traffic will skirt around your site to find one that looks well maintained and recently updated.

Five Rivers can help you to compete with even your biggest competitors. From web design services, to Video marketing and customised digital marketing campaigns, we offer a complete package. Call us today on 0203 397 7545 for a free consultation.