A long, long time ago our predecessors would sit around the fire and tell tales to inspire and teach.
Today we have YouTube. And the reason why YouTube and other video platforms are so stupendously popular is that we still love to listen to stories. The power of video lies in the simple fact that it’s easy to consume, holds our interest, and takes less cognitive effort to process.
Don’t just take our word for it.
- 72% of customers said they would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. (Source)
- 79% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy or download a piece of software or app by watching a video (Source)
- Video posts on linkedin are shared 20x more than other formats. (Source)
- 96% of consumers increased their video consumption in 2020 with 90% of them saying that they would like to see more videos from businesses. (Source)
Those are some pretty compelling stats, don’t you agree?
Why Choose Video?
However, there’s more to video than meets the eye, so to speak. We can see that it is an essential part of any marketing strategy and a great tool for businesses, but why is this the case?
Research tells us that approximately 65% of the population identify as visual learners and around 30% are auditory learners. A visual learner will absorb and retain information far better by seeing it in picture or video format. Auditory learners will do so when they hear information. Video content, more often than not, contains both.
Retaining Information
In the field of marketing and advertising, we want people to notice and then remember what we have to say. In order to do this we should ideally look to engage as many senses as we can. Therefore pairing information with meaningful imagery has proven a great strategy.
Education consultant Dr. Lynell Burmark speaks about the value of visual literacy and says, “…unless our words, concepts, ideas are hooked onto an image, they will go in one ear, sail through the brain, and go out the other ear. Words are processed by our short-term memory where we can only retain about seven bits of information (plus or minus 2) […]. Images, on the other hand, go directly into long-term memory where they are indelibly etched.”
Another study showed that only 10 – 20% of written or spoken information was recalled after three days,. However that jumped to an impressive 65% for visual information.
Transmitting Information
Our eyes process and transmit information at blistering speeds. For example, it takes about ¼ of a second for our brains to process and attach meaning to a symbol. Comparatively, we’ll take around six seconds to read 20 – 25 words.
We have learned that our amazing eyes can register over 36,000 visuals in an hour, and we can understand a scene in under 1/10th of a second. We process imagery some 60,000 times faster than text.
Couple this fascinating information with the fact that we are trying to capture the attention of people in an overcrowded and noisy online environment, the power of video becomes clearer.
Understanding Information
Robert Horn from Stanford University explains the relationship between seeing and hearing in this way, “When words and visual elements are closely entwined, we create something new and we augment our communal intelligence … visual language has the potential for increasing ‘human bandwidth’—the capacity to take in, comprehend, and more efficiently synthesize large amounts of new information.”
Exciting visuals, relevant sounds, and easy-to-read text combines to form a potent mix. This ensures that people understand and remember our message.
The Power of Video and Emotion
Imagery and compelling visuals trigger emotion. Emotion is very often what drives a person to make a purchase or choose one brand over another.
Most of us would like to think that we’re terribly logical and make decisions based on sound data and research. Maybe you are, but most of us aren’t. We are emotional beings. We make decisions based on how we feel at the time. In some cases the decisions are based on how we feel subconsciously before these feelings surface in our conscious brain.
An article from Harvard Business Review makes the point that our emotional and logical sides are in a constant struggle. “We have dog brains, basically, with a human cortex stuck on top, a veneer of civilization. This cortex is an evolutionarily recent invention that plans, deliberates, and decides. But not a second goes by that our ancient dog brains aren’t conferring with our modern cortexes to influence their choices—for better and for worse—and without us even knowing it.”
Therefore, without going into the science behind this concept, we must accept the fact that the use of striking imagery or emotive visuals will almost certainly evoke an emotional response from our viewers. Video can do that.
Harnessing the Power of Video Content
So, we can see that video content – good video content we hasten to add – has a far-reaching and compelling effect on our audience.
Suddenly these stats that we mentioned at the start begin to make sense.
Video content (done right) has amazing effects on your online presence too.
- Video content boosts SEO efforts by drawing more traffic to your site.
- It facilitates more backlinks as related sites link to your online assets.
- It creates a better user experience and encourages visitors to spend more time on your site.
- Video engages your audience long enough to allow you to get your message across and therefore increases conversions.
Where to From Here?
The power of video content is undeniable, and the effect that it has on business growth has been proven time and again.
Do you have video content that converts?
If you would like to chat more about this fascinating medium with the pros, we invite you to give us a call. We have some thoughts…