Content marketing: Video as a guarantee of success

The US company ViSalus, manufacturer of a diet product, launched a contest where users could submit before/after videos.No one can get around content marketing anymore: The former "Next Big Thing" has established itself as a permanent fixture in the marketing mix. Driven by content relevant to the target group, hardly any other strategy is better suited to strengthening customer loyalty and winning new customers, as well as increasing brand awareness and cultivating corporate image. Videos play a particularly valuable role here: More than 100 million users worldwide watch online videos every day; according to current analyses, two-thirds of the global data volume will be dominated by videos in the future. So it's only logical to use this popular medium in content marketing as well.the following four practical examples show how this works:

1. video channels create brand awareness and reach

True to the motto "The bait must be to the fish's liking," content marketing is all about content that the target group can identify with. The American Cornell University has launched its own video channel for this purpose: The CornellCast website acts as the university's visual mouthpiece. For example, lectures by professors are posted online or upcoming events are announced. In addition, the community discusses current issues that have relevance beyond the university walls. "This allows us to be part of a larger conversation and create brand awareness at the same time," explains Carrie Sanzone, web product manager at Cornell. "The website is a reflection of our day job, while also providing an information pool of our expertise and a place to go with questions. It gets people talking about Cornell all over the world." Thanks to regular maintenance of the website with diverse, up-to-date content, a search for "Cornell University" on YouTube already results in thousands of videos.

2. before/after videos promote brand loyalty and customer retention

Content marketing also helps companies connect with their customers. What's more, it causes an emotional reaction and thus strengthens the bond with the company and its service or product. A positive example of this is the US company ViSalus. The manufacturer of a diet product recently launched a Campaign with before and after videos. The customers submit two videos: The first at the beginning of their diet under the title "I want it," the second in slimmed-down form under the slogan "I lost it. In addition to the desired weight loss success, a prize of 10,000 U.S. dollars beckons. "We wanted to illustrate the high, real benefits of our product and at the same time motivate our customers to lose weight," explains Scott Salik, VP Video at ViSalus. In the first four months alone, the company received over 100,000 clips, and customer lifetime value (CLV) increased by 670 percent. As a result, ViSalus was not only able to sustainably strengthen customer loyalty, but also generate hundreds of hours of video content with authentic brand ambassadors. This, in turn, can be used in a variety of ways for other marketing purposes.

3. videos enable targeted success control

Companies need meaningful metrics to evaluate the return on investment (ROI) of their content marketing efforts. In addition to traditional click numbers and page views, videos offer numerous other analysis options for the content produced.Raymond Attipa, CEO of Shandy Media, a digital media company, focuses primarily on the share rate, for example: "Videos that are shared often have a particularly high reach and are therefore of great interest to our advertising customers." Crucial elements also include how long the videos are viewed, which countries viewers come from, and which devices they use. These metrics help Shandy Media decide what content the company will generate and in which markets it will promote the videos. "Based on this, we can target our marketing efforts much more effectively and be much more cost-effective," says Attipa.

4. video content marketing pushes B2B business

Videos are a guarantee for success not only in the end customer business, but also in B2B communication. Product videos and tutorials in particular promote confidence in purchasing decisions. If potential customers inform themselves about a product with an online video, the probability of an actual purchase is demonstrably higher. But here, too, success depends on target group-oriented content: Mere promotional videos are not enough; rather, companies need to show the added value of their solutions in a context that has actual relevance for its customers.This is confirmed by Linda Crowe, Director of Content Marketing Programs at Oracle: "Our target audience doesn't initially want to know anything about the technical details of our products. Instead, the potential buyer wants to be shown solutions to their problems, preferably using real-world examples." Therefore, Oracle presents its products as real-world solutions that really affect the prospective buyer in terms of content. Thus, videos became a stable all-rounder for Oracle, perfectly combining elementary marketing goals such as awareness, product knowledge and direct purchase motivation.Author: Michael Kummer, Sales Manager EMEA at Kaltura