As computers are getting faster and software is getting sleeker, online video is becoming more and more prevalent on every internet channel, from social media to ecommerce. A particularly interesting development is the landing page video, which has revolutionized the way business sites capture and keep their audience’s attention.
A great video can take a company out of obscurity and develop an audience and a customer base. Or it can help an existing company establish credibility with a new audience or market segment. Lets elaborate the reasons why this is the case:
1.Video Holds People’s Attention
The average reader has an attention span of eight seconds. You heard that right, eight. Thats about 20 words of copy. Video changes that game completely, keeping site visitors engaged for minutes at a time, which keeps your bounce rate down and helps you tell more of your story:
2.Video Communicates More than Text
If a pictures worth a thousand words, a videos worth a milliona great video can help you tell an important segment of your story in much less time than you could with simple text and images. This makes every visit to your site a chance to really pitch your product/service, rather than hope visitors stay for more than 10 seconds.
3. Viewers Are More Likely to Stick Around
Video viewers are more likely to finish a video of reasonable length (1-3 minutes) than to read a section of text. This lets you tell your whole story, and gives you far more control over the narrative structure than you would have otherwise.
4. Provide Visual Connection
In the video format, youre not bound to formal, traditional methods of marketing. Videos can really create a human connection with your audience through humor, emotional content, and direct speech. Approximately 65% of people are visual learners, so creating a visual stimulus for them is going to be more powerful than words.
Its important that your video be of a high quality in order to make this connection, so you may want to consider using some stock footage to maintain a professional appearance.
5. Calls to Action
Video can create brand trust quickly, because it’s much easier to humanize a brand through video where viewers can easily see what makes your brand relatable and human. Because brand trust can be easily and quickly established in video, your calls to action need to be clear, relevant, and noticeable. The best calls to action are short and simple: download, buy now, try now, apply now, sign up, get started here, add to basket. Your calls to action need to create urgency, use simple, direct language, and obviously ask visitors to do something.
If youre at a loss for what a good web video looks like, refer to this post on why video works well in presentations and this rundown of five killer landing page videos. The examples are out there, as are the resourcesso putting up a landing video should be as easy (or easier) than rewriting your sites front page.
Luke Clum is a graphic designer and developer from Seattle who is crazy about videography, alpine climbing and earl grey ice cream. You can follow him on Twitter @lukeclum
