Watching online video is now a mainstream activity and businesses who wish to stay ahead of the competition should most certainly consider using online video marketing as an important tool to increase sales.

Several studies have looked into the effectiveness of video as a tool for strategic marketing and the statistics indicate a steady growth in video content usage to captivate the audience and increase sales for online businesses.

Here are some interesting numbers that have arisen from some of these studies:

• Businesses are 53 times more likely to appear on Google’s Page 1 if they have a video on their website (Forrester Research)
• 74% of all internet traffic in 2017 will be video (Invodo)
• Video promotion is over six times more effective than print and online (b2bmarketing.net)
• According to Retail Touchpoints, the Step2 Company found that shoppers who viewed video were 174% more likely to purchase than shoppers who did not. (Retail Touchpoints Channel Innovation Awards, 2012)
• Videos in universal search results have an estimated 41% higher click-through rate than plain-text results (Econsultancy)
• Website visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy (Internet Retailer)

An effective video marketing strategy benefits online companies in a number of ways, all of which contribute to the bottom line — an increase in sales.

How to use video marketing to boost revenue:

• Infuse creativity in a video to attract customer attention. Entertaining and eye-catching video content will keeps viewers captivated and more likely to remember a company’sproducts and services over competitors who market via print only.
• Demonstrate and explain products and services clearly. If customers understand how to use what is being advertised they will be more likely to purchase such items. Pointing out new features and highlighting benefits are information points that buyers like to know.
• Use brevity in delivering company message(s). A lengthy video will lose the interest of potential online shoppers, so cutting to the chase during the first 10 seconds of the video is ideal.
• Optimize video content for SEO. Develop a strategy on what keywords will place your video in high-rankings with search engines. Rankings can be achieved at a quicker rate than that of traditional websites as there are fewer online sites that include videos.
• Develop a distribution strategy. Distributing a well-developed video through only one channel would be a huge disservice to a business. Sharing via various locations while ensuring target audiences match with the company brand is essential to successful distribution.

Online businesses that understand the importance of video marketing and effectively use it will undoubtedly increase sales far and beyond that of their competitors.