It’s no question that visual content has seen an uptick in the past year. Between the growing popularity and competition between major social media apps such as Snapchat and Instagram, as well as the steady hype around VR integrations to enhance the user experience, the opportunity for diversifying marketing campaigns and introducing exciting visuals such a video, is vast.

When you wake up in the morning, you can guarantee that your inbox will be flooded sales emails. As consumers, we are exposed to mass amounts of content up to the minute – so much content, that even reading through one unsolicited email can be a daunting task. In fact, four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.

With that overwhelming fact and statistics of similar gravity, standing out from the pack can be difficult. Consumers are so selective with their attention spans that businesses must switch up marketing campaigns in order to keep up with our changing expectations and preferences.

Video marketing is a great way to do just that. Videos are a creative way to share news and connect with your current and potential customers. Integrating visuals, such as video clips, into your company’s social media accounts, blog posts and distribution of marketing content can help raise awareness around your brand and can even inspire new ideas with a fresh platform in the mix.

The infographic (another great visual option) below offers a cheat sheet, illustrating the “why,” “where” and “how-to” for helping businesses use video marketing to better connect with their target audiences. In addition to the infographic’s examples for perfecting video marketing strategies, three additional opportunities to test out video campaigns include:

• Helpful how-tos. How-to videos and checklists allow the viewer to understand how your product works, as well as envision himself/herself using it.
• Visual results. Using videos to showcase survey and research results will save your audience time from having to scroll through pages of data. Videos that quickly and comprehensively communicate results will be best for spiking interest in the data and intrigue in future reports.
• Repurposed content. If your company has previously written content that was particularly popular among your audience, you may want to consider resurfacing it. Posting a short video “teasing” the topic on social media can entice viewers to click on the link, driving traffic to your website and making great use of evergreen content.

Altogether, diversifying your marketing mix with video will not go unnoticed. One in four consumers actually lose interest in a company if it doesn’t have video. If done effectively, your customers will thank you for sparing them from another bland report and may even inspire them to share your fresh content on their social media channels.

Has your company mixed things up with cool video clips or visuals? Let us know in the comments section below!