With companies search for ways to position their websites to place higher on Google searches, marketing videos are emerging as one way to stand out from the crowd. Mark Salloum, director and producer at Highway Media, a Canton-based video production firm, spoke with DBusiness Daily News about why he believes videos are the best way to connect with customers.
DDN: Why is video marketing an important tool for businesses?
MS: The power of video has really allowed companies to catapult their businesses by utilizing a medium that is engaging, informative, and really allows people to be really much more actively involved. Let’s face it, in today’s business world, people are emotionally (engaged) by visual and audio aids, music — things of that nature.
DDN: How do videos improve a company’s website?
MS: When a video is placed onto a company’s website, it does a lot of important things. First, it’s a search engine’s best friend. Google loves video and so do other search engines. When you have a video on your website, you have a 50 percent greater chance of reaching the first page in an organic search. The second big factor is that the average visitor to a website with video stays nine times longer than a site with text only. The average visitor to a website that’s text only stays on the site for about 42 seconds. The average visitor to a site with video stays almost six whole minutes. When (people are) engaged (with a website), they’re more apt to stay longer and want to learn more about that company.
DDN: What kinds of videos do people want to see on a company’s website?
MS: It really does depend on the company. One common (approach), at least (in my experience) marketing videos for websites, is the story-driven approach. It’s one that I recommend quite often for companies that are looking to engage their audience in a different fashion. For example, Highway Media does interviews and extracts the great sound bites from those interviews to build it into a story. Then we use video visual, B-roll, complementary footage, and with the use of music and graphics, we tell a story in an extremely compelling manner.
DDN: What trends are you seeing within video marketing?
MS: Combing the story-driven approach along with creative, visual story telling. So it’s not just about the audible story telling, it’s how to you do it visually in a chic fashion.
DDN: What do you think is the next big thing for video marketing for the younger generation?
MS: The young crowd, they’re looking for something more than a stable camera, you know, a shot of a product on a shelf. The tools that (Highway Media) uses help us do this by using drones and sliders and glide cams to give motion to our image. So we like to bring our videos to life by using these types of tools and the creative visual element to build it into something that’s dynamic or upbeat — it’s fast-paced. When we’re going after a younger audience, we are trying to do something more visually stimulating.
