2020 has been a challenging year for many reasons.
Your customers' needs are changing. So the way marketers reach buyers must change as well.
With the Covid-19 crisis, prospective buyers were asked how their decision-making would change:
- 33% of prospects need more quality and accurate information about their purchases
- 23% of prospects need to have more confidence in their purchases overall
But what can you do?
How can your business convince prospects to buy your products in a world of decreasing brand trust?
The answer is through video marketing.
In the past year, and especially after the coronavirus crisis, video marketing has emerged as an effective way to share more quality information about products and services and increase customer confidence.
In this article, we'll examine some of the top video marketing trends in 2020.
This is a comprehensive resource. To navigate to the topics which interest you the most, click the links below:
- Why Companies Are Turning to Video Marketing in 2020
- Video Marketing Trends #1: Live Video
- Video Marketing Trends #2: Virtual Events
- Video Marketing Trends #3: Testimonials
- Video Marketing Trends #4: Video Ads
Why Companies Are Turning to Video Marketing in 2020
Video marketing content is an essential marketing tool that every marketer and salesperson needs to have readily available.
In times of buyer uncertainty, video marketing has emerged as an effective way to raise brand awareness and nudge prospects along a purchasing path.
Salespeople are not able to have in-person meetings as often due to the current pandemic. Thus, they need to have video assets at their disposal to provide prospects.
Without in-person meetings, companies can use video testimonials or a flashy product video to help improve user trust and buy-in.
These videos can help prospects grasp key product details and understand different ways that the company can help their business.
Also, they can be easily shared with gatekeepers and other members of an organization to quickly relay the product's value and how it can help.
Companies can leverage videos in a variety of ways. They can showcase their product, share customer reviews, visualize research insights, and more.
Video tells a better story
Look at this product video for Bitdam. In only 2 minutes and 40 seconds, someone who may have never heard of the product can fully grasp whether or not it's useful for their business.
Potential customers are looking for these types of videos as they evaluate products. Over 55% of customers believe that multimedia is a critical part of their digital purchasing process.
This is likely because they're already used to watching videos in their daily life. People will spend an average of 100 minutes per day watching videos in 2021.
So why don't companies try to fully capitalize on the power of video marketing? Time and resources.
If companies don't have a videographer on staff just yet, they still don't have to worry. Video production has become easier over the years.
There are many ways to create engaging video content in-house or through a partner in a way that will be a strong marketing investment with a high ROI.
If you're up to the challenge yourself, there's plenty of software at your fingertips to create short, engaging product videos for your social channels or website.
Cost-efficient subscriptions to sites like Magisto, Toonly, or Promo will help you get the job done.
These are just a few of the easy-to-learn video editing software that companies use.
Video marketers can try their hand at shooting and editing content on these platforms before they publish it on their channels for the world to see.
But sometimes, it's more effective to leave the videos to a professional company. It'll save you time in the long-run, and you'll have a polished, ready-to-publish video in the end.
When it comes to your video marketing strategy, you shouldn't cut corners.
With so many potential customers asking for video content, let's see how companies are responding to the call this year. Here are the top four video marketing trends in 2020.
Video Marketing Trends #1: Live Video
At a time when human connection is limited, live video bridges the gap between customers and the businesses they support. It can also be a useful marketing tactic too.
That's why companies are leveraging two-way communication through live video streams.
This format can be used to showcase their products, share industry insights, and facilitate discussions between customers and industry leaders.
They're non-intrusive and the business' followers can enter and leave the stream as they please.
This isn't a new concept, but users are ready for them. In 2019, internet users watched 1.1 billion hours of live video.
There's plenty of different ways to broadcast live these days. Companies can choose from Facebook Live, Instagram Live, YouTube, Twitch, or another streaming platform.
Facebook Live continues to be one of the most popular options that businesses can use to go live with their fans.
These platforms enable businesses to connect with customers in real-time and reach them where they are on the platforms that they're using.
With so many people working in remote environments, the ability to broadcast from anywhere has been normalized.
Everyone including movie stars, famous CEOs, talk show hosts, and leaders from every industry have started streaming from their own homes.
This increase in livestreams has opened the floodgates for companies that are looking to publish more video content.
No longer is the expectation that companies need to have fully-polished, edited livestreams. Employees can create livestream marketing assets from where they are right now. 
Speak to your audience
Look at the livestream MeetEdgar, a social media scheduling platform, published on their social accounts.
Their marketing team goes live on LinkedIn every week to showcase new product features in their "Feature Friday" video series.
In this example, they are promoting their new browser extension and showing how it can easily be installed. The livestream is fairly brief — only 6 minutes long. However, it is effective.
By going live on social media platforms (and in this case, LinkedIn), fans of their business page will receive a notification when the broadcast takes place.
This is another way to alert your potential customers about your marketing content and stay top-of-mind in their heads.
Here's the LinkedIn notification that was sent to all of their page's followers:
Through this tactic, MeetEdgar alerted all their page's followers and had the chance to engage them further with a unique video livestream.
Customers are actively looking for this type of content. Approximately 80% of people would rather watch a live video from a brand than read a blog.
If companies want to improve their livestream ability, there's plenty of software that can help.
vMix is a live streaming software that provides users with the tools to produce, stream, and record.
By packaging up your livestream broadcasts into recordings, you can host them on your website.
Then, you can lock or "gate" them, so prospects will have to add their email in order to view.
By doing this, the livestream assets will become more valuable to your business and can serve as lead magnets to capture prospect information.
Depending on the topic, they could be considered evergreen content, or content that's always relevant to your prospects. If so, you'll reap the benefit of your livestream for years to come.
Video Marketing Trends #2: Virtual Events
Want to bring your customers and prospects together? Virtual events have emerged as a viable marketing tactic to acquire and nurture customers.
These events can take the place of your in-person event strategy or complement it.
Virtual events are online gatherings that leverage live video and pre-recorded webinars to create an engaging, informative experience for prospects, customers, and industry leaders.
Videos are an essential part of a successful virtual event. Over 61% of marketers use videos during a virtual event to keep their audience engaged.
Many B2B companies attended and exhibited at conferences as a part of their event marketing strategy. This year, virtual events have increased in popularity, because many of those in-person events have been placed on hold.
Generate leads
Virtual events are considered a popular lead generation tactic for B2B marketers. Approximately 93% of marketers plan to invest in virtual events in the upcoming year.
Typically, these events have a forum or discussion board that attendees can use to interact with each other. Slack is useful for facilitating conversation if there isn't a chat or message board already built-in on the platform you are using.
B2B marketers can build hype around broadcasts and position them as a virtual event to capture prospect emails and add them to their email nurture program.
EventGeek, a platform for managing virtual and real-life events, held a virtual event of their own called Reboot 2020 to help navigate the uncertainty of live events moving forward.
The event was an all-day affair with industry leaders coming together for conversations over video and discussions via the pre-programmed Slack channels set up for the event.
After the event, the team repurposed the content into various blog posts, videos, social content and other assets to use for their lead generation efforts.
Although you may be producing your virtual event with limited help, you aren't alone. Virtual event platforms like Intrado or On24 can help host, launch, and facilitate your event.
These platforms take the overwhelming task of producing a large-scale event and break it down into accomplishable objectives. Their built-in functionality can help with attendee registration, stream production, marketing, and more.
By using these platforms, you'll have various features available including custom interfaces, enhanced digital experiences, and attendee management capabilities.
With just a few days of preparation, you'll be a virtual event organizer in no time.
Video Marketing Trends #3: Testimonials
Why tell prospects that they should buy your product when your customers can do it for you?
Companies are passing the microphones to their customers to share their experience using their product or services. This can be an impactful form of marketing.
Customer testimonials are an invaluable form of social proof. They show your product in action, being used by industry peers who may have some of the same challenges as your prospects.
They explain the company's value proposition to new prospects and re-engage old prospects by nurturing them down the funnel.
Video testimonials can re-position your company and distill your mission down to what really matters in your prospects' eyes.
The results are there, too. Approximately 55% of marketers think video case studies and testimonials are the best way to move prospects down a B2B funnel.
But what exactly does a video testimonial show?
It can show the impact that a company had on their bottom line or operations after they implemented your product.
These types of videos are effective, because 95% of purchasing decisions are driven by our subconscious mind.
Future customers may see themselves in your clients speaking on screen. They could relate to the struggles shared by the customer in the testimonial and want to overcome them too.
Show your prospects, not tell
Look at NewStore's video testimonial from UNTUCKit, a menswear line.
The testimonial shows how NewStore's point of sale system connected UNTUCKit's challenges of linking their ecommerce store with their in-person retail environment.
They were able to upgrade from operating their stores with excel sheets saved in multiple environments to a streamlined point of sale system that "helped them move into the 21st century."
A video like this can show the product in action in its natural environment and also bring to life the benefits of using that product.
Prospects can quickly see how UnTuckit's business operations changed once they implemented NewStores technology.
This video is an asset that can be something that's easily passed throughout a prospect's company as they are evaluating whether or not to buy.
In only 1 minute and 50 seconds, someone who has never been exposed to the NewStores' brand will quickly grasp what their company is about and how their products can be used.
If you want to ramp up your video testimonial production, but don't know where to start, don't worry. Thankfully, you don't have to do it alone.
Testimonial Hero is here to help and has worked with hundreds of clients including InsightSquared, Swipely, UiPath, Robin, and more.
Video Marketing Trends #4: Video Ads
What are brands using to stop prospects' social media scroll? You've guessed it: video ads.
Companies are adding new creative into their ad sets on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google. This creative includes customer review ads.
Customers sharing their experiences using products and services in an unfiltered way lures in passive shoppers. It's straightforward and easy to comprehend. And it makes perfect video ad content.
Prospects may easily gloss over ads in crowded social media feeds.
But video ads stand out from the clutter, breaking away from the standard images and photos that viewers commonly see.
That's why customer video ads are so popular and effective for businesses looking to attract prospects' eyes.
This shouldn't come as a complete surprise, though. Video ad spending has steadily grown over the past few years. In 2020, it will account for more than 30% of the total ad spend.
The increase in spending is for a valid reason. Marketers understand the power and value of video ads.
They know how impactful and budget-friendly they can be to capture new prospect information at the top of their funnel.
Video ads are more cost-efficient than other types of Facebook ads. In fact, video ads are 10% of the cost of carousel or single image ads.
More effective, engaging, and cheaper? If you aren't using videos in your paid ad campaigns, now is the time to start.
But what exactly should be depicted in the short time allotted in a video ad?
Enough to pique interest
Look at this customer review ad for Robin, a meeting room scheduling software that's used by companies all around the world.
In this ad, Krista Filingeri, People Operations at SoulCycle, explains how Robin has helped SoulCycle operate more efficiently and streamline their employee management.
The ad is brief — only 18 seconds — but it captures everything you need to begin to form a foundational understanding about Robin and what it can do for your business.
The ad is effective, because it makes you want to learn a bit more about the company and see how it can improve your operations too.
Passive viewers that were simply scrolling on their Facebook feeds would stop to see this ad. The mix of high-quality video with polished sound makes this an attractive video asset.
This type of social video can also be shared as part of a larger video marketing campaign. It can be shared organically on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, or another social media platform as well.
So how do you get started improving your digital ads?
Lumen5 helps marketers "make video ads in minutes." The software helps you bring your videos to life by adding music, images, text in your brand colors and font.
It can also help you render your video, so it is effective across various platforms.
However, if you don't want to shoot and cut the video yourself, Testimonial Hero has produced countless number of video ads for clients that wanted to improve their video ads.
No matter who you go with, you should make video ads a priority for your top-of-funnel marketing efforts this year. They are an essential part of an effective ad strategy.
Conclusion
Consumer needs have drastically changed in 2020. Businesses need to adapt their marketing strategies to keep up.
One way is to leverage video marketing tactics more proactively in your marketing strategy.
This can help attract new prospects and engage existing ones at various points of your funnel.
To maintain a competitive marketing edge, you need to understand what some of the top video marketing trends are this year.
Integrate live video into your marketing strategy. This will engage prospects on the channels that they are currently using.
Leverage video in virtual events. With in-person marketing events currently on hold, virtual events that deploy video are a great tactic to acquire new customers.
Nurture prospects with live video testimonials. If you can't meet them face-to-face, let your current customers do the talking.
Deploy user-generated content in video ads. Video ads on social platforms have a lower customer acquisition cost and are effective in reaching new audiences.
By adding these tactics into your video marketing strategy, you'll be ahead of the curve with your marketing this year.
