Make Visual Content Your Marketing Star for 2016

Video content is exploding across all platforms, and the growth looks like it will continue unabated into 2016. The number of video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the U.S. in the past year alone. Facebook recently announced that more than 1 billion videos are viewed each day.

Given the growing importance of visual content in the news feed of these goliath social media companies, here are a few ideas on how you can capitalize on video in your 2016 marketing plans.

Include a video strategy

The first and most obvious step is to realize the importance of visual content online and make plans to include video in your 2016 marketing. You can shoot, edit, and produce these videos in-house, or as many in the industry are beginning to do, look to a company that specializes in video content.

These video producers can help you put a video marketing roadmap together for the year. Once you have it in place, ensure you execute and measure it.

Wow them from frame one

With the growing number of videos in the newsfeed of social media giants like Facebook, it’s important to make the first few images of your video compelling.

For dealerships, this means putting your most impressive vehicle shots first and focusing on items like infotainment systems and other "wow” factors before you discuss less-appealing visual content like safety systems.

Make it consumable

Even though we collectively view more than a billion videos a day, that doesn’t mean we want to spend endless amounts of time doing it. Be brief, get the information most wanted by the user out first, and then wrap it up.

In the auto space, people are visiting only one to two dealerships because they do the majority of the research online first. Often, by the time buyers walk in the dealership door, they know the car they want to buy and just need a test drive.

With this in mind, videos should give viewers all of the infotainment options, safety features, and bells and whistles of a particular model to help them research their decision.

The shorter, the better

In an article from The Next Web, Yoav Hornung of Veed.me described optimal times for a video based on the type being produced. For instance, although a talking head video should not last more than 60 to 119 seconds, some crowdfunding videos can run two minutes or longer.

One thing stays the same across all types of video, however: The longer the video, the shorter the viewer’s attention span.

Keep an eye on metrics

After you begin producing videos, you’ll find some work better than others. A key way to tell which videos are compelling to your target audience is by looking at the back-end analytics.

Metrics like total visits, unique visits, downloads, cost per visitor, bounce rate, and time on site are easy ways to determine which of your videos are engaging your site visitors. Another good way to track engagement is by looking at the amount of shares each video receives.

If you’re working with a video company, it should also be able to provide you with back-end metrics and make suggestions on which videos will work best for your auto brand.

With more than a billion views a day and counting, visual content can be the newest star of your marketing plan. Begin looking into ways to pump up your visual content for 2016, and reap the benefits all year.

Brian Wiklem is the director of izmostudio. He can be reached at brian.wiklem@izmocars.com.

Read the original article here http://www.dealermarketing.com/make-video-content-your-marketing-star-in-2016/