How does Covid 19 affect video marketing?

4/12/2023

From the end of 2019 up to now, Covid 19 has dramatically shocked and affected the whole world.

Covid 19 is unpredictable, and of course, nobody waits for it. It causes so many health and work changes, most notably the rise of video marketing trends.

Now, video marketing has become an essential part of education, information sharing, collaborating, entertainment, and socializing.

But what proves Covid 19’s influence on video marketing? What have businesses been doing to adapt to this change?

The following article will give you a closer view of Covid 19’s impact on video marketing.

COVID-19 makes video marketing a new trend

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, 80% of consumers have more digital content than before.

The overall consumption of the media is projected to continue to increase, whether consumers are looking for digital content for entertainment, information or both.

COVID-19 pushed people to use less time for face-to-face activities and spend more time participating in digital content or activities. (Forbes)

By 2022, the video content will account for approximately 82% of all creations—15 times higher than in 2017.

In Cisco’s report, video has taken over the area of content creation and will continue to take over. Because of this upward trend, video captioning and video marketing investments have an incredible value for future marketing success (Cisco).

66% of enterprises used video during the global pandemic to communicate with key players.

Participants include a broad range of audiences, such as partners, investors, clients, or staff.

67% of these businesses use Video Conferencing and Web Meeting software to internally and externally communicate with each other, while 33% explicitly developed content for COVID 19 (Fifty Wheel).

Videos take up 12 times more shares compared to text and images.

Video content evokes the viewers’ deep and memorable emotions. You can raise your message, product, and brand reach by liking, commenting and sharing videos across different platforms (Small Business Trends).

When captions are available, 80% of consumers are more likely to watch a full video.

If closed captions are not available, viewers will select a different video instead of turning on their sound.

Since 85% of videos are viewed without sound, the need for subtitling in videos is evident and transformative. (Forbes)

31% of businesses declare that they will invest in online video software, while the other 31% say they will keep the current budget.

Most businesses invest in video software and technology to reach their audience successfully. As companies across industries and across the world utilize future software – video – the impact of video contents on the ads and sales is obvious. (Fifty Wheel)

More than six out of ten people expect to increase their use of YouTube.

YouTube is an unbelievable platform to increase video involvement as a marketer. Videos are popular in the era of COVID-19, whether they intend to distract, inform or entertain the audience. (Izea)

Content on home working, telecommuting, lower stress, fitness, cooking and studying has increased dramatically.

The content for topics that are reachable from home boosts the reach of videos and users engagement. During the COVID-19 era, video marketing must be made specifically for the customers’ demands and needs. (The Shelf)

A person will be watching an average of 100 minutes of video/day by the end of 2020.

Viewers will spend an hour of video consumption per day on new and innovative content now more than ever.

This increasing trend in video consumption offers companies and individuals the opportunity to reach audiences from all backgrounds. (Forbes)

The result of a video search has a click rate 41% higher.

Videos have a better chance of appearing on the first Google results page than plain text such as blogs, or articles.

Videos will help differentiate your content from the overcrowded media landscape if you include them in your marketing campaigns. (AOK Marketing)

Purchases of product videos are up by 144%

The content of videos keeps your consumers stay on your website. Indeed, visitors to the site who watch videos stay twice as long as visitors don’t watch videos.

Video content increases traffic and sales significantly, whether it’s videos or product reviews. (Hubspot)

75% of respondents are looking for ads that inform the brands’ efforts to address the COVID-19 crisis, but are not going to exploit the situation of the coronavirus to promote themselves.

The current market climate doesn’t focus on consumerism, while promoting your products, ideas, or brands is essential to business success.

To educate or distract viewers, you should use your platform. This creates a positive brand image in the eyes of consumers. (Kantar)

However, 43% of consumers think that the messages that COVID-19 conveys now are similar.

Consumers find it’s reassuring to hear and learn from brands they “know and trust” as the COVID-19 pandemic booms. However, you should diversify your messages to keep your audience interested in your video content and interactive media. (Click Z)

What can we do other than watch video content with shelter, stay-at-home, WFH, and other measures relating to COVID-19?

It’s time for video consumption: The number of new subscribers in Netflix reached 16 million worldwide. Sky reported that ‘Bulletproof 2’ reached over 5.4 million downloads, and All4 has increased by 54% YoY.

This can look like a growth-related only to entertainment, but numbers say something different. As people stay indoors and their lifestyles change suddenly, consumers spend more time online than ever before.

The search phrase “buy online” rose by 50% in just one month in March 2020.

Some brands adopted the “sofa surfers” trend and began to adapt branded video content to meet their needs. Although the economy is slowing down and financial instability, people are going online and shopping.

Companies should, however, review their strategy for video communication as 43% of consumers are unhappy with the COVID-19 message from brands.

How marketers react to the new world trend

Video is now the “new normal enabler” that helps brands and clients communicate when offline interactions are numb. Videos bridge the gap between information, education, engagement, entertainment, and customer communication.

From business aspects, videos enable marketers to involve, communicate, retain and lead to tangible results during the COVID-19 pandemic (and probably for a long time).

Why should you bet on video? Marketing spending has been dramatically reduced: out-of-home advertisements are not meaningful now, but even digital ad spending has been decreased.

Because of lower revenues, companies have to cut down on marketing budgets. Limited resources, therefore, encourage more and more marketers to take video marketing into account.

While the video was growing before the pandemic, these extreme conditions “forced” brands to rethink their approach to some of the new video marketing trends they ignored.

There are some of the major “transformations”, for example, due to the lockdown, companies have adopted many more different trends in video marketing.

How to match the video content strategy to the new customers

In order to deal with the quarantine, companies have to change their marketing strategies.

Changes were minor or major in almost all aspects of the company: operation hours, brand-to-consumer communication, budget limit, product releases, and overall planning.

Besides advertising and promotional videos, videos are becoming stronger and more widely used in customer support, direct communication based on perspectives, and educational methods.

1. Try to cut down on production costs

Working remotely has convinced marketers to take advantage of video creation. Companies are accustomed to recruiting camera crews, professional lighting, sound equipment, and closely controlled devices when thinking about video marketing.

How does Covid 19 affect video marketing?

An example of low cost video from McDonald’s

In the pandemic, more brands have begun to think of doing everything as vloggers are doing, which means they are creating short-form, amateurish videos that offer great opportunities for the creative production of content.

New formats continue to evolve and flourish with new consumption habits and shorter attention spans.

The video marketing industry now includes low-budget videos – they look nothing like ads, or promotional videos, which customers are likely to skip. This type of manufacturing helps brands take up other trends and industry mottoes:

Authenticity
Humanisation of the brand
Connectivity

With fewer brands ready to invest in high-budget production, even larger brands are now going to ‘sofa broadcasts’.

With 74% of brands admitted that their social accounts are lower, some brands can gain a share of the competition’s voice.

Recognizing that laid-back videos are a significant part of future marketing, brands can benefit almost pioneers compared to people who can’t imagine posting low-budget videos from official business accounts.

COVID-19 makes us understand that we’d better make videos with what we can, or we may lose your audience right now.

2. Focus on authenticity as the main factor of brand communication

Loyalty to a brand is not easy to gain. Companies are expected to act and feel more and more like humans. And the core of this trend is authenticity.

Customers are now concerned with brands’ attitudes related to social and political issues. These were highlighted solely at the height of the BlackLivesMatter movement or the precautions of #COVID-19.

An great example of how business appear as humans

Research conducted by Edelman shows that 65% of consumers say brands’ reaction to the pandemic will influence their business/product attitude. 33% admit that they withdrew from a brand because it didn’t meet their expectations.

Companies are expected to join the global talks and to tell the people what matters behind the brand. And videos are a great way to talk and reveal what the brand stands for.

Some brands use a sense of humor successfully and show how they care about customers during and after the pandemic.

Many brands approached the challenges with more personality and touch by remembering and celebrating good moments with their customers.

3. Use live streaming as one of the cheapest formats of video

While there is no new trend, COVID-19 has increased the popularity of Livestreams. People tend to distract themselves from their devices during the WFH process and watch a live stream.

Live Q&A video

Whether for practical purposes ( the fitness workouts have all been performed live during a pandemic), or entertainment purposes, US streaming consumption has grown by 73% between February and March 2020.

And brands benefitted Livestream videos as well. It’s a cost-effective way to communicate with and engage the audience:

Education: Instructional programs, documentaries, lectures and panel discussions, etc.;

Support and customer service: Live questions, interviews, webinars;

Connectivity and entertainment: Bloopers, behind the scenes, funny moments at work, etc.

4. Get people to know people behind the brand

People buy from individuals. A brand that cares for its service/product or customers and employees will have the edge over competitors.

Let customers know people behind the brand is a good way to communicate with them

This is particularly urgent at a time of the global pandemic. While this strategy requires employees to overcome the fear of the stage, increasing numbers of companies show customers their employees and highlight that there are careful persons behind each brand who try their best to do for others.

5. Increase stock growth

Not only are stock markets up – stock footage becomes more and more popular as actual video shooting temporarily takes place.

Stock footage provides a great alternative to investment in high-end production, especially when it’s not the time to spend money on high-end projects.

According to internal Wave.video users data, 79% of all ready-to-use (rendering) videos include stock videos. And stock visual assets were used over 92,300 times over the past 30 days.

Covid 19 took away from us many things, but it’s also an opportunity for us to reflect ourselves and see the appropriateness of what we have done.

Moreover, Covid 19 is also the most decisive demonstration of the importance of video marketing, making businesses reconsider and bring this advertising form to their marketing plans.

And most importantly, Covid 19 has made us get out of the comfort zone to get used to new promotion ways that we may not have thought about.

And businesses that can hold on and survive the epidemic will be confident that they can overcome all difficulties.

Don’t miss: