Insurance Marketing Ideas: Animated Videos
Are Videos Effective in Insurance Marketing?
Since the invent of YouTube, the popularity of videos has skyrocketed. Videos offer insurance marketing professionals the best of both worlds - a way to emotionally connect with website visitors while also improving search engine optimization results. The big downside? Professional videos can be expensive and time-consuming to produce. Until now. Now, insurance companies are beginning to explore animated videos as a lighter, less expensive alternative. To help you learn more about this insurance marketing option, this week we're featuring a guest author ... Bill Murphy from Egghead Interactive.
If you’re selling products online and haven’t been using video in your insurance marketing efforts, it’s time to add it to your marketing mix. Because according to a wealth of recent studies and statistics, there is no question that video has a huge impact on consumer purchasing behavior.
Considering that online video were the fastest growing ad format in 2012, with a 55% growth spurt, it’s no wonder that videos are impacting the online purchasing decision. A report by Internet Retail, 53% of all consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in their online purchase decisions. In fact, when a video is information-intensive, 66% of consumers state that they’ll watch the video two or more times.
Here’s an even more startling statistic: according to Retail Touchpoints, shoppers who viewed videos were 174% more likely to make a purchase than shoppers who did not. Internet Retailer reported the same information: visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who did not watch a video. These are remarkable numbers, which shows that if you don’t have a product video, you’re missing out on a large percentage of sales!
But before you run out with your smartphone camera to shoot a video for your products, here’s another statistic to consider: professionally produced videos that are optimized for eCommerce applications outperformed user-generated video by 30%. And more and more companies are using videos – video views on retail and brand sites during the fourth quarter of 2011 were 3 times higher than the fourth quarter of 2010. And viewing translates to conversions as well: as reported by Specialty Retail Reports, retail sites with video increased conversions by 30%, and boost average ticket totals by 13%.
One survey found that 20% of all males cited online video as a significant influence on recent purchases of jewelry and watches. Shoppers who viewed video at Onlineshoes.com converted at a 45% higher rate than other shoppers. And the site has seen a whopping 359% year-over-year increase in video views. Product pages with video have higher conversion rates than product pages without it.
The numbers for smartphone marketing are even more impressive. According to the Google retail blog, smartphone video views jumped by 60% from 2010 to 2011. And a smartphone that gets one million views during the launch week typically sells over 1.2 million units in the 12 weeks after launch!
It’s no secret that companies are jumping on the video bandwagon. Internet Retailer noted that shoppers refer to research products online prior to making an in-store purchase, and recommends that video content should be available online, as well on in-store kiosks, touchscreens and smartphone integration. And finally, Reckitt Benckiser, a consumer packaged goods firm, found that online video delivered a 6% increase in in-store sales!
All of these statistical increases translate to a huge dollar volume increase at the cash register. There’s no question that video is a vital part of driving consumer spending, and having a professionally produced video is the smart way to go!
For more information, visit Egghead Interactive.