1. Go Back to Digital Marketing Basics
This year takes a page from the book of JFK, focusing on what you can do for your audience and not what your audience can do for you. According to experts, the three pillars are to “Engage, Educate and Entertain. So, forget viral bait and snazzy tech websites, and spend time and resources on data analysis, consumer behavior statistics, online questions/comments and cultivating the customer journey through video. These are great ways to connect with your customers and can lead to better resource distribution, successful strategies and loyal followings. All good things for B2B companies!

2. Must Have: Video On Your Landing Pages
Website statistics show that including a video on your landing page can be the key to success. According to GoAnimate, 60% of visitors prefer watching a video to reading about a company. Viewers are also three times more likely to click on links if there is video involved. Those are huge metrics!

Consider making your video presence even stronger. Apart from more clicks and better customer engagement, video analytics also generate more data than print, making it easier to not only track how many views you receive, but exactly how many minutes people watch, from where, etc. Plus, the smart phone invasion means more information is consumed on the go and it is easier to watch a quick video than to read an article.

3. The Creative Freedom of Animation
With such stiff competition on the web and more promotional videos than ever, B2B companies need to find a way to stand out. Animation may be your way of staying ahead of the digital marketing curve in an accessible and fun way. It also allows for enormous freedom when it comes to getting your message across. Think cartoons, word bubbles, scribbling, physical humor, info graphics, stick people, colors, white boards. It frees you from casting, weather and location issues, and is popular with younger audiences, entertaining, and the only limit is your imagination (and your budget).

4. The Continued Importance of CTAs
The acronym CTA (Call to Action) was tossed around a lot last year and it is here to stay. Marketers, companies, and business people believe that to not suggest action after product engagement is just bad business. In the same way, a video has little to no purpose if it doesn’t include a CTA. In the words of GoAnimate writers, “Carefully-crafted CTA’s will become increasingly more effective in a video—enticing viewers to watch something else, visit a new page, sign up a free trial, or buy a product.”

5. Smartphone Videos Rule
Think small. By that we mean think of all the iPhones, Androids, and intelligent devices hanging out in the pockets of your tech savvy consumers. In a video age where 4K video and 240FPS slow-mo are possible on your cell phone, the bar is set high for video companies. Check back with us soon for more on 4K Trends. Keep this in mind when thinking of fresh technical approaches.

Smart phones are also the main computing devices for most consumers these days. BrainShark states that 33% of tablet and smart phone owners are watching one hour of video or more on their devices and Go Animate says 40% of YouTube watchers are watching from their phones, with that number climbing to 50% in the next year. Keep this huge demographic in mind when rolling out your business models. For example: any video supers or title cards should be large enough to be viewed on a smaller device too. In short, it seems it is a smartphone world, and we’re all just living in it.

Here is to more and better videos in the New Year! Connect with us now so we can help you devise your video strategy with top-quality, attention-grabbing videos!