Expand Your Content’s Reach: Use Video & Text to Match User Preference, Time & Setting
When people visit your website, you’ve got only one shot to engage them and funnel them toward becoming paying customers. If they don’t find content that appeals to them, they’re gone. Poof. Back to the world wide web to give their business to someone else.
Offering your viewers two content formats–text and video–helps you cast a wider net and decrease your bounce rate. Here’s why:
This page is part 1 of a 3-part series on the power and benefits of combining written copy with video. Read the entire series.
The Environment
Where and When your viewers access your content can determine whether an article or a video works better for them, depending on how their settings change as they go about their day.
Physical Surroundings
Glare outdoors makes screens hard to see, but audio can still get the point across.
A plane’s wifi is too slow to load a video.
Social Situations
Sometimes it’s rude to fire up a video.
But when it comes to sharing, video is often the best choice.
Time Of Day
Video may work better for a viewer with just a few minutes to spare.
Someone with more time might appreciate in-depth text.
The Subjects
Who your viewers are and What they’re viewing (and viewing on) also impact the likelihood that text or video will work better for them.
User Demographics
Are you targeting millennials? 80% of them consider watching a video when researching a purchase.
Seniors watch the fewest videos of any age group but are more open to information-heavy videos than other demographics.
Learning Preferences
68% of customers would rather learn about a product or service via video.
But 72% also say they won’t do business with a company until they’ve read a positive review.
An Example: Tackling a Complex Subject with Text + Video
Complex topics, from insurance products to nitric oxide (see the video, below), may be summarized and simplified with a short video, with accompanying text conveying the finer details.
The Importance of Device Type: Smartphones vs Computers vs Tablets
So viewer preferences and lifestyles are still the chief concerns. Text or video considerations in regards to the technology involved include:
the data involved in downloading a video, which can be high for a long video
the ability to view content on a small screen, especially for seniors
how much bandwidth is needed to share the content
the volume of any audio, as many smartphones have weak speakers
whether the text has a lot of hyperlinks to other pages, which can make them harder to keep up with on mobile devices
Viewers’ hardware--whether they’re on their phones, a laptop or PC, or using a tablet--factors into virtually all of the above considerations.
Although in earlier days of the internet display problems were fairly common, most modern browsers and operating systems can handle text and video with equal ease, often optimizing for their screens automatically.
Modern websites should also always have compatibility built in.
Take Your Content to the Next Level
Our Next Level Content Marketing program combines the power of professional 3D video and SEO-conscious content to produce big results for your business. Grow your web traffic, generate leads, increase your conversions, and boost your sales with the HandBuiltBrands turnkey digital marketing package.
Where to Next?
This page is part 1 of a 3-part series on the power and benefits of combining written copy with video.
Part 2: Boosting SEO Performance
Using both written text and video can help boost your search engine rankings both directly and indirectly.
Part 3: Becoming More Than the Sum of Their Parts
Text and video can combine in unique ways - such as reinforcing the same message, telling different parts of the same story, and covering long-term and short-term messages - to give your content more depth and substance.
