The human brain is a powerful thing. Each of our five senses lead us to perceive things differently and alter our approach to situations. Marketers have used our knowledge of how the senses work for decades. In fact, the study of psychology is the entire basis of the marketing and advertising industry. How we think determines how we buy. And how we think can be influenced more effectively through video than static images or text.
The study of the human brain with regards to marketing is better known as “neuromarketing”. Scientists have figured out what colours, smells and sounds encourage customers to buy. Creating the right environment to stimulate a specific reaction can mean the difference between a bounce and a lifetime client. There’s no wonder why video yields such stellar conversion rates.
Video is the marriage of two senses: auditory and visual sense. We edit together words and melodies with colour and animation to somehow impact the viewer. Look at the above images. Which has more impact on you, the static image or the animated one? Probably the animated one because it feels real. This is how videos make viewers feel, and why they make a greater impact.
Using video instead of plain text on your site has an unmatched positive impact on brand recall and conversion rates. Unruly conducted a study that revealed brand recall was 7% higher after viewing a social video than just browsing the web.
Even more statistics are listed below to prove this point.
1. “Vision trumps all other senses,” wrote John Medina in his book, Brain Rules.
2. Using animation helps us crop out the unnecessary elements to focus on only what matters, thus increasing the likelihood of the viewer remembering the information over 50% longer.
3. “You cannot learn or recall anything outside of a sequence,” said Jeff Hawkins on TED. Video is a sequence of elements perfectly crafted to make for a memorable data set.
4. 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in their online purchase decisions.
5. More than three out of five consumers will spend at least two minutes watching a video that educates them about a product they plan to purchase.
In fact, Unruly COO Sarah Wood also stated: “If a brand creates great video content and makes it easy to share, it will see impressive results across the entire purchase funnel.” Those are stats and conclusions that, as content marketers, we cannot ignore.
Video is an unbelievable engagement tool, there’s no doubt about that. Not only can you use certain animations and sounds to evoke different emotions in your viewers, but you can also make yourself more memorable in the long run. Can your plain text website and static images do that?
