Using video to improve the user experience

In this blog post, Shaun Stanbridge, Art Director at Huble Digital, explains how you can use video across your marketing, sales and service assets to improve the overall user experience of your business. 

Hi everyone, my name’s Shaun Stanbridge and I’m the Art Director here at Huble Digital. I work with clients on a variety of projects, ranging from brand and design, through to complex UX interactions. We all know how important user experience is nowadays. After all, it defines how positive -- or negative -- a person’s experience is interacting with elements of your brand. So in this blog I am going to explore how video can improve your customers' user experience.

In today’s fast-paced world of instant gratification, we’re accustomed to fast food, fast internet and fast news. We consume and are exposed to digital media at an alarming rate. On average, I consume around 6 hours of digital content per day. Whether it’s gaming, listening to music or binge-watching the latest Netflix series. 

‘Digital content,’ says Michael Phillips Moskowitz, former chief curator at eBay and founder of the behavioural tech company AeBeZe Labs, ‘has practically become the world’s most ubiquitous material, after water and carbon.’ That’s why cutting through the clutter and standing out amongst the crowd is more important than ever for the modern marketer, and one way to do it is by using video. 

Video allows businesses to create and share content with their audience in a way that plain text will never match. People prefer videos because they don’t always have the time or patience to read through a lengthy product description. 

Video has become one of the most effective ways to promote, train and support your customers. If used correctly, it can provide your business with a surge in profits and leads. Studies have shown that the human brain will process visuals at nearly 60,000 times the speed of text. This is why using videos to promote your brand and improve the customer experience is far superior than relying on endless walls of text.

Here are a few ways that you can use video to improve your business and customer experience:

Sales:

If your company does any type of digital marketing, then embedding video is a cost-effective way to reach and delight your customers. Vidyard is a great tool, as it allows you to get face-to-face with your target audience without leaving your desk. Video email allows for compelling messages that drive clicks and open rates while showcasing the unique value your company offers. 

Marketing:

Many businesses use video marketing as a great tactic to improve consumer engagement, click-throughs, and traffic. A study by Implix showed that using video in emails improves open rates by 5.6% and click-through-rates by 96.38% when compared to emails that have no videos in them. 

Service

Explainer videos are another great way to engage with your customers. The videos could detail how a product works, or show a user how to engage or interact with your digital product. This empowers customers to figure things out quickly and easily for themselves, without needing to read extensive documentation. Some businesses have reported an average conversion rate increase of nearly 20% by using explainer videos. 

Vlogs

Video blogs hosted on third-party sites like YouTube are a cost-effective way to create daily content for your customers. Quite simply, vlogging is video blogging, as opposed to written blog posts. Vlogging can be based on a topic, making it an ideal medium for individuals and businesses alike. Most of these video blogs happen on YouTube which currently has 2 billion active users each month. 

Video Marketing

Nearly 500 million people watch videos on Facebook every single day. This is why many businesses use video marketing for updates, product reviews and even customer testimonials. These marketing techniques are usually non-intrusive and are in line with how a person would view video content in their typical day. This is a great technique for getting your message out there, compared to a usual in-your-face ad.

Given the sheer power that visuals have over text, it is easy to see why video is the perfect marketing tool. It allows you to share specific and targeted content to your customers, and improve customer experience at the same time. Content is king — and video sits upon the digital throne.