Did you know that 90 percent of people say videos are helpful in making a buying decision?

The fact consumers want video content is one reason behind the shift to video marketing.

Of course, not all videos are equal. Trends come and go, and your audience usually moves on with them. If you want to captivate and engage viewers, then you need to stay on top of what’s happening in video marketing.

If you follow these video marketing trends, you’re almost guaranteed results. If you’re hoping to get more from your ads, then give one or all of these trends a try.

Go Long with Videos

This trend may not work for ads, but long-form video is an emerging trend across social media platforms.

Many people think that video content has to be super-short. Viewers get bored and click away after just a few minutes, right?

Some studies have shown the opposite is true. People will pay the most attention to long videos, becoming more invested in them. Despite this, most video content is between 2 and 3 minutes long.

A long-form video series could help you drive traffic to your website through an ad. Someone may see a clip in the ad, then invited to discover the rest of the story.

If you want to get people interested in what you offer, you might make a series telling customer stories. How does what you offer benefit them? What creative ways do they use it?

This kind of content helps people see the more human side of what you're selling. It can also help potential customers see how your product or service can help them.

This trend goes hand in hand with a move back to longer video ads. While micro-videos seemed like the way to go for some time, more companies are producing longer ads. One of the reasons is that a longer ad can tell a more intriguing story.

Think in Vertical

Instagram introduced Stories some time ago, but the feature has become incredibly popular. In turn, it’s inspired a move to more vertical video.

Most videos are still in square format. Square is most likely to meet the requirements of all social media platforms. As Stories and IGTV have become more popular, it seems vertical video will soon dominate.

Vertical video is less likely to be cropped and more ready to accommodate your mobile viewers.

Making Videos Shoppable

One of the biggest video trends is finding ways to make videos interactive and shoppable. There’s been a steady rise in the number of marketers adding buy links to the end of their videos.

What if you could make an interactive video that lets viewers see the price of products showcased? They could tap the screen to see the price displayed. A second tap might let them add to their cart or a wishlist.

This idea is like the 360-degree video, which lets a customer explore a product via the video. With the majority of people being more likely to buy a product after watching a video, this trend helps you turn leads into customers.

Video Marketing Trends Prefer Quantity

Many companies are choosing quantity over quality. This tactic is paying off with consumers.

The old wisdom is that people want quality over quantity. It seems people’s desire for content outweighs their preference for quality. Viewers would prefer a low-quality video update every day versus a slick production once a month.

There are a few factors driving this trend. The first may be the increased focus on authenticity from viewers. High production values may feel “fake” and “overproduced” to your audience.

More frequent video updates feel more authentic and real. If they happen to be filmed on your iPhone with poor lighting, they feel even more authentic.

Quantity also pushes your content through some algorithms. If you update often, your content has a higher likelihood of reaching someone’s feed.

How does the trend to quantity benefit your ads? It can help you as you create different campaigns for different segments of your audience. The more video clips you have to use in an ad, the more you can select videos that speak to different audiences.

Videos Meet SEO

Search engine optimization has long been the domain of blogs and other text-based forms of content. More options have become available for video marketers to make videos search-engine friendly.

Most of the SEO video tactics you can adopt originate from YouTube. More recently, Google added “Featured Videos” to its search engine results. This lets users view videos related to their search terms.

To boost SEO, you can add relevant tags and subtitles. You can also add keywords to video file names, titles, and descriptions.

You might wonder how this helps your ads. First, SEO can work hand-in-hand with your ads to increase exposure. If you do SEO right, you may be able to get your video to rank for competitive keywords.

The work you do with video SEO can also help as you design your ad campaigns. What clips or thumbnail images are you adding? These may become part of your ad.

Your targeted title and description may give you a great jumping-off point for creating your ad’s copy as well.

Video Goes Over the Top

Finally, if you’re looking for innovative video ad ideas, you might want to consider a new platform. Brands are increasingly using over-the-top (OTT) advertising to reach viewers.

OTT services like Hulu are offering more options for advertisers. Just make sure your videos are optimized and targeted for the platforms you want to serve them on.

Press Play on Your Video Marketing

As you can see, video marketing trends are changing the way marketers use video in 2020. If you want to get the most out of your ads, it helps to stay on top of the trends. Keep tabs on all the latest by checking in for more tips, tricks, and trends.

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