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6 Key 2017 Video Marketing Trends To Look Out For

January 13, 2017

Here at Digital Brew, we spent a lot of time talking about video marketing because it’s pretty much our bread and butter. We’re constantly scouring the internet for blog posts, webinars and think pieces on the subject in order to have the best understanding of the market we’re creating content for. In an effort to equip you (and your strategy!) for the new year, here are the top six trends we expect to dominate video marketing in 2017.

2017 Video Marketing Trends:

Live-Streaming Video

Live-streaming video had a heck of a year in 2016, with the integration of both Facebook Live and Instagram live video into the daily life of social media users. These developments followed the launch of game-changing app Periscope in 2014, which sparked a renewed demand for live video in all aspects of online life. (Yes, we do mean renewed…remember Stickam?) 2016 live video did bring us Chewbacca mom…needless to say we’re pretty excited to see what 2017 holds.

Live-Streaming Video Strategy:

There are a ton of awesome ways you can incorporate live-streaming into your 2017 marketing strategy. Some of our favorites include:

Holding free, online webinars for professionals in your field
Staging recaps or product demos in a live video format
Taking your followers behind the scenes at a corporate event or fun day at the office
Answering questions about a new format or service

Tip: Pick up an iPhone tripod before shooting any live video — the last thing you want is your phone to fall down in the middle of a broadcast!

Email/Video Integration

We all (should) have a mailing list by now, but it’s how you use it that truly makes or breaks your experience. Are your lists segmented, or are you just blasting out emails to everyone at once? Have you tried incorporating a drip campaign? Do you think about your subject lines? You should. SocialMediaToday reports that simply using the word “video” in your email subject line boosts open rates by 19 percent. Basically, if there were ever a time to start honing in on video and your mailing list, it’s now.

Email/Video Integration Strategy:

Start small. Repurpose an old brand story or explainer video you commissioned and make it appropriate in the context of your email. Maybe you’re sending it to a segmented mailing list full of hot leads, and you want them to better understand what you do. Maybe your weekly newsletter has a fun #tbt to a video you produced last year. However you incorporate it, make sure to include “video” in the subject line. You can even A/B test its placement. See what happens when you format the VIDEO tag in these different ways:

[VIDEO] 10 Modern Decor Ideas We Love
10 Modern Decor Ideas We Love (Video!)

Whichever one performs best can be your template for video email blasts moving forward.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality topped a lot of 2016 prediction lists, as was deserved: the fun, immersive world of VR has only room to grow as headsets become more widely accessible and more innovative content is produced for the platform. While we saw ton of growth in the area throughout the last year, we have a feeling 2017 will be a year filled with all sorts of new VR goodness.

Virtual Reality Strategy:

While high-scale VR will most likely remain a luxury hobby in the next year, anyone can pick up a $20 iPhone VR set on Amazon, which means creating everyday content for a VR platform shouldn’t be counted out. In less populated markets, there’s always room to be a front-runner — if your product or service is unique and you have the budget to create a piece of stand-alone VR content, 2017 will be the year to do it.

Innovative Explainer Videos

We love explainer videos around here. They make up a huge part of our portfolio, and we owe a lot of our success to the fact that we can craft explainer videos to fit any business’ budget and goals. This year, though, we have a renewed focus on videos that break that typical narrative explainer video mold often found online. This year, we want to see explainer videos that tell a story or explain a product in inventive and creative ways — not just through a well-written script. Whether that be through song or just plain animation (like the music-only explainer video we put together for Get A Print, below), thinking outside the box will only reap reward in 2017.

Get A Print from Digital Brew on Vimeo.

Innovative Explainer Video Strategy:

If you’re looking to create an explainer video yourself, we recommend sitting down and storyboarding it out before anything else. If you want a professional take (or just want to chat about what explainer videos are and how they connect you with customers!) click here to set up a call with Digital Brew.

Mobile Video

Mobile video is unquestionably on the rise in 2017. After all, video accounts for 55 percent of mobile traffic, according to Cisco. 2016 saw a rise in videos formatted specifically for mobile, like this music video by Chance the Rapper, which was filmed to format to an iPhone screen. We predict that 2017 will usher in a whole new wave of mobile-focused video production, so it’d be wise to be on the front end.

Mobile Video Strategy:

Mobile video doesn’t have to be formatted for the phone (though it does turn out pretty awesome!) but it does have to include one thing in particular: captions. Digiday reports that 85 percent of Facebook video is watched without sound, which means if your video doesn’t have captions you’re missing out on a healthy chunk of potential viewers. The easiest way we’ve found to create captions is by transcribing them in YouTube first, and then downloading the .csv file to upload on Facebook.

Influencer Marketing

Paid promotion is a whole new ball game these days, with influencer marketing quickly becoming the gold rush of this generation. More often we’re seeing companies dish out 6-figures to social media stars for their endorsement and watching as their bottom line rises. It’s not just for fit teas and fancy socks, either — shoe brands like Sperry, mattress retailers like Tuft and Needle and even the 3 musketeers candy bar have run influencer marketing campaigns. In fact, they’ve all run them with one ‘grammer in particular: Orion Carloto. Video influencer marketing is on the rise, too, and not just in the beauty and gaming markets you’d expect. There’s a YouTube community for virtually every demographic, and all of them are bursting with potential customers ready to dish out their wallets for your product or service.

Influencer Marketing Strategy:

While your budget might not allow for the most supreme of Instagram stars, chances are there’s at least one influencer in your network that can give you some paid word of mouth. Particularly if your target market includes millennials or generations younger, an investment into an influencer ad campaign is a relatively simple way to get eyes on your content. Our advice: be realistic, and go for natural. Even if you have the money, don’t force a campaign that doesn’t feel right or work with a star whose image doesn’t represent your brand. The more your influencer seems, at their core, like your target, the more likely you’ll be to land paying customers who want to be just like them.

2017 Marketing Trends: A Recap

Phew…that was a lot of ideas. Don’t feel overwhelmed, though — we’re just getting started, and you have time to strategize and incorporate the video marketing strategies that work best for your company’s vision. For a recap, here are the top video marketing trends we think will take over 2017:

Live-streaming video
Email/video integration
Virtual reality
Innovative explainer videos
Mobile video
Influencer marketing

Can you think of anything we’re missing? We’d love the input, and we’re super curious to know which strategies you’ll be trying out this year. Shoot us a tweet @DigitalBrew_co with your predictions for the new year.