Why Business Videos Are Becoming the New Yellow Pages

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as video marketing. Households all over the country would wake up on a random morning in the fall to find the following year’s official Yellow Pages waiting to greet them. Packed inside the canary-colored behemoth and world’s flimsiest book were phone numbers and addresses for every business in any given city.

Adjacent to the endless list of numbers and letters were colorful ads, some as large an entire yellow page. These ads were too expensive for the average small business owner to buy. Only companies that made quite a bit of money could feasibly afford them. Most were lawyers. Some were banks. But small, brick-and-mortar, mom-and-pop shops weren’t featured in living color too often.

Long gone are those books, and with them, the accompanying gigantic ads for men in suits and ties. Business videos have taken their places. Phased them out. Once the internet blossomed, and everything changed. Suddenly, everyone could advertise. We’ve effectively replaced an entire mega-printing and advertising industry with digital content and Google.

The Power of Video Marketing

In cyberspace, video marketing is like a gigantic book of yellow pages. All that is required is to create a corporate video about your brand—or anything involving your brand, and deliver it to your audience via social media.

And it’s useful, too. Tubular insights reports that 64% of consumers who interact with video marketing make purchases shortly after watching the branded video. They act like steroids to your conversions. They can make your business some serious money. Just adding a product video to your landing page can boost your rate by as much as 80%!

Explainer videos are big right now. Studies suggest 74% of users who watched just one, subsequently purchased the product in the video. So forget the giant book of yellow newsprint. Get started on your brand’s first explainer video.

Business Videos Encourage Social Shares

Ever try sharing a nifty yellow page after ripping it out of the phone book? You’re right. No one did. Video begs to be shared with others. Think about it. Despite being in a state of near-guffaw at whatever cats are falling off now, you still hit the share button.

It’s not just you. It’s human nature. Turns out 60% of social marketers used video content in 2015. Sounds like a lot, right? It’s grown since then. In 2015, that number was 73%. Social media encourages the creation and sharing of business videos. Facebook ranks videos used in video marketing near the top of the totem pole. Only live videos ranked higher.

Branding Videos Appeal to Mobile Users

Mobile phones and video are the biscuits and gravy of social media. Almost everyone watches video on their phone. 90% of consumers engage with branding and business videos using their devices. YouTube says mobile video consumption doubles every year.

It increases as the number of smartphone users increases. And as it does, so does the size of your audience. A bigger audience means a more massive reach for your video marketing campaign. No reason to miss those Yellow Pages anymore.

Google reports that smartphone users connect to brands on a personal level. It’s easy to see why. You’re holding the product—be it a Porsche or a chick nugget – there in the palm of your hands and up to for your face for several minutes. It’s a real and long-lasting connection.

How does this compare to the antique Yellow Pages of yore? Well, do you remember anyone in those colorful, center ads? Unlikely.

Google Loves Business Videos

If for no other reason, business videos are becoming the new Yellow Pages because Google loves them. As the cream of Google, videos consistently rise to the top.

Here’s how. Videos take up more of a viewer’s time than text or photo content. The viewer must stop what they’re doing to take in what’s happening on the screen. It begs for their attention. This increases the length of a visitor’s stay on your site.

Google sees this because Google sees all. A more prolonged exposure tells the almighty Google that your site has some primo-level content and should rank higher over other sites with shorter-timed visits.

Moovly paints quite the picture: Viewers are 53-fold more likely to claim a highly-coveted, front-page spot on Google’s search results if your site has a video waiting for a would-be “googler” to happen across it. So, embed one on your page right now. You can even do it right on YouTube and still achieve the result because Google owns it.

Don’t just post them willy-nilly, either. Optimize your business videos for SEO. Get creative with the titles. Use a tool like Headline Analyzer to help you come up with a snappy, punchy, or catchy title. Don’t leave the description blank. Link back to your site or brand’s site. Tag the video with keywords. And above all, do not forget to add in a great CTA.

Video marketing is like The Karate Kid, actor Daniel Russo. The Yellow Pages are that kid from the Cobra Kai—everyone has to Google to remember. It wasn’t even close.

Yellow Pages have been relegated to hotel-drawers and porch-piles. Their days of not-so-glorious, unaffordable, advertising are tales of forgotten lore. They’ve been replaced by branding, explainer, product, and business videos. It’s your turn. Brand awareness is derived from engagement and no one is engaging with that old, yellow book.