Video Killed the Radio Star

If you are old enough to remember, the headline of this article was the song title of the first video ever played on a burgeoning cable channel called MTV. MTV ended up changing how music was consumed and marketed in the decades ahead. (Trivia question: What band recorded that song?)

What do MTV videos and pest management have to do with one another? On the surface very little, but if you attended the National Pest Management Association’s Technology Summit in December 2019 and sat in on the session by Jeff King of The Pest Rangers of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., you walked away singing a different tune.

King has enlisted video marketing as a way to reach consumers in Northeastern Pennsylvania to tell his company’s story in a way that will stand out, especially to the sought after Millennial and Z generations who are seeking to engage solutions for their pest issues.

“Video fits into today’s customers’ habits for gathering information and making decisions on who to work with,” says King. “Video makes complex concepts simple and shares the journey with the customer.”

When you consider that more than 300 hours of video are uploaded each minute and almost 5 billion videos are viewed daily on YouTube, you see why video marketing has its appeal.

King got started with video marketing after watching a local television commercial for a car dealer and being impressed with the quality of the video. He knew the owners of the dealership and they connected him with the local production company that produced the commercial.

The conversation with the production company led to The Pest Rangers doing one long (2 to 3 minute) and two short (30 to 40 seconds) videos each month. The videos feature King and Pest Rangers employees in “explainer videos” that inform and educate customers on everything from how to set a mouse trap to breaking down the company’s home pest protection packages.

When it comes to selecting a production company, King says do your research and ask questions, so you know fully what’s involved from costs to time commitment. King says they typically spend one day a month shooting and the production company creates multiple videos from that day.

“So much can be done with video when it comes to answering customer questions and putting a face to your company,” says King. “It allows us to take a picture and share a story.”

When it comes to sharing a story, King isn’t afraid to allow customers to look behind the curtain at The Pest Rangers. The company recently shared a video documenting a mouse issue they had in their office and what they were doing to solve it.

While many PMPs wouldn’t be too keen on sharing that they have a mouse issue in their own “house,” King thought it would be a fun way of getting the message across.

King recommends pest management professionals keep the following in mind as they embark down the path of video marketing:

• Select a professional video production company to work with — quality in presentation matters.
• Be mindful of what you say and your actions in all videos. Project professionalism and always emphasize safety.
• Have fun with it. Engage employees who are interested.

Grow Revenue. Marketers who use video are growing company revenue 49 percent faster year-over-year than those who don’t.

Influence Buying Decisions. A whopping 90 percent of customers say that product videos help them make buying decisions and 64 percent say that watching a video makes them more likely to buy. Plus, 97 percent of marketers say that video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service.

Give People What They Want. Consumers prefer video content over emails, newsletters, social images, social videos, blog posts and downloadable content (like PDFs). When consumers are considering buying a product or service and want to research their options, they use a variety of methods. Some of the top tactics include using a search engine, visiting a company or product’s official website, looking at review websites, and watching videos. Video easily can be added into each of these platforms, giving your brand a better chance of convincing the consumer.

Rank Higher in Search. Video can help improve your website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). The amount of time a visitor spends on your page after arriving from a Google search can impact how high you appear in results. Known as dwell time, this is an important Google ranking factor.

• Video is an incredibly effective way to bump up this metric, with 80 percent of marketers saying that video has increased dwell time on their sites.
• The average Internet user spends 88 percent more time on a website that contains video. And, on average, websites that include video have a two minute longer dwell time compared to those that don’t.

Websites that make effective use of video increase their likelihood of being ranked on the first page of Google results by as much as 53 percent. Finally, 55 percent of search results for keyword searches in the U.S. contain at least one video.

Increase Website and Social Media Traffic. Video users enjoy 41 percent more web traffic from search than non-users.

Get More Backlinks. Embedding a video into a page or post nearly triples the average number of linking domains.

Bump Up Conversions. Video users have 27 percent higher click-through rates and 34 percent higher web conversion rates. Plus, using video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80 percent.

Crush Email Sends. Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19 percent, click-through rates by 65 percent and reduces unsubscribes by 26 percent. Adding video to email can boost click rates by up to 300 percent.

Reach Decision Makers. Three-quarters of business executives watch work-related videos weekly. Plus, 54 percent of senior executives share work-related videos with colleagues every week.

Furthermore, 59 percent of senior executives agree that if text and video are available on the same topic on the same page, they would prefer to watch the video. They’re not the only ones, though: 72 percent of people would rather use video to learn about a product or service.

Rack Up Shares. Social video generates 1,200 percent more shares than text and images combined. If your brand creates video content that the intended audience enjoys, 83 percent of consumers say they would consider sharing it with their friends.

Answer to the trivia question on page 62? The Buggles.

The author is a frequent contributor to PCT magazine and is a partner in B Communications.