Our Ideas For Video Marketing Trends in 2019

In 2019, marketers are continuously required to innovate, not only to capture the attention of their target userbases but also because the delivery mediums, especially social media giants like Facebook, have grown in prominence to an extent where they can set the rules in the marketing playbook. Critics argue that this has the potential to stifle out-of-the-box thinking, as marketers are forced to continually reiterate and refine within the formats promoted by the delivery mediums.

However, another way to look at this situation is that it creates an air of predictability around the marketing industry, not something a lot of marketers can claim to have experienced historically. Because the rules on social media are largely set to mimic user-preferred behaviour, it has become easier to identify trends and distinguish between what works and what doesn't.

So, is video, and especially personalized video, the future of marketing?

For almost a decade, marketers hyped video to be the future. However, marketers at the forefront of their industry in 2019 understand that video is already here, it is thriving and it is here to stay for a very long time. Standing at these crossroads, this is the perfect time to gain mastery of video before the rest of the market to create disproportionate returns while the industry is still maturing. Today, we see a huge surplus of content, especially on online channels, and breaking the monotony of this clutter can only be achieved by a humanized approach involving large-scale personalization, such as that pioneered by StoryXpress.

As the importance of video finally dawns upon the masses, marketers will continue the conversation around how to best wring out the last drop of returns from their video marketing strategies. Questions about the perfect video format will be rife, from short vs long to animated vs live-action, debates will be plenty.

The truth, however, is that just like generic creation of content for the masses, defining blanket industry best practices would be a very 2018 move in 2019, one that will be outdated from the get go. A better approach would be to wait and devise niche fundamentals for different use-cases.

While on the subject of trends, there are two major paradigm shifts we expect in 2019.

Analog Mediums Will Perish

As OTT platforms sink their roots deep into the cable-TV userbase, it is evident that the future of all content consumption is over the internet and not via analog cable TV. In 2019, we expect that the launch of newer players, including Disney+ and the rumored Apple platform to compete with Netflix, the fight for consumer attention will only intensify and as it appears, cable TV will lose that battle.

Video Will Evolve, And Personalization Will Become Mainstream

The age of the vanilla video will slowly come to an end in 2019, as the industry comes to terms with the video toolkit. With the benefits of video widely available to all marketers, innovation will come in the form of personlization and interactive video from the best marketers seeking to differentiate their work from their peers.

In addition, the idea that video is good at other things besides disseminating information will gain prominence. To begin with, we already know the video is by far the most effective tool to increase brand recall and conversions. With this in mind, it can also be used as a mechanism to collect user data and hit the right cords with your prospects by the means of relevant personalization.

At StoryXpress, we offer clients the option to add custom calls-to-action buttons as well as embedded forms within the videos, and we are confident that data collection and user engagement is barely scratching the surface when it comes to the wider capabilities of video content.

Video marketing will continue to evolve in 2019, not necessarily because of industry innovation but to maintain its relevance in the ever-changing social media and OTT landscape. As markets continue to be disrupted, the marketing needs of the new giants will be markedly different from the incumbents they replace, and every time that happens, we will see a newer, slightly tweaked subset of video marketing to take care of those needs.