Live Video: Helping Marketers Survive the Shift Towards Real Time Marketing

Although traditional brick & mortar retail business is decreasing, the online retail or e-commerce is growing substantially year on year. CMOs and marketers are trying to find ways for brands to maintain the same personal relationships with their customers online, as more and more customers turn to digital channels when researching for products and services and are requesting information in real time.

Live video engagement presents a strategic opportunity for marketers to make their brands relevant in the digital age and help them stay competitive. This new digital marketing tool is a must-have amongst brands that wish to improve their online customer engagement and provide their online audience with relevant real time content.

We explain the importance of video marketing in your digital marketing strategy and how it can help CMOs and marketers survive the shift towards real time marketing:  

Every digital marketer is trying to keep their audience interested and continues to explore new innovative ways of storytelling. Right now the big opportunity lies in real time marketing!

There is a high demand for video content. It has become the preferred media for customers researching products and services online. But just a pre-recorded video is not enough anymore. Brands, big and small, are rapidly adopting live video, especially after Facebook launched Facebook Live in 2016. And why live video? What better way for your brand to increase engagement with your audience, expand the reach and build reputation!? What is more important is that your audience loves it! They want more of it and they just can’t get enough! It is time to get in front of your cameras (or smartphones, tablets, anything with a functional camera and internet connection) and start engaging!

The future of online content is in real time marketing – make sure you are there when your audience wants to engage with your brand.

Many big brands are already using live video to interact with their audience in real time. Many marketers are beginning to include live video chat on their website or landing pages, to increase their reach and encompass all of their customer’s touch points in the customer journey. Having a conversational technology embedded right on your website gives your brand a complete control over the message you want to put across and makes it more brand focused. What is more, you can reach your entire web audience (comparing to only relying on social media audience, which can be limited.). You can as well use live video as a part of your digital marketing mix and create PPC, email or display ad campaigns that redirect traffic to your website when your live video session is on! The process is also more seamless for your customers as participation in live video on your website does not require any login, plugin or download, if you use the right solution.

Vodafone Spain was one of the early adopters of live video in the Telecommunication industry and was able to leverage new ways of engaging with customers and establish itself as an innovative market leader. The brand is already ahead of the real time marketing game and has daily live video sessions from their “Virtual Store” on their website. Moving away from static online catalogues and pre-recorded videos, Vodafone wanted to engage with the audience in real time and take advantage of the opportunity that the competitors have missed – implementing live video chat on their website in order to connect with their online audience, increase communication with potential customers, build trust and form commitment. What is more, the chatbot functionalities, recently integrated in Vodafone’s live video chat, helped the brand to segment the audience and push their engaged viewers further down the funnel to a sale. This has had a positive impact on Vodafone’s online sales conversion rate, which has increased by incredible 24%; along with an increase in customer engagement and NPS score.

Have a look at Vodafone’s live video experience here:

The advantage of live video is that it bridges the communication gap between the brand and the customer and humanizes the online brand experience. The challenge is to create valuable and unique content that grabs your customer’s’ attention and connects them to your brand.

If you are looking for some content ideas for a successful live video sessions, have a look at this article we have previously wrote.

“Hubspot, Bufferapp, and Wyzowl found that:

• 82% of businesses plan to spend more on video marketing throughout 2017.

• 99% of businesses plan to continue using video through 2017.

• 59% of executives would rather watch video than read text.

• 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers in the future.

• Companies using videos in their marketing grow revenue 49% faster year-on-year than those that don’t (Aberdeen Group, 2015).
• Over 80% of video marketers agree that video helps with lead generation, with increasing traffic to their website, and with directly helping increase sales

Whisbi has deep knowledge, expertise and trustworthy global recognition in the Telecommunications, Automotive and Insurance & Banking industries. Our conversational technology emphasizes our customers’ digital channels, positively impacts on the online sales conversion rate and increases online customer engagement. 

Whisbi solution also helps brands enhance their digital marketing mix, by adding layer of interactivity to the marketing campaigns. The Whisbi One-to-Many conversational technology combines live video chat with an integrated chatbot. Our solution enables the online channel to become a more important component of how brands connect with customers, offering a truly compelling online experience. It makes the online interaction easier and far more personalized, offering a richer experience. The real value of digital comes when brands are able create a full “omnichannel” customer experience that brings physical stores online and provide a seamless customer journey. The only way marketers can survive the shift towards real time marketing is by implementing a conversational tool like live video chat on their website, and enable brands to engage with their customers online in real time.

Urska Blagojevic

Urska is our Marketing Director and apart from all her major responsibilities, she enjoys writing blog posts in her little free time to pass on her knowledge about how Whisbi is revolutionising the customer experience for Enterprise.