Digital Asset Management

The Rise of Enterprise Video in Marketing

March 3, 2021 6 minute read

Find out why more and more top businesses are strategically creating, using, and measuring enterprise video assets in their marketing efforts.

For nearly two decades, video has been the rising star of marketing. It started gaining speed alongside the launch of YouTube in 2005, and all signs point to continued growth through 2021 and beyond. Research from Social Shepherd found that 86% of marketers report they use video as a marketing tool. And 78% of those marketers felt videos directly increased sales for their business.

This wild popularity almost begs the question — why? Are businesses just blindly following trends or are their investments in the creation, management, and distribution of video assets more deeply rooted? Let’s have a look.

Why enterprise video is on the rise

The reason marketers are using video more often is simple; they’re getting more out of it. The stats are staggering. Over half of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best return on investment (ROI). Marketers that use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. And, adding video to a landing page has been proven to increase conversions by 80% or more. So, yes, video works. When done right, it helps businesses drive real results like leads, engagement, and (of course) sales.

But why? Why is video so darn successful at its job? According to Dr. BJ Fogg, author and Behavior Scientist at Stanford University, it has a lot to do with psychology, or “behavior change” as he says. In fact, Dr. Fogg created a whole model about it. His model states that three things — prompt, ability, and motivation — need to come together at the same moment for a behavior, such as the act of making a purchase, to occur.

In other words, for a consumer to purchase something, there needs to be a trigger (e.g., cue, prompt, call to action, request); the consumer must have the ability (e.g., financially or technologically able); and there must be motivation. This idea of motivation is where video comes in.

One of Dr. Fogg’s key concepts within motivation is “sensation.” Video, by default, combines the use of more human senses than other tools used in traditional sales and marketing scenarios. The more senses marketers can stimulate in an audience, the more emotion and sensation they can evoke. Done right, this aids in customer motivation.

The importance of enterprise video content management

The rise of enterprise video comes with challenges. Videos are large, which means they take up space on servers and are nearly impossible to distribute via email. And while file-sharing platforms like Dropbox can be used for individual files, they lack the search and organization functionality needed at an enterprise scale. As organizations produce more and more videos and grow their digital asset libraries, these challenges are further compounded by volume — increasing the odds of a logistics or branding misstep, or missed conversion opportunities.

Whether businesses produce video assets themselves or outsource them to freelancers, agencies, or other content creators, the entire process from production to storage, distribution, and publishing is complicated. Organizations that are serious about video marketing need to consider how digital asset management (DAM) factors into their video strategy. For many, this involves bringing on a DAM system with capabilities that can address video headaches like:

Managing large files: A DAM system can simplify video storage, sharing, and publishing by using cloud storage instead of local hard drives, link-based downloads that are easily shared via email or text, embed links that place videos on multiple websites with central control, and integrations with social media and other software platforms.
Inefficient workflows: Automatic preview generation, on-the-fly format conversions, tools to streamline asset routing and approvals, and a single source of truth makes managing large volumes of assets easy. Plus, thanks to embed links, businesses can automatically update or expire a video that lives on multiple websites by simply swapping out the master file in the DAM system.
Flying blind: Even with the rise of “snackable” or rougher-cut live video content, video production takes time and money. A DAM system with built-in analytics helps organizations understand who uses their videos, when, where, and how. Armed with these insights, organizations can put their money where it counts and optimize content creation efforts.

How to streamline the video workflow

With different departments, partners, and teams all utilizing the same video assets, workflow is critical. After all, there’s a lot that can go wrong from creation to approval, publishing, promotion, archiving, and beyond. Without the right processes and technologies in place, organizations will struggle to get the most out of their resources and video assets. By following a few best practices — like the ones below — organizations can set themselves up for success.

Document workflows, approval processes, roles and responsibilities, and other guidelines.
Store and manage all guidelines and digital assets in a central, accessible location, such as a DAM system.
Evaluate current workflows and map out how existing or potential technologies can work together to support efficiency.
Create appropriate roles and permissions to ensure the right groups of people have the right level of access to the right files. For example, the sales team may only need to view and share final videos, whereas production teams may need to download b-roll in high-resolution formats.
Ensure teams have easy access to video content in the format they need for different platforms. Sales teams need to download compressed, high-quality viewing formats like MP4, whereas video teams need access to uncompressed, high-quality editing formats like Apple ProRes and Avid DNx.
Automate as many processes as possible so that teams can focus on more strategic, creative work. Acquia DAM’s Workflow app can automate multiple rounds of approvals. So for example, after a product manager approves the video it can be automatically routed to the legal team.

As video continues to pick up speed, large organizations need to keep pace. By leveraging a video asset management solution, enterprises can better manage their digital assets, workflows, people, and brand.

To find out how Acquia DAM (Widen) helps enterprises get the most out of their video marketing, read more about our approach to video asset management. Or, to see how we can meet your video content needs, request, watch, or click through a demo of Acquia DAM today.