Exploring The Future Of Video Marketing: 10 Emerging Trends And Technologies

1. AI-Driven Personalization

Video marketing is going to have a major personalization renaissance thanks to AI. Just like email automation allows marketers to personalize commercial emails by customer name, AI-powered personalization tools will allow video marketers to make their videos specific to individual prospects.

For instance, Synesthesia Studio is an incredible tool that allows marketers to generate realistic talking head videos from text scripts. The presenter looks human but is actually a digital clone of an actor on whom the AI is trained. Direct marketers can swap out names in the script and generate thousands of video messages that seem to be recorded for specific customers.

While Synesthisia Studio doesn't support mass automation at the moment, the text-to-video technology definitely has the potential to become a major personalization tool for video marketers in the future. Aside from personalization, AI will also affect video marketing in other ways.

2. AI-Powered Video Editing

Video editing programs will rely on AI for most of their repetitive features. For instance, color grading is a tedious process that might get automated completely because of AI. Video marketers will be able to produce higher-quality videos with less technical knowledge of video editing. The video editing market itself is changing because of how the content landscape is evolving.

More people are consuming short-form content, and the number of platforms that they are using is ever-increasing. This has fuelled the content repurposing market with specialized VAs and video editing programs like ContentFries that can help repurpose and multiply content.

It is also possible that AI will eventually replace content-repurposing assistants and editors, allowing marketers to repurpose content more easily.

3. The Creative Will Become Even More Important

There are two key drivers of the creative's importance in the video marketing space. But before getting into them, let's establish what the creative means. In advertising, "the creative" is the content of the asset. A graphic can be called a creative.

In a video marketing campaign, the video can be called a creative. In the marketing industry, the creative is the person who comes up with the idea. For instance, a copywriter can be a creative.

Both the creative (asset) and the creative (professional) will become more important in video marketing in the future. Firstly, social media's shift to the algorithmic content distribution model gives creative content a better shot at going viral regardless of the distributor's following size.

Secondly, video editing is becoming easier by the second, resulting in an influx of content. Because of this volume increase, standing out matters a lot more, and creativity is key in standing out remarkably.

4. There Will Be More Collaboration Opportunities

Video Marketing went from TV distribution (paid) to online pre-roll (youtube). After that, it was stagnant for around a decade. The podcast renaissance fuelled a new era in video marketing. Paid sponsorship of video content morphed into infomercial-style interviews.

Currently, many niche-specific products are sold with the help of expert interviews and recommendations. Video marketers will see plenty of collaboration opportunities as new micro influencers emerge in different scenes.

Cutting-edge marketers may not wait for that future to come about. They can usher it in by approaching podcasters, YouTubers, and vloggers. While co-creating and cross-promotion opportunities might increase, the generality of each opportunity will decrease. The future belongs to niches and communities. "Mass" doesn't work anymore.

A video marketer sponsoring a million-subscriber channel in an irrelevant niche will get poorer results than a thousand-subscriber channel with a relevant audience. Video marketers will need to be more niche conscious in their messaging, collaborations, and distribution.

5. Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality Will Be Used More Often

Virtual reality will become a significant distributor of video marketing. Games like Fortnite are already at the forefront of in-game promotions. When VR headsets are adopted by the masses, most games and even video entertainment will be consumed in the virtual space. Instead of watching a video on a small screen, one can watch it in a virtual theatre.

This will open up video marketing opportunities in the VR and AR realms. For instance, an art showcase or a beautiful scenic location could be designed for VR consumers. But to take a stroll in it, they have to walk past a virtual video billboard.

Much of what would be advertised in the virtual realm might be purchasable inside the game or the experience. Just like free games that advertise paid in-app purchases, virtual video marketing might be leveraged to sell virtual products and experiences. However, that doesn't mean physical products and even brick-and-mortar stores won't benefit from the VR revolution.

6. Video Marketing Will Become More Interactive

Imagine walking into a video of a furniture store instead of physically visiting one. The current VR technology is already capable of allowing you to view a virtual clone of a real space. And you can also purchase products within a VR experience.

So it doesn't take much to realize that the two options (exploring spaces and in-VR purchases) will be reconciled to make virtual shopping the next era of online shopping.

Even on-screen videos are set to be more interactive. As of now, interactive videos require specific players, so they are used sparingly. But as major video distribution platforms adopt interactive video-play capabilities, video marketers will have the chance to engage their users beyond clicks and impressions.

7. Live Video Will Continue To Gain Importance

As the average internet speed improves, so will live video's relevance. Almost every social media platform has live video broadcasting features. It is possible that video marketing will go beyond recorded video pitches and ads. Forward-thinking video marketers will find ways to integrate their products and messages into live streams.

Product placement in live streams is a no-brainer. Paid sponsorships need to be identified as paid messages, and this can often undercut their credibility. Placement, however, isn't governed by the same regulations that paid ads are. Where product placement will help with brand awareness, other live marketing opportunities would be used to encourage sales.

Webinars have been used to sell knowledge products for a while. It is very likely that live reviews and product unboxing streams would be leveraged to encourage direct sales. From brand marketing to direct product marketing, live video is set to be used more often by video marketers.

8. Shortform Video Marketing Will Become Its Own Category

The success of brands launched purely on TikTok virality suggests that video marketing for short-form content will become a formal discipline. It might even become an academic course module in marketing degrees. The way products are advertised in long-form content integrations is different from how they are included in short-form content.

Products advertised via short-form content must be shot in an aesthetic way. They have to be cut to the pace of the music and must advertise their own use within a 15-second duration. More importantly, there have to be at least 20 different pieces of content in a single ad campaign, because novelty volumes work together to make products memorable while keeping ads interesting.

Not everything is best sold on TikTok. So the marketing mix of a video campaign might rule out short-form or long-form content entirely. In the future, video marketers will be more selective and intentional about video duration as well.

9. Brand Vlogs Will Become More Relevant

More brands are starting to adopt brand vlogging, inviting people behind the scenes. These could become a standard checklist item for video marketers. HBO has "inside the episode" featurettes while Gary Vee takes his followers behind the scenes of his operation for most of his content.

As shooting and editing videos become easy, more solopreneurs will follow the Gary Vee method of marketing.

Brands might hire individual vloggers to document their BTS for video marketing. Or they might have their existing staff get better at marketing. Either way, video marketers will need to master the art of embedding stories in vlogs. Balancing storytelling with vlogging can make the brand itself exciting regardless of the product.

Video marketing will see a renaissance of branded content. The last rise of branded content dates back to the Mascots of the 60s. Mascots like Ronald McDonald have served as entertaining advertisers for decades. But there has been a major drop in their relevance. Entertaining brand content of the future will see the re-emergence of the brand representative and the mascot.

Mascots are just brands personified. And in the age of video marketing, the role of the mascot has to go to a charismatic CEO or a brand representative. These individuals need to be in vlogs and other content that can be consumed more intentionally.

The events industry has changed in a similar manner. Brands went from sponsoring events to hosting them under their own patronage. It is very likely that now, brands will start creating their own video viewership instead of relying completely on sponsoring third-party creators.

10. User-Generated Content

Much of the sponsorship money will flow toward encouraging user-generated content. With the rising rates of influencer sponsorships, the authenticity of most influencers is at stake. People trust paid sponsorships less and less, but they still trust user-generated content. Free gift hampers and PR packages are likely to outperform influencer sponsorships in the near future.

Branded hashtag challenges are already a thing, and more businesses are becoming aware of their potential. In the future, video marketers will have to come up with ideas that can be remixed/stitched/dueted by viewers.

It is no longer enough for your audience to just watch your video. They have to make videos based on your content. And every video marketer has to think about ways to incentivize user-driven content creation.

Giveaways and prizes are obvious rewards that can get more viewers to make videos featuring your products. But even something as small as a reshare, or a repost can be quite effective for encouraging content creation. Ultimately, one must know one's budget, product, and target audience to figure out ways to feasibly encourage content creation.

For a page with a big audience, simply resharing customer videos can be a powerful incentive. But for smaller business pages, the reward could be a physical gift for one of the users participating in a hashtag challenge.

Futureproof Your Video Marketing

To futureproof your video marketing, you must familiarize yourself with the available technology that will become mainstream in the future. Here are the best practices that can help you prepare for the future of video marketing:

• Master time-saving video editing apps - Time-saving video editing apps like ContentFries can help you produce more content to meet the higher volume demands of the future.

• Start building an audience - The sooner you start cultivating an audience, the better it is for you. The future belongs to those who have people willing to listen.

• Learn about VR and AR - You don't need to be an AR or VR engineer. But you need to be aware of the possibilities that these technologies bring to the table. Then, you can hire engineers or contractors to build AR or VR experiences for your campaigns.

Final Thoughts

Video marketing is an ever-changing field that will get its most significant upgrade from the leaps made by AR, VR, and AI technology. Where VR will make video marketing more interactive, AI will make it more personal. The ease of shooting and editing content will lead to a larger volume of content, making creativity the most crucial aspect of the marketing of the future.