Have you climbed on board the video marketing train yet? If you own a small business or are in business for yourself, there’s a lot of compelling evidence suggesting that online video marketing should be a major focus of your advertising and marketing budget. Here’s just one big number that should make you sit up and take notice:

1.8 Million Words

That’s the value of one minute of video, according to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research.

Do you have the time and energy to write 1.8 million words? That’s the equivalent of 3,600 typical web pages. If you write an average of one web page an hour, it would take you 150 days of writing to achieve the impact of one minute of video.

When you look at it that way, online video marketing is the single most practical use for your marketing time and energy. Not convinced yet? Here are 15 more big video marketing numbers that should make you sit up and take notice.

What’s The Market for Online Video?

45.4%

According to comScore, which measures online engagement and use, that’s the percentage of Internet users who view at least one video online over the course of a month. The average user is exposed to an average of 32.2 videos in a month, increasing the chances that your marketing message will be seen. But what does that work out to in real numbers?

100 Million

That’s the number of Internet users who watch online video each day. Granted, a lot of those are watching the latest viral video with a goofy cat or a cute kid, but an awful lot of them are looking for advice on how to do something or how to make something work better. And a whole of them are looking to buy a service or product.

90%

The percentage of online shoppers at a major retailer’s website who said they find video helpful in making shopping and buying decisions. Retailers who provide online video to show off their products report that the products with video sell a lot more than products with no video.

75%

That’s the percent of executives who told Forbes that they watch work-related videos on business websites at least once a week.

The results breakdown:

50% watch business-related videos on YouTube
65% visit the marketer’s website after viewing a video

16 minutes and 49 seconds

According to comScore, that’s how much time the average user spends watching online video ads every month.

Takeaway:

If you’re not using video marketing, you’re missing out on a huge market opportunity. It’s not just the number of people who are watching videos that’s important – it’s the reasons why they watch it. When you post an online marketing video to a business website, you’ve got a great chance of engaging with a busy executive who is specifically looking for your services but might not have reached out to schedule a meeting for a presentation. Your marketing video is a great way to get your elevator pitch out into the ether and let it reel in leads.

What’s the Payoff for Online Marketing Video?

8 Big Video Marketing Results Numbers

80%

According to the Online Publishers Association, that’s the percentage of Internet users who recall watching a video ad on a website they visited in the past 30 days. It gets even better. Of that 80%, 46% took some action after viewing the ad. In fact:

26% looked for more information about the subject of the video
22% visited the website named in the ad
15% visited the company represented in the video ad
12% purchased the specific product featured in the ad

64%

That’s how much more likely website visitors are to buy a product on an online retail site after watching a video. In addition, visitors who view videos stay on the site an average of 2 minutes longer than those who don’t view videos, comScore says.

Online Video Marketing Is Not Just for Retailers

403%

An Australian real estate group reports that real estate listings with videos receive 403% more inquiries than those without videos. In other words, real estate ads with videos generate quadruple the leads of those without videos.

59%

According to Forbes Insight, that’s the percentage of senior executives who’d rather watch a video than read text. About 65% of those who view a video click through to visit the vendor website, 50% look for more information and 45% report that they contacted a vendor after seeing an online video ad. About 50% of those who viewed an online marketing video went on to make a purchase for their business.

And It’s Not Just Online

96%

In 2010, an Implix email marketing survey found that including a video in an introductory email increased the click-through rate by 96%. That’s nearly twice as many people clicking through to your website when you include a video in your marketing emails.

200%

The Forrester Marketing group surveyed businesses in 2010 and found that video did even better. When marketers included a marketing or explainer video in an email, the click-through rate increased by 200% to 300%.

75%

Do your email subscribers drop like flies? Eloqua, an automated email marketing provider, noted that including video in an introductory email reduced the number of subscriber opt-outs by 75%. Maintaining that contact is a vital part of establishing a relationship with prospects.

51%

One online marketer reported a 51% increase in subscriber-to-lead conversion rates when video was included in an email marketing campaign.

Takeaway: Video marketing increases sales and leads. If you’re not using video marketing, you’re losing customers to those who do. Businesses that incorporate video marketing into their overall marketing strategy see higher engagement rates, higher click-through rates and higher conversion rate. Why would you leave all that value sitting on the table?

How to Make Video Marketing More Effective: 4 Big Numbers About User Engagement with Video Content

10 seconds

That’s how long you have to grab the attention of viewers in a video marketing clip. According to research by Visible Measures, 20% of your viewers will click away from a video in 10 seconds or fewer.

And it doesn’t get a lot better than that. You’ll lose about 1/3 of your viewers by 30 seconds, 45% of them by 1 minute and almost 60% by 2 minutes. And those numbers remain the same no matter how long the video is.

5 minutes

There’s good news, though. While desktop viewers tend to stick with videos for 2 minutes or less, mobile users seem to have a longer attention span. iPhone users tend to watch for about 2.4 minutes. Android users give a video three minutes to engage them and Symbian users stick around for just over 4 minutes. iPad users have the longest attention spans of all, sticking with a web video for an average of 5 minutes.

16%

That’s the percentage of YouTube videos that are embedded, linked or shared on Tuesdays between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., according to Sysomos.

15 seconds

According to research conducted by Jun Group (2011), videos that are 15 seconds or shorter are shared 37 percent more often than those that last between 30 seconds and 1 minute. If you make your video longer, that stat goes down. Those shorties are only shared 18% more often than videos of longer than 1 minute.

Takeaway: Effective video marketing has to be engaging right from the start, but how do you know where your video is going off the rails? That’s where video analytics comes in. Detailed video analytics will tell you who’s watching your video, how long they stay engaged and exactly where they click away. Armed with that information, you can sharpen your message and target it more precisely. If you haven’t started your own video marketing campaign, isn’t it time you jumped in with both feet? There’s nothing to lose and about 403% more profit just waiting for you.

Andrew Follett is the Founder and CEO at Video Brewery. He lives in Chicago with his wife Hannah and enjoys travel, hockey, sailing, and maintaining his 300 acre ant farm (okay, not really). You can follow him on Twitter and Google+. http://www.videobrewery.com/blog/18-video-marketing-statistics