Adding a video component to your marketing strategy is a powerful way to increase the reach and impact of your brand. The statistics for online video views are staggering and continue to grow. Comscore reported that in March 2014 over 187 million people watched online video and the average American watched over 17 hours of online video in the month.

Most marketers today are faced with the challenge of driving more leads that turn into more sales. If you are not including video in your campaigns and leveraging them for SEO, you are missing a key component for success. One out of four marketers say they use video in email marketing campaigns, but 43% of marketers cited a lack of video content as a key reason for not using video in their marketing programs.

If you can’t think of good ways to use video, here are a few ideas on the types of content that have been successful for our clients. You can create video about your company, products, services, events, content, news, key employees, client testimonials, and even how to tips. Video can be used to supplement any type of content you are currently using on your website or with your sales team.

Agile and strategic digital marketers incorporate affordable strategies that include video to drive traffic and increase engagement. Online video is a key component in content marketing that drives traffic, but more importantly it gives marketers the ability to tell a more compelling story that customers can identify with.

One example of a firm that uses video successfully is Dollar Shave Club. They have absolutely crushed it in terms of visitors and views with 8 videos on their YouTube channel and over 15 million views.

Here are six powerful reasons you should be using video in your marketing campaigns.

1. SEO. Videos can show up frequently in search results.
2. Sharing. Over half of 25-54 year olds share video –EMARKETER 2013
3. Popularity. . 90% of consumers watch online video –MEDIAPOST 2013
4. Engagement. Retail site visitors stay 2 minutes longer and are 64% more likely to buy than other visitors –COMSCORE 2010
5. Mobile. More than a quarter of the U.S. population or over 86 million people are expected to watch video on their Smartphones in 2014 -EMARKETER 2013
6. Reach. Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world with over 30 million visits per day.

So some of you may say that you’ve tried video and didn’t see much growth in traffic or sales.. The secret to a good video strategy lies not only in having a good video with strong content that someone would watch, but it also includes a good video SEO strategy. This starts with keyword research. Finding the keywords that are a good fit for your business and have enough traffic to matter, will give you a better likely hood of being found so that your video is viewed and ultimately drive traffic from video viewers to your website.

All successful marketers should be using video to increase the impact of their campaigns and grow traffic through SEO.