Great customer service, in the past, hinged upon a friendly face and personable service from a human. Today’s customers prefer taking control and handling their needs online. In fact, 40 percent of customers prefer self-service to traditional customer service (i.e., human contact). They do not want to call a contact center, be transferred from one group to the next and have to repeat their information. Most importantly, they do not want to waste their personal time. Today’s customers are time starved, and it is only getting worse.

Self-service solutions can be used in every phase of the customer lifecycle in a variety of formats, including online accounts, FAQs, tutorials and how-to videos. Videos are a favorite consumer choice; 60 percent of consumers prefer watching a video over reading. If you are not incorporating video marketing into your digital mix, you are missing out on a great opportunity to connect and engage your customers.

Here are five ways video marketing improves your ROI

1. Increases brand recall

Videos bring your story to life in a concise, memorable way. While consumers prefer digital to real-world service, they still appreciate a captivating story. Outside of face-to-face storytelling, nothing communicates like a video when it comes to connecting viewers to your brand. What other tool allows you to share the equivalent of 1.8 million words in one minute? According to Digital Sherpa, 80 percent of internet users remember the videos they watch online.

2. Increases comprehension

The majority of people — 65 percent — are visual learners, according to the Social Science Research Network. If your website is overwhelmingly text-heavy, your dwell times on the website will reflect short visits. That is because people prefer to listen and watch. Text lacks the stickiness of a picture and spoken words. This is especially true if the topic is more complex.

We found in our own comparison of 10 lenders’ websites that video increases dwell times on the site — an average visit is 4 minutes 37 seconds. The typical dwell time on a website is an estimated two minutes. A well-done video can increase people’s understanding by 74 percent, which translates into higher customer satisfaction and retention.

3. Increases revenue

The adoption of video is great news for businesses. Aberdeen found that companies that use video grow their company revenue 49 percent faster year over year than organizations that do not employ video.

Unruly’s research confirms these metrics. They say video enjoyment increases purchase intent by 97 percent and brand association by 139 percent.

4. Increases engagement

MarketingSherpa reports that video attracts two to three times as many monthly visitors as text, which doubles the time spent on a site, and has a 157 percent increase in organic traffic from search engines.

5. Increases message consumption

Consumers want to watch what they want, where they want, when they want. They expect control over their experiences. They exercise this control predominately with their mobile devices. Adobe attributes consumers’ rising consumption of video to the increased adoption of large-screen smartphones and tablets. Worldwide, video accounts for the majority (55 percent) of mobile traffic. Cisco predicts that video will represent 79 percent of all traffic by 2018.

It all boils down to this: video marketing provides an excellent return on investment. It increases brand recognition, engagement, revenue and satisfaction. Most importantly, videos significantly improve the overall customer experience.