Increasingly, brands are spending money on video content. It’s an amazing medium for making explainer videos, creating advertisements, and even distributing tutorials and educational materials to customers – so it makes sense why more brands are pursuing it as part of their content marketing strategy.

On top of that, brands are investing in quality over quantity, spending more money, time, and resources on a select handful of videos rather than circulating countless mediocre ones.

What can explain this rising popularity of video content, and why are brands willing to spend so much money to make their videos as high-quality as possible?

The Increasing Value of Video Content

Video content is measurably superior to written content in a multitude of ways. When adopting videos, 55 percent of brands see an increase in website conversions, while a whopping 83 percent see an increase in dwell time. And on average, videos have a return of 3x what you invest in them.

There are several explanations for why the value (and potential returns) of video content are increasing. For example:

The power of visuals. Human beings are visual creatures. We’re wired to quickly and easily differentiate between objects in our environment, so we tend to learn things faster and more efficiently when we learn them in a visual format. In other words, we can absorb information and digest videos faster than we can with written materials. A sufficiently planned 2-minute video might provide you with more information than 2,000 words of content. Because of this, we can say that video is strictly more effective as a medium.

Better internet (and internet access). It also helps that more people have access to the internet, and their access is much faster and more reliable. In the early 2000s, watching videos online was a challenging endeavor – and something that not everyone could do reliably. These days, even the weakest Internet connections in the developed world can stream videos easily.

Mobile device use. It’s estimated that 60.9 percent of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. We all use our phones and tablets on a nearly constant basis, relying on them for most of our internet activity, even if we also have a desktop device available. Even people who love reading content more than watching videos can acknowledge that reading content on a mobile device is prohibitive. It’s much faster and easier to simply watch a video or listen to some audio. Video and audio content can also be consumed while multitasking, making it even more appealing for most people.

Boredom with written content. For years, written content was one of the best ways to dominate search engine results pages (SERPs) and appeal to mass audiences. Written content is still valuable for SEO and general marketing strategies, but because users have been inundated with these marketing materials, they’ve grown weary of them. Video content is fresher and more exciting, so more users are inclined to consume it.

Video flexibility and utility. We should also acknowledge that video content is typically more flexible and useful than comparative written content. You can film live actors, create animations, rely on stock footage, or even stitch together videos from still images. You can include narration, music, sound effects, or no sound whatsoever. Brands have almost unlimited creativity and flexibility to explore this medium, so naturally, it’s a more common choice.

But this doesn’t explain everything.

Increasing Competition

Another factor in play is an increasing number of brands creating videos. Most marketers acknowledge how powerful video is as a medium, so they become motivated to produce as many videos as possible. This creates an overabundance of low-value and hastily produced video content, so the best way to stand out in this crowd is to make your video content as high-quality as possible.

Fluff, Clickbait, and Distrustful Users

Modern consumers are distrustful and pessimistic, and in many ways, rightfully so. We face constant bombardments of insincere advertisements, lies from politicians, and misleading information from both mainstream and independent news sources. Consumers are desperate to find reliable sources of factual information, and brands are stepping up to prove their worth accordingly. If your brand can build user trust with effective, valuable videos, you could become an oasis in the desert.

A Long Term Vision

If your videos are evergreen, they could remain relevant indefinitely. Brands are therefore treating videos as an indefinitely valuable investment – and one with potentially unlimited returns. There’s no reason to add a video to your long-term portfolio unless it’s truly good enough to last.

These are just some of the reasons why brands are focused on making better video content. If you’re a latecomer to the video marketing game, now it could be the perfect time to revisit your content strategy and start incorporating this powerful medium.