Marc Howard lives and breathes digital growth strategies and shows other digital entrepreneurs and small-medium sized business owners how to grow their online business, generate more traffic and turn visitors into leads. He shares the strategy and the mindset at http://whenyouliveinthenow.com. He published this insightful post about a year ago but it remains timeless.

Do you consider yourself to be one of those in-the-know digital marketers? Are you just starting as a freelancer or entrepreneur that’s looking for a bit of insight or do you consider yourself already an expert?

Well some of the facts below may be a major awakening. No matter what your area of expertise you may be amazed by some of the stats below.

The one thing that you will notice however in each of these facts is that they are full of opportunity to either improve your existing marketing strategy or seek out a new channel (hint: using a video to promote your product or service is on the rise this year like never before).

The Power of Video for Content Marketing

1. The average human attention span is 8 seconds. The average attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds. Source: Wikipedia
2. Our brains process images 60x faster than text. Change-up your text-to-image ratios and choose images that tell your story. Source:3M Corporation
3. 80% of your online visitors will watch a video while 20% will actually read content. Source: Digital Sherpa
4. 75% Of Users Visit The Marketer’s Website After Viewing A Video. Source: Digital Sherpa
5. 45% Of Viewers Will Stop Watching A Video After 1 Minute & 60% By 2 Minutes. Source: Insivia
6. Videos Increase People’s Understanding Of Your Product Or Service by 74%. Source: Digital Sherpa
7. Using video on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%. Source: Unbounce.com
8. Up to 60% of all email recipients regularly turn off images. Source: MarketingLand.com
9. Your Website Is 50 Times More Likely To Appear On The First Page Of A Search Engine Results Page If It Includes Video. Source: Digital Sherpa
10. Adding video to your email campaigns can increase click rate by 300%. Host your video online and create a thumbnail play button for your email. Source: Wistia
11. Website visitors are 64% more likely to buy a product on an online retail site after watching a video. Source: Digital Sherpa

How To Leverage Social Media

12. Facebook post with photos get 53% more likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more click-throughs. Source: KISSMetrics
13. Facebook posts with questions get 100% more comments. Source: KISSMetrics
14. Tweets that specifically ask followers to “retweet” receive 12x more retweet rates than those who do not. Source: BufferApp
15. 16% of marketers plan to increase efforts on Pinterest in 2015. Source: Business2Community.com
16. Twitter users follow a median of 6 brands on Twitter, looking for things like interesting and fun content, news and updates, discounts and promos and more. Source: BufferApp
17. Content that is greater than 1500 words on average receives 68.1% more tweets. Source: QuickSprout
18. By using just 3 hashtags, brands can gain a 110% increase in likes on their Instagram posts. Source: Pigora
19. By using just 3 hashtags, brands can gain a 180% increase in likes on their Instagram posts. Source: Pigora

A Blog Is No Longer a “Nice to Have”

20. Blogs give sites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. Source: NewsCred.com
21. Companies that blog 15+ times per month get 5x more traffic than companies that don’t blog. Source: Hubspot
22. Companies with an active blog report 97% more leads. Source: Content+
23. 70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company via articles over ads. Source: Content+
24. Articles with images get 94% more views than those without.Source: Content+
25. 57% of companies have acquired customers via their blog. Source: Content+
26. Content creation ranked as the single most effective SEO tactic by 53%. Source: MarketingSherpa
27. 33% of email recipients open email based on subject line alone. Source: convinceandconvert.com

If You’re Not Doing Mobile You Will Be Left Behind

28. 71% of global users access social media through mobile devices. Source: Search Engine Journal
29. 92% of mobile shopping app users want to be alerted if retailers are having sales. Source: Latitude Research
30. About 60 percent of all Internet activity in the U.S. originates from mobile devices, and about half of total Internet traffic flows through mobile apps. Source: Internet Marketing Association
31. Mobile revenue is projected to reach $700 billion by 2017, increasing by more than 300%. Source: VentureBeat
32. By 2017, mobile devices will make up 87 percent of the total sales of Internet-enabled technology. Source: LanderApp

It Pays to Do Email Marketing–Literally

33. The average open rate for welcome emails is a whopping 50% making them 86% more effective than email newsletters. (An automated welcome is a no brainer.) Source: Marketing Sherpa
34. 51% of email is opened on a mobile device. (Design for the smallest screen first then you responsive design templates to ensure emails look great on any screen size.) Source: Litmus
35. Nurtured leads make 47% more purchases than non-nurtured leads. (Create an automated series that delivers content to your subscriber over time and it will pay off.) Source: The Annuitas Group
36. 58% of adults check email first thing in the morning. (Try sending your emails early in the day–you might see an uptick of opens). Source: Ezanga
37. People check their email up to 150x a day. Make sure your call-to-action is clear. Source: kpcb.com
38. Eye tracking data shows that viewers look to the same part of the screen where images of people are looking. That’s exactly where to want to put your call-to-action. Source: The Brain Lady Blog
39. Email is nearly 40x better than Facebook or Twitter at acquiring customers. Source: McKinsey & Company
40. You have just 3-4 seconds to grab your reader’s attention and interest them enough to open and read your email. Source: Litmus
41. 64% of decision makers read emails via mobile device. Source: EmailExpert.org
42. Using marketing automation can increase conversion rates by up to 50%. Source: Aberdeen Group
43. If an email doesn’t display correctly, 71.2% will delete it immediately.Source: BlueHornet

Now That We “Google” Everything Search Engine Marketing Is Taking Over

44. In 2015, search engine marketing (SEM) will continue to capture the largest share of online spend at 47%, or about 14% of the firm’s total marketing budget 2014. Source: Business2Community.com
45. Mobile search ads will be $12.85 billion in 2015, over 50% of the search market. Source: Heidi Cohen
46. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine. Source: Imforza
47. Search is the No. 1 driver of traffic to content sites, beating social media by more than 300 percent. Source: Search Engine Journal
48. The average content length for a web page that ranks in the top 10 results for any keyword on Google has at least 2,000 words. The higher up you go on the search listings page, the more content each web page has. Source: QuickSprout
49. 60% of all organic clicks go to the organic top 3 search results. Source: Business2Community.com
50. 50% of all mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results, and 61% of those searches result in a purchase. Source: Search Engine Watch

Of the tips above which one stood out the most and how might you tweak your digital marketing strategy based on it? Or do you have one even more mind blowing?

Good Selling!