The most important statistic is the one that’s most meaningful to your business and circumstances.

More important are two trends. The use of online video is expanding exponentially, particularly in B2B. And the trend toward story telling as a marketing staple is also expanding.

These two trends are important because they are linked hand-in-hand. Short of talking in-person, video is the best way to tell a story, replete with words and moving pictures, a human voice, music, sound effects and emotion: the element that connects it all.

We all love stories. When a story connects with us on an emotional level, we’re far more likely to remember it. We’re also more receptive. Psychologists have conducted experiments providing people are more open to ideas when they are illustrated in a story. Character-driven story videos with emotional content are the most effective, helping viewers understand, personalize and remember key points that a speaker or company is trying to make.

Now here are those statistics with my comments in italics.

– 1 minute of video is worth 1.8 million words. Often attributed to Forrester Research and a few others, and sometimes challenged. What is fact to me is that, in most B2B situations, often a single conversion is all that’s needed to justify the price of the video that helped create the sale.

– By 2019, global consumer Internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic. – Cisco

– YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine on the planet, with 3 billion searches a month and 100 hours of video uploaded every minute. Open a YouTube channel and upload your company’s video

– 90% of users say product videos are helpful in the decision-making process. – Hubspot

– 92% of B2B Marketers use video in their marketing efforts – Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs

– 88% more time is spent on website with videos than without video – Forbes

– 80% of users recall a video ad they viewed in the last 30 days. 26% look for more information about the subject of the video. 22% visit the website, if not already on it. 12% purchased the specific product in the ad. Think about this in terms of a 12% increase in your sales volume, if you’re not yet using video.

– Adding a video to a landing page can increase conversion rates by 80% – Unbounce

– 75% of executives watch business related videos at least weekly, 59% prefer video to text, and 50% share videos at least weekly. – Forbes

– 65% is the retention for visual information, 10% for text-based information. Social Media Today

– 64% of users are more likely to buy an online product after watching an online video – Hubspot

– Companies using video enjoy 41% more web traffic from search than non-users – SmallBizTrends