How You Can Embrace the Holy Grail of Online Marketing Video is now a vital market tool. Here's how entrepreneurs can take advantage.

Unless you've been sitting in front of a cathode-ray tube TV for the past few years, you've seen how important video has become as a marketing tactic.

In fact, paid advertising on YouTube converts more customers than any other online platform, according to AOL Platforms. The number of digital video viewers in the U.S. is expected to increasen by more than 22 million between 2013 and 2017, according to eMarketer.

"Ultimately, video is so effective for business marketing because it works," says Bettina Hein, founder and CEO of Pixability, a Boston advertising and video marketing platform for YouTube. "As the star power—and business pull—of video-content creators only grows, we'll see more brands effectively leveraging their industry's independent creators to cross-promote and co-create."