If you’re thinking about adding video marketing to your outreach and communication strategy, you aren’t alone. This year, video marketing is more important than ever. According to Social Media Today, people share video content 1200% more than image and text combined.
Almost all companies see the value in creating custom videos to spread their message and will use this tactic in their marketing this year.
Simply creating videos isn’t enough; you need a strategy for ultimate effectiveness.
To be sure you don’t end up in this category of marketers, use these five video marketing keys to create a killer strategy.
Define Your Video Marketing Strategy and Goals
As with all marketing, good video marketing starts with a clear strategy and goal.
Create your marketing videos with intention. Never put any resources into creating content without a clearly defined plan and set of objectives for the campaign. It is a waste of time and money.
Start your video marketing by laying out a clear plan.
- What are Your End Goals? — What do you want the video to accomplish? Usually, the goal is one of the following:
- Increase traffic
- Increase leads
- Increase sales
- Spread awareness
- What is Your Budget? — How much do you want to spend on creating your videos? Can you stretch that budget to create more than one video or should you spend it all on one video?
- What is Your Main Distribution Channel? — Where is the primary place you will use the video? (You may have multiple platforms to share the video, and we’ll get to more on that later in this post.)
- What is Your Brand Image — How does your video fit into your brand image?
Brainstorm and define your objectives and goals early to guide you as you go through the rest of the creation process.
Don’t Forget Your Target Audience
As part of your beginning strategy, spend a good amount of time thinking about your audience.
One of the biggest mistakes made while creating content — especially video content — is failing to put the audience first. It’s easy to create a video matching your interests and opinions. When it comes to creating content for an audience, it’s not about you. Appeal to your desired viewership.
Outline who your audience is and what they want before you start creating the content. Ask yourself:
- Who is my target audience? How old are they? Where do they live? What do they do for a living?
- What online platforms does my target audience spend time using?
- What problem is my target audience struggling with?
- How does my organization help the target audience?
- How does my audience describe this problem and solution? What words and phrases do they use to explain the situation?
Take the answers to these questions, and use these as a baseline for your content.
Continue to keep that audience in mind throughout the development process. Regularly return to these questions to make sure your video marketing strategy is aligning with the interests of your audience, not just your own.
Use a Call-to-Action
Creating an awesome video that draws in viewers and holds their attention is a win in video marketing, but only if the video prompts the user to do something after they’ve watched it.
The call-to-action tells the viewer what to do when the video, and turns a video into video marketing. Don’t leave out this vital element.
As the end of the video, remind the audience to do one of the following:
- sign up for your newsletter
- download your free guide
- visit your website
- watch another video
- share the video
- leave a comment
If you don’t know what your call-to-action should be, go back to your video marketing strategy and let that guide you. Look at your end goal and add a call-to-action to guide the viewer toward that endpoint.
Post to Multiple Platforms
Early in your planning, you chose a platform as your main distribution channel or the place to primarily publish your videos.
Stick with this strategy but push it forward, and find other platforms where you can repurpose and reuse your video.
Places where you can publish your video include:
- Your Website — Videos perform extremely well on home and landing pages.
- Other Websites — Ask other publishers if they would be interested in sharing your video if it is useful to their audience.
- Vimeo & YouTube — You can publish on both to get more reach out of your video.
- Facebook — Videos uploaded directly to Facebook get a lot of attention.
- Emails — Emails with the word “video” in the subject line receive higher open and click through rates.
Get the most out of your video marketing plan by publishing your video in as many places as possible. Remember, only publish a video on a platform if it makes sense. (i.e., Don’t send a product demo video to a customer email list that has already purchased the product.)
Review Your Results
Share your video, and follow its success.
Review the results to see how your video performs and determine if it is effectively helping you reach your original goals.
Review metrics showing you how long your audience viewed the video, what they did after watching the video, and any other data that relates to the goals you set. How many viewers followed the CTA? Use what you find to tweak the process as you go through your next iteration of video content creation.
These video marketing strategies, are your guide your content creation, getting the most out our your content strategy, and avoiding common pitfalls.
If you still have questions about how to use effectively add video to your marketing strategies, we are here to help.