When and How to Start Your Video Marketing
With the increasing popularity of platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, video content is all the rage among internet users. This means now is the time for businesses to take advantage of video in their marketing strategies. Follow these steps to harness the power of video to connect with prospective customers and boost website conversions with quality rich media.
Why use video?
Video is engaging and interesting for users, making it more likely to hold their attention. It also helps visual learners retain information more easily and motivates people to take action, such as making a purchase or subscribing for more content. In fact, marketers agree that video has the highest ROI of any marketing content.
Demo and explainer videos, for example, can be used to teach current or prospective customers how to use a product and what its benefits are. Interviews are another popular type, including both interviews with industry experts to frame your business as part of a larger conversation, and interviews with employees or company leadership to highlight your company culture. Some other video types include customer testimonials and live event streams.
Starting your video marketing campaign
Know your purpose
The first step in creating strong video content is knowing the purpose of your video. Think about who your target audience is and what you want them to do. Are you creating a how-to video in the hopes that your audience will purchase your product after? Are you featuring employees in your organization to show the face of your online business? Being clear about the audience and the goal in advance will help you create more effective marketing content.
That being said, when recording, consider adopting a “shoot for the edit” mindset and shoot a lot more content that you think you need. Shoot in short segments so you can stitch the pieces together later. This will make it easy to get a lot of material that can be used later for multiple purposes.
Know your platform
Where you are posting your video can change your strategy a bit, so think about where you will use the content you are making. YouTube is always a good option since it’s free and offers impressive reach (it’s the biggest video platform in the world). YouTube also has the benefit of dedicated channels, so you can work on building a brand persona and accumulating followers. But keep in mind that since it’s free, there can be a lot of distracting ads.
Though they aren’t video specific, you can’t go wrong with Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for promoting your brand via video. Your videos should probably be shorter if you’re creating them specifically for those platforms. Or, you can create a longer YouTube video and then promote it on social media with a shorter teaser trailer of the content. And if your target audience is GenZ, you can’t underestimate the power of TikTok.
Know what constitutes success
Part of knowing the purpose of your content is knowing how to measure whether you meet your goals. Once you start releasing your video content, track how users perceive it. Check how many people click on it, how many watch to the end, and how many make a purchase or take some other action.
Besides, you are encouraged to interact with people and seek their feedback on videos created. Viewers’ takes on video content are essential, as they can show what needs to be done to improve following videos. If people long for more catchy stuff, it’s likely a sign that you should add music to video. Doing that will ensure your video is engaging and that it serves its marketing purpose.
Integrate video into your marketing
Once you create some good video content, you have to think about integrating it seamlessly into your website, social media presence, etc. This means applying the same tactics you use to get your other content in front of the right audiences. That’s right, we’re talking about search engine optimization (SEO).
As with other online content, you need to think about your video’s title, meta description, tags, etc. to make sure search engines know how to categorize it. You should also take keywords into account and make sure your videos offer as full and complete of an answer to any search queries that they can (especially for those educational and how-to videos).
If these videos are going on your business website, think about page placement and measure engagement metrics over time to see if the arrangement you choose is reaching people the way you think it will. Other than that, consider how your video content meets your overall branding strategy. It’s vital to make every video piece align with the branding strategy and ensure it doesn’t deviate from an identified tone and themes.
Conclusion
There you have it, the crucial first steps towards starting any successful video marketing campaign. By thinking about your purpose, platform, measurable goals, and SEO, you will be better equipped to market your brand through engaging video content.
