Today, it an on-going challenge for marketers to draw the attention of their target audience through strategic marketing techniques that captivates attention in a space choc-a-bloc with content of varied kinds. Amongst these types of content, no medium has proved to propel business growth the way video has. It is increasingly adopted by companies to tell their brand story, bring out their value proposition, engage better with their customers and build fruitful relationships with prospects
With rapidly increasing internet speeds, videos have gained such prominence which was hardly seen before. There are no two ways that video SHOULD definitely take a leading role in your advertising and content marketing strategies. Need compelling proof to corroborate this statement? Then check these out
Every 60 seconds see 72 hours of videos uploaded on YouTube1
Watching video comprises of 33% of total online activity2
Marketers using video grew revenue 49% faster than marketers who do not use videos2
Video drives 157% increase in organic traffic through improved rankings on search engines3
Thus, videos present a high-value opportunity that cannot be ignored by most of the competitive businesses here in Canada.
With decreasing attention spans and increasing information overload, Video is the one medium which can grab eyeballs very effectively. A suite of video tools and resources should be in every marketing person’s toolkit and customized to depict branding consistency. All the major statistics prove that video is far superior compared to other mediums in driving engagement with users and accomplishing conversion objectives for businesses. In this e-book, we will illustrate you all the benefits and present ways to enhance its effectiveness.
Why Video should be at the forefront of every content marketing strategy
1) The tremendous rise of online videos
Cisco’s study shows that by 2019, almost 80% of the consumer traffic on the internet will be generated through videos4. Right now also, more than 7 billion videos5 are watched daily on websites like YouTube and Facebook. Businesses also have the inkling that videos can provide tremendous gains in terms of SEO and that’s why they would be spending a whopping US$13 billion6 on them by the year 2018. It looks like the clamour for videos by businesses will continue in the near future as customers can’t get enough of it.
2) The amazing power of video
Video provides an amazing retention rate as more than 65% of video viewers watch more ¾ of the video1. This stunning retention rate is absolutely crazy and can’t be found on other content marketing channels. After watching a video, a person is 10x more likely to share, engage, or comment compared to a text blog or a social post.
Interestingly, there is a 70% chance of people viewing brands in a positive light after watching good content on brands videos. The easy to digest format of the videos make them an extremely shareable commodity thereby enhancing the interaction between a brand and a viewer.
3) Drives Incredible SEO Outcomes
As stated above a video in your web content can do wonders for your site. They rank very highly on Google’s site and the chance of front page ranking becomes very high. Also, video content attributes are vastly different from other mediums. With constantly changing voice tones and facial expressions, videos provide a higher degree of emotional connect with the viewer. Most seo consultants will definitely going to run video marketing campaigns in their 2020's as their seo strategy.
To Summarize
Why video needs to be a part of your content marketing strategy?
- Your customers are watching videos, thus making it a great engagement medium
- Videos lead to better engagement and sharing
- Search engines love great videos
- Better emotional connect with the viewers
The above points would have surely convinced you that video should be your top priority in terms of web and blog content.
Interested to see how you can unlock these potential advantages to grow your business? Then read on to know some best practices when creating a robust video marketing strategy for your brand.
5 Essential tips to consider when planning a Video marketing strategy
Now that you have understood the tremendous yields you can avail of through video in the initial part of this e-book, it’s imperative to know how to create an effective video marketing strategy. After deciding on the budget of the video, it’s time to flesh out a proper video marketing strategy. A target based plan is essential to align your company’s goal with proper content material and also to know which video content is delivering more ROI.
Here are a few essentials to factor in your video marketing strategy building process.
1) Define your marketing statement for videos
Firstly the most important thing is to know for whom you are making the videos. Who are your audiences in terms of demographics? Also, decide beforehand whether the videos will be informative or entertaining or both. Consider what the audience would like to see before anything else. The values the videos shows should align with the brand’s image. Also, avoid videos with obscenity, violence, or other objectionable content as it can depreciate the brand’s goodwill.
2) Decide on points based your content
While brainstorming chalk out a definite plan to figure out all the points you require in the video. It is essential to keep in mind the mission statement of the video marketing plan. It would be good if you break down the content into groups like product awareness, product news, sales, and support etc. These chalked out content points will help to determine the exact videos for each functional category. Also, if you want to create videos for internal consumption within the organization draw out a separate plan for that.
3) Think about everything you can do with videos
Here your experience of watching thousands of videos will come into play. Think how you can convert your decided topic into a video which would not only be suitable for the Brand’s image but will enhance it. There are various video types to create a smashing video, just decide which one will be appropriate for your subject matter. Some of the video types can be classified as:
- Product features detailing video
- Interviews of Leaders of the game
- Company’s values and cultures
- Recordings of all the webinars
- How-to videos category which has become very popular recently
- Satisfied customers testimonials and other case-studies
4) Create a proper timeline for everything
After deciding the best topics and how to put them in a video, establish a proper timeline to go live. Also, decide on which person would do what work and what will be his responsibilities. As the team can be vast for big organizations it is essential to decide the responsibilities beforehand. It is required of the person who had been provided the task to possess the necessary skills so that the video comes out good. Depending on your budget you can decide to outsource the video work to an outside agency or you can create it in-house. The most important thing to note while creating a timeline is to factor the time needed for scripting and editing as they take plenty of time.
5) Always measure your output
By constantly measuring your performance on key indicators you would be able to judge if your videos are working or not. This would help you to adjust in the future by giving priority to the categories which are working. By knowing as to which and what type of videos are not working, you can change the video style and also the topic if required. As a video is distributed through a player it is quite easy to get the performance metrics data. Some popular metrics used for measuring a video’s performance are:
1) Drop off rates: It is the percentage of people who have watched the complete video.
2) Click rate: The percentage of people which click on a video which is featured in a blog post or an email.
3) Total consumption of the video: The total number of the videos watched watch by people in one day, week or a month.
To Summarize
A few essentials to factor in your video marketing strategy building process
- Define your marketing statement for videos
- Decide what theme or topic you will cover
- Explore the different ways of marketing through videos
- Establish a timeline for all milestones of video production and distribution
- Establish metrics on which you will track the video’s performance
By planning a thorough video strategy beforehand, the available resources can be utilized to its optimum potential, and save your company a lot of money and time.
Popular tools for creating and editing stunning visuals and awesome videos
Not only does video marketing create empathy in the viewer’s mind towards a brand but most often than not, it translates into increased product sales. The inspirational power of videos is incomparable with any other social medium or channel. It is a given fact that websites which have videos in their content draw 41% more traffic from search compared with nonvideo users.
Hopefully, by now you would’ve made up your mind to include video into your overall online marketing campaign. If so, then here are some great resources available online to help you get started with the first step:
1) Brandfolder
Brandfolder is a platform for storing, showcasing and sharing your brand’s video assets. It is very powerful but easy to use. With the help of Brandfolder, you can search and manage your video library very easily. It also supports downloading of different file formats and addition of metadata. Also, it allows adding watermarks to your video and has the ability to convert them into GIFs. Plus, it is easily able to clip any type of video.
2) WeVideo
It is very easy to use but powerful tool to create cloud-based videos. It not only empowers teams to collaborate on content but also helps to produce stunning videos on a very low budget. Its premier feature includes green screen technology, slow and fast motion, and Screencast. Also, it helps to create a customized and purposeful call to action which is essential to convert leads into sales.
3) Powtoon
The usual attention span of a person is 8 seconds (Reference U.S National Library of medicine). To attract a person towards your product in such a short time, it is required that the person’s emotions are triggered. Here video does the trick for you.
Powtoon will help you create such videos. Professional and animated videos are its forte. Not only it provides basic themes to start your video from scratch but also has readymade templates for easy customization. Powtoon also has a robust training center which regularly conducts live webinars.
4) Wistia
Wistia’s social media co-ordinator Jenny Mudarri says:
““Video marketing humanizes brands. Face-to-face interactions are scarce in the world of online
Marketing, and that's why being able to show the people behind your product is so important.
Show them who you are, and show them that you care about their success.”
Wistia is a digital platform that provides world- class marketing video marketing tools. Also, it has amazing video hosting services. It also provides analytics to help businesses grow faster. Wistia not only helps companies to create better content but also informs them how viewers engage and respond to their videos. The inbuilt metrics analytical tool has made Wistia very popular among video creators.
There are other various types of tools and software available on the internet. After reading the various reviews, you can download the one which you think can add to your video creation ability. You can start with a simple tool and can graduate afterward to heavier tools with advanced features. For storing your videos you can use Google Drive, Dropbox or other cloud-based platforms.
5) VEED
VEED is a simple online video editing platform, perfect for creating social media video content. You can use Veed to crop, trim, filter, add music to videos, automatically generate subtitles, turn podcasts into videos, and much more.
VEED is perfect for anyone looking for simple and fast video editing without the need to install or setup complex software and keep all your content, fonts, logos and color palettes in one place so you are always on brand.
Benefits of Video Marketing for small businesses
The importance of video in content marketing and advertising is tremendous. It is the single most important thing which can attract a lot of people in a very short amount of time towards your website and blog. Most major companies have been using videos on their blogs and sites for some time now, but small businesses are still somewhat reluctant and hesitant towards it.
So if you are a small business owner just take a leap of faith and introduce videos into your blogs and sites. Not only will it provide you more than proportionate rewards but will help your brand to stay ahead of your competitors.
Important things to understand that can help to leverage videos for your small business
1) Video testimonials can be very effective
Highlight a customer talking about your business and how it has positively affected him and helped him grow. By making the testimonial in a commercial format, the customer will also enjoy it and the time spent would be worthwhile to him.
2) Add a video to your email
Experts concur that adding the word video in your email subject line can significantly increase the click through and open rates. Some interesting statistics around this theme are7:
- Enhanced open rates by 19%.
- Enhanced click-through rates by 65%.
- Bring down unsubscribes by 26%.
So before reaching out to your target audience or your existing customers, always remember to attach a small video with your email.
3) Present yourself as an expert
If you know a lot about your industry and you are practicing your trade for a long time, then you can share your knowledge by being an expert. By sharing a series of your expertise videos, you not only create a trust among the viewers but it also helps to build an emotional connect with them.
4) Livestream
Livestream is all the rage today. Live streaming apps like Google Hangout, Periscope, and Blab provide you the option to live stream. Although the craze is still in its infancy, riding the wave before anyone else will give you a one up on your competitors. Even though the social video is in its infancy, it is here to stay. According to a recent report Social video is generating 1200% more shares8 compared to images and texts combined. As social video is rapidly rising on the popularity charts it’s imperative to take the first mover advantage.
5) Interviews of Powerful Leaders
By interviewing the experts of your field, you can bring new a perspective to your audiences. Also, the information provided by the experts would be quite helpful to audiences and even you. Also, the expert would help you promote the video among his vast social media footprint which will help your brand tremendously.
Conclusion
After having a tremendous year in 2019, video marketing has shown no signs of slowing down the immense strides it has taken in enabling popularity and business gains for brands the world over. Also, new features like Instagram stories and Facebook Live have brought plenty of eyeballs towards digital video.
A good video marketing strategy will not only help in the spreading awareness about the brand but also helps improve SEO rapidly. Also, it’s essential to understand that restricting videos to online will limit your brand’s chances. Conventional video marketing may be also given a try. By running your video commercials on national and local TV can work out for your brand. Also having your website name on the commercials can prove to be an effective cross-marketing tool as it can help boost your brand’s awareness a great deal.
Do make sure to build a robust video marketing strategy with this guide, and see immense ROI on your efforts.