Video marketing refers to using video content to promote a brand, product, or business through multiple streams of media. This type of marketing has been around for a while. For example, the long-form advertisement that runs on televisions.
With the world transitioning to digitalization, the popularity of video marketing has grown exponentially. In 2005, YouTube was launched and it would go ahead to be among the top video marketing platforms today.
Experts agree that the technology of video marketing has continued to grow and change. Today, video marketing is arguably among the top marketing strategies you can use for your business.
For starters, consumers are more likely to make purchases after seeing visuals of a product than reading about the product. This is especially true in the age of online purchases, where people may need guidance on how to use some products since the purchases aren’t physical.
Luckily with the rise in demand for video content, the art of making videos has improved. However, video marketing is more than shooting high-definition content.
You need to know how to develop a winning video marketing strategy, what video marketing channels to use, and how to leverage your video marketing such as by buying viewers from the best site to buy YouTube views.
This has been broken down below, but first, here’s why you shouldn’t dismiss video marketing in your campaign.
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Importance Of Video Marketing
Why do you even need to consider adding video marketing to your audience outreach plan? Here are a few notable reasons why:
1. It Improves SEO
According to research, at least 31% of the marketers in the study noted that their website experiences a boost in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) when a video is added.
This is because videos tend to increase the website’s page quality, helping them rank higher. Also, videos increase visitors’ time on the website, which helps in better ranking.
Therefore, if you want to leverage your website’s SEO, consider investing in top-tier video marketing content.
When your website’s SEO is enhanced, your business is likely to reach more of its target audience, increasing the number of leads and the resultant sales conversion.
Besides that, video marketing enhances the number of leads and sales because it helps the business and target audience connect better.
For instance, today, you can have video content guiding consumers on how to fix a malfunction in the devices your business deals with. When the consumer follows the video and it works, you’ll have reduced their repair cost.
Second, they’re likely to make a second purchase from you should they need another device since they connected with your business from the state-of-the-art customer service.
When video marketing started, it was mostly a preserve of TV and big platforms like YouTube. Yet as video marketing technology evolved, more platforms for video marketing cropped up.
Today, even platforms predominantly not meant for videos are leaning into video marketing. A good example is Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Twitter records at least ten times more engagements every time they add a video to their tweets.
Plus, other more popular channels have come up, such as Tik-Tok. Tik-Tok is a video marketing platform for short-form videos.
With videos being embraced across different platforms, you can share your content with more people. The more you share, the more likely you’ll reach your target audience, which may convert to sales.
3. Video Content Sticks
Due to the visuals in videos, the impression tends to stick longer in the viewers’ minds than in written work. This, therefore, works to the advantage of your marketing campaign since your brand becomes memorable.
If you remain consistent with your video marketing, the memorability leads to brand awareness
4. Video Content Helps Capture Mobile Users
Research has found that most people watch videos on mobile rather than on television. When using video to capture your market, you can capture mobile users.
Someone is more likely to switch from watching a video to making an online purchase while on the phone than when watching the said video on mobile too.
Henceforth, mobile users are usually more likely to convert into sales, which means the marketing strategy has worked.
The points above are just some of the main benefits of doing video marketing. Now that you know why you should include video marketing in your camping, here’s a step-by-step guide on developing a robust video marketing strategy.
How To Develop A Winning Video Marketing Strategy
Employing video marketing is a process – it takes a step-by-step approach to ensure the proper implementation of sound techniques and helpful tools. Learn more below.
1. Define Your Target Audience And Research On Them
When developing a video marketing strategy, you first want to define your target audience. That means deciding to whom your video content is meant to appeal to.
Your customer persona first defines your target audience. The products and services your business deals with usually have already curved a given audience.
Case in point, if you’re running a business that deals in trendy apparel, your audience is the younger generation. Yet it’d be best if you still narrowed down further than customer persona to identify your target audience.
Some of the things you can use to decide your target audience are location, gender, and profession. For example, if you run a restaurant, you may want to target people in formal employment that barely have time to make meals like lunch.
You can collect data on the named factors from things like the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database, customer surveys, or the information customers willingly give on your website. With such information, you have a rough idea of your target audience.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t end there. Once the target audience is in mind, you need to circle in on their interest, pain points, and favorable platforms.
- Interest
Finding out your target audience’s interest will help you develop content that appeals to them. This is especially for entertainment content. With such information, you’re able to give your customers what they want.
- Pain points
Your target audience’s pain point may help you identify a niche that needs to be attended to. When you find out their pain points, it’s up to you to devise solutions in the form of video content. When you give viable solutions, you win the loyalty of your customers.
- Favorable platforms
As mentioned before, today, there are so many platforms that allow the sharing of video content. You have first to identify which platform is a favorite for your target audience. This helps you align your video content with the platform.
For instance, if your target audience spends more time on Tik-tok, it’ll help you know that what you need is short-from video content instead of long-form, which is best shared on YouTube. Knowing your target audience’s best platform also helps you know where to post the content.
2. Set Your Goals
Like in any winning strategy, a video marketing strategy also needs well-defined goals. Goals help you track your progress. Once you execute the video marketing campaign, you can measure the results against the goals. This will help you identify your strong points and things about your marketing campaign that you should improve.
Video marketing campaign goals are measured as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). For example, you need to know which market funnel your target audience falls into. There are three sections of the market.
- The Top Funnel
The top funnel of the market refers to a new audience for your brand. You’ll need a brand awareness video when marketing yourself to a new audience.
A brand awareness type of video communicates the brand’s values in such a way that the brand connects to your new target audience.
The point isn’t to sell your products but merely to create connection and, while at it, create brand awareness. Your goals will therefore focus on the number of likes on the video and the duration of view.
- Middle Funnel
The audience in this section is usually aware of your brand and your competitors. At this level, the target audience usually tries to decide which of the brands wins their heart. It’s, henceforth, a very competitive level of marketing.
You need to create a video that showcases your expertise in your industry. Let the video tell why the target audience should choose you, not your competitors.
The KPIs for such videos are usually clickthrough rates. Duration of view also matters at this level.
- Bottom Of The Funnel
This is the point where the leads convert to sales. The target audience in this section of the market funnel wants to make a purchase.
Therefore, the video content here should be to reel in the target audience to buy. You can do that by showing proof of customer satisfaction.
You can also create content on why your product is the best in the market. The KPIs at this level is the conversion rate and clickthrough rate.
So, before creating your video content, you need to identify which section of the funnel market you’re targeting. Once you have that figured out, you’ll know what type of content to create.
3. Align The Necessary Players Needed And Plan The Content
Creating video content involves many players. There’s the creative team and the production team. Each of these teams has several players, and they’re all important in executing the video marketing strategy. Thus, at this point, you need to align them.
Aligning the players helps with the planning of the content. This includes:
- Creating A Video Script
A video script will help you come up with creative ideas. The ideas should solicit the emotion from the target audience you have in mind.
Therefore, having a script will help you brainstorm your ideas and evaluate if they meet your goals or not. This is also the point where you subtract or add new ideas.
Remember to come up with a call to action such as:
- Like;
- Comment;
- Subscribe;
- Sign In;
- Get discount;
- Buy now;
- Learn more; and
- Create Timelines.
Aligning all the necessary players helps them devise a time schedule for creating the video. For example, once the script is approved. The production team will come up with a schedule to cast, for example, which scenes will be shot during the day or night.
They also have to allocate time for post-production, where the raw video is edited. The editors also add music, caption, and other visual effects like animation. This time has to be planned to attain the final product.
- Set Up A Budget
You may have a budget in mind, but it’s the players that’ll help determine if it’s reasonable or not. They may tell you that the video quality will be compromised if the budget is too small.
Therefore, at this stage, you have the choice to either increase the budget or work with poorer video quality.
Additionally, the budget agreed on has to be approved by yet another player, the management.
4. Decide Where You’ll Promote The Video.
You want to plan where you’ll promote your video early. This helps to avoid last minutes arguments and indecisiveness.
Besides, so many platforms like social media networks promote video content you don’t want to be undecided at the implementation stage.
When deciding on the platforms, remember the target audience’s favorite platform. Other factors that matter include
- Budget;
- Size and sound limitations; and
- Average view time to mention but a few.
This would also be a good time to decide if you’ll need behind-the-scenes shots for teasers. It’s also time to create a social media calendar that aligns with the campaign’s timeline.
You’ll schedule your posts, create posters, brand clothes, and prepare any other marketing material you may need. You’ll also create catchy captions in time.
5. Run Your Video Marketing Campaign And Evaluate Performance.
By following all that has been stipulated above, you’re well suited to shoot your video content and run your video marketing campaign.
The last step is to evaluate the performance of your video marketing campaign. You can do this by looking at your analytics, such as
- KPIs;
- Number of views;
- Duration of views;
- The video’s engagement which is measured by likes, following, shares, and comments;
- Click-through rate; and
- Conversions.
Measure the results against your set goals. Please take note of the strong points. You may need to use them in your future video marketing campaign. Take note of the weak points too, and devise a solution for them.
Experts recommend that you check your results and compile a report. This is so that you can share it with the rest of the team, including the executives. It helps when the team has a point of reference for future campaigns.
Wrapping It Up
In 2022, you can’t ignore video marketing’s inherent value. If you haven’t added it to your campaigns, now is the right time to do so. If you’ve been wondering where to start with video marketing, the step-by-step guide will help you. Best of luck to your company’s video marketing endeavors.
