These days, it is vital to have varied campaigns and ways of reaching prospects and current clients. Marketing departments are turning to the digital world to elevate their platforms for a better video marketing strategy. To create a marketing strategy in 2020, it takes diligence and professional expertise. YouTube, Vimeo, and other online resources are hitting huge numbers, making it a great space to grab people’s attention. Amazing videos are not enough. Video marketing content needs to be on point and delivered effectively to close the deal. Learn how you can turn your video marketing services around to be more successful in this digital economy.
What is Video Marketing
When a company develops a video marketing strategy, they are trying to hit a target audience. Anything related to filming, editing, or sharing of videos to this end is considered video marketing. This includes television, commercials, and now online media content. SEO is usually done in conjunction with video marketing because it helps increase how long people browse content, stay on a page, or decide to interact with more content on the site. Video marketing also increases rankings in search engine results, making your company more visible to prospective consumers. Think of it this way: delivering content your audience will use is more important than just delivering static content nobody engages with. If you put a video in your monthly newsletter, you are more likely to get high click-through rates than just using banner ads on your website. With video marketing, you want a solid strategy that focuses on new ways to engage people online, away from the old strategies (even if they worked well in the past).
The Benefits of Video Marketing
A solid content marketing strategy should incorporate video marketing tools. You must know your purpose for using it before you sit down to write. Make sure both the type of video and where you are posting fit the overall purpose. Your target audience may not be reachable via Facebook, so curating content that goes online to social media platforms like this may not drive consumers to your products and services. To get a solid strategy, you need to think about what benefits you want from video marketing.
Educate Consumers
One of the best ways to get your products and services out there is through educational video content. People love to watch short, concise videos that explain or provide content. Giving instructions, detailing customer service activities, even doing a tour of the company and offering why you’re the best out there in what you do engages people’s desires to know who they are working with. If you create videos featuring guest experts, you can re-use the content later in podcast form, audio content, or another format. Re-purposing and re-packaging content are going to be a helpful strategy for you later.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
In the world of digital marketing, SEO is king. Sites that don’t use SEO are less likely to get picked up by search engines, thus will be even less likely to be seen by the consumers they want. Search engines love video content because it is high-quality and quick to consume. Various video marketing strategies around how to optimize content can benefit your company in many ways. It delivers quick, concise information to prospective consumers and increases traffic to your site. If you get an SEO expert to help, you can get the right keywords, a solid meta description, and strong title to stand out against the competition. A solid video marketing strategy is all about getting a leg up above the rest.
Be Competitive
The online market is fiercely competitive. Not only that, but your business, if it is brick and mortar, will depend on driving business to your online space more than in-housework. Unless most of what you sell is in your store, the new market is shifting away from brick and mortar to online business and e-commerce with fewer people going in stores to buy products or services. Nevertheless, your video marketing strategy needs to be on point if you want to key into the benefits. Stay competitive by trying these strategies:
- Use storytelling to get the point across
- Catch people’s attention with visuals and solid editing
- Use animation or illustration to stand out if possible
- Hire professionals to help curate content and deliver video content that builds your web traffic
Boost Conversions
Perhaps most important of all for companies that use video content is how to boost conversions for maximum benefit. After all, you’re not doing this for the fun of it. You might have fun delivering content, which makes it more personal, but you should also look to boost your conversions as a key end goal. Here are some strategies to keep in mind that will benefit your business by boosting conversions:
- Deliver video content that shows how your product and service will work for them personally
- Create an inviting landing page where they can take in content that inspires them to see more
- Appeal to their emotions as to why this product or service helps them achieve their end goal
- Keep them short if you want to capture their interest (and convert it to a sale)
New Ways to Engage
Engagement with consumers online changes weekly. People are finding new and innovative ways to engage consumers with better, more vivid content that will keep you on your toes. If you want to pursue a solid video and digital marketing strategy, try these recommendations for new ways to engage:
- Keep videos short. If you are uploading to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, keep it under 1 minute in length to grab people’s attention
- YouTube video marketing should be 2 minutes or less. Any longer and you lose people’s interest (and their business)
- Keep a short clip on the landing page of your site, but make it fresh and new every so often for repeat customers
- People love demos. Don’t tell consumers why you’re better than the competition, show them
- Practice solid SEO standards and get your content up-to-speed so more consumers can find your site
- Organize your YouTube channel and embed them into vlogs, emails, e-newsletters, and more for maximum benefit
Curation of video content does not have to be time-consuming or costly. It should, however, be done professionally with high caliber content which delivers for the consumer if you want it to end in a conversion.
How Much Does a Marketing Video Cost
Professional-grade video marketing for business used to be expensive. Some companies could not afford production costs and decided not to pursue it. They lost out on important business, but they saved money they could use in marketing elsewhere. The cost of shooting, editing, and production is a specialized field where professionals get paid for what they deliver. Many options are out there now, which make it more affordable than ever for everyone from solopreneurs to small business and big companies to maximize benefits while minimizing costs. Contractors, professional companies, and specialized firms are all ways to obtain videography at an affordable rate. Even if you still ‘get what you pay for,’ online video curation and development does not have to be out of reach for your company with some simple strategic tips:
- The more time spent in pre-production planning, scripting, and on-site will increase cost. The more people you add on, the more it will cost. “Time is money,” is a great adage to keep in mind when thinking about the cost of video marketing.
- The more talented the pool of people, the more they will cost. You don’t have to hire professional actors, but depending on your campaign, you might benefit from one or two solid videos from even amateur actors to get better content
- Even if you wanted to film just with a cell phone, you might not get maximum benefit. It depends on your audience and who you want to reach. Sophisticated tools cost money but you can pay someone with the tools to do the content.
Amateur DIY videos are going to be faster and less costly, but they may not provide the conversions you want. To go semi-pro, think about the people you are hiring. They may have better equipment and more expertise, but the content may or may not deliver what you want. Strategize ahead of time before thinking about how much to spend on professional versus amateur content. Professional content can range from $25,000 on up, with amateur a mid-level content production being significantly less but might not even recoup that cost in conversions later. The cost is not always just up-front, it is about how much it brings into the business later.
How to Make a Successful Marketing Video
No matter what your budget is like, you may still wonder how to create compelling video content that brings people to your site to see what you have to offer. Some things work better than others. It helps to have a solid strategy going in. Think about some of the following ways people tell compelling stories using video marketing.
Testimonials
Everyone loves a good story. Think about the best movies in the cinema. They are the ones that leave you, at the end, feeling something. It might be happiness, tenderness, sorrow, or some other emotions. What you want to leave consumers with is a compelling reason to use your products or services. Testimonials from real people who have had success using what you offer is one of the most effective content marketing tactics available.
Production of Goods
Many people are more conscious of what they buy and where it is made. In America, especially, people love to hear ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ If this applies to your brand, use that strategy. Show potential customers how the product is made. Highlight what is unique and makes what you have stand out. If you use eco-friendly practices, be sure to highlight that. People love to hear environmentally friendly practices are going on, especially if that is part of your target audience.
Introduce Employees
Highlight a few people who do some behind-the-scenes work for your company. Do a spotlight series to engage the consumers to know who is creating the goods and services you offer. Potential customers can get a better sense of how your business is run and see the faces they might deal with when calling in or coming to pick up products.
How-tos
Show consumers how your products work. If you have an amazing product that does something unique, showcase it in a video. Offer other ways to understand how the product works and why you should give it a more serious look. People love to know the inner workings of things. Appeal to this and you might just win some new customers.
Close the Deal
In a world of digital noise, be creative. Find ways to close the deal with a video marketing strategy that will keep things simple but be effective at closing the deal. As things move online, people are craving personal engagement and interaction. If you want to close the deal with a consumer, make fun and compelling video content that talks about why you do what you do. Don’t focus on what you cannot do or what other companies don’t deliver on. Focus on your deliverables and strengths. Offer ‘insider information’ only they get to hear if they watch the content. The more they know about your practices, the more likely they are to become loyal to your brand and stick with you for the long haul.