It’s no secret, people are watching videos online like never before. Between things YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and streaming services, millions of hours are spent watching online content every single day around the world. If there was ever a time to start marketing your brand with video, it’s now.
Video is cross-promotable, trackable, and it’s engaging. You can curate a marketing plan to hone in on your exact audience. And once it’s online, you can utilize analytics to make sure it’s performing.
Video is one of the most important tools you can add to your marketing strategy. Here’s why.
Why Video Is Important To Marketing
From established brands to new launches, it is important to create an avenue to reach your audience. But static marketing, like branded photos and infographics, often aren’t enough to catch the attention of the browser.
Video marketing has been acknowledged as the most effective type of marketing. Video reaches more people and gets more shares on social media. Around 85% of the internet-going population of the United States watch video content every month, and more than 50% of consumers are actively looking for more content from brands they like and support.
Video marketing requires time, preparation, planning, and a budget. The good news? It’s definitely a skill that can be picked up along the way. And the budget doesn’t need to be astronomical; if you have a knack for it, you may even be able to do it yourself without involving a content creation team.
Here are the twelve-steps anyone can follow to get into video marketing, regardless of your experience or skill set.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Step One — Form A Strategy
All good marketing campaigns start with a plan. Before you can begin to put your video content together, you have to know what your end goal is, who you want your content to reach, and how you plan to get to your goal.
What is the main goal of this content? Are you looking to sell a product or service? Drive traffic to your website? Educate?
The answer to this question will be the seed of your strategy. Allocate a budget and a timeframe, and work backward from there.
Making one video can yield results now, but consider the long-haul. Creating a campaign that builds off each other, crosses platforms, and drives viewership is extremely valuable. Setting goals, using analytics to your advantage and considering SEO will make the most of your investment in video.
Online video consumption is at an all-time high, and regularly posting fresh content is a great way to keep your brand in the spotlight. Think of it as a series, rather than a stand-alone.
Step Two — Set Trackable Goals
Make your content with clear, trackable goals in mind. You can utilize analytics to know exactly how effective your content is.
Potential goals that can be tracked include:
- Page views
- Interaction with the viewer, such as through likes and comments
- Click throughs
- Shares
- Viewer retention and drop off points
- Rewatch rate
What you are really looking for is what impact your video content has. Are people clicking away too early, or are they staying to watch the whole video? Are they clicking links attached to your posts?
Tools like Vimeo help to keep track of your analytics so you can see when and how you reach your goals, and determine what needs to be improved.
Step Three — Pick Your Platform
It’s been quoted to death, but the medium really is the message.
What performs well on YouTube may not on TikTok. Something made for the homepage of your website may not be best to put on Instagram. Before you make your content, you’re going to want to know where it’s going to live.
The same piece of content can be slightly rejigged to perform best on different platforms. For example, Facebook videos are ideal when they play silently – so consider incorporating captioning if that’s where you’re posting.
Different platforms have different aspect ratios, too. Check out this article for the best formats per social media platform.
On the other hand, there’s also value in hosting it directly through your site. For example, statistics suggest that you can potentially increase your conversion rate by up to 80% by using a video on your landing page.
Ultimately, the platform that you use is up to you. For the sake of exposure, you may want to host the video on multiple platforms. Find where your audience lives, and get your content on their screens.
Step Four — Draft Your Content
Now that you’ve set your strategy and found a home for your content, it’s time to decide exactly what that content will be.
Start with the type of video you want to create. This goes back to your initial strategy and the goal of the video. Is it strictly to advertise? Do you want to educate and provide a how-to? Is it meant to entertain?
Once you have a specific goal for the video, set the tone that you’re reaching for. Make sure that it fits in with your overall brand image and personality. And remember that some of the most popular videos combine “genres.” You may want to create a video that serves as a tutorial, while also being entertaining and providing a great advertisement for your product or brand.
As you create your content, it’s valuable to remember that one of the best things about video marketing is how it gives you the ability to tell a story and market on an emotional level. Don’t just scratch the surface or relate facts dryly. Make it something that your viewer will remember — and something they’ll want to share with others.
Step Five — Create Your Videos
You have two options for creating videos: you can choose to do it yourself, or you can hire people who make videos professionally.
Not all of us are skilled at putting pen to paper. Your video needs a script, and that script needs:
- A hook
- A clear purpose
- Well-written and fact-checked content
- A motivational call to action
The script is the bones of the video. You have a plan, now you just need to execute it. Filming and post-production are where your project really comes together. This requires:
- Appropriate visuals
- Good camera work
- Voice-overs
- Actors
- A score
- Editing
If you’re picking up these skills as you go along, remember that most video content creators started as newbies themselves! Use the best-quality camera you can, and try to film on a tripod. You can use tools like the YouTube Audio Library and SoundCloud to find royalty-free music for your score.
If you don’t plan to do all of this yourself, you can either hire a company to handle these aspects, or individual freelancers. Take a look at the work they’ve done thus far so you can make sure they know what they’re doing.
Step Six — Brand Your Content
A successful video marketing campaign should deliver 3 things: value for your audience, results for you and a consistent approach to displaying your brand.
If you’re creating content for a new brand, you can use sites like Logo Design to put together a logo that makes sense for the company. Include it in every frame of the video; logos are most frequently placed in the top left or bottom right corner of video content.
Step Seven — Incorporate Video SEO
You probably know that SEO is important for driving traffic to your website and making sure that your content gets ranked highly in web searches. The same is true with your video content.
You should include SEO keywords throughout your video, including in scripts and closed captioning. Most importantly, appropriate keywords should be included in the titles and descriptions of your video.
Make sure not to throw in SEO keywords that don’t fit the video, however. Viewers are quick to pick up on “clickbait” titles.
Youtube is the second biggest search engine on the planet (next to parent company Google) so if you nail your video SEO, you can create significant traffic for your campaign.
Step Eight — Launch
Once you’ve crafted your video content, it’s time to set it free and let it do its thing. You can only launch your video once, so make this count.
Create a custom thumbnail, an interesting, SEO friendly title, and description tags. For platforms like TikTok and Instagram, add some relevant hashtags. These elements are going to be what makes your video searchable and clickable. It also helps the algorithm get your video in front of the right eyes.
If you’re a government entity, make sure that your content is AOD compliant and has closed captions included.
Once the video is launched and live on your site or your platform of choice, watch it through multiple times to make sure that it’s loading correctly, in sync, and viewable to all.
Step Nine — Cross-Promote
It would be nice if videos just went viral on their own, but it’s a rare sight. To make sure that your video gets views, you’ll need to engage in cross-channel promotion.
That’s right, you have to market your video marketing.
It’s a good idea to drop mentions and even short clips across all branded social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram. Link them back to the video itself, and invite commentary and engagement.
Step Ten — Track Your Success
Now’s the time to put those analytic tools that we mentioned earlier to good use. Take a look at the goals you set for your video, and compare them against the numbers now that your video is live. This will help you to determine what might need to change, and whether your content is getting the attention that you want.
Video hosting platforms can be a goldmine for analytics and data. Look out for patterns: did your audience drop off at a certain point? How long are people watching your video before they click away? Are there certain videos that do especially well? Analyze your successes and failures, and leverage those numbers to your advantage.
Step Eleven — Listen To Feedback
Business owners are always looking for engagement from consumers, but it’s equally important for you to engage with your audience. Platforms like YouTube provide excellent opportunities for you to interact with others, through comments and likes.
As this is your first video, it’s even more important to pay attention to what’s being said in the comments. If the content isn’t what people are looking for, or if they have suggestions about what types of videos they want to see, they generally won’t be shy about telling you — and everyone else.
Get involved in the comments, but always be polite and friendly. Even if you get negative comments — which happens to almost everybody — thank them for engaging with you and taking the time to comment. Remember, everything that you post will reflect on your brand— this is just as much a part of video marketing as the actual video itself.
Step Twelve — Repeat (But Bigger)
Remember, video marketing isn’t a standalone — it’s a series. As you move on to your next video, build on the content that you’ve created. Use the feedback that you’ve been given. Practice your newfound skills at video creation, and don’t forget that all of us, at one point, were noobs at video marketing.
Special thanks to Tarif Kahn, Head of Design at LogoDesign, who helped write this post.
Follow Signature Video Group on social media and start your video conversation here.
