Hello!
People want to experience your brand, which is why visual marketing is on the rise mainly through the medium of videos. However, mediocre and random efforts won't take you anywhere, anymore. Video marketing strategy is something viewers unconsciously expect. Businesses know they need it, and marketers are overwhelmed to produce it. But it doesn't have to be overwhelming!
Chances are you already know and have been following some of these steps to produce your video content. However, let's walk through a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to create a successful video marketing strategy for your business that will help you make the most impact.
Identify your audience and set campaign goals
The core of every successful video marketing strategy is compelling research. Who are you trying to reach with your videos? What do you want to achieve? What are your goals? These are only a few questions you should have an answer to before proceeding to the next step.
There is no point in creating fantastic video content and pay to have it play on platforms that your target audience rarely visit. Similarly, you don't want to make a video that jumps right onto your product and invites the viewers to sign-up or make a purchase when they don't know who you are.
With each video, you want to capitalize on its ability to connect with your viewers, so make sure you are catering to the right audience, right channel, and with the right purpose.
Integrate right branding across the videos and messaging
Messaging is very important in this time and age. Based on a survey by Adobe & PageFair,there are approximately 200 million monthly active users of ad-block software globally. People no longer want to see loud, in-your-face marketing videos that feel like a sales pitch. Instead, they want real, authentic, and helpful content. Which is why the right messaging is a significant step of creating a successful video marketing strategy.
You want to stay true to your brand's personality and focus on providing value for your audience instead of just selling. Show them what they want to see. Answer their concerns, give solutions to their problems, or tell them how they can drive the most value from your product. With the right messaging, you can make the most buzz within the industry.
Types of videos to engage with the right audience
The progression of digital marketing to video marketing has been super exciting to watch. Since the last few years, the shift towards videos as a medium for entertainment and content consumption has been on the rise. Now, more than 250 million hours of video are being watched each day on YouTube, making it a great time and opportunity to show your audience some variety.
Any professional video production studio can help you understand that there are several types of video. This includes: whiteboard, 2D animation, live-action, motion graphics, screencast, 3D animation, typography, demo videos, and so on. However, for each video marketing campaign, you have to make sure you analyze the purpose, goals, and impact you want to achieve to select the best video type, style, and more.
With a comprehensive 7-step process of video production, you can build any video you like. Besides, you have to provide a variety of video content for all customers in different stages of the marketing funnel. For example, someone in the awareness stage might want to a problem-solution concept video that identifies with their challenges and provides answers.
Make sure you have a realistic budget
The budget of your video campaigns highly depends on several factors; like the style of your video. Some other elements that can affect the budget are video length, the complexity of animations or designs, the expertise of your team, and so on. However, there is no one-solution for this step.
When you decide the type of video you want to create based on the goals of the video marketing campaign, with some basic online search, you can find a range for how much this kind of video will cost you. However, make sure you take some time for the research and understand how much you need to invest in producing the results you want.
Optimize your videos for the right platform
One aspect of making the most impact with your video marketing strategy is to identify the right platform to share your video content. You want to find out where your target audience is most active and understand what kind of videos get the most traction on such a platform(s).
When you decide the platform where you are going to launch your video marketing campaign, you need to optimize your video to get as much engagement as possible. For example, videos on Facebook are shorter and the messaging is kept more relatable and high-spirited as the audiences are looking to be entertained along with being informed.
According to research, Facebook users spend three times longer watching live videos than standard uploaded contents.
YouTube videos, on the other hand, can be longer and more informational such as how-to videos or tutorials.
Did you know, 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound? It means offering subtitles on your video might be more important than you think. Hence, it is a must that you understand how audiences consume video content on your chosen platform before creating your video campaign for optimal interaction and engagement.
Collaborating with the right team for video production
A big part of developing effective video marketing is to collaborate with the right team. Your video will be as effective as your design and video production team.
Creating a video can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be, depending on your requirements. For example, a series of explainer videos can be a great choice to provide features or benefits of a product or define how the software works using screencast videos.
In case you want to invest in something more creative, then you might want to find out what 2D animation is and how you can create more vibrant and eye-catching animated videos.
However, the type of video you want to create may also help you find the right team. Here are a few options to consider:
Hire a video production studio
Outsourcing your video production will surely give you peace of mind, among several other benefits. As you have experts working on your video, you can be assured the video production agency can handle your requirements and expectation. Besides, this can be a long-term collaboration, as video marketing is all about consistency.
If you're looking for a video production studio to outsource your needs, here are some of the top video production companies.
Hire a freelancer
This may be a slightly cheaper option, but it can be a little less predictable and less professional. Working with freelancers can be messy sometimes, as you have to be careful about the deadlines and some level of supervision may be necessary to ensure everything goes as planned. When you’re on a tight budget or just starting up your business, hiring a freelancer sure is a valuable option.
Hire an in-house resource
Working with your in-house resources can be a great option if you are planning to create simple videos with basic editing. Hiring different professionals with unique expertise can be very expensive and may not be feasible for your budget. On the plus side, it’s also easier to communicate and provide live feedback with an in-house team or individual.
Test your video content
Just like display ad campaigns, you can also test and find out which video campaigns or posts are working out and what isn't. By going through different approach for the captions or running a context along with the videos, you can capture more attention. Or maybe your brand followers want to watch shorter videos instead of long ones, and vice versa. There is no better way to find out which type of content and approach is optimal for your campaigns but through experimenting.
When testing two different types of videos, you can check which one is gaining more engagement from your audience by measuring the engagement rate, view count, play rate, social sharing, comments, and feedback of both videos. Testing is a brilliant way to ensure you continue investing in videos that your audiences want to watch and that leverage high returns.
The last piece of the puzzle – promotions
A big part of a video marketing strategy is to ensure your video reaches the right people. Creating quality videos is just one section of a successful video marketing strategy. Your efforts, time, and resources all go to waste if your target audience never watches the video, and you aren't able to yield the return on the investment. Hence, the last piece of the puzzle is the promotions and ensure your video engages as many people as possible.
Here are a couple more things to stay on top of:
Ask your associates for a shout out
In case you are having a difficult time getting people to engage in your social media post, you can gain more valuable traction by sending a personal message to your regular clients and associates. Ask them to check out your new video, tell them how the content is going to help them out, and ask them to share and show some love to your video campaigns and posts.
Offer incentive for your followers to share your content
As a business owner, you don't want to miss out on any opportunity to gain more engagement in your video. Share the video on social media platforms where you are most active and offer some kind of incentive for your followers to interact with the post, like, comment, or share.
With increasing competition on social media, sometimes it takes more than exciting content to get the desired action from your community. It could be a 20% discount on their next purchase, a coupon, or some other gift offers.
Define the best publishing time
You cannot just rashly publish content on social channels to achieve maximum engagement. There is more logic behind the right time and day to share meaningful contents like video posts and such. Studies show that Facebook usage and engagement peaks during early- to mid-afternoon hours. You need to take note of the time zones of your demographics, too.
Engage with your viewers
Posting your video on social media and other online platforms is not enough. You want to evoke emotions, start conversations, build relationships, and increase your brand's influence. Hence, make sure you answer your follower’s questions and respond to all comments. Every time someone leaves a comment on your videos, you get a notification, your job is to make them feel that their opinions are heard and that they matter to you.
Consider the paid promotion option
Facebook and YouTube are great platforms to reach a vast, targeted audience. However, with increasing competition, it gets challenging to increase the organic reach of your content no matter how fantastic the video might be. Besides, paid promotions on Facebook, YouTube, and other social channels don't require a huge budget. Make sure you are aware of how you can gain maximum engagement in your videos.
A successful video marketing strategy
People want authentic and relatable content, and what more way to show it than through videos. This means it has become necessary for businesses and marketers to invest in video content and campaigns to keep up with the rapidly evolving digital and video marketing landscape.
Creating videos is a powerful method not only to reach your target audience but to keep your brand relevant in the present time. Hence, to make a video that brings the right impact, you need to start with the right video marketing strategy by following eight steps we have compiled and shared above.
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