The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Video Marketing Strategy

If you’ve gotten to this guide, you’re probably already interested in video marketing.

You know that videos can be a gateway to more visibility, greater reach, and ultimately, more conversions and revenue.

But before you can start capitalizing on those gains, and before you even make your first video, you need to have a video marketing strategy in place.

How are you supposed to start making one?

Video Marketing Benefits

Video marketing is becoming increasingly important, not only because of the massive benefits of video marketing itself, but also because of the competitive pressure of businesses of all shapes and sizes getting involved in the video marketing game.

If you can fully harness the power of video marketing, you stand to benefit in several ways:

·         Visibility and reach. Video is quickly becoming the dominant medium of the online world. Successfully making and promoting your videos means greatly increased visibility and reach to new audiences. This is especially true if you can distribute your videos across many platforms, and in ways that enable more people to find them.

·         Engagement. As a medium, video is especially engaging. By combining both visual and audio elements, and avoiding demands for readership, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with your audience on a more meaningful level.

·         Authority. Producing great videos is an opportunity to showcase your authority. You can demonstrate your expertise on a topic, talk to your audience directly, and showcase your brand prowess by putting forth the highest quality material. If done successfully, it’s a gateway to building trust.

·         SEO. Video marketing can facilitate better search engine optimization (SEO). If you optimize your videos correctly, those videos can show up immediately in Google search results or relevant keyword terms. Additionally videos can be a powerful way to build links and boost your website’s domain authority, thereby increasing your chances of ranking for relevant search terms.

·         Support for omnichannel marketing. Marketers love videos because they offer tremendous support for omnichannel marketing. Good videos can be used in a variety of ways, being featured on your website, being included in your emails, being showcased on social media, and beyond.

How to Create Your Video Marketing Strategy

So how exactly do you start creating your successful video marketing strategy?

Keep in mind that your video marketing strategy is a high-level set of objectives and ideals that’s going to dictate what types of videos you make, how you make them, how you distribute them, and even how you evaluate them.

Accordingly, you don’t need to work out all the ground-level details of your video production at this point. Instead, it’s better to focus on the big picture.

·         Define your goals. Start by defining your goals. There’s nothing wrong with having a general interest in using videos as part of your marketing strategy. But if you want to be successful, you should have some specific, concrete objectives dictating your approach to video marketing. Not only will this help you create more relevant, powerful videos, but it will also give you a way to measure your progress and an objective standard by which you can determine your results.

·         Choose and research your target audience. As with most other marketing strategies, video marketing only works if you fully understand and commit to a specific target audience. If you try to make videos that appeal to a general, broad population, they probably aren’t going to make much of an impact. Accordingly, one of your earliest objectives should be choosing and researching your target audience fully, so you can understand how they think and feel and make the kinds of videos they want to see. It’s perfectly fine to choose multiple target audiences, but if you do, you’ll likely want to segment your strategy.

·         Figure out your overarching story. If you’ve already done some work on your core brand and general marketing objectives, you probably have an idea of what your overarching story is. What is your brand? What does it represent? How do you want people to perceive it? How are your videos going to convey these strategic elements to your audience at large?

·         Set a timeline (and stick to it). Even if you don’t know all the specifics, you should set a general timeline for yourself. When do you want to release your first video? How often are you going to release videos? How often are you going to measure key metrics and calibrate your efforts?

·         Keep a reasonable budget. Budgeting for video marketing efforts can be tough. Video isn’t a cheap medium, so you’ll need to be willing to spend a bit of money to get access to quality work. At the same time, you don’t want to overspend, or you’ll jeopardize your overall return on investment (ROI). Allocate spending that allows you to get access to excellent video material without exhausting your marketing budget in the process.

·         Consider your team. There are many options for creating videos. You can build an internal team. You can work with a video production agency. You can even work with a loosely assembled team of contractors. Each of these approaches comes with strengths and weaknesses, so you’ll need to consider them carefully.

Once you nail down these elements, you’ll be ready to dig into more details about the types of videos you want to create.

Types of Videos to Include in Your Marketing Strategy

There are many types of videos that can be strategically useful in your marketing strategy. These are some of the most common:

·         Explainer videos. Around 62 percent of your website visitors are going to go directly to your videos (if you have them). Explainer or educational videos attempt to capitalize on this traffic, showcasing your brand and its core products and services in a concise, brief piece of video content. The goal of this type of video strategy is to explain the basics of your offers to your target audience, while simultaneously compelling them to take some kind of action, such as signing up for a free trial or purchasing one of your products.

·         Advertisements. Advertisements are probably the most familiar type of video in a marketing strategy, and they tend to be the most straightforward. Your goal with ads is to persuade your target audience to purchase your products or services in most cases. You can distribute these on a wide variety of platforms, though you’ll typically have to pay for that exposure.

·         Product showcases. Product showcase videos have some overlap with explainer videos and advertisements, but they can also be treated as a distinct entity. Product showcase videos highlight one or more of your most important products, fully explaining all the benefits and convincing people why they should purchase the product. They can be used on your website, as peripheral materials for prospects, or even as advertisements generally.

·         Social content. There are many types of videos that belong on social media, but generally, these videos tend to be shorter, more digestible, and more entertaining in nature. Depending on the goals of your strategy, short form video content might take the form of punchy advertisements, informative or entertaining tidbits, or exciting videos meant to stimulate interest and attract more people to your social media platforms overall.

·         Testimonials. Many brands also take advantage of testimonial videos, having previous clients and customers detail their experiences with your brand as a form of social proof to persuade new prospects to take action. Customer testimonial videos should be as authentic and honest as possible to persuade the greatest number of people.

Obviously, you can use some or all of these types of videos as part of your marketing strategy, or you could choose to go a more novel path.

Video Styles to Consider in Marketing

There’s nothing wrong with experimenting with different styles, especially if you’re using them in different applications or for different platforms. But many brands benefit from specifically focusing on one signature style so they eventually become more recognizable.

·         Natural. Natural videos focus on authenticity and honest portrayal. For example, you might showcase how your product is used in a live environment or show off a day in the life in the office.

·         Documentary. Mini documentary videos take a more professional approach, attempting to relay specific facts or illustrate certain concepts with the help of narration and other guiding elements.

·         Interview. Interview videos can be very useful, especially for testimonials and demonstration of expertise. You can choose to interview people inside the company, your clients and customers, or external experts, for example.

·         Narrative. Narrative videos attempt to tell a story, and they can do so in any number of ways. You can literally show the story unfolding with actors and scenic recreations. You can showcase a narrative through illustrations. You can even tell a more abstract story by connecting different pieces of your products and brand together.

·         Animation. Animated videos take some of the burden of video creation process away; you won’t need a dedicated studio or hired actors if you choose this route. There are also many ways to make your animation style unique to your brand, so all your videos appear consistent and original.

The Video Production Process

Regardless of what types of videos you want to produce or what styles you want to pursue, the video production process usually goes something like the following:

·         Pre-production. The pre-production process is all about establishing the foundation of your video and laying the groundwork for future phases. It includes things like concepting, outlining, scripting, and securing the resources necessary to produce the video.

·         Production. The production process is arguably the most important, but it also tends to be the shortest. If you’ve done all your prep work, you should be able to act out, film, or illustrate the core video with relative ease.

·         Post-production. After all the filming and initial animation is done, you’ll spend significant time adding graphics, making edits, and generally polishing the video for distribution or syndication. This is a crucial step of the process if you want your video to look as professional as possible.

Be sure to detail the individual steps of your video production process as part of your effective video marketing strategy. If you choose to work with the video marketing agency or professional contractors, they can help you with this.

Video Distribution and Syndication

Creating the videos is only one part of your video marketing strategy.

You also need to figure out how you’re going to distribute and syndicate your videos. In other words, you need to figure out how you’re going to make sure that people can see and watch your videos.

You can start by featuring relevant videos on platforms that you already own. For example, you can feature them on your website, and include them in your blog, or host them on a YouTube channel of your own. This is usually the best option for things like explainer videos and testimonials.

You can also pay to have your videos placed on external channels. This is usually the best option for things like advertisements and product showcases.

In some cases, you can also earn placement for your videos. For example, you might work with other collaborators or partners who would be willing to share and highlight your work.

Keep in mind that you’ll always have the option to repurpose and reuse your videos. For example, you might have a long explanatory video on your website, but you can break it up into smaller videos and reuse them as advertisements with only minor tweaks. You can also distribute the same video across multiple channels to increase its potential reach.

Measuring Success in Video Marketing

As part of your general video marketing strategy, you should have a plan for how you’re going to measure success. This will help you calculate your overall ROI, determine whether you’re meeting objectives, and help you figure out how to improve your video marketing strategy in the future.

There are several objective metrics you can look at to determine the effectiveness of your videos. These are some of the most popular:

·         Views. Views are a relatively straightforward measure of how many people are watching your videos. More is better, but keep in mind that audience targeting is also relevant; lots of views from irrelevant viewers may not be beneficial to your overall marketing strategy.

·         Retention. Retention figures show you how many people stick around for your full video and how many people leave prematurely. This can tell you whether your video is sufficiently engaging for your target audience.

·         Subscribers. Similarly, subscriber counts are good indicators of how many people want to see more content like what you’ve already produced. A high subscriber count isn’t enough to tell you whether your video marketing strategy is succeeding by itself, but it is an excellent indicator to evaluate alongside other factors.

·         Comments and ratings. A large number of comments typically indicates that your video material is engaging, but it’s also important to look at comments from a subjective standpoint. What do people have to say about your videos? How are they rating your videos? What suggestions do they have about future videos?

·         Shares. Shares measure how many people are sharing your video on social media. A share is a great indication that you’ve made a good impression on someone, and it’s also an opportunity to reach new people.

·         Conversions. Of course, the Holy Grail metric for video marketing is the same golden metric as most other marketing strategies: conversions. For most of your videos, you’ll want to pay close attention to how much traffic they’re generating and how many people they’re persuading to make a purchase.

Your video marketing strategy shouldn’t be static. Your overall goals and vision might remain the same, but as you start producing high quality videos and measuring their impact, you’ll likely find that you need to make some adjustments with your approach. This is natural and to be expected, as the most adaptable brands tend to be the most successful when it comes to video marketing.

Of course, video marketing is very tough, especially if you’re new to the game. That’s why it pays to work with a video marketing agency who can help you with everything from initial video marketing strategic planning to video production and distribution. 

Originally published – https://vid.co/blog/video-marketing-strategy