The importance of video marketing cannot be underestimated. These days, brands can no longer rely solely on written content or images – an average user simply doesn’t find them as engaging and interesting as they used to. That’s why the digital video marketing industry is on the rise – in the U.S. alone, it’s worth around $135 billion right now. This number further proves that more and more companies and individuals see the real value behind videos and invest in their creation and distribution.
If you aren’t releasing branded video content regularly, it might mean that you’re falling behind, and that’s something that no business can afford. However, it can be challenging to nail, especially if you’ve never done it before. Below, you will find a good place to start; continue reading to find all the basics, such as understanding your audience and setting campaign goals, before you’ll be able to move to prioritizing video SEO or the actual process of video creation and telling the stories. But hey, don’t worry – you’ll get there!
Understand Your Audience
Every successful video marketing strategy starts with determining your audience and what they expect from you. Only when you understand this will you be able to create relevant and valuable content. Figure out what’s important to your potential customers – do they want to see you in action? Do they want to hear from your employees and experts? Or maybe they prefer to see how your products are made or are interested in the industry you’re in?
One way to go about this is by developing the buyer’s persona. Think of the typical customer – their name, what they like, how old they are, their needs, fears, habits, etc. Remember that each audience is different, so you might need to create multiple buyer personas, depending on the demographics you’re serving.
A professional digital marketing agency would start by analyzing the customer base. Don’t hesitate to conduct additional market research, try to identify industry trends, and use the information gathered to understand your target audience and their preferences.
Prioritize Video SEO
If you want your videos to rank well in search engines, you have to put a lot of effort into SEO – this means that you have to write good metadata, tags, and descriptions. You also have to make sure that everything is optimized for search engines to crawl and read it properly. Good SEO helps you rank higher in SERPs, but it also translates into popularity on social media and increased traffic.
You should include shortened links with calls to action that encourage people to visit your website, creating lots of valuable traffic. If you choose to post your videos on YouTube, you can take advantage of its tagging feature, which determines how relevant your videos are and groups similar videos together so that they can appear as “related videos” for viewers who are watching content like yours.
Create Engaging Content
Without good content, there’s no engaging video that’s able to draw and keep the attention of your target audience. If you don’t want the viewers to get bored with your marketing video at the very beginning, you need to focus on stories, not the sales. There are many types of videos you could create depending on your goals, but regardless of that, every video needs to resonate with your audience.
The best way to do this is by telling a story – every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. Make sure that each segment flows seamlessly into the next one and helps the viewer understand your message better. Rather than focusing solely on introducing your company and the products it offers, try to present your potential customers with answers to their questions and problems; that’s why it’s imperative to know your audience.
Publish guides and Q&As about various topics related to your niche. Or maybe you’re trying to make a difference in the community, or there’s a relevant mission that your company is dedicated to fulfilling? Develop your story and work on the details before getting down to filming it.
Promote Effectively
Video marketing is all about creating great content, but it’s also about ensuring that the right people see it. There are two main ways to promote your videos: you can spread them on social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube) or submit them to relevant blogs and websites (if they accept video submissions). You don’t always need both ways, but it’s a good idea to have both as backups.
Additionally, don’t forget to publish the video on your website – after all, it’s going to represent your brand. It will also help you attract more traffic, keep visitors engaged (they’re more likely to stay on your website for longer if they decide to watch the video), give your content even more valuable exposure, and boost your SEO.
You can also consider working with influencers, but make sure to do thorough research before approaching anyone with your offer. Influencers can help your videos go viral, but you need to be careful about who you decide to work with.
Measure Results
You need to know whether your efforts are working or not. This is why you should develop a tracking plan (for example, you can use Google Analytics) and track the progress. Measure how many people have watched your video, how long they watched it for, and how many of them visited your website after watching it.
Every video marketing strategy is different, and your results might vary depending on your goals and the type of content you’ve created. However, you should always try to establish a few KPIs for yourself. You should know how many views your videos have had, what your conversion rate is, how many shares you’ve gotten, which social networks are performing well for you, and so on.
Conclusion
Video marketing is a great way to promote your business – and it’s not just because it’s so popular. It’s also an effective way to reach customers and tell them about the value of your product or service. However, before you start, you need to think about everything we’ve talked about above.
If you want your videos to be a success, you have to make sure that they resonate with your audience and that they’re interesting, engaging, and captivating. You also have to put a lot of thought into video SEO so that you can rank well in search engines to increase traffic and promote them effectively for the right people to see it. Good luck!