How to Build Video into Your Marketing Strategy

How to Build Video into Your Marketing Strategy

Having professional-looking videos should be an integral part of your marketing strategy if it’s not already.

Video content marketing allows you to improve your online profile. You can publish your videos on your own site, a social network site, or YouTube. You can also use your videos to create webinars or courses.

When you do video marketing well, it’s an excellent way to spread your message in a way that’s going to resonate with a broad audience.

It can be somewhat intimidating to get started with video marketing. Luckily some tools and platforms make it easier to produce great-looking, high-quality content than ever before.

Some of the reasons video marketing is so important in your larger content strategy include:

• If you have a product, video is a good way to explain it and help your possible buyers learn more about the features and functions. If your audience doesn’t understand your product, they’re not going to spend money on it.
• Once you create a video, it tends to give you a good return on your investment. It can take a little more time upfront to create a well-produced video than, say, a blog post. Once you have it done though, you can continue sharing it and seeing returns.
• There’s a lot of versatility in how you use video, which then means that you’re going to be able to reach a broader, more diverse audience.
• Many people prefer videos to written content because they’re easier to digest.
• You can also use your video marketing content as part of your SEO strategy. For example, when you upload videos to YouTube, you can optimize them with search terms, and then you’ll improve your chances of showing up on the first page of the Google rankings for that term. Google actually will often include YouTube videos at the top of the page for terms.
• Research continues to show that videos are highly engaging for your audience.
• You can break down a topic that might be more complex into something easy to understand.
• Videos tend to go viral more quickly than other types of content marketing.

With those benefits in mind, the following are some things you should know as you create a strategy to include videos in your marketing specifically.

Learn More About Video Types

If you’re entirely new to the concept of video usage in your marketing, you might first want to explore the different types to find out what you should create.

A few examples of types of videos that are suited to marketing include:

• Demos: These types of videos show how something works. You might test your product, for example, or walk your viewers through an unboxing.
• Brand videos: With this type of video, you can showcase your mission, products, and services or maybe give your viewers a behind-the-scenes look at your business.
• Events: Maybe you’re hosting a conference or panel discussion. You could record this and edit it into video content.
• Instructional: Instructional or educational videos are a way to provide some type of knowledge to your audience so they can better understand a particular topic or how to do something.
• Animations: An animation is an excellent way to get started with video because you don’t need to worry about dealing with camera-shy employees. Animated videos can help explain a product or service.
• Case studies: Case studies can go along with testimonials from customers as a way to highlight the problem-solving solutions you offer.

If you’re having a hard time starting the video and choosing how you want it to be, why not start with the few seconds and see where it goes? There are template database like Intro Maker that offer highly customizable intros that can give what you need.

Integrate Your Email and Video Marketing

A good starting point for video content is to merge it with your existing email marketing.

If you were going to create a new email drip campaign, for example, consider including videos as a way to convey your most relevant points. Video tutorials and guides are also well-suited to videos and can be easily included in emails.

Your emails will be inspiring and user-friendly.

Organizing a Video Campaign

You can create an entire campaign built around video, just like you do your other marketing campaigns.

Decide where in your funnel video might best be used.

For example, you might decide that videos are best for the top of your funnel at the awareness point.

If you have a high-value product or contract, an awareness video isn’t about sales at all. It’s a way for people to discover your brand.

You could also include videos in the middle of your funnel during the consideration phase.

This might be a way to build a stronger relationship and drive more interest with your potential customers.

Conversion videos are the bottom of your funnel, and you’ll implement these when your goal is to sell now.

Know Your Audience

No matter the goal of your video or where you’re going to include it in your funnel, you need to know your audience. Define your audience carefully. Create either one personal or multiple personas of who you think you will be speaking to with your video.

You might have data you can use to create personas based on patterns. If you don’t have that data, you’re just going to have to use what you know about your business and who your customer typically is.

As you’re mapping out personas of your targeted audience, you want to think about who your product or service is for, the purpose of your video, which we talked about above in the context of your funnel, and then from there, consider where your target audience is most likely to hang out. This is where you’re going to distribute the video.

Finally, there are technical considerations you’re going to have to remember as you use video marketing.

For example, everything needs to be mobile-friendly because more than half of all video is viewed on mobile platforms.

It’s a bit intimidating to get started with video content, but once you do, you’ll be glad you did, especially when you see the ROI.