Video marketing has taken the world by a storm. Content, be it online video or a blog post are the major driving forces behind marketing. Being able to hold the attention of your audience for more than a glance with video advertising gives you more opportunity to connect. Video ad typically lasting between 20-30 seconds, has the opportunity to make more of an impact. Take a look below to find what video marketing will look like in 2018 and how you can improve your video marketing strategy.
Why Your Marketing Plan Needs to Include Video Marketing
Video marketing is trending this year. In comparison to 2017, 81% of companies are making videos a part of their digital marketing strategy, and thus leading to a huge jump from 63%. Many of these companies have seen a jump in sales. Marketers reported that a well-structured video strategy has been the cause of increased sales. Although it is important for video marketers to know what their competitors may be doing, it is more important to know what their audience is indulging in. On average, a person watches an hour and a half of videos on a youtube channel or any other social media platform each day. From there, 81% of individuals have purchased a product or service after watching that video.
Needless to say, video marketing is being picked up by many B2B businesses. Marketing professionals are seeing the value in capturing the attention of their target audience through product video or even a service video that they sell. Now that the realization has been made to include video in the marketing strategy, which format should be used?
Types of Video to Consider
There are multiple ways that you can make your video marketing campaign stand out. Take a look at these 5 options for distributing your content strategy.
- Live Video (Live Streaming) - The advantages offered through this method are cost-effectiveness, authenticity, and increased views. Rather than spending money on a video platform for editing and production, the personalized video is expected to be in its raw form. The transparency of live videos like Instagram stories gives your audience a perfect view of your message without the typical polished brand awareness content.
- E-Learning Video - Anyone familiar with content marketing can tell you that it should be relevant and educational rather than appearing to be a marketing video. Inform your customers through video production techniques by making engaging videos that have interesting facts, stats, and content in general that will allow you to rank on the search engine. Leverage the value of video through content syndication which one of the most trending marketing automation techniques. Capture information from a lead through a landing page and instead offer a video in return.
- Sponsored Video - Social platforms offers B2B marketer affordable and efficient ways to market to their audience. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are the three highest-performing platforms. Beyond the social media channel itself, partnering with users can be highly profitable as well.
- 360 Degree Video - This format is becoming increasingly popular for the travel industry since it can show destinations or experiences in a new way. Companies can hire an influencer to promote their services and put it as stories, videos, and in the form of other such visual content. The full view of a location or event can be a great way to get your audience to hover over the video, move the screen, and find more to your video.
- Video Funnels - Just as you target your audience in email marketing, Facebook video, and other marketing efforts allow marketers to build custom audiences. Retarget your content based on behaviors with this approach and achieve your marketing goals.
Developing the Strategy
Who are you trying to reach? What do you want internet users to experience when they interact with your company? To make sure that your video is connecting with your customers you need to communicate the right message to the right audience. The time and energy spent on creating a mobile video or any other device video should be generating a result. This won't happen if the audience is not determined. Efficiency is key when dealing with video content. Being consistent will only give you accurate video marketing statistics thus helping you to do better with every video that you put out.
Measuring how your video marketing strategy is performing is the next step. Test out different keywords, phrases, landing page content, and audience groups. A/B testing can be a great way to determine how key results should look like for your brand.
The visual below from Phil Nottingham of Wistia is a great illustration of how to gauge the budget for your video. Your options are either to create your social video in the house or with an agency. The house is typically more cost-effective but will take a good amount of time. External options may cost more but the turnaround is faster. This decision should be made at the beginning to determine which choice is right for your marketing team.
Purposeful Content
To conclude, video can take many focuses depending on the time of year, the season of the company, or the direction of the brand. Here are some prompts to help generate video marketing topics:
- Company overview (a quick look at your company and its products/services)
- Big announcement (merger, new product, special events, etc.)
- Product/services demo (product features, before-and-after, how-to tips, etc.)
- Event promotion (sales, in-person events, event info, etc.)
- Customer testimonials (quotes, interviews, screenshots of reviews, etc.)
- Seasonal videos (holidays, special promos, trending events)
- Q&A videos (answer product questions, take questions from customers, etc.)