Video Marketing is a great way to reach and engage your audience, so don’t leave it out of your toolkit! In this article we’ll take a look at video marketing, explaining what it is and how you can get started with your own – plus some examples of people who are doing it really well.
What is Video Marketing? Beginner QuickStart Guide for 2024
What is Video Marketing?
Video Marketing is a strategic use of video content to promote a product, service, or brand with the goals of engaging, educating, or persuading an audience. This means creating and sharing videos across various digital platforms to connect with viewers.
Why Video Marketing Matters
Video marketing’s popularity has really grown, and it’s no surprise when you think about how much video we consume on our various devices. There are a lot of compelling reasons to include video marketing in your strategy – here are a few:
- Customer Preference: People love video content! It’s their preferred way to find out about products and services. It can be emotionally engaging too, which helps videos grab attention and be memorable.
- Improved Conversion Rates: Studies consistently show that video content leads to higher conversion rates than other forms of content.
- Enhanced SEO: Videos on your website can improve search engine rankings and increase organic traffic.
- Brand Awareness: Engaging videos have the potential to be seen by a lot of people, maybe even going viral, spreading brand awareness to a larger audience.
- Boost in Social Engagement: On social media platforms, videos receive more likes, shares, and comments than other types of content.
Marketing Video Production: How to do Online Video Marketing
Define Your Objectives
Before you jump into video marketing, you need to decide what your goals are – what it is you want. Goals will help you shape your video content strategy.
Pringles ran a Superbowl specific ad to drive brand awareness and drive sales – it saw a 3% lift in sales after 120 million impressions.
Think about things like:
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Brand Awareness: Introducing who you are or what your brand is, to a wider audience.
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Lead Generation: To get contact or other useful information for potential customers.
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Sales and Conversions: Drive sales directly through video content.
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Educational Content: Provide a service or information to your audience. These could be instructional or explainer videos, or maybe even interviews with an expert in a chosen topic.
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Customer Support: Create a video for frequently asked questions from your customers.
Identify Your Target Audience
To create successful videos, you have to understand your target audience, so you need to do your research. The better you know your audience, the more effectively you can tailor your content with them in mind.
Create Compelling Video Content Marketing
What do we mean by compelling? Well, think about:
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Storytelling: Give your marketing videos a narrative to engage people and keep them watching to the end. Try making a storyboard to help you plan it out.
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Visual Appeal: Your video content marketing needs to look good or people will switch off. Invest in video production quality – a good camera and microphone at least – to keep standards high. If you can’t do this yourself, outsource it.
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Providing Value: What do your videos give to your viewers? It’s not a trick question, there needs to be something in it for everyone, so make sure your videos offer something valuable, that could be information, entertainment, or inspiration for example.
Marketing Video Production: Choose the Right Platforms
Selecting the right platforms to host and share your videos is crucial:
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YouTube: The world’s second-largest search engine (after Google) and a hub for video content.
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Facebook: A platform with a massive user base that supports video marketing, though is known to suppress video reach unless you pay!
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Instagram: Great for short, visually appealing videos.
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LinkedIn: For professional and B2B video content.
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TikTok: Short, engaging video content. TikTok is rapidly being used by younger folks as a search engine too.
Optimise Online Video Marketing for SEO
Just like written content, videos benefit from search engine optimisation (SEO). Remember to use relevant keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. You should also consider creating video transcripts (subtitles / closed captions) for both accessibility and SEO. Also, a lot of people watch video content with the sound off… so it makes sense to subtitle your videos!
Video Content Marketing Analytics
Once you’ve nailed your video marketing, you should monitor each video’s performance. Lots of social media platforms have analytics built in to help you with this. It can sound overwhelming but all it really means is seeing what’s working and what isn’t, and that way you can make relevant changes to improve your stats. Do more of what works, and less of what doesn’t!
Tips for Successful Video Marketing
Now we’ve answered ‘what is video marketing’ and ‘why use video marketing’ we can look at how you do it successfully. Method-wise, that’s going to vary depending on what your business is and what you want out of your marketing video production, but… there are some good foundations you can work on that will help you.
1. Consistency is Key
It’s a bit of a cliché now but consistency really is essential when it comes to maintaining audience engagement and building trust. Work out a regular posting schedule and stick to it.
2. Quality Matters
We touched on this already, but quite often people focus on the visuals and forget about the sound. Good sound doesn’t have to break the bank and it can make a big difference to your videos.
3. Engage with Viewers
Engagement is a two-way street. Respond to comments, questions, and feedback from your audience. Encourage discussions to foster a sense of community around your brand, and avoid the toxic trend of engagement farming – choosing a divisive subject and pitting your audience against each other. It’s a short-term win for a long term loss.
4. Keep it Short
Attention spans can be limited, we have so much content at our fingertips. Aim for concise, impactful videos. If you have longer content, consider breaking it into a series of shorter videos.
5. There’s No Five
We said keep it short, remember.
Why Video Marketing: Who is Doing Marketing Video Production Well?
Here are some great examples of individuals and brands who are doing marketing video production successfully, and some templates that might help you make that kind of online video marketing!
Explainer Video
This video content marketing by Yum Yum Videos is a nice animation with characters to help explain a new start-up from a company called Collaboration Squared. Animated explainers are a great way to do something on a budget, because you don’t need a big setup and a lot of actors. It’s also a cool way to be representative because you can often choose from a diverse range of characters.
When creating your explainer video, your key message should ideally be within in the first 30 seconds, and the whole video should be short – less than 90 seconds is preferred! Your next steps or call to action should be at the end of the video, even if that’s just a prompt to subscribe to your channel, or to find you on other social platforms.
How Can I Make Something Like This?
Behind the Scenes
Barbie has been so popular, and people love to see behind the scenes of their favourite movies. Who doesn’t love a sneaky glimpse behind the curtain. If you have a fun, personality-led business, this style of video content marketing might be for you. You don’t need to be part of a multi-million dollar Hollywood production to make behind-the-scenes content. You could introduce some members of your team, you could take a look at ‘a day in the life of’ your business, or you could do topical stuff that relates directly to what you produce, do, or sell.
Good behind-the-scenes video should be authentic, so don’t force it because your audience will know and you might lose trust if you come across as disingenuous. That said, don’t be afraid to have fun with it either: communicate, tell a story and stay true to your brand’s usual style.
How Can I Make Something Like This?
Testimonials
Testimonial videos can be made more interesting by some nice stock footage and a good soundtrack. This testimonial video from Direct Agents shows how a simple testimonial with high production values can generate a lot of views.
There’s no denying that the idea of testimonial videos doesn’t exactly excite most people. That’s okay, they serve a very particular purpose and you just need to nail that… but there’s no reason you can’t do it in an excellent way! Think about how your product or service is different, and what problems it solves. If you’re using customers then unlike other types of video, you may want them to prep a little in advance by sending them the questions you’ll ask ahead of time. You need to avoid their answers sounding scripted – they should be natural – but they also need to be prepared. It’s a tricky balance, but you’ve got this!
How Can I Make Something Like This?
Tutorial or How-To
Makeup and beauty routines are really popular ‘how-tos’ and throw in a big name like Kylie Jenner and it’s bound to be huge. While production values on these types of videos are slightly less important, what’s essential is lighting, surroundings, and getting your focus in the right place.
If you’re trying to get across a lot of information, you might want to use animations or graphics to help do that, it helps break things up and looks more visually interesting. Don’t try to cover too much and make sure that whatever you are covering, is done well – don’t miss out any important steps. Like we mentioned earlier, it’s really useful to plan out your video first before you jump in, that way you can avoid making any mistakes and you can spot areas where you need more, or less.
How Can I Make Something Like This?
Envato Elements
When you’re creating amazing online video marketing, why not look to Envato Elements for templates, music tracks, graphics, and a whole bunch of creative assets, all for one monthly subscription. You’re bound to find lots of useful tools to help you with creating your videos.
There are free files every month at Elements too, so check those out and see if you can nab something useful for your online video marketing!
Conclusion
Video marketing is such a powerful tool for businesses and brands. The leaps in digital technology mean that you can make some really great, professional marketing videos fairly easily, without needing a huge budget. Video marketing can drive brand awareness, lead to conversions and sales, and help with engagement, so whatever your business is, it can probably benefit from some great content marketing. With so many people consuming videos, it would be crazy not to have it as part of your toolkit, so we hope in this article you’ve found some great ways to be able to do that, and to start creating awesome content.
About This Page
This page was written by Marie Gardiner. Marie is a writer, author, and photographer. It was edited by Gonzalo Angulo. Gonzalo is an editor, writer and illustrator.