Is video a component of your marketing plan? If it isn’t, it must be! Why? Consumers have grown accustomed to being advertised to through videos, and many increasingly demand it from brands they recognize and trust.
It took me a long time to get used to video, especially the ones that required me to be in front of the camera! However, there are many different ways to make videos, so if you’re afraid of being in front of the camera, don’t worry; you don’t have to be a video star to get started.
The truth is that having a well-written product description, a snappy sponsored ad, or a beautiful landing page is no longer enough to appeal to a large portion of your target audience. According to a Wyzowl survey, 8% of respondents claimed that watching a brand’s video influenced them to buy a product or service.
Perhaps you’re nodding your head in agreement that video marketing is a priority for you. That’s fantastic! But do you have a strategy in place based on your ideal consumer profile, or are you just slamming stuff out there in the hopes that something sticks?
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Video Marketing Benefits
Here are a few video marketing benefits to persuade you that a well-thought-out strategy is worthwhile:
You can spread the word about your product or service.
- It’s a clever technique to engage/entertain your website/social media audience.
- It aids in the simple explanation of your goods or service to others.
- If you provide excellent recommendations and advice, you will increase customer retention.
- It’s time to take advantage of this crucial but frequently disregarded, marketing strategy.
- Here are three stages to putting together a video marketing strategy that can boost engagement, leads, and sales.
1. Select your channel
Not every brand should make YouTube videos, and not every small business owner should have videos on their homepage.
For example, I’ve discovered that Twitter is the finest medium for distributing our blogs and articles, but Facebook is the place to be for video connections with my target audience. Could creating Facebook Live videos be the key to winning the hearts of your customers?
Here’s a quick analysis to help you figure out which platforms are best for your small business:
- YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine (after Google, which owns it). This platform covers a wide range of sectors and topics.
- Twitter is primarily utilized as a news site rather than a social media site, and information has always been viewed mostly on mobile devices.
- LinkedIn is a great place to share additional professional content. When compared to other social platforms, users feel Linkedin is three times as trustworthy for delivering useful material.
- Facebook: In 2018, there were more than 3.5 billion live broadcasts, according to Facebook. Each year since 2016, the number of Facebook Live broadcasts has doubled.
- Snapchat is rapidly expanding in popularity and is often linked with a younger demographic (think millennials).
- TikTok is also seen as a forum for young people; according to statistics, almost half of the global audience is under the age of 34, with another 26% between the ages of 18 and 24.
So, where do you find your perfect customer?
2. Carefully plan your content
I’m not saying you have to script every word or that you can’t respond to a current incident with an impromptu Facebook Live.
But, before you start recording your message, think about a few things. Will this footage add value to the life of your customer? Is it consistent with your company’s voice, tone, and mission? Are you explaining yourself concisely and giving a clear call to action?
Always return to your ideal client profile to find the answers to these questions (ICP). This will give you all you need to know about your target market, from their age and occupation to their lifestyle and pain areas.
As part of your initial branding plan, you presumably created buyer personas to help you figure out your ideal consumer profile. If you haven’t created brand personas to describe your ideal target market, get in touch with us to see how we can assist you.
It’s also about how long it takes you to say something, not just what you say. Determining the length of your video material will be an important aspect of any video marketing approach. According to studies, Instagram videos should be around 30 seconds long and YouTube videos should be around two minutes long. The best-performing Facebook Lives, according to BuzzSumo, is 15 to 20 minutes long.
Using this strategy will be easier and more productive if you create a calendar and organize your timetable ahead of time. You won’t be scrambling for ideas at the last minute or recording footage that doesn’t appeal to your target demographic.
3. Experiment with it and put it to the test!
Many small business owners are apprehensive about creating content to share with their clients.
To be successful, though, you don’t need a large budget, expensive equipment, or movie-star looks. What you do need is the capacity to listen to your customers and the willingness to do so.
You should analyze your statistics to see what’s working and what isn’t, just as you would for a display ad campaign or a landing page. You may evaluate a campaign’s performance by looking at metrics such as:
- The engagement rate is a metric that gauges how someone interacted with your material, including how much time they spent watching it and whether or not they skipped forward.
- The percentage of visitors that clicked play and started viewing is known as the play rate.
- This metric indicates how many people have shared your footage on social media.
A/B testing may help you figure out what works best at what time of day, which channels are optimal for a certain piece of content, and what length your target audience prefers.
Video Marketing Challenges
Video marketing has progressed from a nice-to-have to a necessity. Making a fascinating and engaging film that keeps your clients coming back for more is well worth your time and effort.
Whatever you come up with, keep in mind that today’s clients expect and deserve empathy-based marketing. Here’s where you can learn more about empathic content marketing and happy filming!
But, while I’ve concentrated on the advantages of video marketing, I haven’t yet addressed some of the problems that small business owners confront.
So in this week’s blog, I’ll go through 9 video marketing challenges and how to overcome them.
1. You don’t have an objective
It’s critical to define your goals. Return to your target audience and their pain issues to better understand why you’re generating videos. What issue are you going to help them with? Why should people put their faith in you to assist them?
Next, consider what kind of content you’d like to share. Some instances are as follows:
- How-to guides
- Events
- Interviews
- Q&As
- Views from behind the scenes
- Unboxings (if you have a physical product)
It’s also a good idea to specify the type of emotion you want your audience to experience: moved, elated, inspired, etc. If you’re looking for a lighthearted and humorous tone, be sure you don’t come across as insensitive or even insulting.
2. Not planning ahead of time before pressing the play button
Before you walk behind the camera, it’s essential to think out your speech (or camera phone, in many cases). This isn’t the time to “go with the flow.” Make a list of the topics you’d like to discuss, and place them somewhere you can see them while you’re filming.
Practice, as with many things, makes perfect. Don’t read from a script; the more conversational and genuine you are, the more your audience will feel connected to you and your brand.
3. Failing to capture your audience’s attention
An introductory hook is what will keep your readers watching until the conclusion, much as a fascinating title is for your blog content.
You only have a few seconds to capture the attention of your audience. So think of a question that will catch their interest and make them want to learn more.
4. Using overly sales language in your messaging
Too many small business owners get right into why you should buy their product or service without first building trust or telling a story.
Determine how you can make a positive difference in people’s lives. What do you think you can teach them? What can you do to motivate or entertain them? You’re not going to obtain the outcomes you want if you’re not delivering something of value.
5. Failure to include your company’s branding
I’m sure you’ve seen advertisements that have stuck with you, but do you recall the brand that created the commercial? While your message is important, it isn’t everything when it comes to increasing brand awareness.
To remind customers who you are and keep your company top-of-mind when they do make a purchase choice, brand your content with your website URL and logo.
6. Ignoring the importance of video SEO
It’s not just written material that benefits from search engine optimization. However, video SEO is not the same as traditional SEO. Here are a few pointers to get you started:
- In your title, use a target term.
- Describe the keyword you’re looking for (YouTube can understand what you say in your shots).
- Not only for people but also for search engines, create an appealing meta description (notably YouTube and Google).
7. Expecting people to come if you create it
If you place your film on the homepage of your website and do nothing to promote it, you’re unlikely to gain much traction. You must comprehend the following aspects of good video marketing:
- Paid advertisements to increase visitors to your website
- It should be optimized for search engines so that people may find it.
- It’s been shared on several social media channels, including YouTube.
- Incorporating it into a blog post
- It might be included in an email newsletter.
You’ll have to work hard to get an audience. This is where hiring a professional marketing firm to assist you with video marketing difficulties can be really beneficial.
8. There isn’t a call to action
Your ultimate aim is to get your viewers to take action, whether it’s buying something, liking and sharing your content, or signing up for your email.
It’s a good idea to inform your audience what you want them to do (think of it as a verbal CTA!) and then provide a button or link for them to click to take the next step. They’ll be far more likely to quit your site and go to your competitors if you don’t.
9. Neglect to track your achievements
You’ll need to settle on some critical indicators for your company and keep track of how you’re doing. How many people bought your product after seeing it, for example?
If a large number of people are viewing but no one is converting into a lead or sale, it’s time to go deeper into your analytics to figure out where and when you’re losing visitors. A/B testing between pages and content might help you figure out how engaged your users are.
Is Video Marketing Right For You?
Video marketing has an underhanded quality to it. This strategy, which is now gaining a lot of traction in the online world, can appear to be more of a kind of entertainment than a type of advertising, but it works! How many marketing strategies are genuinely capable of accomplishing this? Video marketing has shown to be a powerhouse when it comes to growing traffic and the all-important return-on-investment as the ultimate tool for connecting with customers in a unique and creative way.
Another advantage of video marketing, aside from the huge amount of traffic it attracts, is its cost-effectiveness and ease of usage once you get the hang of it. You also have complete control over the type of video you create. You can go all out and do something outrageous, insane, and imaginative to get people’s attention, or you can make informative movies and provide an instructional service to your consumers. The option is yours, but the goal of video marketing, like that of blogs, articles, and commercials, is to drive traffic.
Where Do You Start With Video Marketing?
If you’re trying to get your video marketing efforts off the ground, you might find that using a step-by-step system is useful. One program, Traffic Geyser, will walk you through the process of creating, distributing, and promoting your films. Having everything you need for your video marketing efforts in one easy-to-use site and system can be really beneficial.
If a program like this isn’t in your budget, you may typically obtain what you need for free on the internet. Some thorough research can help you come up with what you need to use video marketing efficiently, from video marketing tips and techniques to free tools to help you develop and distribute your films.
While some marketers find the video-producing process to be the most difficult, others find coming up with concepts and a purpose for the actual video to be the most difficult. Consider some of the following suggestions if you’re stuck for video ideas:
- In exchange for their contact information, give free instructional movies to grow your customer list.
- Use videos to generate enthusiasm and buzz for a specific product launch.
- Create videos that provide value to your sites, such as an instructive video series or another method to offer a service to your viewers.
- Introduce yourself in a video to help your visitors get to know who you are.
- Use a creative video or two to pitch your goods or service.
Don’t be intimidated by the unfamiliar, even if video marketing is new to you. When it comes to using video to increase your traffic and sales, the sky is the limit. Even a complete newcomer to the IM world can create a video that is valuable to potential consumers. Now is the best time to join the video marketing craze. If you don’t, someone else will, and they may take your customers with them.
Viral Marketing Video to Getting Traffic to Your Niche
The goal of viral video marketing is to raise awareness of a webpage, website, product, or concept. To develop a viral marketing video, you must first make a video with the intention of distributing it widely and quickly. It might be through social media marketing on sites like YouTube. Every recipient of a viral marketing video views it, and they become the means of “passing the word” to others.
This type of marketing is inexpensive to produce yet incredibly powerful. The methods to making your own viral marketing video clip are as follows.
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Determine your target market
You should aim for a wide range of people. Consider the age group, cultural standing, and interests of your target audience while creating a viral video.
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Maintain a low production value
Genuine authenticity is perhaps one of the most coveted characteristics of viral marketing films. Make a great viral marketing video with a handheld video camera, amateur actors, and good sound levels.
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Think about going viral
The most important aspect is undoubtedly an “X” factor, which is itself viral. Examine successful viral marketing videos and try to figure out what aspects of the videos make consumers want to share them with others. In your viral video, try to incorporate the same features.
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Make sure the video is correctly distributed
Publish the video on popular video websites and share it with as many people as possible. It’s critical to post the video on blogs and websites so that a large number of people can watch it all at once. If you notice that the video is gaining popularity, get ready to make a sequel so you can maintain the momentum.
How to Create Great Viral Marketing Video?
When done effectively, viral marketing does, without a question, provide more bang for the buck than traditional and pricey forms of promotion. When it comes to capturing the zeitgeist and seeing something shared among overlapping communities of interest around the world, viral has a distinct air, making it a fun environment to work in.
Making anything amusing, surprising, or nasty is a surefire way to be successful. However, creating viral content is much more involved than simply checking these boxes.
Here are a few additional ideas for creating a successful viral marketing video.
- When participating in online forums, you should be open, honest, and engaging. You can be adventurous, dramatic, humorous, or innovative, but never oversell your product or service by claiming it can do things it can’t.
- Instead of traditional marketing that tells people how innovative you are, create new advertising.
- Be wary of the misconception that coming up with a good idea for the internet that people want to watch is simple and quick. It’s worthwhile to invest in high-quality production standards that online audiences expect.
- Between the beginning and the end of the video, you can provide something of value to your target audience. You have the ability to either educate or move your audience.
Unleashing a Secret to Creating Profitable, Traffic Generating Videos with Video Marketing
Creating a video does, however, necessitate some effort. Even if you’re simply making a simple Powerpoint tutorial video, it will take time and work. As a result, you should avoid making any video that you believe would be successful. You’ll want to watch the crowd and discover what’s hot in your niche, then make a video that matches that mold and profit from the traffic.
To begin, you should search YouTube for videos in your niche before making your own. Which of your videos has the most views? Which videos are receiving a lot of positive feedback? Take notes and watch the videos to discover what they’re doing right. Take a look at how they write their video titles, descriptions, and keyword tags.
Bottom Line
The bottom line is to emulate what has worked in the past and to improve on it. You’ll have a far better chance of succeeding with your video marketing efforts if you do it this way.
You should also keep track of how effectively your video traffic converts. Please keep in mind that I don’t propose promoting sales pages directly in your videos. People watch videos to learn something, so sending your video traffic to an opt-in page is a good method to start building a list.