Video marketing is a powerful tool for brands looking to connect with customers on a personal level. In today’s always-connected world, consumers expect to be able to access your brand at any time and from anywhere. This makes video marketing one of the most effective and affordable ways of reaching out to potential customers.
That being said, it’s not as simple as just throwing up a camera and hoping for the best. Creating a successful video marketing campaign requires a good understanding of the audience you’re targeting as well as your brand message. Read on for some useful tips that can strengthen your video marketing strategy and ultimately lead to a successful campaign.
Define your video marketing goals
The first and probably most important step you can take when planning a content marketing strategy is to clearly define your goals. What are you trying to achieve with your video marketing?
In order for your video content to be effective, you need to be able to clearly identify what you want to achieve with it. This is essential because it helps you to select the right content, as well as the right strategy.
With a goal in mind, you can then begin to research the best ways to reach that goal.
Use video to tell your story
Without a doubt, one of the most effective ways to engage with your audience is through video. The ability to tell a story through a series of images and sound is what makes video so captivating.
And, as we’ve discussed, consumers are more and more open to listening to your brand stories.
What makes video particularly effective for telling your story is the fact that a video doesn’t just last for a set period of time. It can be accessed whenever the viewer wants. This opens up the opportunity to create a long-term relationship between your brand and your customers.
That being said, it’s important to keep your stories relevant and interesting. You want to make sure that it’s interesting enough to keep people watching, while also interesting enough to tell your story.
Create thought-leadership pieces
It’s important to understand that video marketing isn’t just about generating awareness. It’s also about generating demand.
This means that you’re actually trying to convince your customers to buy your products.
And what better way to convince your customers to buy your products than by showcasing your knowledge and expertise on relevant topics?
This is particularly effective when it comes to e-commerce brands. By creating thought-leadership pieces, you can showcase the benefits of your products and the value they bring to the world.
Create demand generation videos
By now you’ve probably noticed that we said you want to create demand generation videos rather than awareness videos. Why is this?
Well, demand generation videos are typically more focused on selling your products or services than generating awareness.
That being said, they can still be effective at creating awareness if they’re done in the right way.
What you want to do with demand generation videos is get people thinking about what they want. This is easier done than said!
The two main ways you can do this are through storytelling and influencer partnerships.
Create awareness videos
An effective way of increasing your brand’s visibility is by creating awareness videos. By creating videos that focus on your audience’s existing knowledge, you can create videos that help to increase your brand’s visibility.
For instance, if your audience is well-versed in the topic of your target market, you can create videos that expand on things like the history of a certain product or the origin of a certain term.
Incorporate training videos for sales teams
If you’re looking to onboard your sales team with video, then you should consider creating training videos.
There are two benefits to this.
First, having sales team members trained on your products and the company’s processes can help increase sales.
Second, training videos are a great way to solidify your brand message and make it memorable.
Create episodic content
Another way to improve your video marketing is by creating episodic content.
Episodic content is similar to thought-leadership content in that it helps to tell your story. Instead of simply giving a speech, however, episodic content is more similar to a story.
The main difference between episodic content and other types of content is that it becomes less effective over time.
Whether it’s a product tour, a review, a recipe, or a walkthrough, your episodic content will be less effective over time. By the time your next episode arrives, it will be less interesting than the first episode.
To combat this, you can create a series of shorter videos or a longer series that comes to an end.
Create event-driven content
For brands looking to promote one-time events, such as product launches or sales, it makes sense to create event-driven content.
What you want to do is create a series of videos that showcase the event and the event experience. This can include product tours, interviews with your customers, and images of the event.
With this content, you want to make sure that it feels more like a video-based article rather than a normal video. That way, people can feel more inclined to click on it and stay for a longer period of time.
Create short form content
Finally, you can also create short form content.
Short form content is similar to thought-leadership content in that it helps to tell your story. The difference is that it’s shorter than thought-leadership content and usually less interesting.
By creating video content that isn’t necessarily the most interesting, you can help to improve your video content.
Your goal with short form content is to create a simple, easy-to-digest piece of content. The less words there are in your content, the better.
Wrapping Up: The Bottom Line
With the amount of content people are consuming on a daily basis, brands need all the advantage they can get. And one of the most effective ways to reach out to your potential customers is through video marketing.
However, it’s important to remember that video marketing is more than just throwing up a camera and hoping for the best. It requires a good understanding of your audience as well as your brand message.
The good news is that with the right strategy and preparation, you can successfully create a successful video marketing campaign.