Do you need to improve your video marketing strategy for your business? It’s a well known fact that video is now the medium of choice for any discerning marketing professional. And that more than 80% of internet traffic is expected to be video content by 2021! But what makes a truly great video? And how can you put video content together in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible? I examine these questions for you in the following article, and explain how you can produce quality video content with virtually zero budget. So you can start taking advantage of the huge thirst for video content that inevitably now exists amongst your target audience.
My personal history with video
If the truth be told, I’ve had a love-affair with video that dates back many years. I was lucky enough to land a position within the world’s most prominent and reputable video marketing company, Brightcove. This opened my eyes to the power of video marketing, and how video content would explode. I realised video would come to rule the internet, many years before most marketeers were even taking it seriously. This gave me a serious head start when it comes to video.
Now of course, the domination of video content has well and truly played out. Everyone now realises that it’s the main format you need to focus on moving forward. You need decent video content now to wow your target audience(s) and steal their attention away from competitors. It’s become vital that you understand how you can use video and video marketing content in the most effective way possible. You need to take advantage of this modern trend, as it has the capacity to completely transform your business.
So where do you start with your video marketing strategy?
It’s important to point out right from the outset, that you quite simply just need to get stuck in and start shooting some video now! No matter how primitive or amateur you might think it will be when you first start.
It can be perfectly normal to feel very self-conscious and inhibited the first few times that you get in front of the camera. But you’re likely to be much more self-critical of the end result of those first few videos than anyone else in the world! And even these days with so much video content around, people don’t necessary expect the video that you put out there to be highly slick and professional. However, there is one thing that they DO now expect, which brings us nicely onto my next point…
Make sure you have something really valuable to say!
The one thing that I can’t stress enough is to make sure that you have something really valuable to say for your videos. Put some thought into the unique knowledge that you have. What inspiring and awe-inducing stories do you have? Which company information is highly interesting and valuable to your potential customers? What visual aspects of your company are particularly intriguing?
Try and focus on the unique knowledge, skills, understanding and thought-leadership that you have going on inside your company. Provide your target audience with something that they would find very, very difficult to get elsewhere. This really is the key to amazing video content. So focus on this for greater success.
What’s the main point here?
The main point here, is that what you say, is a million times more important than the finer details of the overall quality and professionalism of the actual video content itself. If you can give your target audience something that is of real value to them, in the format that they love the most, then it’s going to work. They will often love you for it. And more love means more customers.
They will be appreciative and thankful, and certainly won’t mind if you have a bit of a wonky camera, some wind noise, or if you slightly stammer and stutter through your dialogue once the camera starts rolling.
As long as you get the message across in an acceptably succinct and communicative manner, this is what counts. So just bite the bullet and start shooting your first few videos now. You have to start somewhere, so just get stuck in and do the best you can. Until you have enough experience to reel off highly slick and professional camera presentations without very much fore-thought or preparation – this will do for now. It doesn’t need to be amazingly produced to get the job done. It just needs to be valuable and interesting.
How should you distribute your video?
When it comes to getting your video content out there, the good news is that it’s now quicker and easier than ever. Many of the main platforms where you want your content to be present, have started to favour video over other formats of media such as images, blog posts and infographics.
For example, Facebook has for many years now pushed video content into the news feeds of it’s users more aggressively than content in other formats. And of course the huge growth of YouTube has been central to the prolific rise in the popularity of video online. Which means that simply by uploading video content to these channels, you can gain a decent amount of added traction. Which will in itself be enough to justify the extra time and resources that creating video content demands. This can be a really quick win. So get going and create some video now.
Other things you can do for your video marketing strategy
But of course, when it comes to distribution of video content, there is so much more that you can do apart from the obvious channels of Facebook and YouTube. Your video content can and should be uploaded to your website to create a site that is more engaging for users. This can completely transform your website into something amazing.
Your video content can be distributed into the feeds of LinkedIn and Twitter to reach a wider audience and obtain more views. And a slightly different use of your video using YouTube would be to run paid Video Advertising through Google Ads. With this, you are more aggressively pushing your video content in front of people that you target on the platform. You show your videos to people when they are viewing other people’s videos in order to gain their attention and get them to respond to your CTA within the video ad. This form of advertising can be highly cost-effective. Much cheaper than other formats and platform. Another great reason to produce video content right now.
These approaches alone, when combined, should see you start to reap the benefits of producing video content. So do start producing video content now if you haven’t yet got round to doing so. The benefits can be endless.
The technical considerations of producing video content
One of the key questions that you might have if you are new to producing video content, is what equipment and accessories do you need? And it’s a very good question.
Well, the good news is that providing you have a fairly recent model of smartphone, then it’s going to be more than capable of churning out decent video. The capability of smartphone devices has improved considerably in recent times. So this should be your first port of call if you want to get started making video content quickly and easily. (Which I’m sure by now you’ve realised you should).
Aside from the actual device itself, it’s going to be a very solid investment to get a solid stand, that will position and support your device at just the right height and angle. This will come in very useful, especially considering that as a small business owner, you might often have to shoot your video solo, with no-one else around to hold the camera! So a stand can be worth it’s weight in gold.
And to start with — to be honest that’s pretty much about it! There’s a whole world of opportunity out there waiting to be tapped into that you can access to generate leads, prospects and more sales. So take the plunge and get stuck in now. Just get going and you’ll soon learn the essentials.
How to use video to get leads as part of your video marketing strategy
Finally, it’s worth covering some basic points about how you actually collect and nurture leads with this new video content that you’re going to start producing. As that’s really the whole purpose of the exercise, and so you need to know how to draw new people into your business once they have watched and engaged with your video content. This is really key with your video marketing.
The first thing to say about this, is that video content, when done well, will automatically gain more interest, engagement and interaction with your target audience. So this in itself will lead to more prospects and leads being drawn to your website and company, all other things being equal. This is one of the main advantages of video. Make sure to focus on this key aspect.
The next stage of your video marketing strategy
Then once you have their interest and attention, the key thing is to add a strong call-to-action (CTA) into your videos (usually right towards the end). So get people who watch the video to click through to a page on your website, usually a dedicated landing page produced specifically for traffic that the video content drives. You can add the CTA using a range of software. Much of it is easily available and not that hard to learn to use to a basic level (I use Adobe Premiere Pro). Or if you are uploading to YouTube, then you can use their in-built video-editing functionality to add some basic CTA’s to your videos as you are uploading them. It’s very good for what it does. So be sure to take advantage of this functionality.
On the dedicated landing page for click-throughs from the video, you have a lead magnet that requests the visitors email address and other contact information. This combination and sequence of events should see you gathering some high-quality leads into your business using video. Then it’s up to you to nurture those leads and get some of them converting into paying customers. Video content will help to do this. It can engage your leads better at every stage.
Your video marketing strategy in relation to automation and lead nurturing
On that subject, video content is also great for sending to your new leads as part of your lead nurturing and automation program. It will help to build a more personal connection with your prospects, and put across your key messages and the personality of your company far more effectively. Nothing does this better than video can.
Facebook in particular is a great platform on which to use video to generate leads for your business. They are now actively pushing video content more aggressively into the feeds of their users. And with so many people spending lots of time using Facebook all over the world, you’re going to get some decent traction and interest in your videos there. So use this platform to your advantage. It’s very powerful and can get amazing results.
There are some key things to remember though regarding video on Facebook. Remember that your potential customers are on Facebook primarily to interact with their friends and find out latest news and updates. So you need to avoid video content that is too salesy, and keep it light, entertaining, informative and educational. Go for this style for the best success on Facebook.
Conclusion regarding your video marketing strategy
I hope you have found this blog post regarding video marketing strategy useful. Implement the tips and guidelines above, and you should start to see decent results from your video marketing. Do let me know if you have further questions by contacting me. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Also leave a comment on the form below and let me know what you think. It would be great to hear from you.
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