All brands online, big or small, are in a constant tug-of-war to attract visitors, get traction, make meaningful engagements, and convert them into sales. While sales are the end-goal, the objective is also to connect with the target market, engage with them, and add some value to their experience.
Brands use different marketing and promotional strategies to do all of this. One aspect of online marketing that has developed at a euphoric speed is video marketing. Researchers have pointed out that while we tend to retain about 10% of what we have heard till three days, we are likely to retain up to 65% for the same duration of time when we hear as well as see accompanying imagery.
What is video marketing?
They say photos are worth a thousand words. Imagine if static images can do this to the human brain, what videos containing dynamic images can do the mind? No doubt, more than 54% of your consumers look forward to seeing video content when considering your brand for purchase.
- 500 million and 10 billion people watch videos on Facebook and Snapchat every day.
- 87% of marketing professionals are using video today, and 88% of these marketers are more than happy with the ROI generated.
There is a plethora of statistics that are available for marketers to refer to. All of these keep driving home the point that video marketing or the use of videos to empower your brand is a dynamic marketing tool, and is here to stay. If you are not yet using the powers of this tool, it is time that you should start with your strategy.
If you are not sure how to go about it, here is a short brief to help you get started.
Getting started on video marketing
Video marketing is the most impactful way to promote your brand, products, and services. Use a powerful promo video maker to create fabulous promotional videos. Similarly, it is used for customer engagement and strengthening customer rapport. Plus, with live streams, you can create some of the most influencing videos to get your audience and target market literally on their feet. So, let’s go ahead and get started with making the perfect brand videos, testimonial videos, training videos, entertaining videos, vlogs, interviews, presentations, tutorials, product reviews, ads, demos, and informative videos for your customers.
Step 1: Make your strategy.
This is beyond doubt the first step. We all understand the significance of making an action plan. Goals need to be finalized; scope needs to be defined and then you have to make yourself accountable for achieving the same.
When planning a strategy for your video, these are the points that you need to work upon.
- Identify the target audience or the buying personas.
- Prepare SMART goals
- Where are you going to promote the video?
- Prepare the timeline.
- Budget it.
- Allocate resources – equipment and human resources.
- Finalize the main performance indicators to make the performance measurable.
Step 2: Time to prepare the script
This is the time to start your storytelling journey. You need to plan this step to avoid unnecessary hassles later. Just like writing a blog, outline the script first. You need to brainstorm a lot. Stay focused on these parameters:
- – You have to appeal to the senses of your viewer almost immediately. There is absolutely no time to waste here. Use a power-driven intro maker to create the right first-impressions.
- – Keeping the script short and concise.
- – Keep the language easy-to-understand without using any jargon.
- – Keep the video short and keep a watch on the timing using a script timer.
- – Keep improving the script as you start to get feedback from your internal and external stakeholders.
Step 3: Create the video
Now is the time to start using your equipment. You can start to use your smartphones or use professional cameras. If all this sounds a bit overwhelming, you can hire professionals to do the job.
If you plan to do it all by yourself, you need to spend time and money on getting the right equipment and getting yourself acquainted with the technicalities. You need to take care of the studio setup, the audio, and lighting equipment to create the best video.
Step 4: Remember your SEO basics
Video marketing can produce results only when it is SEO-oriented, i.e. when the video has been optimized for the search engines. Remember to pay attention to:
- – The description of the video. Not only your search engine but viewers too will first read this part to understand the essence of the video.
- – Use keywords specific to the core matter, but do not stuff keywords.
Step 5: Rope in social media influencers to market and promote your video
It is just not enough to create a video. You have to publish it and market it efficiently so that it reaches the right people. Of the many marketing strategies that you need to work on, hiring social media influencers is an effective tool. Your strategy has to be expansive. Use social media platforms to garner the most attention. Use your brand website and apps to promote. Email and send messages out to your target group to get maximum mileage.
Social media influencers have a following of their own. Plus, they are people who can make an instant connection with audiences. Hence, having a few credible ones to promote your video and brand thereby is a great idea. However, make sure that you pick relevant influencers and work on proactively with them to strategize the best video marketing strategy.
Step 6: Invest in ads
One of the fastest ways to reach out to a target audience is to invest in paid ads, like Facebook ads and Google ads. Using such channels gives you plenty of flexibility to tweak and make changes, as and when required.
Video marketing comes with incredible results, but there is no sure-shot way that a video will work or not. You need to keep creating compelling content and promote it rigorously to get results. Refer to some online guides on how to create a video to make optimized videos.