Having a good video marketing strategy is essential as the world continues to become faster, more efficient and especially more interesting. Now more than ever, a target audience needs to be stimulated in order to drive sales or awareness of your product or service.
Video is the strongest form of communication. Okay, we may be a little biased over here, but consider this: how many forms of video does one person encounter in a day?
Not only are people constantly scrolling through social networks where promoted ads, sponsored posts and content marketing can reach them at every swipe, but the world is also becoming more and more digital every day. Billboards featuring videos are popping up everywhere. Every good communication strategy needs a video.
In this article, we will go through some key aspects of video marketing and how to optimise video marketing within your organisation.
What is Video Marketing?
Engaging, fun, educational, emotional.
Video marketing is many things and can be used to engage potential customers on a variety of platforms. In the simplest of terms, video marketing is the use of video components within a marketing strategy. It can be integrated into larger marketing campaigns or function as a stand-alone advert.
That being said, the benefits and uses that video marketing offers are immense. Videos can build rapport with a customer, tell a story, promote a new product, service or brand, teach a consumer how to do something. Live streaming or virtual seminars are also very valuable pieces of marketing that consumers want to see.
Overall, video marketing is about communication between an organisation and their target market. And most importantly, content marketing can dramatically move the needle on your sales pipeline and thereby enhancing your bottom line.
Types of Marketing Videos
The wonderful thing about video marketing is that there are so many different types of videos that can be catered to fit the exact needs of any organisation. An organisation could use a video to communicate virtually any message they have with their audience, so take a look at the below list and see which ones may work for your organisation.
are videos that highlight an in-person or online event to highlight how great it was. There are no criteria for the type of event either. A charity event coverage video showing how much was raised and who was involved is a wonderful way to say thank you and encourage others to get involved while an end-of-year holiday dance could use a video to show potential employees how nice it is to work with that organisation.
are used by any part of an organisation to disseminate important information, provide congratulations, inspire employees or even put a smile on their faces.
Similar to internal communication videos, executive messages are a great way to make executives more personable to their staff while sharing important information straight to the camera.
Working on a big project? Even if it’s only halfway finished, a time-lapse video is a wonderful way to show how far you’ve come, remind the public when it will be finished (or if it’s finished) and hone excitement.
is good for so many things. Live-streaming events for people who may not be able to attend in person is a great way to widen an audience. Organisations can also live stream training, how-to or even information sessions to provide value to their audience. Anything that could be done in person, can also be done online.
provide a simple and thought out way to get an organisation’s message to its audience. It provides a long-lasting guide that can be reused and referred back to in the long run.
are a classic way to communicate with one’s audience and can be a variety of lengths and styles. These commercials can be product videos, informative videos or any other type.
are a great way to illuminate how an organisation has fulfilled the need of a client. Case study videos can work for any kind of organisation that provides a service. Consider work that your organisation has done in the past that felt especially fulfilling?
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Testimonials
are similar to case study videos in that they are directly showing the success of a project and how it provided value to the client. This is done through a client interview that is then carefully crafted into an interesting and moving narrative.
provide the ability to take some creative freedom and really zero in on visual branding. They are true to their name in that they explain something: a process or purpose within an organisation. With explainer videos, an organisation can tell their story in as creative or straightforward of a way that they’d like. Typically they are simple 2D animations but can be spiced up with different styles, music and tone.
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Documentaries
A docu-style promotional video is another really good way to let your audience see first-hand what your organisation is all about. These videos can show their face in many different ways as well. As a video production company, we can take a deep dive into the history and growth of an organisation or it can be more of a day-to-day behind the scenes kind of video.
How to Produce Videos for Your Business
1). Goal
Before lights, cameras, action organisations should consider what the goal of their video is. This step goes deeper than “I want to promote my business”. The more specific an organisation can get about their goal the easier it is to choose a type, tone, length and even platform for it.
2). Consider your audience
Having a good idea of what the primary and secondary audiences are for any video is essential for the crafting of it. Who is the ideal person that will watch a video for your organisation? Regardless of the type of video, verbal and written content can be catered to the audience fairly easy as long as it’s done before the production process begins.
3). Where will it go?
Understanding what platforms will be used when disseminating a promotional video is essential to its success. A video that plays on repeat on a shopping centre screen is a substantially different setting than a university recruitment seminar. Videos can be catered to their platform and even several different platforms. If it’s a social media platform, then cater to that. If it’s a reception TV screen, cater to that.
4). What kind of video would work best
After an organisation has an understanding of the why who and where of their videos, it’s time for, you guessed it, the what. What kind of video will work best for your organisation. Having a read through some of the above examples as well as perhaps checking a few out on YouTube will most likely help determine what kind of video would be best.
5). Engage professionals
At this stage, engaging professionals to work on the video is the most ideal step. A professional video production agency like Inspireworks can help refine ideas and select which path to take.
6). Maximise your output
One of the best aspects of using video within a marketing strategy is that it is simple to reuse and adapt to different platforms. Consider all the different uses a video could have within an organisation and write them down. Even if, right now a video may be targeted toward customers, with a few small tweaks could it be geared toward stakeholders? Maximising your output means considering all current and future goals that a video could serve. Discuss these ideas with a professional video production agency and see how the work of one project can be adapted into 2, 3 or even 4 different outputs.
How to Create Video Marketing Strategy
As mentioned above understanding specific goals and needs that a video marketing campaign needs to serve is essential. Some key points to remember include:
- Goals
- Branding
- Frequency
Of course, there are many other points that should be included but for now, we’ll focus on these.
- Goals
As mentioned above, the more specific an organisation can get with their goals the better. In most cases, refining goals should be done through competitor research, target audience evaluation and of course, the general goal of the video. General goals could include, driving traffic, awareness, sales or educating the audience. Consider what the call to action is for the organisation. Every good strategy begins with goals.
- Branding
Even if your organisation has never worked with video, maintaining your brand is essential. Branding ensures people know an organisation, if done correctly, certain sounds, colours and ideas can remind them of their brand. Deciding how to present an organisation’s brand through video in the strategy phase helps to ensure that it shines through to its fullest potential. If the video is going to sit on an organisation’s landing page, then it’s essential it fits with the other content there.
- Frequency
In the strategy phase, decide how often you want your audience to view the video. This section includes what platforms it will be shown on. For example, if you target the same audience on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and promote a post, the odds of your audience seeing it numerous times across different platforms rise. Facebook and Instagram stories are other places where posts can be promoted.
Measuring Your Video Marketing Strategies
Managing your video marketing success will differ based on what your idea of success is. While some people might want to hit 5 million views, 20,000 subscribers and 2 million likes on YouTube, achieving all of this may not actually help an organisation reach its goals.
There are a couple of ways one can measure the success of a video which include
- Amount of Views
- Engagement Rate
- General Feedback
Much of these metrics can be reported in real-time. Each of these has its pros and cons in what they offer a business, so here’s a little more information on each.
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Video Views
Regardless of where a video is shared, it is almost always simple to find out how many people watch the video. It is important to understand how different platforms measure their views. On YouTube, any video that is watched for longer than 30 seconds counts as a view, whereas on Facebook it’s anything longer than 5 seconds. While view count can allow organisations to understand how many people it reached, it can also help them organise how effective their targeted messaging is. In other words, if the organisation designed their video marketing strategy/content correctly, then more of its target audience should be interested in watching it.
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Engagement Rate & Awareness
Similar to view count, most social media sites have tools to measure how many times a video has been shared with others. The engagement rate allows the organisation to understand if people liked the content of a video or found it useful. Consider for example a banana muffin cooking video to promote a flour company. If the video is shared numerous times it means that the people watching probably enjoyed the recipe. Similarly, awareness is an estimate that most analytics tools can provide based on views, engagement and interaction. This metric allows an organisation to see how many people will retain the video’s message as well as the brand.
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General Feedback
Depending on who the target audience is, an organisation may just be able to ask for feedback. Some cases where this would work well are internal or audiences that have direct contact with the organisation. Feedback can be given verbally, over a specified online survey or even via email.
Final Thoughts
In today’s world, having a video marketing strategy is essential for any and every business. However, it’s not just about whipping out your phone and turning it to landscape view. Marketing videos need strategy, goals and some creativity. This is where hiring a professional video production company is important.
Inspireworks is a small team that consists of passionate industry experts who excel at capturing brand identity and bringing them to life. With over 20 years of experience, Inspireworks will help you create an amazing promotional video that will make your brand stand out.
Please call us today at Inspireworks on 1300 885 968 or send us a message for more information.