The popularity of video as a marketing tool has been on the rise in the past few years, and is likely to continue for some time in the future. At any rate, it is now an integral part of most marketing and advertising strategies.
Content strategy specialists often say “content is king“, and this couldn’t ring more true. Along with content comes video, which often generates leads for businesses or draws customers to their brand. Since videos save time, resources and money, investing in them can give your business a competitive edge over brands.
Video content has gained overwhelming momentum and we can all admit there is no longer any point in putting it off. With more than half of consumers wanting to see more video content, there’s no time like now to fully embrace the potential video can offer your business.
If you haven’t already begun to use video content in your marketing strategy, it’s something that we strongly urge you to consider. And if you are already using videos for marketing purposes, then here are nine ways to make your videos as effective as possible:
Incorporate video into other content as often as possible
Video should appear across all digital content that can be embedded or shared. The only limit is your creativity. Video could appear on social media posts, blog articles, forum threads, lead magnets, and anywhere else you can embed it.
Create your strategy
Given that video is content, and content is part of how you will market content to the masses, develop a well-researched strategy to ensure maximum consumption. This means that you would need to understand who your audience is and then develop the most targeted approach to reach them. For example, if you are a cosmetics company, developing make-up tutorials and DIY tips would be a great way to get your audience hooked.
Storytell
Videos are a great way to ‘show’ rather than ‘sell’. No matter what product or service you’re selling—a story will sell much better if it’s told through a video format! This is why videos should be a part of your content marketing efforts. It will massively enhance your company’s image and reputation.
Appeal to your audience’s emotional side
Your audience is emotional. One of the best ways to influence their decision-making process is by appealing to their emotions. Let your video show how your products or services can change or help shape their future for the better. This will go a long way in building a deeper connection with your audience.
Building an emotional connection is a crucial part of the customer journey and should not be ignored or taken for granted when marketing your product. Brands that invest in this may be perceived to be more empathetic, and this is likely to boost conversion.
Create Google-friendly content
When it comes to marketing, we’ve found that getting involved with social media and producing video content is the most effective way to reach potential clients online. Many brands have had the most success by utilizing videos that relate to their audience’s interests in mid-to-higher level webinars. Companies have been able to reach over a million people organically without having to spend a lot of money on ads.
Marketing staff need to consider video production. Search engine optimization isn’t just for blogs or static content pages – rather, it includes videos. Video production might also require including some keywords and competitive research in the process.
If you want to go big, aim for mobile
In 2019, streaming video accounted for more than 70% of all mobile data traffic, according to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update. To put that in perspective, if you stream a one-hour HD movie every day on your phone, it would take more than a year to drain your smartphone’s storage space. If users expect high-quality content wherever they go and whenever they want, video creators need to go mobile-first and scale up from there; websites and applications built for mobile devices have already embraced this design approach.
The time and money spent on marketing material can be wasted if the content doesn’t get your customers to take the next step. Incorporating a call to action into all video content is a great idea because it provides direction on what a viewer’s next step should be. You can do this in the video itself. Create engagement or you can include your call to action with hyperlinks in the video’s description.
Keep it short and sweet
There have been many studies that suggest the human attention span may not be getting shorter at all. Rather, people just have so many more entertainment and informational options available at their fingertips that their attention is not directed at one particular source. Brands have noticed that when they are trying to produce content for blogs, videos, emails and various other formats, it has become increasingly important to keep consumers interested with the products they can interact with, like live chat boxes for example which give people a chance to change their experience based on what they want to view next!
Half the size, twice the flavor
Small businesses have been trying to drive more traffic in the intangible world of Internet marketing for years, but gaining traction can be difficult. Video seems to be the new frontier in Internet marketing according to many professionals, with research showing that over 80% of marketers believed that video enabled them to generate business leads.
Aural content
It’s also more likely that viewers will remember something someone says when watching a video. So if you’re trying to convey a very precise message, then using audio clips works pretty well. Just keep in mind that the last thing you want is for your audience to focus excessively on your content creator that they don’t actually listen to what it is that you’re trying to convey.
You can also check an article from Clipchamp about How to plan an effective video marketing campaign.
