A lot of businesses are intimidated by video marketing because they believe that video production is a long and expensive process (which is simply not the case anymore). Don’t make the same mistake. Video marketing has a good ROI, and you don’t need a huge budget to produce high-performing video content.
However, to get the most out of your video marketing efforts, you need to approach your video content strategically. Let’s take a look at what that entails.
What’s the Point of Video Marketing?
Increased engagement and retention. You can’t deny that videos are inherently more engaging than text or static images. When done right, they effectively capture the user’s attention and deliver even complex information in an easily digestible format. That’s why videos are an exceptional medium for communicating your brand’s story and key messages.
Boosted conversion rates. Video marketing drives conversions. For example, research suggests that by including a video on a landing page, you can increase conversions by up to 80%, which is a very impressive number.
Improved SEO performance. If you’ve been struggling with SEO, embracing video marketing might be the solution. Search engines love video content, which you can easily check by reviewing the first page of Google search results for basically any query. Also, by posting videos on YouTube and similar platforms, you drive traffic back to your website (which is also great for SEO).
1. Make an Effort to Truly Understand Your Audience
You need to know your customers’ interests, pain points, and preferences — otherwise, your content won’t be relevant to them, and it will do nothing for engagement.
This is true for every type of digital marketing, and videos are no exception. In fact, comprehensive customer insights matter not just for marketing but for most business functions — from eCommerce customer service outsourcing to R&D to PR.
Thorough market research with in-depth demographic analysis can help gather the data necessary to determine what will resonate with your target audience. This implies conducting surveys and polls, using social media insights, and interviewing customers directly.
Although all of these require monetary investments, it’s still cheaper to carefully research your consumer than to redo your videos because they fail to perform.
2. Tell a Compelling Story
A compelling story is what makes any video engaging and persuades the viewer to purchase what you’re selling. Even if it’s a simple behind-the-scenes look at your company or a product demo, your message must be clear, easily digestible, and at least somewhat novel.
There are a few video production steps that can help ensure the video is telling a good story. First, don’t neglect storyboarding. It’s a time-consuming and often tedious stage, but it’s what’s behind a clear narrative flow. You wouldn’t finish a chaotic book with no structure and an erratic plot, would you? The same works for video marketing.
Next, make sure all your videos have the two essential elements of a compelling story — emotional connection and character development.
Which emotion to appeal to is up to you, but the ones that tend to perform the best are humor, inspiration, empathy, and nostalgia (depending on what you’re selling). Some of the brands that excel at emotional video marketing are Nike, Spotify, and Apple. You don’t need to have the same immense resources to be able to affect your customers, though.
In turn, character development is what helps the viewer relate to the story you’re telling. It can be a fellow customer explaining how they’ve benefited from your product or service. Or it can even be your employee talking about the brand’s mission and values.
3. Keep It Short
Given today’s pace of life and people’s ever-shortening attention span, a video over two minutes long is a losing strategy. Ideally, try to make it up to 60 seconds long (or even less, especially if it’s intended for social media). Do your best to grab the viewer’s attention with a hook within the first 3-5 seconds, focus on the core message without unnecessary fluff, and edit ruthlessly.
4. Optimize for Mobile Viewing
Some 75% of video content is viewed on mobile devices these days, so it makes no sense to produce videos for marketing processes unless they’re optimized for mobile viewing. Leveraging AI development can further enhance video optimization by automating caption generation and format adjustments for better engagement. If you intend to distribute your video content on social media, choose vertical (9:16) and square (1:1) formats. Also, add captions for viewers who watch without sound or are deaf or hard of hearing.
5. Don’t Treat Thumbnails and Titles as an Afterthought
One of the biggest mistakes among marketers new to video marketing is a false belief that all that matters is to produce a high-quality video. While that’s obviously crucial, for your video content to serve its purpose, it needs to actually reach the viewer. Your task here is to do everything to make your target audience want to watch your video.
The two video production elements that can help with that are a thumbnail and a title. Descriptive titles with relevant keywords will help your video content reach the audience it’s intended for. Eye-catching thumbnails (bright colors, clear images, readable text) will increase the number of people clicking on your videos to watch them.
6. Utilize User-Generated Content
User-generated content (USG) is becoming more popular, especially customer reviews. According to recent research, 92% of users respond better to reviews and personal stories about the purchasing experience than traditional ads. Also, video content that features reviews is relatively cheap to produce, and it converts really well, so it’s a win-win.
What’s more, you can build entire marketing campaigns around USG. Encourage your customers to create and share videos of them using your product by offering incentives — such as discounts or gifts. Then, comment, share, and otherwise interact with your customers’ content about your product or service to build a community. Such an approach drives sales, helps the brand image, and inspires customer loyalty.
Wrapping Up: Is Video Marketing Worth It?
Yes, video marketing is for sure worth it, and if you’re still not doing it for some reason, you’re missing out. Contrary to popular belief, videos aren’t always pricier than other types of digital marketing, whereas their ROI is some of the highest.
However, video marketing only succeeds when marketers invest in audience research, know how to tell a story in under two minutes, optimize for mobile viewing, and embrace different types of video content, including UGC.