Are you looking for the next step towards growing the online presence of your business? Finding ways to build your digital brand and expanding client lists online can be a difficult task, but more and more people are doing just that by leveraging the power of video content.
Quality video content does a lot to attract and maintain viewers’ attention and can do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to making your clients know, like, and trust you. However, making quality video content can be easier said than done, and this means that many people are still not taking advantage of online videos to maximize their enterprise.
If you want to launch a video series or video marketing campaign but don’t know where to start, then there’s good news for you! We’ve got a lot of experience in the world of digital marketing, and over the course of this article, we’ll get you started with the basics of how to plan, set up, and create a video series to help boost your business!
Reasons To Use Video in Your Marketing Strategy
Video content is becoming increasingly popular with businesses large and small, and, unsurprisingly, there are some clear reasons why it’s become so commonplace. Let’s consider some numbers:
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Viewers retain about 95% of the message put forth in videos.
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Once released, videos can spread quickly across your customer base. 92% of mobile users reported that they had shared at least one video in the past.
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Professionals in marketing place a lot of value on video content, with 88% stating they would continue to spend money on it into the future and 86% responding that videos have increased web traffic for their clients.
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93% of brands have reported earning new customers from social media videos.
With data like this, it’s no surprise that video content is becoming more and more dominant in the world of marketing and content creation!
Building a Strategy for Your Videos
As with any marketing campaign or business plan, having a clear strategy is essential to finding success with video content. Simply making videos one at a time and hoping for the best will rarely produce the results that most people hope to achieve!
Setting Goals
Just like any business plan or marketing strategy, one of the first things you want to do is establish an end goal or objective to work towards. Your goal depends on your personal situation and needs and can include anything from increasing customer retention to upselling customers to generating conversation and more!
The exact nature of your specific goal will determine what kind of video content you want to start making. Explainer videos that demonstrate your product might help build trust or upsell customers to more complex products. In contrast, videos designed to be embedded on a blog or company forum are better suited to generating conversation within your online community.
Choosing a Format
Once you have a goal in mind to work towards, you’ll want to choose the video format best suited to accomplishing that goal and stick with it. It may be tempting to try out a variety of formats quickly, but if you bounce too quickly from format to format, it can be harder to build a consistent viewer base.
Choose one type of video, and stick with that choice for a while. Once you’ve established a viewer base, you can try experimenting with a new type of video and gauge which style your viewers prefer.
Getting Started
The most crucial step is to simply get started! To begin with, keep things simple by recording videos directly on your smartphone or computer — the vital thing initially is just to get used to recording yourself and becoming familiar with your chosen video format. You can start investing in fancy equipment like specialized lights and microphones later if you feel it necessary.
Lastly, one of the most essential rules for launching a video platform is consistency! Many big names on YouTube started out with very basic, amateurish video production but have risen to prominence with regular, predictable video releases. Commit to an attainable schedule of releasing 3-6 videos per month and watch as you slowly build a base of followers for your content!
9 Popular Types of Video Content
So you’ve established a goal for your video campaign, and it’s time to choose the video format best suited to your needs. We’ll take a look at some of the most popular video content being produced today.
1 .Vlogs
Vlogs are one of the most straightforward video formats to produce and a great place to get started since they can be recorded anywhere with only a smartphone. You can find content for vlog entries all over, whether it’s just a few minutes of you talking about a subject you’re knowledgeable in or a clip of an interesting conversation you had with a client. Be sure that your videos cover material that’s useful, entertaining, or helpful for your target audience.
2. Presentations
TED Talks are one of the best-known names in online video content, and they are simply recordings of live presentations! If you already have a presentation or talk that’s particularly interesting or features a noteworthy speaker, be sure to record the event and make it available online. It’s also highly worthwhile to find ways to entice high-value speakers to come and present for you, which will help draw attention and build your audience.
3. Explainers
Explanation videos are particularly useful in industries that are trending in the public attention and/or industries that are inherently more complex or difficult to understand.
There are several ways to go about making a valuable and entertaining explainer video. One option is to have your CEO or another high-ranking official host an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the social media website Reddit and record themselves answering “audience” questions about your industry. Another highly effective option is to make a series of short videos answering common FAQs about your company. These sorts of videos can be animated or hosted by an employee with a good screen presence.
4. Interviews & Q&A
Once you find an interviewer and establish a list of people from your industry to talk to, interviews are great for repurposing into multiple forms of media use for promoting your business. A single conversation can be recorded as a live stream and uploaded to YouTube, as well as made into a podcast, allowing a single event to generate different kinds of content. Interesting or notable guests will also help drive interest and viewership for your channel. Generally, it’s valuable for the host of an interview show to be the CEO or another very high-ranking official, who can serve as a face for the show and is unlikely to leave or be replaced.
5. User-Generated Content
What could be better than free content generated by your customers using and highlighting your products? Generally, this option requires a product or service that customers can easily demonstrate. GoPro offers a great example as their product naturally encourages users to make entertaining content that can be showcased as advertising for the company. You can also offer rewards or host competitions to incentivize users to generate quality content for you.
6. Tutorials
Tutorials are a great way to get eyes on your product as well as highlight its uses. The meditation app Headspace is an excellent example of a company that uses short, well-presented videos to earn the trust of its users by offering practical advice on how to meditate. In doing so, they offer a sort of “free sample” that will familiarize potential clients with their product while simultaneously highlighting its usefulness and value.
It’s essential to bring in experts to plan and run these tutorials for the best effects.
7. Webinars
Similar to tutorials, hosting an interactive webinar is a great way to bring eyes to your product while simultaneously demonstrating how to use it or walking through less obvious tools or features. It’s generally a good idea to title webinars using a customer pain point so you can easily capture the interest of your viewers. Lastly, the real strength of webinar-style videos is that they are an easy and effective way to quickly and directly answer questions and communicate with clients, which also helps to build a relationship of trust.
8. Animation
Animation is more of a tool that can be used in many of the other categories listed here. Animation is naturally appealing and can make videos easier to digest, making it especially well-suited for explainer videos. Animation has options at every price point depending on your needs - you can find free or cheap animation software to make videos on your own, or you can hire anything from a single artist to a whole studio for high-quality, professional animation.
9. Behind-the-Scenes
Behind-the-scenes (BTS) videos are certainly better for some markets than they are for others. A look at a software development office might draw less attention than someone in the entertainment industry, for example. BTS videos can also offer opportunities to partner with influencers in your industry to instantly get the attention of their followers or to highlight how your product is shaped by your business philosophy.
Putting it All Together
There’s a lot to consider when it comes to starting up effective video content for your business, but we should stress that the effort is very worthwhile! In our modern business landscape, simply declining to make any video content will leave you falling behind your competitors and struggling to engage with your target audience.
While the idea of getting started can be intimidating, it doesn’t have to be! At Selworthy, smart digital marketing is our business, and we’re here to help.
Our experts are ready to work with you to set a goal for your videos, choose the best format for your business, and get you started on drawing in new customers and expanding your digital presence! Contact us today to find out how we can help you expand your business!
