How to Get Started with Video Marketing

As our attention spans grow shorter and more consumers “cut the cord” to cable television, video is becoming increasingly popular. That growth is only expected to increase in the future.

Just check out these incredible stats:

• YouTube has more than one billion users, which is nearly one-third of total global internet users.
• People watch more than 500 million hours of videos on YouTube every single day.
• Video is projected to represent 82% of all internet traffic in 2021.

When done right, the return on investment of video marketing can be huge. In fact, 51% of marketing professionals around the world said that as far as content goes, video has the best ROI. Marketers who use video increase revenue 49% faster than marketers who don’t use it, and social video produces 1,200% more shares than images and text combined.

If you want to learn how to do video marketing for your business, follow these useful tips.

Determine Your Video Marketing Goals

The first step when pursuing video marketing is to set goals. Some common goals including increasing brand awareness, educating or entertaining consumers, providing valuable content to prospects, selling products and demonstrating authority in your niche. Once you pick your goals, you can decide what kind of video content to create.

Research What Your Audience Wants

To maximize ROI, create video marketing content that your audience will love. Look at your top-performing social media and blog posts. Analyze which emails your subscribers were most likely to open. Find out what questions your customers are asking your salespeople. Then, come up with how you would answer questions, entertain, inform and provide solutions with videos.

Figure Out Where Your Audience Lives

There are a number of places to produce and post videos including YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, LinkedIn and Vimeo. Not every platform will be right for you.

For example, 71% of Snapchat users are under the age of 34, and they want snappy, entertaining B2C content. Men account for 62% of YouTube users, and the 35 to 55+ audience is its fastest growing demographic.

Using your internal demographics, figure out where your audience would be most likely to consume your videos. You can also upload your videos to YouTube, then include links to them on your blog, Facebook page, Twitter feed and/or LinkedIn company page.

Decide What Types of Videos to Create

Determine what types of videos you want to make based on your audience research. Some of the types of video marketing content include:

• Presentations
• Product demos
• Round-ups
• Interviews
• Entertaining videos
• How-tos
• Testimonials
• Case studies
• Behind the scenes

Here are some ways to use these types of videos:

If you’re a B2B company and you want to establish authority, hold a live webinar and offer viewers the solution to a common problem in your industry. For example, if you’re in B2B software sales, you may hold a webinar titled, “How to Find the Right IT Software for Your Business.”

If you’re a B2C company and want to sell products, create product demonstration videos and answer common questions about your products. If you sell blenders, make a video showing how your blender works and what kinds of things people can make in it.

To prove that you’re a brand that can be trusted, you could also produce testimonial videos featuring positive reviews from your clients.

Creating the Videos

You have your idea and know where you’re going to post or broadcast your video. Now, you have to actually produce it. You have two options; either you do it in-house, or hire a marketing agency or video production company.

With the first option, you’ll need to invest in good equipment. The trifecta for video is good audio, sound and lighting.

An easy-to-use option for shooting is the Canon VIXIA HF M41 Full HD Camcorder. You can also research DSLR cameras that are good for video. If you’re creating a casual video for Instagram or Snapchat, or if you’re doing a live video for Facebook, a smartphone with high picture quality will work.

If you’re in a low-lit environment, you’ll need to buy a camcorder light. In terms of sound, make sure it’s clear and easy to hear. There are external mics you can purchase if your camera’s sound is fuzzy. Remember to use a tripod so that your images aren’t shaky, and to edit with a program like Final Cut Pro or iMovie if it’s not a casual video or a live stream.

With the second option, your video marketing agency or production company should have all the equipment you need to get started. Ask them what equipment they normally use and watch their videos to ensure that their content is high quality.

Whether you’re doing it in-house or hiring an outside agency, keep these basic video creation tips in mind:

• Frame the subject properly. Place a person in the center of the frame, and leave just a little bit of space above his or her head.
• Make sure the light shows on the subject’s face and comes in from the front, not the back.
• Have the shooter stand behind the camera while filming so that your subject feels he or she is talking to a real human, not an inanimate object.
• Find a visually interesting background, as opposed to a white wall. However, you don’t want to shoot against multicolored wallpaper or in a crowd, because it’ll be too distracting for your audience.
• Add in background music where needed. You can find royalty-free music through your editing software.

Test How Well Your Campaign Performed

As a business owner, you want to know how to improve the next time around. You can do this by looking at your video analytics, which will tell you things like how many views you received, how long people watched the videos, who clicked on your video, how many people left comments and how often it was shared on social media. Each platform has its own analytics page that you can dive into.

Other Considerations for Video Marketing

There are a number of best practices to take into consideration to ensure your video marketing strategies are successful. Here are a few additional considerations to keep in mind:

• Keep your videos short. Instagram videos should be less than 30 seconds long, Twitter viewers max out at 45 seconds and Facebook users likely won’t watch past a minute. The most engaging YouTube videos are, at most, two minutes long. If you want to go longer, however, YouTube is the best platform for it, since its viewers are more open to watching a lengthier video.
• Include relevant keywords in your video titles, descriptions and keywords for the platform to make sure people will find and watch your video.
• Include a call to action at the end of the video. Where can people go to learn more about your company or purchase a product?
• Increase your video’s reach by posting it on social media, sending it out to your email subscribers and creating blog posts around it.

Now that you know how to do video marketing, are you ready to start rolling?