Insights

Basic Guide to Developing Your Video Marketing Strategy

Why Inbound Marketing Works for Hospitality

In today’s digital world, it’s important to be placing dynamic, aesthetically pleasing and personalized ads on the web. However, it’s not merely enough to rely on static ads to draw in customers and convince them to buy. Instead, thanks to the advancement of technology, companies must rely on more dynamic and engaging ads to hook customers – which is why companies should be looking to video marketing to promote their businesses.

What Is Video Marketing?

The idea behind video marketing is pretty simple: companies can use videos they create on a wide variety of platforms to boost their products or services. While the idea behind video marketing is simple, the execution of it is not as cut and dry: there are countless platforms on which marketing videos can be used, and multiple audiences to whom they can be targeted. Today, more than 87 percent of online marketers are using video content to promote their brand – and many of them are seeing a good deal of success thanks to their efforts.

Why Does Video Marketing Matter?

Using video marketing today is one way to improve your company’s marketing efforts and engage customers. Video marketing is a worthwhile undertaking for the following reasons.

They Work

First and foremost, the reason companies should turn to video marketing is because marketing videos has been proven to work. Surveys show that more than 51 percent of all marketers say that videos are the marketing content that shows them the best ROI – and that marketing teams that used video grew their revenue 49 percent faster than those who didn’t use video.

They Capture Attention

Did you know that the human attention span is shrinking, and is now at eight seconds (shorter than that of a goldfish?) For that reason, content needs to be dynamic and gripping - not slow and boring. Using video can help catch the eye of your potential customer and hold it until you’ve delivered your message.

They Get Shared

Everyone loves free promotion, and videos can get you just that. Studies show that online video is shared 1200 percent more times than links and text combined. This means that if you create and shared branded videos online, there’s a good chance that your customers or followers are going to be spreading your video around for you.

Developing Your Video Marketing Strategy

So, you’re convinced you want to use videos for marketing – but you don’t even know how to start developing a video marketing strategy. The following tips can help you determine what kind of videos you want to make, where you want to put those videos and who you want to attract when you create them.

Create a Budget

Look at your marketing budget and determine how much you can allocate to creating marketing videos. Ensure that it is at least enough to cover the cost of shooting equipment and someone who can edit the footage. Studies show that in 2017, video ad spending reached $5.4 billion.

Figure Out Who You’re Targeting and Why

Think about your company’s target audience and who you will want to watch your videos. Are you appealing to consumers who you want to get excited about your product? Or, do you want other businesses to learn in-depth information about how your company can help them? Determining who you’re targeting will help you start to think about what types of videos you should be creating and what ways you should disseminate those videos.

Decide What Type of Videos You’ll Be Making

Once you’ve determined your target audience personas, make a decision about what types of videos you’ll want to make. There are a wide variety of marketing video types, and these include (but are not limited to):

  • Product or Service demonstrations
  • How-to Videos
  • Product Ads
  • Interviews
  • Testimonials from Clients or Customers
  • Funny Sketches to Demonstrate a Company Personality
  • Live videos in the workplace
  • Etc.

Determine Where to Publish Marketing Videos

Once you’ve decided what kind of videos you’ll be creating, you need to determine where they’ll live. You can choose to stream videos live on streaming platforms like Periscope, Facebook or Instagram – or you can publish them in places where they can be viewed once they’re recorded and edited. Some places where you might publish your videos include: your YouTube channel, in email newsletters, on your website, or on other social media networks like Facebook and Instagram.

Incorporate Some Call to Action

Creating well-made, entertaining or helpful videos is a great marketing step – but promotional videos will be useless unless they remind a consumer (in some way) to engage with your brand. Incorporate a call to action in the video, whether that CTA be to visit your website, get in touch with your company, share the video or more. Depending on what platform you use, you may be able to incorporate useful and easy CTA and share buttons.

Make the Videos – or Outsource Help

Once you’ve determined what content will be in your videos and where your videos will live, you can start making them. If you have room in your budget to hire a team to help, you can get a camera crew, editor, director and more to aid in their production. If you have a smaller video marketing budget, you can use equipment to make and distribute the videos on a smaller scale.

Shameless plug here…here at Vitamin D, we offer video production services that meet all sorts of budgets.

Now get your camera gear out and start shooting!

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