Today, there were 4.4 billion blog posts written. In this vast quantity, how can you and your company differentiate yourselves?
In order to boost the effectiveness of your marketing campaign, it has become crucial to incorporate a video marketing strategy. The integration of marketing and video is now more important than ever, whether your goal is to increase lead generation or raise awareness.
Marketers are provided with an appealing and adaptable method through this plan, which can be effortlessly distributed online, consequently expediting the expansion of the brand.
What is Video Marketing, and Why Does Your Business Need It?
Using video marketing is a proven method to reach your business objectives quickly and effortlessly. You can experiment with various video formats, shapes, and sizes including YouTube, Instagram Stories, Facebook Live, and online seminars. There are many opportunities to explore with video content.
We have compiled some additional statistics to emphasize the significance of video in marketing, as 92% of marketers recognize its importance.
The statistics indicate that video is the most effective means of connecting with potential customers throughout your enterprise. It infuses a personal element into advertising, making it simpler for companies to gain the confidence of their desired market.
In the past, video has proven to be a powerful way to communicate, making it a logical and affordable choice for businesses looking to bolster their social media presence. Beyond this, video marketing is also a highly effective and trustworthy means of informing customers about what your company has to offer.
So Videos Are Actually Good for Business?
Whether your business is big or small, incorporating videos into your marketing strategy is crucial for success. If you’re not seeing positive results, it’s probable that you’re using the wrong types of videos. By repurposing your existing infographics, blog posts, social media updates, or e-books into compelling videos, you can kickstart your marketing efforts.
Another explanation for why you might not be achieving ROI from video is due to the absence of a tailored strategy. Videos are extremely individualized and diverse, which is one of its main selling points. Therefore, the tactics that are effective for your business and intended audience may not work for different companies.
It is crucial to tailor every video to your buyer personas and brand. After that, you must identify the appropriate budget and format for more effective message dissemination.
Utilizing video content can rapidly and efficiently assist your business in connecting with your intended audience. HubSpot’s findings reveal that 78% of individuals watch online videos on a weekly basis, with 54% tuning in daily. What’s more, Google’s research indicates that 6 out of 10 people favor online video watching to television.
Below are some additional advantages of incorporating video marketing:
- YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world : YouTube has over a billion users who watch millions of videos every day. As a result, there’s a good chance your potential buyers are using the platform and searching for content related to your business.
- Boosts conversion rates : Sometimes, products can be incredibly difficult to understand. Fortunately, videos are informative and easier to understand. Hence the fact that 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. Moreover, website visitors are 64–85% more likely to make a purchase after watching a product video.
- Customer relationships and brand affiliation : Videos provide viewers with audio and visual stimulation, which can help the brain remain engaged and connect with the content. This can help potential customers develop a stronger interest and connection with your product and brand.
How Do I Create a Video Marketing Strategy?
Video content has been found to be an exceptional marketing strategy that can help businesses increase organic reach and engagement, as it is shared at a rate that exceeds the combined sharing rate of text and image posts by 1,200%.
If you haven’t implemented a video marketing strategy yet, there’s no need to worry.
Despite videos being more easily created these days, it still takes considerable planning and investigation to craft an ideal digital marketing video.
If you do not conduct adequate market research and plan accordingly, the video may fail to accomplish its intended objective or capture the interest of your intended viewers.
In order to develop an effective video marketing plan, one must establish objectives and intended audience, select the appropriate video format, distribute the content, and monitor its performance.
A detailed explanation of each step is provided below:
Create Video Marketing Goals and Targets
To commence a video marketing campaign, it is essential to establish your objectives and intended audience.
To accomplish this, determining your desired outcome for the video is crucial. While it’s ideal for the video to cater to all stages of the marketing funnel, selecting the stage you view as the primary target is still necessary.
The following are various stages and objectives of video marketing:
- Awareness : This stage is when the viewer realizes that they have a problem and need something to solve it. This is the stage when a viewer can be introduced to a new product or service. If your goal is to attract new customers, awareness videos are the way to go.
- Consideration : During this stage, viewers are figuring out how to solve their problems. As a result, they might be looking for product recommendations and reviews. A consideration video is the right choice if you’re looking to engage your audience.
- Decision : At this stage, viewers are almost ready to purchase, so you’ll need to prove why your product or service should be chosen over your competitors. Decision-based videos are great for nurturing prospects and closing deals.
What Kind of Video Should I Create?
The kinds of videos you can select from vary based on your objective.
- Demo videos : Demos show viewers how your product or service works. The video should highlight its features, benefits, and a call to action to encourage viewers to purchase the service or product. You can opt for fun animated videos or a video with real people for demos.
- Behind-the-scenes videos : The type of content in these videos should give viewers a ‘backstage pass.’ Here, you’ll need to introduce viewers to your employees and show them how your product is made.
- Customer testimonial videos : A customer testimonial video requires a satisfied user of your product or service to share their experience with your brand. These videos can positively influence your target market and encourage viewers to make a purchase.
- Educational and how-to videos : Educational videos teach viewers how to use a product or service. People prefer educational videos over text because they can see and hear the demonstration.
BONUS: How to Choose the Right Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Business
The key to a victorious digital marketing plan is not experimenting with the latest trends or assuming what your target audience desires, but relying on insights supported by data.
According to Jess Reilly, the chief marketing officer at Rebel Interactive Group, the foremost effective advertisers comprehend that digital marketing that can be scaled up must now focus on people-based advertising. This means being able to deliver precisely the right message on the right platform to the right individual at the appropriate time.
The process of selecting a digital marketing plan involves creating profiles of potential customers, establishing objectives, selecting appropriate digital marketing instruments, and evaluating the effectiveness of the strategy.
1. Build buyer personas to understand your target audience.
Fictitious personas that embody the typical consumers who could potentially be interested in your brand are called buyer personas. By utilizing these personas, you can effectively promote your products and services to this group.
Reilly stated that the development of buyer personas is instrumental in guiding your marketing approach by shedding light on the identity of your buyers, the challenges they encounter, and, above all, the objectives that your intended audience is striving to attain. This information is essential in shaping your messaging strategy.
When creating customer personas, take into consideration the subsequent details regarding your aimed consumer:
- Job type
- Interests
- Age
- Gender
- General demographics
- Most-used social platforms
- Beliefs and values
Subsequently, tailor your approach according to these specifics.
A helpful suggestion is to gather survey data through online, email or text-based methods in order to gain insights and feedback on the pain points and desires of a particular market.
2. Identify your goals, and align them to your strategy.
Specify your marketing objectives. This may involve developing brand recognition, boosting product sales or expanding your social media audience. Clearly define your goals to ensure efficient focus of your efforts. We will examine certain illustrations.
If your goal is to heighten brand awareness:
Are the reputable brands the only ones your intended audience purchases from? Are they informed about your brand? Are they sufficiently confident or familiar with your brand to make a purchase?
If your focus is on enhancing your company’s reputation and building brand recognition, then prioritize the following strategies:
- Content creation
- Traffic generation
- Co-marketing.
A useful suggestion is to utilize top-tier email marketing services that allow you to deliver tailored, individualized campaigns to potential clients and existing customers, as well as assess your information to identify effective components.
If your goal is to raise consumer awareness:
Low search volumes for your target keywords may indicate that consumers are not looking for your company because they lack an understanding of how your product or service can benefit them.
If you haven’t noticed any issues with your sales process or website traffic, the problem you could be facing is a lack of consumer awareness. In this case, your objective for your digital marketing strategy would be to inform potential customers about a specific problem they face, and then present your solution. Here are a few techniques to accomplish this:
- Create videos.
- Reach out to influencers.
If your goal is to increase traffic:
Most business owners consider traffic as a priority since it is a valuable key performance indicator (KPI). Increased sales leads and actual sales are typically associated with higher-quality traffic.
To maximize traffic, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, an effective search engine optimization (SEO) plan, and email marketing are the key areas to concentrate on.
- PPC advertising.
- SEO.
- Email marketing.
If your goal is to increase sales:
Strategically using email marketing and increasing traffic to your landing page is likely to result in an increase in sales.
- Use email marketing to increase sales
- Optimize your website landing page.
3. Choose digital marketing tools based on your primary goals.
There exist diverse marketing mechanisms such as content marketing calendars, social media platforms, and email marketing programs. Each has particular benefits and objectives, hence the appropriate mechanisms for your use hinges on your goals.
According to Prentiss, each business has unique requirements or areas where they fall short. These may include insufficient customer feedback, a low Google ranking, or an outdated website design. In any case, businesses require distinct solutions to address their individual needs.
Arrange your objectives in order of importance and thoroughly scrutinize your financial plan to find out the most suitable ventures. In case you are not close to any selling opportunity, opt for cheaper tools like email and social media posts as there will be a considerable amount of loss in your sales pipeline. You can constantly reevaluate and try out alternative tools available.
4. Audit your current digital marketing strategy.
To audit your digital marketing strategy, you must assess previous successful tactics, experiment with present methods, and identify necessary modifications.
- Discover the true ROI of past efforts. You’ll need to measure ROI for digital marketing campaigns you ran in the past. Reilly advised business owners to ask how much “lift” each marketing channel provided in previous seasons. “Using a combination of customer purchase data, digital tracking data and any traditional media buys you have, you can dive into the data to discover what your true ROI was in the past and opportunities to grow in the future,” Reilly said.
- Test new strategies. Before going live with your new strategy, test it to see what might work and what won’t. Spend time figuring out if there are aspects of your strategy that can be fixed or improved.
- Determine what needs tweaking. Prentiss recommended monitoring your progress to determine what might need shifting. “We set daily, weekly and sometimes even monthly reminders to check on the progress we made,” Prentiss said. “The daily and weekly check-ins on what we created are very important in the beginning so we can adjust what we are doing. This truly ensures the success of the campaign.”
In summary, if the expense of acquiring a lead exceeds the revenue generated from completing a transaction, your return on investment is unacceptable and requires revision.