Video Marketing: Why should I use it?

The way your customers consume content continues to evolve. Video marketing is all the rage and continues to be a hot topic for brands large and small.

With the rise of live video and video content, we’re viewing more content than we ever have before. We’re learning through each view. We’re finding new audiences that engage with our material. We’re including innovative storytelling and unique ways to grab attention and build relationships.

How are you leveraging video marketing for your audience?

This may seem like a loaded question. It’s about your video platform. It’s also about the story you’re trying to tell. According to findings by HubSpot, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.

Whether that story is to advertise a product or service, deliver information, provide entertainment, or build trust, that’s up to you.

Video marketing takes on many forms. From the big brands that are able to display ads on Snapchat to the small business owners looking to make a splash with video, remember your target audience and create a unique experience to get ahead of the game.

Go Live on Social Platforms

Your social media feeds are filling up with live video. If you have something to announce or promote, go live on your company’s Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter feed. Understand that each platform has a different audience, so put snippets of information on each platform to keep them interested and engaged.

Audiences love live video because it’s authentic content. It’s an immediate reaction and message directly to your audience. There’s no script; there’s no editing and master versions.

Of the companies that have experimented with Facebook Live, 78% said that the platform was an effective marketing tool.

Why Use Live Video?

Show your human side. Provide a sneak peek into company events or new products. Live video has the chance to become the face of your business. As a marketer, you want to reach the highest number of people.

• Communicate Corporate or Organizational Values
• Create Relationships & Communicate With Your Audience
• Showcase Your Brand
• Conduct a Q&A Session to Learn About Your Followers

Pick your channel appropriately. Attract your audience and increase your following. Whether your audience is on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, develop a strategy to reach them. Don’t be in all places at once.

Snapchat and Instagram users like quick, consumable content. You can also try Stories, which are videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours (and coming to Facebook soon). Facebook users may watch a short video or a longer form video. Know your audience and deliver content that appeals to your users.

Gary Vaynerchuk has built a personal brand with video marketing, using Instagram Live, Snapchat, and YouTube daily mashups to build awareness and market himself. Jay Shetty is an international motivational speaker that speaks on Facebook Live and holds Q&A’s on Huffington Post and other platforms. Both go viral, and both have adapted to the changing video landscape. Take a lesson from these two entrepreneurs to master your video marketing strategy.

For brand audiences, according to Livestream, 80% of users would rather watch a live video than read a blog post and 82% prefer live video to regular social media posts.

As a brand, there’s no better opportunity to humanize yourself and engage in a one-on-one conversation with your audience than through live video on social media. Leverage that for your brand.

Utilize Video Advertisements

Boosting and displaying video advertisements allows you to hone in on your target audience. To users across mobile, social, and desktop computers, you can capture attention with brief, appealing advertisements.

Develop a cross-channel campaign—websites, social platforms, mobile devices, connected televisions—to reach users at all stages of brand discovery or the purchasing process across all devices.

In-stream video advertisements are your ads that play within other video content. It’s a great way for your brand to include a short segment in front of viewers already looking for video content. From pre-roll ads before a video plays, mid-roll ads during a piece of content, or an ad after a video plays, you have a unique opportunity to get your message heard quickly.

Keep video ads short and tight, delivering value with minimal distraction to viewers. For ads, it’s important to display strong calls to action both at the beginning and end of the video. When you invest in a quality production, your viewers will be interested and engaged.

On social media, your ads are present as your target audience is scrolling through their news feeds. Social ads are increasingly shared, resulting in a further organic reach and more chance for conversions. Your video plays on mobile and social without sound, so make sure your message is clear and you start your video with compelling images that increase conversion rates.

Pay attention to mobile video ads. Your audience is consuming video content at a rapid rate on mobile devices, and they’re paying more attention to ads they’re presented. Leverage your brand by staying ahead and taking advantage of this growing market.

Through banner ads, display video content for your brand on sites that your target audience already use regularly. This can help build trust for your brand and assist in the discovery process at key points in your audience decision making.

Videos in Your Email Campaigns

In my personal experience, emails sent out that have the word [VIDEO] in the subject line, tend to get more opens and more clicks than a subject line that doesn’t include the word video. HubSpot found that videos in an email lead to a 200-300% increase in click-through rate.

That’s not very surprising. Our inboxes are flooded with email after email. As we’re shifting to a visual world, it’s no surprise that emails with video get more interaction. It leads to success and interaction with your audience.

Your email marketing campaigns are developed for various reasons, and different types of video see different types of engagement and playback. For emails, videos with the best performance include:

• Product Descriptions & Demonstrations
• Customer Testimonials
• Educational & Training Videos
• Event Promotions

Whether you embed the video in your email or create a static image with a play button to indicate a video, you’ll see more interaction and an increased click-through rate from your email campaigns.

Prominently Feature Videos on Important Landing Pages

For your PPC and SEO campaigns, you rely on the power and influence of the content on your landing page to drive leads. Gain an advantage by embedding an interactive, educational video on your landing page.

According to findings by HubSpot, including a video on your landing page can increase conversion by 80%. Ads are increasingly linking directly to video landing pages.

Having a short video as a teaser to answer a question or garner interest, together with a call to action and phone number or contact box, will lead to more conversions. Videos make content easier to digest. A higher percentage of viewers will retain your message when they watch a video as compared to reading text on a landing page.

Capture the attention with a headline that stands out. Use text on the page that is easy to skim and is consumable, then feature a video above the fold that shows visitors to the page exactly what they’d be looking for from your company.

Keep your videos in line with your brand strategy. Learn what your audience is looking for from your company. Whether you’re showing how to use your software, what makes your products stand out, how to trust your services, or the value your company provides, you’ll improve your click-through rates and increase conversions.

Video Analytics to Guide Your Strategy

More and more businesses are investing in video content creation, using advanced analytics to determine much more than the basic metric of views. See how your viewers are engaging with your videos, determine a level of interest, and track more insightful measures.

Video analytics help you get more video engagement and increase your play rate. Track insights related to:

• Impressions
• Device Types
• Play Rates
• Referral Sources
• Total Views per Viewer

When you embed a video on your site or social media, there are different tools that will help you understand how many conversions or sales are coming from your video campaigns. The most evident and most-used video metric is YouTube Insights, which gives you traffic sources, audience retention, demographics, playback locations, and more.

One of the best tools you can invest in include Wistia. This tool directly tracks engagement with your videos. You can determine which viewers finished your video and actions they take afterward. The value of Wistia is its integration into your sales funnel so you can make informed decisions.

If you’re creating videos for brand awareness purposes, you’ll find value in Brandwatch, which helps deliver key insights into the opinions of your audience. Identify more opportunities and build brand awareness.

Use video analytics to guide your strategy. With analytics, you’ll learn how effective your video marketing campaigns are, and how they complement your other marketing efforts.

Produce & Create Interactive Videos for Your Audience

You may think of videos as a passive form of marketing. Audiences tend not to watch commercials and we’re often not giving our full attention to YouTube videos. According to MarketingProfs, your audience is in a shift from a passive to interactive experience, and you should be taking advantage of it.

There are various ways you can keep viewers engaged throughout an educational video with surveys, clickable URLs, and additional content that can retain user focus and drive action.

Interactive videos draw a higher engagement rate, which leads to more conversions and sales. Interactive media brings a personalized experience to your audience. They’ll view your videos longer, share more on social platforms, and interact more frequently with your content.

With consumer choice on a particular video, they’re selecting their own path to conversion. Gather insights on the intent of your audience, and generate qualified customers that help grow your business.

MarketingProfs found that 35% of marketers used a more sophisticated approach to video marketing from 2015 to 2016. Expect that trend to continue in the years ahead. Make informed decisions through video analytics, and leverage your business over your competition with a unique video approach.

Conclusion

Marketers that are ahead of the curve are using video throughout the marketing funnel and for more than just brand awareness. They’re there to educate. They’re there to entertain.

Whether organic or paid video marketing, the opportunities are endless if you take the right approach. You want to get your brand and your message in front of the right audience. Video is a powerful platform giving you tremendous opportunity.

Video marketing is one of the smartest ways to market your business. Think creatively, create content that is personal, and impact your audience with a video campaign that drives business results.

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by Ryan Clutter
source: SEJ