Defining your video marketing goals

When you create any marketing campaign, one of the first things you need to consider is what you want your efforts to achieve. A well-executed campaign considers the three stages of the buyer’s journey. Those stages are awareness, consideration, and conversion. The video(s) you create depends on where on that journey the target is.

Awareness

Targets at this stage realise they have a problem and are building a picture of those who claim to have the solution. Videos should aim to develop an audience, so the best measures of their success are views and view duration.

Consideration

Consideration videos should illustrate that you have the solution to your prospect’s problem. Product demonstrations and reviews can work particularly well here. Click-throughs show that your consideration video is doing its job.

Conversion

This is the end of the buyer’s journey. The prospect knows all about you, is convinced that you know what you’re talking about and is happy with your price. Sales clearly indicate the success of conversion videos.

Putting some thought into your goals and how you measure success will give you a clear pathway and ensure that you spend your valuable time only on those efforts that provide satisfactory results.

Researching your target audience

Once you’ve decided which part of the sales funnel you’re going to hit, you need to think about who you’re selling to. That means you need to concentrate your marketing efforts on attracting only those people who you can help, and the way to do that is by creating a buyer persona.

Do this by thinking about what problem you solve and who has the problem. Some of that group will not care much about solving the problem, and others will not have the means even if they have the desire. The people who remain are the ones who have the problem, want to solve it, and have the means to buy your solution. This is your buyer persona.

Choosing which types of videos to make

Selecting the right type of video depends on your marketing goals, your intended audience, and your budget. Each of the video types below has its benefits and drawbacks, so think hard about which one is most likely to suit your needs.

Commercials

These need little in the way of explanation. They’re commonly used in television, and they are an effective way for advertisers to generate awareness thanks to their broad appeal.

A good commercial should be memorable. It may use comedy, a jolly jingle, or a snappy slogan. Whatever the device, the viewer should remember it, and better still, talk about it to their friends.

Social Content

A social content video is a short video clip intended for publication on social media platforms. Their aim is engagement so they should be short enough to be memorable and shareable. Somewhere between 30 to 60 seconds is common.

Explainer Videos

96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service*. An explainer tells the audience how your organisation can solve their problem and why you are the best.

Buyers at this stage have identified the problem they need to solve, and they are looking for answers. A good explainer video tells them why they should choose you and encourages them to get in touch.

Product Videos

A product video highlights the major features and benefits of your services or best-selling products. The audience will expect to see your product doing what you claim, and you should ensure that the video demonstrates not only that your product does the job but outperforms the products of your competitors.

Testimonials

In a testimonial video, satisfied customers talk about how delighted they are for choosing you. This boosts your brands credibility and encourages prospects to try you.

*https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/

Setting a budget

Your video marketing budget needs to account for costs such as scriptwriting, hire of production crew, equipment, location fees, and other items depending on the type of video you want to make.

Setting a budget for your video is much the same as setting a budget for any project. You need to consider how long it will take, and list all the costs that you expect to incur.

Expenses might include:

• Video camera
• Tripod
• Backdrop
• Lighting
• Microphone
• Editing Software
• Writer
• Camera operator
• Actors

The above list is not exhaustive and will need adjustment depending on the video you want to make and where you might cut corners. For example, a table and books can be a good substitute for a tripod, and your in-house blog writer could be more cost effective than hiring in a scriptwriter.

Whatever you do, spend time working out your budget and try not to stray from it.

Types of video marketing strategies

Your video marketing strategy can be the difference between the success or failure of your campaign. The following tips will help get your strategy on course.

Focus on the story

Your videos should tell stories that connect with the viewer. They help humanise your brand by demonstrating that you understand the problems your prospects face.

Grab their attention from the start

Keep in mind that when a person scrolls through their feed, they usually ignore those items that don’t seem to reach out to them. So, the first few seconds of your video needs to be so interesting that it stops the viewer in their tracks. A bold statement or a question can work well.

Optimise for silent viewing

People often view their feeds with the sound switched off so if your video relies heavily on the spoken word, you could lose a large section of your audience. Your video needs to be engaging whether the sound is on or off, so think about how to create an interesting story without sound.

Include calls to action

This should be obvious, but in the excitement of creating a video, it’s easy to forget what you’re doing it all for. Your video is supposed to get viewers to do something such as visit your website, give you a call, complete a survey, or subscribe to your channel. Whatever it is, make sure your call(s) to action are clear.

Creating videos and optimising content

Keep these key considerations in mind when creating your video content.

Include a transcript

Not only does a transcript mean that viewers can enjoy your video with or without sound, but it also benefits your search engine rankings because it gives search engine bots material to index. Because of this, the longer your transcript, the better the impact on SEO.

Title and Meta Description

The title of your video and the meta description play a key role in search engine ranking, just as they do for blog articles. Thorough keyword research will help you create relevant and engaging titles and descriptions.

Don’t forget about the web page

Whilst it’s important to optimise your video, you still need to optimise the web page where you will embed it. If a search engine doesn’t find a page relevant, it won’t bother looking at the video. Getting a web page up the rankings can be challenging, but if you undertake SEO and regularly create high-quality content, you will soon see results.

One video per page

Whilst it is possible to embed more than one video on a page, it is not advisable since search engines rarely crawl past the first one. It makes sense, therefore, to create a new page for every video. The video should sit as close to the top of the page as possible, making it easier for search engines and viewers to find.

Consider paid promotion

SEO is constantly evolving to keep up with changes in search engine algorithms, so it’s best not to rely purely on SEO to get views. Various social media platforms give you the option to pay to have your videos promoted to reach a wider audience.

Measuring the performance of your video campaigns

If you’re going to invest time and money into video marketing, you need to see that your efforts are paying off. Simply getting views is not enough. Knowing exactly how well your video is performing means that you can make tweaks and consider different strategies for future campaigns.

The most important metrics you should be tracking are as follows:

Play Rate

Play rate is the percentage of people who choose to play your video rather than just scrolling by. Therefore, a play rate of 50% means that half the people who see your video end up hitting the play button.

Engagement

Although play rate tells you how many people started to watch your video, it’s important to bear in mind that those people may have only watched the first couple of seconds. Engagement shows how much of your video your audience watched, so is a much better measure of whether people enjoyed it. In fact, according to Wyzowl, 63% of video marketers rely on this metric above all others*.

Shares

Shares are an indicator of the popularity of your video. Sharing gets more views which gets more shares, so this metric is useful if you are aiming to boost brand awareness.

Click-through Rate

If your video includes a call to action which requires clicking a URL, it’s useful to measure how many people take the relevant action. If you’re getting lots of views but a low click-through rate, it could mean that viewers aren’t watching to the end and are missing the call to action. On the other hand, the call to action may simply not be compelling enough.

*https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/

Key Takeaways

Thanks for reading our guide on how to create a successful video marketing strategy. We hope you found it helpful! Here’s a summary of the key things to remember about video marketing.

• Your video needs to be appropriate to where your prospect is on the buyer’s journey.
• Video marketing can mean additional costs, but you can make savings with careful planning.
• Optimise content in a range of ways to ensure the widest possible coverage.
• Measure the effectiveness of each campaign and adjust as necessary for future success.

Video marketing at Elixirr Digital

We have access to a broad collection of services and capabilities to help you boost your business journey.

Our video marketing and video production specialists are experts at creating striking, high-quality visual content and ensuring it gets seen by the right people.

We can help you:

• Create a tailored video marketing strategy
• Tell the story of your brand, products, and services
• Get your videos in front of the right audience at the right time

Let us help you tell your story

To find out how we can help you create your vision in motion, get in touch today!