Global trends have shown a huge increase in the power of video over recent years. A recent study by HubSpot found that 54% of consumers want video content from the brands and businesses they support – that’s far higher than the number who would like to see emails, social images, blog articles or downloadable PDFs. Having a video marketing strategy is no longer optional – your customers expect it. 

But creating a video marketing strategy can be daunting, particularly if it’s not something you’ve ever done before. It’s also important to bear in mind that video should be used across your platforms and channels – particularly on social media.

Fortunately, video production is cheaper than ever, and simple, raw videos can even be created on a high quality smartphone when you utilise some decent apps! Here’s your guide to creating your video marketing strategy, so you can see your engagement increase.

What Is Video Marketing?

Video marketing is simply using videos to promote your service, increase engagement on social channels, educate your customers and reach a new audience. The best video marketing campaigns cover all of these elements (rather than just focusing on sell, sell, sell – which tends to put potential customers off). 

What Are The Benefits Of Video Marketing?

There are numerous benefits of video marketing, and the best thing is that these benefits are easily quantifiable. When your video marketing strategy is up and running, you’ll see this too. Here are some of the main benefits:

• Video marketing builds trust. It helps customers to really get to know you and your brand, so they know who you are and what you do.
• Video boosts your SEO. We’ve written many times about the importance of SEO, and how so much of digital marketing is about driving traffic to your site. Video helps your SEO by building backlinks to your site and increasing likes and shares.
• When your audience watches a video, they’re more likely to retain information. In fact, if you hear something, you’ll retain around 10% of the information three days later. Watch a video, and you’ll retain approximately 65% of the information three days later. There’s a reason that TV adverts are more expensive than radio adverts!
• Emails with the word “video” in the subject line are more likely to be opened, and clickthrough rates are increased by 65%.
• Customers prefer to watch a product video than read a product description, and after watching a video they are 64-85% more likely to make a purchase. Great news!

Setting Up Your Video Marketing Strategy…

Still frightened of setting up a video marketing strategy? Not to worry, here’s a simple guide to get you well on your way to a successful campaign…

Step 1 – Figure Out Your Goals

As with any project, you need to start by defining your goals so that you can easily measure your success. These goals can be set for both your revenue and for your brand. Make your goals SMART so that you know that you’ll be able to measure them. SMART goals are:

• Specific – Give a number to it. For example, rather than ‘more visits to the website’ your goal could be ‘25% more visits to the website’.
• Measurable – As above, you need to be able to measure success so ensure that metrics are involved.
• Attainable – There’s no point in setting a goal that you will never achieve. Set yourself a baseline and try to improve from there.
• Relevant – Your goals will need to fit with the objectives that video is likely to meet.
• Time-Bound – Set yourself a date when you would like your goal to be achieved by. 

Here are some examples of SMART goals:

• Increase traffic to the website by 25% in 6 months by embedding video on the website.
• Double social media following in 3 months through posting engaging videos once a week.
• Increase sales by 50% by integrating product videos onto the website over the next year.

Step 2 – Research Your Audience

Many people make the mistake of making assumptions about their audience and guessing what they would like without doing proper research. Be honest – how many times have you imagined that your audience are just like you? They may actually be very different, and finding out what they like is key to creating video that connects.

There are several ways to find out about your customers. You might look at analytics on social media and your website, or send an email to capture information.

You can also test videos to find out what your audience likes. Which platform do they engage most on? Do they prefer informative videos or aesthetically pleasing ones? Each video you create should be done with your audience in mind.

Step 3 – Consider The Different Types Of Video You Can Make

You will likely want to create a variety of videos on several different platforms. That’s great! Just make sure that you consider which platform best suits your video type. For example:

• Youtube is excellent for ‘how to’ informative videos, or video series.
• Instagram and Facebook stories are great for ‘behind the scenes’ videos. 
• If an exciting event is happening, for example an awards ceremony or a new product launch, consider using Facebook and Instagram live.
• High quality video that really showcases your business and products is best on your website.
• Eye-catching, fun videos are perfect on social media.

You may well not want all of these – that’s fine. Do what works for you and your business.

Step 4 – Calculate Your Budget

Your budget will determine the type and quality of video you can create. Fortunately, video creation has never been so affordable – with smartphones able to create simple video quite easily. Of course, the higher the production quality, the higher the price and there comes a point where specialist equipment (and videographers!) are required. It’ll be down to you to decide whether you want to hire an in-house videographer or enlist the services of a video production company if you want high quality video.

Prices for creating video vary enormously, but at the very least you will need to think about the following (even if you’re using a smartphone):

• Lighting – for example a ring light.
• Tripod – to avoid shake.
• Lens
• Microphone
• Editing app or software – there are a variety of free and paid for apps available.

You will also need to consider if you will need to hire actors, or whether you can use your employees in videos.

Step 5 – Plan Out Your Video Campaign Strategy

Your plan will really depend on your SMART goals. The plan may be as rigid as a calendar mapping out content for the next year, or it could be looser and on an as-and-when basis. This will depend on your budget and the amount of time your staff have to plan and create. You will need to outline:

• Who is responsible for creative concepts
• Who writes any scripts
• Who is responsible for final approval
• Who organises logistics
• Who shoots and edits the video
• Who distributes the completed videos

In small businesses, this could very well all be the same person. If it is, it is important to be realistic about the amount they will be able to achieve in the time given to them. 

You will also need to decide where your video content is going to live. Remember that you can use your video over multiple platforms. So, a video that works on your website might also be great on your social media and in email marketing campaigns. Reusing will save you some cash!

Step 6 – Measure Your Progress

The idea of measuring your analytics might fill you with dread, but it’s actually very easy to measure your videos and find out how well they are performing. You should be looking at:

• Number of views
• Drop-off rates (this tells you how much of your video people watch)
• Click-through rates
• Lead generation

Remember that if one of your videos doesn’t perform as well as others, it’s not a failure – finding out what resonates with your audience can be a process of trial and error and even if one hasn’t provided the results you wanted, at least you learned something.

When you’re first starting out with a video marketing strategy, you might think that a video which has lots of views but no conversions is unsuccessful. Again, you can consider what could be improved about the video to boost conversions – but remember that your company has reached a brand new audience. People who hadn’t heard of your company now know about it, and that can only be a good thing! 

Great Video Ideas…

When you have your video marketing strategy set up and running, you’ll want some awesome ideas to get your campaigns off the ground. Why not have a look at:

• Skull Candy. Their video content is simple, easy to follow even if you don’t have your sound on and the imagery is eye catching – black and white cut through with colour.

• GoPro. The camera brand strayed away from ski slopes and instead used (with permission) footage shot by one of their customers. Incredibly simple, and this video has over 30 million views.

•  Old Spice. The humour in this advert led to it being widely shared, and the distinctive character was memorable (and immediately linked to the brand).

These are big brands with big budgets, but you can use the lessons from these campaigns whatever size your company is. Eye-catching simplicity, emotion and humour can be created by anyone.

Editing Tips

If you aren’t able to afford a videographer, then you may be struggling with where to start. The video you shoot initially will very rarely be the video you use in your campaign – editing will be required. There are some great free and low cost resources that you can use to edit your video. Why not try:

• Canva.  You can use Canva to link together different videos and overlay text. There are also templates available if you need help with where to start.
• Stop Motion Studio.  Stop motion is a highly effective method of creating short, funny videos and it’s something that we utilise often on our own Instagram page. Stop Motion Studio is a great app which allows you to add various filters and borders to your stop motion video.
• Your own smartphone video editing processes. Most smartphones now enable you to edit videos that you have shot – so you can do things like increase the brightness and saturation without needing specialist software. This is really useful if you’re creating quick, simple videos.
• Equally, smartphones will allow you to shoot time-lapse and slo-mo videos (usually without needing other apps). These can work really well for social media. It is worth spending some time playing around with these different options.
• If you have a little money to spend, Edius is fantastic for video editing.

The Takeaway…

Video marketing is here to stay, and it’s going to get even bigger based on its enormous popularity on social media. If you’re not doing it already, you need to start and your social channels are a great place to start testing the waters. Regardless of the size of your business, video will get you noticed and increase traffic to your website.

If you’re stuck with what your videos should include, how long they should be, where they should be posted and how often…don’t worry, we can help! You can book a FREE consultation below (either at our offices here in Northwich, or over the phone) and we can talk through exactly how video marketing can boost your business.

Author Profile

Harriet Young

Our Creative Content Specialist, Harriet Young, is a prolific blogger, Instagrammer and (almost) published author. A self-confessed book addict, Harriet loves to read, write and photograph books in her spare time - a hobby which transfers beautifully into her role of writing creative content for our wonderful clients.

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