The How To Guide For Successfully Using Video Marketing

In case you’ve been living under the proverbial marketing rock, then you know that video marketing is using videos to promote and market your product or service, increase engagement on your digital and social channels, educate your consumers and customers, and reach your audience with this highly engaging medium.

Brands need a video marketing strategy — this idea isn’t new. What has changed is how important video has become on every platform and channel. Video is no longer just one piece of your overall marketing plan. It’s central to your outreach and campaign efforts … especially your social strategy. Video has absolutely dominated social, of which global consumers watch video are social channels.

If you aren’t using video marketing, you’re likely falling behind. But don’t fret.  The topic of video marketing can still seem pretty complicated. That’s why we’ve created this “How-To” Guide to give you everything you need to know about achieving a successful video marketing strategy.

1. Planning Your Video

Before you seek a video marketing provider, step one is to plan what is it going to be used for, the goal of the video, where it’s going to be used, and what type of video should be created. Think about the video’s purpose and what action you’d like your audience to complete after watching it.

Ask yourself these three questions:

• Who’s your target audience? What buyer persona are you targeting? This may be a segment of your company’s typical buyer persona.
• What’s the goal? Is it to increase brand awareness? Lead generation? Product demonstration? And, ultimately, what do you want your audience to do after watching the video?
• Where’s the video going to live? On Facebook or Instagram? Behind a landing page form? At a tradeshow? In your store?  You should begin with one target location — where you know your audience will discover the video — before repurposing it for other channels.

2. Different Types Of Marketing Videos

Before you begin filming, as we’ve already mention you first have to plan your video, what it will be used for, it’s goals, where it will live, etc. This means you have to also decide on what type of  marketing video should be created in order to achieve the desired goal.

To help you decide, we’ve created a list of different types of marketing videos to better understand your options.

1. Demo Videos

Demo videos showcase how your product works — whether that’s taking viewers on a tour of your software and how it can be used or unboxing and putting a physical product to the test.

2. Brand Awareness Videos

Brand awareness videos are a very powerful medium. Creating awareness about a product or service is necessary for increasing its sales. The more people know about a brand, the better the chances of it being purchased by them. Videos can be an effective tool to build awareness around your company and to intrigue and attract your target audience, and at the same time it allows brands to effectively portray its image among prospective customers.

4. Case Study and Customer Testimonial Videos

Capturing interviews with internal experts or thought leaders in your industry is a great way to build trust and authority with your target audience. Testimonial videos allow your clients to see other people talk about your products, giving an honest opinion. It puts a face to your business and gives your brand the credibility it needs.

5. Educational or How-To Videos

Instructional videos can be used to teach your audience something new or build the foundational knowledge they’ll need to better understand your business and solutions. These videos can also be used by your sales and service teams as they work with customers.

6. News Style Format

Because of the explosive rise in the use of video marketing, brands are forced to become more creative in order to have their message break through the clutter. An engaging way to do this is with a news format/talk show style marketing video.

3. Scripting Your Video

The Script is the soul of your video. Even if you have kickass visuals, without a good script your video is bound to flop. When you begin to prepare to craft your video script, it’s much like creating a movie script. First, you must keep in mind that you’re telling a story, and whether that story is about a protagonist or a product, your trying to captive your audiences and make them believe in the story we tell.

What happens at the end of the story is a little different, though. In a video script you want it to be short, cover the benefits of your product/service, and most important include a call-to-action! A call-to-action is what you want to viewer to do after watching your video, whether that’s filling out a form, signing up for something, completing a purchase, entering and email, etc.

Ready, Set, Action!

Apart from being a rich, visual medium, there are a lot of perks to successfully using video marketing. Simply put, the numbers tell a compelling story. These video marketing statistics highlight precisely why so many companies, in industries across the B2B and B2C spectrum, are taking advantage of this medium—and why video marketing should be part of your business, too.

Video marketing can seem daunting at first, and I’m guessing you’re feeling a little overwhelmed right now. Don’t worry, all you need to do is Contact Original Video, and our team of video marketing experts can take what seem likes a daunting task  – and make it simple.