HOW TO CREATE A VIDEO MARKETING STRATEGY FOR 2022
In the ongoing effort to win the attention span of consumers, video has become increasingly popular and essential as a marketing tool. There are many reasons why the use of video should be part of any savvy marketer’s strategy. In this blog post, we’ll look at the importance of video to marketing and how you can develop a successful content strategy for 2022.
WHY USE VIDEO?
When done right, video is an entertaining and extremely effective form of content, so it naturally lends itself to use as a marketing tool. Probably the biggest contributing factor to the effectiveness of video marketing has been the growth and popularity of social media. Despite this, many marketers still ignore video in their digital marketing campaigns or just are not obtaining the most effective outcomes. There are some great benefits to incorporating video into a well-planned marketing strategy. The most obvious of these is the fact that video is captivating, and isn’t that the goal of all good marketing? To enchant the viewer? A good video can also improve SEO, is easily shareable, and ultimately can lead to increased conversions. All-important metrics, any marketer worth their salt would agree.
PLAN YOUR STRATEGY BEFORE YOU BEGIN
If you want to increase your business by utilizing the power of video content marketing, then it is advisable to first develop a comprehensive video marketing strategy. The usual steps for developing any marketing campaign apply to video marketing too, including identifying your target audience and its interests, goals, and challenges. Once you have this information, you can put together a video strategy that will help your business reach these targets. An effective content marketing strategy should focus on your audience, what it is they want out of a business like yours, and how you can provide that. It would also be helpful to include the goal of the video in your plan. Once you have this information, you can begin research and put together an outline for the best way to achieve these goals with video.
One of the most attractive features of video marketing is its ability to change behavior, viewers that watch a video are more likely to take action than those who read plain text. This is because we tend to remember visuals much better than plain text and video engages the viewer’s imagination.
RESEARCH
Prior to filming even one second of video, conducting some thorough market research is incredibly important. This will help your video marketing strategy by uncovering key insights that will inform your strategy for incorporating video into your overall marketing initiatives. It will also provide a comprehensive understanding of the market, your customers, and your competitors. This process will ultimately be the roadmap for your video marketing strategy and will also help identify new business opportunities.
SETTING OBJECTIVES
The first step in this research phase is to set goals for your video marketing. The objectives should include specific, measurable, and realistic outcomes that can be attributed directly to your video campaigns. There are many factors that need to be considered when creating this goal, such as target audience demographics, location, industry, culture, and psychographics.
DEFINE YOUR AUDIENCE
Defining your audience is the best place to begin when setting your objectives as it will assist with identifying goals for your video content strategy. After all, the most important aspect of video marketing is to make sure your videos are getting in front of the right audience. Once you’ve defined who your target audience is, you should research how they use social media to understand where they are spending time online. This can help you find out what type of videos are working for your competitors and what type of content is being shared the most.
ANALYZE CURRENT CONTENT
Conducting an analysis of your existing content is also an important step. What can you learn from this? Subscriber demographics, what they like and don’t like, engagement levels for different types of content; basically, all essential information that will help design your marketing strategy and determine where video fits in best.
COMPETITOR CONTENT ANALYSIS
If you are just starting with video or looking to expand your reach by uploading videos to new social media sites, then competitor content analysis is something you’ll also need to do. A thorough analysis will provide information about how others in your industry are using video and how they may be doing a great job of incorporating video marketing into their overall strategy. It’s also a good way to uncover gaps in the market and identify where you can fill those gaps with video content.
Once you’ve identified how your competitors are making video you can then determine how to make video that stands out from the crowd. After all, your business is unique so your content should be unique. It’s essential to differentiate through your content creation in order to let prospects know why they should choose you. We recommend looking at your values and culture and making sure that they shine through every frame of the video you create.
Often we find brands making video using lots of stock footage but this is a sure fire way to create generic content that could have been made by their competition. Stock by its very nature is created to be as generic as possible. No matter what the voiceover says the video will not stand out from the crowd and with thousands of corporate videos being uploaded to YouTube and LinkedIn every day, your video will be camouflaged in a sea of blandness. Instead you can look at what your competitors are doing and do the opposite! Be brave, be bold. It pays off in the end!!
DEFINE YOUR MESSAGE
Are you trying to convey a specific message? If yes, then you should begin defining it before diving into video production. This is essential because the content of your video will support this message. Whether you are selling a product or service, or otherwise telling another story, knowing what you are trying to say will help frame everything about your videos. When developing your messaging, it’s also important to stick to one simple idea. In this sense, less is more, because you don’t want to confuse a viewer with multiple offers. Your audience should be able to recall exactly who you are, what you do, and how you can benefit them. Achieve this last part by always including a strong call to action in your videos.
