Complete Guide to Video Marketing Strategy for 2021
Introduction:
Did you know that 8 out of 10 people have purchased a piece of software or app after watching a Brand’s video? Video Marketing is not a trend but has become a norm. Because of the Covid-19 Pandemic, people are spending more time at home. This has paved a unique opportunity for Digital marketers to reach more people in their living room through digital Video.
Integrating Video with Marketing is no more an option for your business. In 2022, 82 percent of the global internet traffic will come from video streaming and downloads.
As per Google, 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television. People are bringing more smart devices in their Bedrooms, Kitchen, and Living rooms than ever. The watch time of YouTube videos cast on smart TVs has grown by 75% this year than last year. With this YouTube becomes the most popular search engine as the World is watching 1 Billion hours of clips per day.
Considering this shift of lifestyle in people, it’s imperative to build a powerful Video Marketing Strategy for 2021.
In this article, we will try to understand how the new digital video marketing content strategy can help your business grow. Before we move there, let us understand the basics of marketing with videos.
What is Digital Video Marketing?
Digital Video Marketing is promoting your product’s Brand or Service, through videos on different Digital platforms. It involves engaging and educating your audience on digital and social channels. Video Marketing is of utmost importance for strengthening your Content Marketing Strategy and SEO.
Why the use of videos in content marketing is important for Business in 2021?
Marketers need to understand the psychology of consumers behind watching videos. Videos have gained popularity because it’s easier to grasp and convenient to watch. 53% Watch Online Videos to be entertained and inspired. Besides, videos are easily accessible, more relaxing, educative, help stay connected with the latest trends.
Video has become the most commonly used format in content marketing, overtaking blogs and infographics. (HubSpot, 2020)
Why Does Video Marketing work?
1. Videos in marketing boost Lead generation and amplify Conversion rate – Purchasing decision:
Once you understand your audience through market research and analytics, it’s time to share the right content through video. You can personalize your content based on what your audience wants to hear, see and feel. With the right CTA, you can influence the purchasing decision of your audience. Consumers are more likely to buy a product after watching a video demonstration of a product. They keep the consumers hooked for long on your website.
As per Wyzowl, 89% of video marketers say video gives them good ROI. Video ads have an average click-through rate (CTR) of 1.84%, the highest CTR of all digital ad formats.
90% of consumers claim a video will help them make a purchasing decision. (Social Media Today)
2. Create Brand Awareness and Increase Traffic:
85% People say videos help them connect with brands more effectively.
Videos are used to show emotions, which makes it easy for the Customers and Audiences to connect and relate. When compared to Blogs or any social posts, video content is more likely to engage, share, embed, and comment on.
3. Optimize Search Engine Optimization SEO
Technology is favoring Videos with the increase in its consumption. The focus has increased on aesthetics, design, and User Experience. This has given rise to an increase in smartphone usage, which allows users to watch videos on the go, and at their convenience. If you create videos in a personalized way for the right audience, they help in optimizing for SEO.
An optimized video increases the chance of your brand being on the front page of a Google search engine result by 53 times!
4. Enhanced Customer Engagement
Video marketing has created a strong positing in the digital marketing space and growing exponentially. It provides the flexibility to create interesting content which is engaging and helpful.
According to Wyzowl, 93% of businesses who use video believe that it has increased user understanding of their product or service. Instagram Stories and Snapchat provide an opportunity to “what are you up to” kind of personal glimpses which are interesting.
5. More Social and Human:
Besides YouTube being the top search engine, social platforms like Facebook increasingly promote video content. Consumers are constantly hungry for engaging content and likely to share it with friends, relatives, colleagues, etc. Videos allow you to connect emotionally with the audience through music and voice audio. Storytelling has become an important part of the video and a powerful way to evoke emotions.
The share rate on social video is 12x higher than images and text combined (Small Business Trends).
6. Low Cost
90% of consumers claim that video helps them a purchasing decision (depositphotos). We can easily create them in a simple environment with few inexpensive tools.
Videos under 90 seconds long have an average retention rate of 53% (Neil Patel)
Types of Video Content for every Stage of Marketing
1. Marketing Videos
You can use a video platform to showcase your brand mission, values, products, and services. The aim is to connect and interact with consumers, build brand awareness. You need to be creative and intrigue with the Brand’s unique story using visuals, audio, and storytelling. While creating this kind of marketing video, it’s imperative to understand why your customers should choose your brand over your competition.
2. Product Videos or Explainer videos
These videos are used to demo a product using a video marketing strategy. You can showcase the extra features of your product or tell a story about how you created your new product. You can showcase the benefits of your product or service easily convincingly by marketing using videos.
Here is an example of a product video: the success story of the Dollar Shave Club
3. Email Videos
Everyone is curious to know how videos could be used in email marketing. Apart from drawing the attention of the reader, it provides the opportunity to convey the message in less time and more effectively.
Did you know that including a video in emails can increase your open rate by 6%? If you include the word “video” in an email subject line, it can increase open rates by 19% and click-through rates by 65%.
Forrester when marketers include a video in their emails, the click-through rate increased 200% to 300%.
Video email marketing can be an effective tool if you optimize your video for email marketing. Learn How to use Video in your Email marketing.
4. Vlog
When given a choice, people would always prefer a video over a blog. A vlog is a video blog where you talk about a particular subject, share your experiences over video format. While YouTube is the primary source of video content, at 83%.
Vlogging plays an important role in building your online marketing strategy. It’s important to build an audience on YouTube so you need to understand your niche. Then decide what you would like to convey to your audience. Based on that, you can create your content. If you want to start a vlog, refer to this beginner’s guide.
5. Video Landing Page
They are landing pages which include marketing video to show your product and services to persuade the audience to buy your product. They give us the power to boost the conversion rate through entertaining videos as much as 20%. We embed these landing pages in YouTube, Vimeo, static images, or text using HTML code. Video Landing pages entertain your prospects, make the complex product more accessible. In most cases, it is good to give the control to the audience to when to play it. The duration of the video also makes a vast difference in the attention span of your audience. Try to make it not over 90 seconds, which is enough to convey the essential information about your product or services. Finally, the most important part, make sure you add a CTA which is inspiring and interesting. E.g. IT Man, Created by Barq Video, Work.com
6. 360° Explainer Video
We also call 360° Explainer Videos Virtual Reality videos, which are short, covering the specific idea. They provide your Target customers a 360-degree experience over any topic. They are easy to understand, entertaining, and more convincing. You can watch these videos using a VR headset, smartphones, or laptops. 360° Explainer Video. These kinds of explainer videos provide an immersive experience and let the viewers visualize your product or Services. It’s a better way to get viewers interested and convince them to buy your product. Here’s a wonderful ad from Orea Biscuit which is an example of 360° Explainer Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENau7AkayN8&feature=youtu.be
7. Customer Case Study, Testimonials, and Review Videos
Case Study videos are very effective videos of real customers to show the value of your product or service that businesses can use to persuade new businesses. Customer testimonials videos can easily authenticate and endorse your marketing efforts. These videos are more engaging, emotional, and persuasive. They can easily connect your audience as they see a human face in the story, which is more relatable. We can make cast studies personal and attractive. Best video allows the audience to understand the problems, challenges and explain the solution which is backed by statistics. We can embed case study videos on the website, marketing emails, publish on social media accounts, or even in Sales presentations. Below are two examples of Case Study videos.
a. Zendesk testimonial
b. Slack
Top Video Marketing Challenges and Solutions
There are quite a few challenges businesses face when implementing video marketing. By 2022, over 82% of traffic will come from videos.
Below are a few of the Challenges and the Solution:-
1. Lack of Quality Content
It is difficult to create content that is engaging and stands out of thousands of videos on YouTube. The video marketing world is getting chaotic every day. It’s easy for your brand to get lost if the cost is not interesting. The competition is getting ferocious with each day moving. And to add, there is constant change in the Behavior of your Audience.
Solution: It’s imperative to understand your Audience’s behavior. Here, Analytics can help a lot. Just don’t stop here. You need to put yourself in your Customer’ shoes to understand how they would behave. Constantly, trying to get out-of-the-box ideas that would enhance the quality of your Content and increase the chances of more views of your videos.
2. Not able to build Brand Credibility
Did you know Nike spent $3.75 billion in brand trust and awareness with advertising in 2019?
Building Brand Credibility is one of the most important factors for Conversions and Sales. If your audience doesn’t trust your brand, they will never buy it from you. No matter how good your product your service is. A video is an influential tool in helping Brands create trust.
Solution: When a mix of psychological functions like attention, memory, imagination, emotion with story-telling power is used, it creates a bond between your prospect and your brand.
3. Finding Time for Video Creation
It’s difficult to juggle between various marketing activities and finding time to create innovative videos. Most of the time videos get sidelined, as you may not consider them important. Besides, it takes forever to create videos when your plate is already full.
Solution: Creating videos does not need infinity. You could post short videos for every blog post, social media post, etc. You can start with small videos and gradually analyze what works for you and what doesn’t. It is also better to decide on the goals for the campaign and choose the right metrics for the campaign.
4. Inadequate Budget
Videos creation goes a long way however the method matters a lot. Marketing budgets are lower. And to cover all the activities within the Budget is a task. How you want to develop the videos depends on your budget. You could invest in the equipment yourself and shoot or outsource it to a third-party agency that is experts at video creation.
Solution: If the budget is really low, then it’s better to shoot the video in-house with in-house actors and animated videos.
5. Not enough engagements
Many a time, you create the videos but do not get the expected response or you cannot engage your audience. The responses on the videos decline because you don’t engage your Audiences to the level they should.
Solution: The ways of engaging with your Target Audience are:-
- Include a clear CTA
- Host a competition
- Ask questions
- Reply to every post through an automated message
How to create an effective Video Marketing Strategy?
Before you embark on your marketing strategy, consider your marketing funnel. Keep in mind your customer’s journey, right from realizing their needs to interacting with your product and fulfilling them.
Ideally, you need to create videos for each funnel, but it’s better to decide which stage is more important to target.
- Awareness- attract new audiences
- Consideration – engage your audiences
- Decision- nurture your prospects
- Close- delight your customers
Now after mapping your customer’s journey, let us follow few essential steps:-
1. Set your video marketing strategy goals:
You need to identify the business goals you want to achieve and metrics you can leverage. It could be views, clicks, Impressions, Sign-ups, Sales.
2. Identify your Target Audience:
To identify your Target Audience, its primary step is to know your Buyer’s persona. You should be able to answer questions like- who your product or service is for, the purpose of your video, and where your Target Audience hangs out.
3. Pick up the right video format that fits your Target:
Depending on your marketing goal, you need to identify the video you want to create. It could be Product videos, Testimonial videos, demonstration videos, FAQ videos, or vlogs. For this, you need to figure out the story you want to tell.
4. Prepare the Content:
The information you provide through your videos should be concise and understandable. Present innovatively and sound professional. Improvise the dialogue and practice enough so that it doesn’t sound scripted.
5. Maintain a realistic budget:
Do enough market search for rates of the script, shooting cost, whether you want to outsource to a production house. You need to plan on what you splurge and what you want to save.
6. Do a proper edit and work on an SEO video strategy:
This is again an essential part of the plan. Edit properly or you hire an expert video editor.
Finally, your videos need SEO, so video content needs to be optimized. Your titles should be short, use keywords in your video description, optimize for mobile view.
Conclusion:
Once you create the video market it well. Spend equal time on promoting it on various platforms using paid marketing or Social Media Marketing and email marketing.
You might also think that Video Marketing requires tons of money and ample time to create it. However, if you have read the blog above, you know that it just needs creativity, some planning, persistent efforts, and a limited budget. Plan your video marketing strategy now. Give us a shout if you need help.