Video Content Marketing: Benefits and Strategies

The idea of video content marketing is not new. What is new about video marketing content is how it has become central to outreach and campaign efforts for small businesses to large enterprises. If you’re like 91% of small businesses, you’re probably not even using YouTube. Based on HubSpot Research, out of the top six social channels, four channels are where video marketing content is watched most by global consumers. It’s important you start curating a video content marketing strategy, so you do not fall behind. Regardless of your video production tool kit, using a video content marketing strategy to help strengthen your impressions and ability to convert leads is necessary to improve your brand’s success.

Here’s how to get started with video marketing, development and content strategy. Follow these tips to develop a video content marketing plan that works for your brand as we expand on what is video content marketing.

What is Video Content Marketing?

To explain video content marketing, we must start with the concept of content marketing. Here’s the definition according to the Content Marketing Institute:

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and ultimately drive profitable customer action.”

In other words, content marketing is when you use compelling content to attract people to your brand. It’s a slow burn strategy that does not try to sell people anything until they are already fans of your business.

So, video content marketing is simply content marketing through videos. As you will see, there’s a whole world of options out there: different video formats, lengths, platforms, and styles. Video can be used to promote a product or service, increase your engagement on social channels, educate your audience, and expand your reach.

Videos can be used as content marketing solutions for a brand to spread their message in a way that is easily accessible for their audience. With all the options a business can have by using videos, it’s clearly a style that any business can use. However, you must move forward with a video content marketing plan.

Why You Need a Video Content Marketing Plan

Considering the time, money, and resources needed, video content marketing shouldn’t be produced impulsively. Start by reviewing and creating content with focused video marketing strategies that apply to every facet of your business goals and needs.

The following three videos are examples to note when developing your video content:

Reebok: 25,915 Days- Compelling call-to-action (CTA) using visual storytelling with a relatable experience keeping with the brand’s fitness theme to promote their products.

Code: What Most Schools Don’t Teach- Using known individuals in the industry to promote the nonprofit’s efforts to call attention to how to support them getting access to computer science in more schools across the country.

Buzzfeed x Purina: Puppyhood- Inspiring video meant to entertain with the video script while using product placement to call attention to the brand you should choose for your dog’s nutrition.

Believe it or not, video as a top tactic of a content marketing plan has been on the rise since 2017. Based on a report conducted by HubSpot Research, more than 50% of consumers find videos to be their most preferred content type of all. Following videos, the next most preferred content types are emails or newsletters, social images, and blog articles, which all rank at least 10% less effective than videos. This is why video is useful when modifying your content approach in an actionable way to increase conversion and heighten brand awareness.

animated graphic showing percentage of people who want to see videos and other content on pages

Looking from a customer’s point of view, they want more from you than just a high-quality product or service. They look to brands for information, assistance, and even entertainment. Customers are willing to do research about your brand if they see a need for your product or service in their lifestyle.

For example, if you have a new, compelling blog or podcast post, use the most attractive snippets for a social video post. This way the content that is already in your scope can be promoted and used in a different format to drive more traffic to the new post. Producing, scheduling, and sharing video content can be complicated, so you need a clear video content marketing plan for your team to follow.

Benefits of a Video Marketing Plan

There are several benefits that stem from having a video content marketing plan. You will see results that not only suit your business but can be applied to video marketing for agencies working on behalf of clients.

Whether you are a small business or an agency, you will see these three benefits produced from your content strategy:

Influence Buying Decisions: Prospects converting from your video’s call to action is how leads can increase your sales.
Give the People What They Want: Social videos are all about connecting with your target audience, informing people about your brand offerings, and getting shares to expand your reach.
Increased Ad Effectiveness: Video ads should be scroll-stopping and prime potential customers for purchasing.

Consider enhancing your mobile marketing ability. Remember, if you are prepared to adapt videos for different formats, then you can use the same content for both long and short videos. Film a long piece of video content, then break it down into short clips to use as trailers and social media posts. Check out this guide to reusing and recycling video content across social networks.

By having video content ready for social channels or your website, you will see how video marketing will reveal what the audience needs from you in order to convert them into loyal brand advocates.

Accessibility is Key to Video Content Marketing

When over 61 million Americans alone are living with a disability, ensuring your content is accessible enables you to widen your audience to maximize your marketing efforts. It’s a slow process, but brands and marketers are starting to pay more attention to accessibility. That means marking up text so that it is comprehensive, providing transcripts for podcasts, and filling in alt tags. Think about how your design works with accessibility in mind so your audience knows you are aware of their needs, which may lead to an increase in sales and your brand reputation.

Surprisingly, video content marketing is ahead of the game when it comes to accessibility. Why? Because many people watch videos without sound. As autoplay video settings and social videos become more popular, more and more people have their devices on mute by default.

Make sure your video has clearly noted subtitles and is structured so that people can understand the message without sound. When you post videos online, fill out all the meta-information. There’s nothing like content that does not meet all usability standards of the user. Avoid spoiling a prospect’s experience with your brand by curating digital experiences everyone can use.

Optimize Your Video Content Strategy for SEO and Social Media

Think about how people will discover your videos. Both SEO and social media should be part of your video content marketing plan. That means using keywords in videos and meta descriptions and creating content that responds to viewer interests.

Google and other major search engines like Bing promote sites with interactive elements like video content. Video and other visual additions usually are ranked higher than traditional articles, increasing your chance of landing on the first page of the SERPs.

As part of your video content strategy, choose whether you want to prioritize social shares or web traffic. Of course, you can go after both – but you may need to produce different video content for SEO and social purposes. You will need to look at video content marketing within your overarching content strategy and marketing goals.

When preparing content for a client, as an agency, you must remember to have your team consider if video content is in the best interest of their marketing campaign. If your client is on social platforms, the content produced can be used to drive more traffic to their website as well. Help your client stand out amongst their competitors as other small businesses and large enterprises are also positioning themselves for higher conversions.

Being an agency, small business, or large enterprise, you will need to optimize as a thought leader by creating videos related to your business and subject matter expertise.

Here are some best practices and examples for how to optimize videos with prospective customers in mind.

Best Practices for Optimizing Videos

Ensure your page is relevant to the featured video and optimized for SEO: To optimize your video and receive high placement on SERPS, make sure the rest of your page the video is embedded on is optimized for SEO or the search engine will not crawl it for your intended keywords.

Make your thumbnails or cover image engaging: This is like the subject line of an email or the cover of a book. If you do not excite your audience, they will not be interested in your video. Use this image to let them know what to expect.

Insert a video transcript: Not only are video transcripts able to nurture your audience’s accessibility needs, but they also act as page copy which can help you rank well in more queries.

Use video marketing automation tools: Video is crucial to your marketing automation strategy. With automation software you can schedule, edit, and observe analytics all in one system. All in-depth metrics can show marketers where they are lead scoring, so they can refine their nurture stage to convert more sales.

Examples of Optimized YouTube Channels

HubSpot: A growth marketing platform with a Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, and a powerful free CRM. Their YouTube content is designed to educate their audience with clips on tips and tricks for digital marketing.

Guitar Center: Home to the world’s largest selection of popular guitars, various other instruments, recording software, studio gear, and more. Their YouTube channel features performances from musicians, artist interviews, gear demos, and spotlights.

Headspace: A platform for guided meditation sessions on its iOS and Android apps. As a supplement to the apps, the official YouTube channel provides short meditation sessions, meditation tips, and common meditation obstacles, especially for beginners.

Later: An all-in-one social media marketing platform where you can streamline your social media strategy for top social networks from its iOS and Android apps. In addition to the platform, their YouTube channel features tips and tricks to learn how to optimize your social media content.

There are many ways and places to promote your video, like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Your strategies are limitless with multiple tactics that can be paid or organic. Take your learnings and listen to your audience on where to make modifications in your marketing plan with video content. The most important part is getting started. To learn more about video content marketing strategy and automation from SharpSpring, contact us or get a demo.

Frequently Asked Questions on Video Content Marketing

How Do I Create Video Content For Marketing?

Start by identifying your audience then outline your video content plan. Be sure to incorporate critical tasks like talking points or a script, a proper background for your video setting, and test lighting and sound. From here you will record, edit, and upload your video, remembering to track analytics for best practices on your next project.

Why Are Videos Good for Content Marketing?

Videos are an interactive tool that helps potential buyers learn about your product. Use video to make prospects feel comfortable and confident in buying from you. Videos are convenient for your audience and common search terms surrounding the content topic can better optimize for SEO purposes.

What Is a Video Content Strategy?

Video content strategy is design goals that define your design, graphics/animations, and/or cinematography style. Content style and tone will be used to make the brand stand out with an allotted budget for production.

What Is an Example of Video Marketing?

One popular example that is used to highlight a brand is a product demo. Customer service testimonials, behind-the-scenes snippets and trendy videos are some additional examples. Having options allows you to get creative and evolve as your analytics report your content’s performance.

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