Whether you’re a seasoned marketer looking to elevate your marketing strategies or a new video producer looking to diversify your portfolio—you’ve come to the right place. What exactly is video marketing? It’s definitely not throwing a video on your homepage and calling it a day, or uploading everything you’ve ever made to YouTube. Going viral once doesn’t really count, either. Video marketing serves a much more specific purpose.
Video marketing is a strategic marketing approach that involves creating and sharing video content with the goals of attracting, retaining, and converting a defined audience of viewers.
Many marketers know they should be using video strategically, but often create video content simply to check off a box. In reality, video marketing for 2022 is all about using video creatively to achieve your business goals. Views alone don’t define video marketing anymore, which is why it’s best to focus on what you’re trying to accomplish from a marketing perspective (the message) instead of developing a strategy around video itself (the medium). If you feel like your video marketing efforts aren’t paying off, it might be because you’re treating the video as the means to the end. That’s a no-go!
You can’t deny the perks of embedding video on your site. Having embedded videos can boost your search engine visibility and even encourage visitors to spend more time on your site. But, there’s more to video than measuring views and search results. Using video on your site can actually help you build a more human connection with your audience and earn their trust. How?
Well, the storytelling powers of video can help companies connect with their audience in authentic and meaningful ways, which is one of the reasons so many businesses have turned to this tactic. When your business needs to be memorable and stand out from the crowd, video marketing can be a great differentiator.
Like we mentioned before, video is just the vehicle—your marketing strategy should be the engine that drives your message. To make an effective video, you’ll also need a great marketing strategy behind it. Before you start making your video, it’s critical that you understand your marketing funnel and determine your primary goal from the start. This will help you keep your content focused and will make the success of your video much easier to measure. We like to focus on four specific areas of the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration, decision, and retention.
Awareness: Show people who you are
Key Metric: Views
Your potential customers have a problem and you have a solution — you just haven’t found each other yet. So naturally, as a marketer your goal is to find a way to appear where your potential customers like to hang out online, or where they might be looking for certain information.
Consideration: Help solve a problem
Key Metric: Time Watched
Potential customers are aware of the problem they want to solve and are researching solutions. When you provide leads with expertise about your industry and how your product works, you can empower them to make better decisions — and you can become a trustworthy source.
Decision: Convince people of potential
Key Metric: Sign-ups
For your potential customers, the conversion stage is decision time. They’ve done the research, grown more knowledgeable about your offerings, and they’re ready to move forward. You can convert these warm leads quickly with compelling video content.
Retention: Help customers succeed
Key Metric: Cohort Retention
Winning over customers with video doesn’t stop once they sign-up. In the retention stage, customers may be losing interest or not using your product as frequently as they once were. Re-engage those customers by communicating how your product continues to provide value.
Having a clear understanding of your marketing funnel and how you want to use video to enhance that experience will make it easier to set realistic goals that align with each stage.
Once you’ve landed on the goal of your video, it should be a lot easier to narrow down your focus on what type of content to create to serve that goal.
We’re the strategic digital marketing agency for brands that want to thrive in the digital world. From SEO to content marketing, there isn’t a thing we can’t do successfully with our experts onboard. Find out more about us and our plans for 2022 by getting in touch with us.
