Over 500 million people watch Facebook videos actively every day, and over 85% of Twitter users engage in video content. Videos are the most popular content format on the internet, and you cannot ignore optimizing your marketing content for it.
Video content formats and the associated trends are rapidly changing. There are excellent apps like InVideo available in the market now to turn any newcomer into a professional in a short period.
Take Your Video Marketing Strategies to the Next Level
Taking advantage of the technology and data available to create a rich content set targeted to the right audience segment will deliver precise results for your marketing campaigns. Below are 8 best practices for you to get started:
1. Set Relevant Goals and Track Them
One of the common mistakes new video marketers make is spend all their energy and time creating content. To convert the effort into real sales and desired outcomes, focus on success metrics, set the right goals, and track them diligently.
The fundamental success metrics to focus on right from the beginning are reach, engagement, leads, and conversions. Setting up this marketing funnel and closely following the drop-offs and potential reasons should be vital to the strategy.
Various analytics companies can help you set up the tracking systems if you want to work independently. If you do not want to spend on this, all popular video platforms provide free analytics tools that you can use.
2. Choose the Right Platform
The big question for all video marketers is, “What is the best video platform?” The correct answer to this question depends on the product or service you are looking to sell, available budget, target audience, availability of creative talent, etc.
The main attributes to look for in a video platform, apart from its popularity, are the user-friendly features, customizability of your content, provisions like live streaming, ability to track data, and available monetization methods.
Other equally important considerations are pricing, terms of contract and impact on you, free trials’ availability, and compatibility with various devices and operating systems. All of these determine the direction your strategy will take.
3. Build a Strong Story, Not a Sales Pitch
Invest in creative directors who can build a strong storyline for your product or service that connects with the audience at an emotional level. The content should not only be entertaining but worthy of making the viewer share it further.
Whether you use emotionally rich content or choose to fall back on humor, the first few seconds of your video decide if the viewer will be interested in continuing watching or move on to the next video in the queue. Use the first five seconds wisely.
Good creative directors create a compelling hook that runs through the central theme of the videos. However, be careful about the subjects you choose. Selecting a sensitive topic but not positioning it right will do more damage than good for your campaign.
4. Optimize Videos Keeping Platform Features in Mind
There is a big possibility that you will end up using multiple platforms to host your marketing content. In this scenario, it is essential to customize the video to take advantage of the unique features that the platform provides.
If you are hosting your videos on Facebook, consider that Facebook auto-plays videos as the user scrolls through the newsfeed, but the video is played with sound off. Adapt to this while making your content for Facebook.
A tip for auto-played silent videos is to insert a video transcript. The advantage of this is that you will be sharing more information about your video through subtitles even when the video has its sound is turned off.
5. Nudge Viewers to Take Action
A part of your content strategy should be to direct your viewers to take a specific action. Embedding these specific messages strategically throughout your video will improve engagement and yield the desired result for your business.
There are many creative ways you can use call-to-action (CTA) in your videos, depending on the desired action. Most of the popular video platforms have tools and features to make adding CTA seamlessly to your content.
You can ask your viewers to subscribe to your channel, this kind of CTA is usually placed at the beginning of the end. For events like product launches, you can use save the date templates as a CTA.
Whatever your CTA strategy is, make sure to limit 1-2 types of CTA per video. Asking to subscribe, call a number, fill a form, watch a piece of content, etc., all packed in one video confuses the viewers and will not yield satisfactory results.
6. Create Playlists
An easy way to lead the viewers, especially those who discover your content through search, to your next video, organize playlists. Playlists autoplay the next video once the current one ends. You will get free views with little effort on your part!
If you notice your audience group regularly moves to the next video in the queue, your marketing strategy has hit the sweet spot and is working effectively. The creative hook you worked so hard on will start paying for itself.
7. Target Relevant Audience
Create different versions of your content for a specific target demographic. If your target audience’s age is 17-50 years, break the age group into 17-25 years, 25-40 years, and 40-50 years and create targeted content for each group.
Different video platforms have specific devices that are popular based on what the target audience prefers. Use this information for creating relevant content that optimizes the devise size, processing power, and default layout.
8. Do Not Rely Only on SEO – Promote Actively
While there are rich SEO tools to help you get the most of your video marketing material, for more information please read the guide from Visme. Partner with influencers, use live streaming smartly, and interact with viewers who comment on your content.
Drive Your Video Marketing Tips with Excellence
Rich video content is an effective way of getting business results for marketers. However, creating content that works is both a science and an art, and successful content creators invest in both.
Using video format to create marketing content requires patience as much as it requires skill. You have to nurture your audience base and give your viewers more of what they expect to see to get the desired results. Happy content creating!