Video has now become an essential channel for marketers. Over 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube daily, videos garner more shares than text and images combined, and videos on landing pages increase conversion. Video helps you break through the clutter provides the ability to engage with your client deeply.
Consumers love video because it is easily digested and often more engaging and entertaining than the written word. Many people (65%) are visual learners, not to mention consumers can be lazy. This makes video the perfect way to tell your story. If you’re not using video as part of your marketing mix, you are missing out.
So, here are our 5 tips to improve your video marketing today.
What Makes Great Video Marketing?
A great marketing video tells a concise and cohesive story. Create an arc when telling a story that takes your audience on a journey from the first frame to the last frame. A great video needs to bring value to the viewer. Focus on your customer and what your product does for him. A video that is focused purely on sales or branding will fall flat. There is too much noise out there for this to resonate. If you are not entertaining, educating, or otherwise engaging your audience, you may need to reevaluate your content.
Tell a Story to Improve Your Video Marketing
Videos have emotive capabilities, which is what makes the medium so powerful. Make maximum use of that speaking to your customer’s needs and wants.
Think about making the client say, “Hey, that’s me. I need that.”
A too overtly sales-focused video will fall flat, while if you focus on the value, you provide to your customers, that is much more likely to resonate. Put a call to action at the end of the video and a URL to capture the leads, but you must first engage them.
Everyone loves a good story. Find a way to tell yours in a way that is interesting and relevant. Talk about how you impact customers, how you make a difference, or the people behind your product. Pull back the curtain. This is a great chance to show your personality and show your company culture. Let your audience know what sets you apart and why they need you.
Don’t be boring! You don’t need to be a master comic, but humor does work if you can find a way to do it effectively and consistently with your brand. People want to laugh and to feel enlightened. Don’t feel constrained from using humor, and don’t try to emulate what others have already done.
Hook Them in the First 10 Seconds
Attention spans are short these days. It is said the average attention span is just 8.5 seconds. That means with all the content out there competing with your video; you have only a few seconds to convince your audience that your video is for them. Your story has to come alive very quickly so you can avoid the scroll. The viewer must understand very quickly what the video is about and that it is worth their precious time to watch it. Creating a hook is a great way to do this.
Try piquing the viewer’s interest by asking a question. Your video must demonstrate its value to the viewer and tell them why they should watch it. It can make them laugh, address a problem they have, teach them something new, or inspire them to act.
Target the Right Audience
Facebook is an excellent platform for distributing your content. It stands out because of the ability to be hyper-targetted in your audience. Be sure you understand who your perfect customer is before creating a video or doing any marketing! Know your basics like age, gender, and location. Then dig deeper. You can choose up to 16 “interests” to hone in on your client.
Remember that videos autoplay on Facebook in]unless the phone is on silent mode. This means you should be mindful of telling your story in a way that works with and without sound. Some tips are to use great visuals, text descriptions, and subtitles.
Don’t Fear Pre-Generated Content
Social proof can be compelling. Showing your happy customers who look like your viewers or share their problems using your solution is a very compelling way to build a strong video. And guess what? People love to see themselves in videos and are happy to star in your video and be your brand evangelist. Find ways to get your customers to create videos of them using your product or service or talking about how it solved their problems, and you have a home run. The bonus is they will share and share with friends, family, and on their channels.
Optimize Your Videos for SEO
Creating a killer video that is engaging and tells your story compellingly and entertainingly is only half of the battle. You need to be sure your video gets found. There are many tactics to do this. First and foremost, you want to upload the video to your site to host on your own domain before sharing it out on other platforms.
You’ll want to enable embedding on your video to increase the chance of getting inbound links. Create a video sitemap, and be sure your descriptions are strong. This will let Google’s spiders understand what your video is about and the content. Spend the time to get this right. Be sure your video is correctly tagged with relevant keywords and that your video is explained with full descriptions and titles that are unique. All of this will help you rank.
Facebook and YouTube both let you upload a thumbnail to sit alongside your video. This is an effective way to grab attention and prep them for the video before it starts playing. Your thumbnail should begin to tell your story while telling the viewer what to expect. Facebook is a great platform, but be sure to take advantage of their targeting to get to your perfect audience.
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, so it is the obvious channel to share your video. Some tips are to add a great thumbnail. This could make or break the success of your video. Think of it as your book cover! This is what will attract people and get them to click. Your thumbnail should match up with the first 10 seconds of your video-, which should be your best content anyhow. Create a killer headline that is searchable and promises a solution. Don’t forget to tag!
Optimize your content by using a CTA. It does not have to be a sale or sign up. Alternate CTA’s that may be more in keeping with your goals for the video and the video’s content might be to subscribe, follow or like, share, comment, or check out other content.