The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing

In January 1984, Apple aired their “1984” commercial to introduce the Macintosh at the Super Bowl XVIII.

In the following three months after the ad run, Apple went on to sell over $150 million worth of Macintosh computers. Today, close to 4 decades after the commercial aired, people still talk about it.

More recently, Always ran a video marketing campaign dubbed “Like A Girl.” The campaign immediately went viral, going on to attract over 69 million views on YouTube.

The above are just two examples of how effective video marketing can be. In today’s world where 82% of all content consumed online is video, you cannot afford to ignore video marketing – not if you want your business to thrive.

Whether you’re totally new to video marketing, or are just looking for ways to improve your video marketing campaigns, this in-depth guide is going to teach you all you need to know about video marketing, from creating a video marketing strategy, to the actual process of creating highly effective marketing videos.

Let’s get started.

What Is Video Marketing?

Video marketing refers to the creation and sharing of video content on various platforms with the aim of raising awareness about your brand, educating your audience, boosting engagements, and ultimately driving sales.

Over the last decade, video marketing has grown massively. This is because video offers several benefits over other marketing media. Here are some of these benefits.

• Video helps you build trust and connections: Video is a great way of showing your audience the face behind your brand, building a connection with your audience, and getting them to trust you. People are more likely to trust a video of someone talking about something than they are to trust a blog post talking about the exact same thing.
• Video boosts information retention: If you want your audience to remember something about your brand, video is the best way to communicate this information. People retain up to 95% of the message after watching a video. In comparison, only 10% of the message is retained after reading text.
• Your audience prefers video: 69% of people prefer learning about a product or service through video, rather than text. By using video, your marketing efforts are more likely to be successful, because you’re giving your audience what they want.
• Video boosts your reach: If you want to increase your organic reach, video is the best way to go. Social media posts containing video receive 1200% more shares compared to social posts containing both images and text.
• Video is good for SEO: Video content is a great way of boosting your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). Video boosts SEO by increasing social likes and shares, helping generate backlinks to your site, and helping drive more site traffic. Videos also increase the time visitors spend on your site, which also helps to boost SEO.

Types Of Marketing Videos

There are several types of video that you can use to market your business, each with a different focus and different goals. Let’s take a look at the most common.

1. Commercials

Also referred to as brand videos, these are videos whose goal is to help build awareness for your brand, and at the same time highlight your brand’s best features and strengths – such as brand vision, brand personality, innovative products and services, company culture, and so on.

One of the most important things when creating a commercial is to make it captivating and memorable. You want someone who has watched your commercial to remember your brand long after they watched the video.

A good example of a memorable commercial is the Apple “1984” commercial, which people still talk about almost 40 years later.

Another great example is the Volvo commercial shown below, which uses a breath-taking stunt by celebrated actor Jean Claud Van Damme to showcase the precision and stability of the dynamic steering system in their trucks.

2. Explainer Videos

Like the name suggests, explainer videos are videos that are created to explain something.

Explainer videos are highly versatile and can be used to explain how a product or service works, how your company does something, how a certain concept works, and so on.

Explainer videos are perfect for introducing your product or service to your target audience and are also great at driving conversions. Because of this, they therefore work very well on homepages and landing pages.

An explainer video can feature animations with voiceover, it can be a live-action recording, it could be a time-lapse illustration, or any other kind of format, provided it helps explain something to your audience.

The below video by TripCase is a great example of an explainer video. They do a great job of explaining how the TripCase app makes life easier for travelers.

3. Product Videos

Product videos are a very common type of marketing video. Unlike explainer videos, which explain how a product works, product videos focus on the product itself and its core features and benefits.

Basically, a product video tries to show why a particular product is better than other similar products in the market.

Product features are not good for capturing prospects at the awareness stage of the sales funnel. They are better suited for prospects in the consideration stage – those who know that solutions to their problem exist, and are doing product research to help them find the best solution to their problem.

Sometimes, product videos will include product demonstrations – videos showing how the product is used in real life scenarios.

This video by Cambridge Sound introducing their “Nightingale” smart home sleep system is a good example of a great product video.

4. Testimonials And Social Proof Videos

Before buying from you for the first time, customers will naturally be wary about spending their money, only to be disappointed by a low quality product, or a service that doesn’t meet their expectations. The best way to allay the fears of such customers is to use testimonials and social proof videos.

Social proof videos are videos that are created with the aim of cultivating customer trust. They can do this by…

• Showcasing some of your previous customers talking about their great experience with your products or services
• Showcasing awards and commendations your business has received due to the quality of its products and services
• Providing case studies of results that previous customers achieved using your products and services

The video below showing Amazon FBA users talking about their experience with the service is a good example of what a testimonial or social proof video looks like.

5. Video Documentaries

While video documentaries have existed for a while now, it is only recently that brands have started incorporating them in their video marketing strategies.

Video documentaries are a type of video format that takes an in-depth look into a topic that is highly relevant to your industry. Owing to their in-depth take on a topic, documentary videos are usually a bit longer than the other types of video covered here.

Video documentaries serve two purposes. They educate your audience about the topic at hand from an insider’s point of view, while at the same time helping position your brand as an authority within that industry.

InVision’s Design Disruptors is a great example of a video documentary. In what is essentially an unbranded video, and without marketing its products, InVision takes an in-depth look into the transformative power of design. Here’s a trailer for the video documentary.

6. Company Culture Videos

Company culture videos are a great way to give a human touch to your brand, make your brand look personable and authentic, and build trust. These videos give your audience a peek into what goes on behind the curtain.

Some of the things a company culture video might show include your business vision, what your brand stands for, how your employees maintain your brand values when doing their work, what the experience is like for your employees, and so on.

Company culture videos serve two main purposes. First, by showcasing your vision, values, and ethos, they help market your entire brand, not just a particular product or service.

Second, company culture videos are a great way to market your company to job seekers and attract new talent.

The below video by Founder’s Brewing is a great example of what goes into making a great company culture video. It features interviews of the founders and employees talking about their passion and pride in making great beer and makes you want to taste one of their beers.

7. Behind The Scenes Videos

Have you ever wondered what goes into making your favorite beer, that bespoke suit you so much love to wear, or even your dream car?

If your company has an interesting process that goes into developing, producing, or distributing your product, giving your customers a behind the scenes peek into this process can be a great way to build a connection with them.

By showing your customers how their favorite product is made, and all the care, craftsmanship, and expertise that goes into the product, you’ll make them fall in love with your product and create loyal customers for your brand.

Below is an example of a great behind the scenes video from Red Wing Shoes.

8. Educational (How-To Videos)

This is another common type of video that is very popular among brands. The aim behind educational videos is to educate or teach your audience how to do something. This type of video is all about providing value to your audience.

How-to videos help market your brand by teaching your audience how to achieve a result they desired using your product.

For instance, if your product is an email marketing service, you could create a how-to video showing people how to build an email list using your product. You are not only teaching them how to achieve one of their business goals, you also get to showcase your product.

Here’s an example of a simple how-to video from Adobe Creative Cloud on how to create an animated GIF in Photoshop. Despite its simplicity, the video has garnered close to 4 million views.

9. FAQ Videos

Sometimes, your prospects might want answers to one or two major questions before they make the purchase decision. Sure, you can answer these questions in the FAQ section of your website, but why not make it better by creating a FAQ video?

A FAQ video is simply any video that seeks to answer a common question that people have about your brand or your products and services. It allows you to quell any fears someone might have about purchasing from you.

The best part about making FAQ videos, rather than relying on your FAQ section, is that you can easily share the FAQ video on various digital platforms and drive more engagement compared to sharing a link to your FAQ section.

Below is an example of a great FAQ video by McDonalds.

10. Animated Videos

Animated videos have also gained a lot of popularity over the last couple of years. Animated videos make use of moving drawings, illustrations, and text combined with computer generated effects and voice overs to pass their message.

The beauty of animated videos is that they give you the creative freedom to communicate any kind of message. What’s more, owing to their eye-catching, engaging and entertaining nature, animation videos have a higher potential of getting shared and going viral.

Animated videos are very good at explaining abstract or hard-to-grasp concepts, and can be used for explainer videos, commercials and brand videos, FAQ videos, and so on.

Here is an example of an animated video by Starbucks.

11. Event Videos

If your company holds or attends industry events, such as conferences and roundtable discussions, creating event videos to document your experience in these events is a great idea. Showing your company participating in such events helps enhance your brand’s authority and credibility.

Here is an example of an event video by Inbound.

How To Make A Video For My Business

Creating a successful marketing video for your business is not as simple as pointing a camera and hitting the record button. There’s a lot that goes into it.

Below, let’s take a look at the process of creating marketing videos that will deliver results for your business.

Step One: Plan Your Video

Every successful marketing effort starts with a plan, and this applies even to marketing videos. Before you start creating your video, you need to have a clear idea why you are creating a video in the first place.

Some of the questions you need to ask yourself during the planning phase include…

• What’s the goal behind your video? Are you trying to raise awareness for your brand? Increase sales? Introducing a new product?
• What is the best kind of video to achieve this goal?
• Who is your target audience?
• What action do you want your audience to take after watching the video?
• When is the video due?
• Where will it be shared or displayed? On social media? On your homepage or landing page? On YouTube?
• What kind of talent do you need to bring the video to life? Do you need actors, graphic and video editors, voice over artists, and so on?
• What’s your budget for the video?
• What metrics and performance indicators are you going to use to measure the success of the video?

Once you’ve come up with answers to these questions, it becomes easier to shoot your video without wasting time repeating shots, editing multiple times, and changing ideas midway through the shoot.

Step Two: Script Your Video

If you want to create an engaging and successful marketing video – whether you’re creating an animated video, a live action video, or even a behind the scenes video, always use a script.

Without a script, there’s so much that could go wrong….

• You might find yourself going off-topic and talking about things that are not relevant
• Your video might end up getting too long, leading to your audience abandoning it midway
• You might forget something important
• You’ll be forced to shoot and edit multiple times

To avoid all this, never start making a video without a script. So, how do you create a script for your video?

The first thing you need to do is to come up with an outline for your script. What are the key points you want to pass in the video?

Once you’re satisfied with your outline, you can move on to creating the script. Write the script the same way you’d write a blog post. However, there are some key things to keep in mind when writing your script…

• Refer to your audience in second person. Remember, you want the video to come across as though you are talking to your audience in person.
• Keep the script as conversational as possible. Avoid words and phrases that are difficult to pronounce, as well as overly long sentences.
• Keep it short. Every 120 words translate to about one minute of video, so keep this in mind so you don’t end up with a very long video.

After you’re done writing your script, read it aloud. This will help you uncover any words, phrases, and sentences that don’t sound natural.

Step Three: Come Up With A Storyboard

Now that you have your script ready, the next step is to come up with a storyboard for your video.

A storyboard is a visual outline that guides the flow of your video, shot by shot. The storyboard is made up of a series of images showing the key shots or frames that will be featured in your video, with accompanying notes to guide whoever will shoot the video.

Creating a storyboard before you start shooting has several advantages. First, it provides a visual preview of the video, allowing you to anticipate how the video will turn out and get feedback before you get into the actual shooting.

Second, it acts as a roadmap during the shooting phase. When you get to each scene, you know exactly which shots you need to take and from which angle, rather than having to think about this on the fly. This can significantly reduce the time it takes to complete shooting.

The process of creating a storyboard is quite easy. Simply go through your script and sketch an image showing the action that will be taking place on each line of the script. Here’s a video showing how to create a simple storyboard.

The images don’t have to be artistic – you can even use stick figures to represent your characters. The key is to make sure you have a visual representation of what will be happening at each point.

Step Four: Gather Your Video Production Equipment

Before you start shooting your video, you’ll need access to some basic equipment. These include…

1. Cameras

This is the most important equipment when it comes to creating videos for your business. Fortunately, you don’t have to invest thousands of dollars in a camera in order to create good marketing videos.

Today, smartphone camera technology is very advanced. If you have a recent generation iPhone or a flagship Android smartphone, it’s probably equipped with a good camera that can shoot high-quality footage.

One thing to keep in mind when shooting video using your smartphone is that the native apps that come with the smartphone give you limited control over the camera.

If you’re going to shoot your marketing videos using your smartphone, it’s a good idea to invest in third-party camera apps, such as FilMic Pro, Moment Pro Camera, or Adobe Premiere Rush, all of which are available on iOS and Android.

These apps give you the option to manually control many of your smartphone camera’s settings, leading to better video quality.

While using your smartphone camera is a good way to create marketing videos without making a huge investment, it can only take you so far. If you’ll be making videos regularly, you’ll eventually need to invest in a dedicated camera.

There are lots of camera options to choose from. Depending on your budget, shooting needs, and expertise, you can go with prosumer cameras, which allow you to easily take high quality video footage without having to fiddle with endless settings, or professional cameras like DSLRs.

With professional cameras, you can shoot the highest quality videos, but you need to be conversant with the various manual settings that affect the quality of your video, such as shutter speed, frame rate, focus, aperture, ISO, color balance, and so on.

Before you start shooting, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with your camera, and make sure you have a good understanding of video shooting concepts, such as composition and camera placement.

2. Microphone

If you’re going to be shooting live action videos, you’ll definitely need to record audio of your subjects speaking. While your smartphone or camera comes with its own internal microphone, never use it to record audio.

Since your camera will be a considerable distance away from your subject as you record the footage, the internal microphone will not be able to properly record audio from that distance. It will also pick up other ambient noises between the camera and your subject.

If you want to create a video with high quality audio, you’ll need to invest in an external microphone. Fortunately, there are several good quality microphones that you can buy at affordable prices.

The best thing about an external microphone is that it allows you to place the mic very close to your subject, thus ensuring the highest quality recording. Many also come with features that allow them to muffle ambient noises for crystal clear recording.

3. Tripod

While it is not an absolute necessity, shooting using a tripod stand can greatly improve the quality of your video. Here are some of the advantages of using a tripod when shooting video…

• Better stability: Handheld videos will often look wobbly and amateurish. Using a tripod helps stabilize your video and eliminate camera shake, producing videos that look more professional.
• Better framing and shot adjustment: With a tripod, it is easier to frame your shot and make subtle changes to your shot without affecting the quality of the video.
• Maintaining camera placement: Once a camera has been mounted on the tripod and the correct shooting angles picked, you can leave it there the whole day. This allows you to shoot video footage over extended periods of time without worrying about losing your shooting angles.

If you decide to invest in a tripod, there are several to choose from. The best tripod for you will depend on your camera, as well as your budget. A tripod that works for smartphone shooting might not be strong enough to support a professional DSLR camera.

4. Lighting Equipment

It is possible to shoot high quality videos using natural lighting, but it is not very dependable.

If you want to create professional grade videos, you’ll need to invest in some lighting equipment. Fortunately, it is possible to pick up good lighting equipment without breaking the bank.

For high quality shooting, we recommend buying three lights. During shooting, you’ll set up these lights in what is known as the three-point lighting setup.

The first light, also referred to as the key light, should be the brightest in the room. It should be placed at a 45% angle to the subject, just slightly above the subject’s head level. The purpose of the key light is to illuminate your subject.

The second light, also known as the fill light, should be placed at a 45% angle to the other side of the subject. This should be less powerful than the key light, and helps to cancel out the shadows produced by the key light.

The final light, also known as the back light, should be placed behind the subject, but to the side such that it will not be captured within the shooting frame. The back light, which should be placed higher than the subject’s head, helps separate the subject from the background.

Step Five: Get Your Talent Ready

If you’re going to be shooting live action video, you’ll need people to go in front of the camera. If you have the budget for it (and depending on the kind of video you’re shooting), you can hire actors for your video.

For those who don’t have the budget to hire actors, you don’t have to worry. You can either step in front of the camera yourself, or find someone else within your company to do it.

One thing to keep in mind here is that getting in front of the camera is not easy for most people. Therefore, before you start shooting, give your talent enough time to get used to the feeling of being in front of the camera, and to get acquainted with the script.

Rather than having your talent memorize the script, you can have them read it off a laptop placed just below the camera, like they are reading from a teleprompter.

To avoid having to repeat shots, break down the script into multiple chunks, and record each section at a time. This way, you don’t have to throw away good footage because one section didn’t turn out as you wanted.

Step Six: Record Your Video Footage

Before you start the actual shooting, make a test run to make sure that everything is working correctly – the cameras, the audio equipment, and so on.

You should also check to make sure that your background looks conducive to filming. Ensure that there is no clutter in the background, and if possible, use a solid colored background.

If you don’t have a room with such a background, you can drape a bedsheet, curtain, or large sheet of backdrop paper to act as a solid colored background for your shoot. Avoid placing the background too close to your subject, since this will create unwanted shadows.

In addition, avoid shooting close to a window or other reflective surface, since this will mess up with your lighting. You also don’t want a reflection of the cameraman caught on the reflective surface. This screams “amateur!”

Once you confirm that all the equipment has been properly set up and is working correctly, and that your talent and background is ready, you can now go ahead and start recording.

During the recording stage, you’ll need to be very vigilant. Check that every scene is going as you had planned, and if you feel that something is not right, ask for a retake. Record each section a couple of times, and have your talent try out different tonal variations, gestures, facial expressions, and so on.

How your talent carries themselves on camera will have a huge impact on the quality of your video. A calm and collected subject will make your video come across as professional, while a nervous and fidgety subject will distract your audience from the content of the video.

To ensure a professional-looking video, here are some things your talent needs to do during the shoot:

• Maintain an upright posture and use calm, open body language. Have them take three deep breaths before they start talking.
• Encourage them to smile, since this will make them seem friendly and approachable.
• Ask them to talk slowly. Talking quickly will only make them seem nervous and uncomfortable.
• If your talent is fidgety, give them something to keep their hands occupied. For instance, you could have them write on a whiteboard.

Be ready to shoot the same scene multiple times, since it's very unlikely that you’ll get it right the first time. Just keep practicing and recording until you get it right.

To avoid having to go back to the shooting stage, think about the edit as you are shooting. Record as much secondary footage (b-roll) as you can, and leave buffers at the beginning and end of each footage. This way, you won’t have to worry about cutting too close to the important action during the editing stage.

Step Seven: Edit Your Video

You’re done shooting footage for your video, but the hard work is not over yet. The next step is to edit the footage you recorded and convert it into a high quality finished video.

The editing phase involves things like trimming unwanted footage, stitching together different footage into one, adding text and images to the video, adding scene transitions, adding videos and sounds, adding filters and overlays, and so on.

If you have the budget for it, it’s a good idea to hire a professional video editor to do this for you. For those who do not have the budget, you can still do it yourself, provided you are conversant with some video editing software.

Here are the steps to follow during the editing phase…

• Organize your footage: During the shooting phase, you’ll record lots of footage. To make things easier for you during editing, organize your footage and group similar clips into folders. Go through the footage, mark your best clips, and get rid of clips that are unusable.
• Review your script: Before you start editing, go through your script and storyboard once more and make sure that you have all the required footage. If some key footage is missing, go back and reshoot it.
• Gather other necessary material: Are there additional assets that you’ll need to incorporate into the complete video, such as photos, logos, and graphics? Gather them at this point.
• Create a rough cut: Go through the footage once more, identify the best clips for each scene, and arrange them in the right order on your video editing program.
• Start refining your video: Now that you have the clips for each scene arranged in order, it’s time to make improvements to your rough cut. Trim out the unnecessary parts, make sure the timing of the clips is solid, and so on.

Polish the video: At this point, your video is almost complete, but you can make it better by adding transitions, adding any necessary graphics and logos, adding b-roll footage to fill up the gaps, using color correction to make sure all parts of the video match with one another, and so on.

Best Software For Video Editing

There’s no shortage of video editing apps and programs, some free, and others paid, each offering its own unique set of tools and features. That said, here are three of the best video editing software you can use…

• Adobe Premiere Pro: This is the world’s leading video editing program. Adobe Premiere Pro comes with a wide range of advanced video editing tools. It supports 8k video quality, and is compatible with other Adobe products, such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects. Adobe Premiere Pro is so good that it has even been used on some of Hollywood’s blockbusters.
• Final Cut Pro: If you’re looking for a professional video editing program but feel that the learning curve for Adobe Premiere Pro is too steep, Final Cut Pro is another great option. Just like Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro comes with an equally appealing set of features, such as footage trimming, multi-cam editing, video presents, and so on. However, it is only available to Mac users.
• iMovie: If you’re looking for a free video editing program, Apple’s iMovie is a great choice. It is a simple and user friendly program that is perfect for someone who is just starting out with video editing. With iMovie, you can edit and cut clips, add filters, transition effects, sound effects, music, and so on. However, iMovie has limited capabilities that might not be suitable for someone looking for a professional grade video editing program.

Step Eight: Add Voice Overs And Music To Your Video

If you are creating an animated video, or if your live action video requires a narration, you’ll need to record a voiceover and add it to your video.

Even if your video doesn’t need a voiceover, you can greatly improve its quality and mood by adding some music to the video. So, how do you go about this step?

Recording Voice Overs

The good news is that you don’t need to hire a professional to voice your video. You can do it yourself, or find someone within your company who has a great voice to do it. Once you have identified the talent for the voiceover, here’s what you need to do…

• Find a quiet location: To record a high quality voiceover, you need a very quiet room, where your microphone is unlikely to pick up distracting external noises from traffic, music, or even people moving about the office. You also need to make sure that the room doesn’t have any echoes, since this will be picked up by your microphone.
• Practice: If you want to have an easy time recording your voiceover, take some time getting yourself (or your talent) familiar with the script. Take note of where you need to make pauses, and get comfortable with pronouncing any difficult words. You should also make sure you don’t have anything on your that could create unwanted noise, such as jewelry.
• Record, review, and record again: it is highly unlikely that you will get it right with your first attempt. Make your first recording, listen to the audio, take note of places where you can make improvements, and then give it another shot. Repeat this as many times as needed until you get the best possible recording.

Once you’re satisfied with the quality of your recording, you can then give the voiceover to your video editor to add it to the video.

Adding Music To Your Video

Ever watched a movie and found yourself on edge and anticipating that something was about to happen, all because of the background music?

Music is a powerful tool that greatly affects how we perceive videos. By adding music to your video, you can set the right mood for your audience and get them more interested in your video.

One thing to keep in mind when choosing music for your marketing video is that it’s not as simple as finding some music you like and adding it to the video. You have to be wary of copyright infringement.

At the very least, this could get your video pulled from social platforms. In extreme situations, you could easily find yourself facing legal suits, so you need to be very careful.

So, where do you find music to use on your videos?

You have two options. The first one is to pay someone to create new music for your video. However, this route can both be expensive and time consuming.

Your other option is to find royalty-free music on sites like FreeStockMusic, AudioMicro, PremiumBeat, Incompetech, and Pond5. These sites allow you to purchase royalty-free music to use on your videos for just a few bucks, and you don’t have to worry about paying royalties for the music in future.

When choosing music for your video, you also need to think about your audience. Will that kind of music appeal to your target audience? Does the music evoke the kind of emotions you want it to? Does it enhance the message you are trying to pass in the video?

Once you’ve added voiceovers and music to your video, you are now good to go. Review the video once more, share it with a few people to gather some feedback, and if everything is good, you can now start thinking of publishing your video and sharing it with your audience.

Video Hosting Platforms

Your first marketing video is complete, and you are now ready to share it with the world. Question is, what is the best platform for hosting your video?

Below, let’s check out three of the best video hosting sites on the internet.

1. YouTube

YouTube is the world’s largest video hosting platform, and is the first site people think of whenever they want to search for videos. YouTube has over 1.3 billion users, and attracts over 30 million visitors per day, who watch an average 5 billion videos. Every single day!

It makes sense, therefore, that sharing marketing videos on YouTube is a no-brainer for anyone looking to benefit from this massive reach.

YouTube offers several benefits for anyone looking to host their marketing videos on the platform. First, it allows you to build channels with subscribers, which means you can build a loyal audience on the platform.

With a YouTube channel, you can also organize your marketing videos into playlists, making it easier for your audience to find related videos.

In addition, YouTube doubles up as a social platform, since it allows viewers to like, dislike, share, and comment on videos. This makes YouTube a great platform for driving engagements.

The only downsides to hosting your videos on YouTube is the proliferation of ads, which can be distracting to your viewers.

In addition, the availability of tons of other videos, as well as the highly effective YouTube video suggestions algorithm means that most people will keep watching more videos after they’re done watching your video. Therefore, YouTube is not very effective for driving traffic back to your site.

2. Vimeo

This is another popular video hosting platform, coming in just second after YouTube. With about 715 million views every month, Vimeo’s traffic is nowhere near YouTube’s 5 billion per day, but there are still several reasons that make Vimeo a great platform for hosting your video.

First, unlike YouTube, Vimeo does not bombard users with ads at every possible opportunity, so it provides your audience with a better viewing experience.

Vimeo also supports higher video and audio quality compared to YouTube. However, you have to upgrade to a paid plan to access this feature.

With Vimeo’s paid plans, you also get access to analytics about your number of views, engagement metrics, and so on. However, the analytics are not as detailed as what you get with YouTube.

3. Vidyard

Unlike the other two platforms, which are mass-appeal video hosting platforms, Vidyard is a video platform that caters specifically to businesses looking to grow through video marketing.

There are several reasons that make Vidyard a great video hosting platform for businesses. First, Vidyard is incredibly easy to use. From uploading videos to editing the videos and creating playlists, Vidyard is extremely intuitive. What’s more, it gives you the option to add calls to action within your videos.

Vidyard also makes it very easy to share your videos on other platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram, and even to embed the videos on your website.

Finally, Vidyard provides very extensive analytics and insights, which can help you optimize and get the most out of your marketing campaigns. If you want to take advantage of all these features, however, you will have to upgrade to a premium plan.

How To Create A Video Social Media Strategy

At this point, you already know how to go about creating and publishing the first marketing video for your business. If you want your video marketing efforts to be effective, however, don’t focus on producing one video at a time.

What you need to do, instead, is to come up with a video social media strategy that will act as a guide for all your video marketing efforts.

Your video social media strategy will help you determine how many videos you’ll create and publish every month, the kind of videos you’ll produce, who these videos will be targeting, where to publish the videos and how to promote them, and so on.

With a video social media strategy, you’re not just experimenting with video marketing and hoping it will work. You’ll be following an actual plan that is guaranteed to drive results.

So, how do you create a video social media strategy? Here are the steps to follow…

1. Decide On Your Video Marketing Goals

Why are you creating marketing videos in the first place? What do you want to achieve?

The best way to define your video marketing goals is to think about the role of the videos in your marketing funnel.

Are you trying to raise brand awareness and introduce your brand to a new audience? Are you trying to show people in the consideration stage how your product or service will solve their problem? Are you trying to convince those near the decision stage that you are better than the competition and convert them into paying customers?

2. Define Your Target Audience

Once you’ve defined your video marketing goals, and the stage within the marketing funnel that your videos are targeting, it’s now time to think about the people your marketing videos are intended for.

Let’s assume, for instance, that you are creating marketing videos to build awareness for a content marketing agency. Here are some traits that could define your target audience.

• They run online businesses that require regular content
• They are too busy to handle the content by themselves and are therefore looking for a content writing agency
• They have a content marketing budget
• They are probably searching for content writers on social media and search engines.

Once you have a good idea of who your videos are targeting, it becomes easier to create videos that address their concerns.

In the above example, for instance, you can create videos that address that target audience’s key pain points – not having enough time or talent to create their own content.

3. Decide On Your Video Platforms

Most social platforms today support video content. However, these different platforms support different kinds of video formats. A video that would work perfectly on Facebook, for instance, might be unsuitable for another platform like Instagram, TikTok, or SnapChat.

Before you start creating your videos, therefore, you should have a good idea of where they’ll be published. So, how do you determine the best social platform to share your videos?

The answer is to look at your target audience. Which social platforms are most popular among your target audience?

For instance, if you are targeting a younger audience, TikTok and SnapChat would be great options, since these platforms are very popular among younger demographics.

Similarly, if you are targeting professionals, it makes better sense sharing your videos on LinkedIn compared to SnapChat.

In addition, you also need to think about how your audience uses the different social platforms. For instance, data by Statista shows that Instagram users spend half their time on the platform watching videos. In contrast, only 21% of Pinterest users spend time on the platform watching videos.

This means that sharing your videos on Pinterest might not have as much ROI as sharing the videos on Instagram.

4. Come Up With A Video Content Plan

One of the greatest mistakes people getting into video marketing make is only creating and publishing videos without a video content calendar. This leads to inconsistency, which ends up alienating your audience. If you want to have an effective video social media strategy, you need a video content plan.

A video content plan is a document that outlines the marketing videos that your business will create over a certain period of time, say six months or a year, as well as the date each video will be published.

With a video content plan, you’ll never find yourself without marketing video ideas, and you’ll have plenty of time to work on each video, leading to consistency.

To create a video content plan, start by looking at your overall marketing calendar and determine how often you can comfortably create high quality videos for your brand. Once every two weeks? Once a month? It’s a lot better to go with less publishing frequency than to commit to a publishing schedule you cannot keep up with.

Once you’ve determined your posting schedule, the next thing you need to do is to brainstorm video content ideas for the next six months. Write down each idea next to the date it will get published and the platform where the video will be published, and you have your video content plan ready.

5. Create, Share, Track

With your video content plan ready, all you need to do now is to start working on each video before its due date. You can either do this by yourself, or assign the task of making sure that the videos are produced to someone in your team.

Once each video is created, publish it on the designated date, promote it to your audience, and finally, track its performance. Tracking the performance of your marketing videos helps you determine whether your video marketing efforts are working, or if they need to be tweaked.

How To Define Your Video Marketing Goals And Analyze Results

Tracking and analyzing the results driven by your marketing videos is very important. Without tracking and analyzing results, you might spend months or years on a video marketing strategy that has no impact on your bottom line.

While many know the importance of tracking the performance of their videos, a lot of marketers only look at one metric – views. Unfortunately, video views are very often a vanity metric – they make you feel good, but they don’t always translate to more business for you.

You cannot measure the effectiveness of a marketing video by looking at the number of views only. There are lots of other video marketing metrics to measure, and the complicated part is that not all of them are always useful.

Let’s assume, for instance, that you published a marketing video with the aim of increasing conversions.

After one month, the video has garnered 100,000 views, but none of these people converted into a paying customer. Despite having lots of views, such a video cannot be termed to be a success.

So, which video marketing metrics should one measure? The answer to this question depends on your video marketing goals.

Below, let’s take a look at some common video marketing goals, and the metrics you need to measure for each of these goals.

Awareness And Reach

If your aim is to put your brand in front of as many people as possible and get people familiar with your brand, here are the metrics you need to track…

Views

This tells you the number of people who have watched your video. Note, however, that view counts can still be a very deceptive metric, since they vary from one platform to another.

On YouTube, for instance, a view is only counted if someone watches the video for 30 seconds. On Facebook, however, views are counted whenever someone watches a video for more than 3 seconds.

This means that someone slowly scrolling through their Facebook can easily be counted as a view, even if they did not stop to actually watch your video.

Play Rate And Replays

Play rate counts the number of users who click on the play button in order to view your video. This is a better metric than views because it tells you that the user actually took action in order to view the video.

Replays, on the other hand, count the number of users who hit the replay button on your video. Again, this can be a confusing metric.

On the one hand, it could mean that they loved the video so much that they replayed it. On the other hand, it could mean that they didn’t get the message your video was trying to pass, forcing them to replay the video.

Shares

Shares are a great metric to track. When people share your video, it means that the video was so good that they wanted their friends and connections to see it as well. Aside from being a nod to the message contained in your video, more shares lead to greater reach.

Impressions

This metric tells you the number of times your video was displayed online, regardless of whether people actually watched it or not. If a video appears on someone’s timeline twice, these are counted as two impressions.

Impressions can give you insights about the quality of your video marketing campaign. For instance, very low impressions could mean that you are promoting the video on the wrong platform.

High impressions but low views, on the other hand, could mean that despite being displayed in front of a lot of people, the video is not catching their attention, which could be an indicator of a mismatch between the audience and the video’s relevance.

Engagements

If you are running a video marketing campaign with the aim of getting people to react to your videos and interact with your brand, here are the key metrics to track…

• Likes: This metric measures the number of people who really loved your video content to the extent of leaving a positive reaction on it. This is a sign that you are giving your audience the kind of content they’d like to see.
• Dislikes: This metric measures the number of people who didn’t like your video content, or those who are in disagreement with your video content.
• Comments: Comments give you better insights into what your audience thinks about your video content. Since commenting requires more effort than liking or disliking, this shows that your video struck a chord with your audience. Note, however, that this could either be positive or negative.
• Watch time: This measures the amount of time viewers spend on your video. High watch time tells you that your video content is engaging and resonates with your audience. Low watch time, on the other hand, means that your video content is not delivering what your viewers expected.

Conversions

Sometimes, the goal of a marketing video is to drive conversions – getting people to purchase a product, sign up for a trial, subscribe to a webinar, and so on.

If your goal is conversions, here are the metrics you need to pay attention to…

Click-through rate (CTR): This metric measures the number of viewers who follow through with the action you wanted them to take at the end of the video. A high CTR is an indicator of a highly engaging and effective marketing video.

Other Metrics

Some metrics are not related to your marketing goals, but they give you insights about your audience, which you can then use to optimize your future video marketing campaigns for better performance. These metrics include…

Traffic sources

This metric tells you where most of your viewers are coming from.

For instance, if most of your views are coming from Facebook, yet you are not spending much time promoting your video on Facebook, this is an indicator that you need to pay more attention to Facebook.

Similarly, if most of your YouTube views are coming through Google search, this tells you that it is possible to attract even more viewers by optimizing your YouTube video for search.

Viewer Demographics

This metric gives you the demographic composition of the people viewing your videos, and can help you determine whether your video is actually reaching your target audience.

If the majority of your viewers are from the demographic you are targeting, this is a sign that your video is resonating with this audience group.

In cases where the majority of your viewers are from a different demographic, this shows that your video is not relevant to your target audience.

A mismatch between your viewer demographics and your target audience could also indicate that there is another market segment that is interested in your products and services. If this is a segment you were unaware of, you can easily grow your business by creating products and services to cater to this new segment.

Insightful Video Marketing Statistics

Now that you know how to make marketing videos for your business and how to analyze the results of your video marketing campaigns, here are some insightful video marketing statistics to get you even more excited and show you why you need to start working on your marketing videos today.

• 96% of consumers report that they are consuming more online video today than they did in 2019.
• The average internet user in 2021 spends 100 minutes every day watching video. If you’re using video, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to reach your customers.
• If you have a loyal online audience, they want to see more videos from you. Reports show that 54% of consumers want the brands and businesses they support to share more video content.
• According to Biteable, 68% of marketers say that they’ve gotten higher return on investment from video compared to Google Ads.
• Today, 86% of marketers have video as part of their marketing arsenal. If you’re not using video, all these marketers are gaining an edge over you.
• Using video marketing can help you grow your revenue 49% faster compared to marketers who do not use video marketing.
• Looking to increase conversions? Video might be the answer. Adding a video to your landing page can lead to an 80% increase in conversions.
• Video is good for email marketing too. Including videos in your marketing emails can lead to a 300% increase in click rates.
• Video is a great way of acquiring leads. According to OptinMonster, marketers who use video generate 66% more qualified leads annually compared to those who do use video.
• Adding video to your social media posts can help you increase your reach. Reports show that social media posts containing video get 48% more views compared to text only and text plus image posts.

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