How to Build a Video Marketing Strategy That Doesn’t Suck
This is dedicated to the video marketing novices. Time to level up.
Ask the average marketer about their video marketing strategy and you probably will get a short-winded answer about consistent posting regularly (including videos) because “content is king”.
Content alone is not king.
Purposeful content is.
No doubt, video is important - people are spending 1/3 of their time watching online video content. If you need more concrete statistics, check out Wyzowl’s Marketing Statistics 2022. The bottom line is that the power of video marketing can catapult your business to greater heights, IF there is a strategy and purpose behind it. Pretty pictures alone will not be effective, but pair a pretty picture with a clearly defined purpose, it’s potent.
Dope. So how do I launch a marketing strategy that will get results and doesn’t suck?
Let’s start with these steps:
[1] Understand your audience and set campaign goals
All successful marketing campaigns starts with research:
Who are you targeting?
What type of content do they resonate with?
What channels are they most likely on?
What are you goals are you trying to accomplish? (brand awareness, increase traffic and sales, all of the above?)
It’s important to spend time gathering as much consumer insight and how much money you’ll spend on making them
[2] Stay on brand, nail down your message across ALL videos
Video can seem like a good opportunity to test out a branding refresh. Don’t fall for temptation. While viewers may be surprised by the new content - it’s important to know who and what is speaking to them. Stay consistent on your tone, message, delivery regardless of the medium. According to Forbes companies with consistent branding across all platforms and mediums are 20% more successful that those without.
If your social channels and YouTube link to your website or landing page, the message needs to be unified across all channels with clear, concise, on-brand messaging. If your email communications are different how your brand speaks on Facebook, it’s not a consistent reflection of your brand and can hurt rather than help.
[3] Make sure your video budget makes sense
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that putting a ton of bitcoin into a video project will automatically lead to huge success. On the flip side, not spending enough on an ambitious and far-reaching campaign could hurt your brand’s image. When it comes to making the video content, keep your campaign goals in mind.
Make sure you are spending your budget as well. If you’re looking to influence more millenial or Gen Z audiences, you might not need to spend much on video production - consider producing short videos for their social channels or repurposing generated content. If you have a larger budget and want to stay top of mind, consider a brand film story.
(Read more: Why Do Brand Films Work For Business?)
Using influencers in your videos doesn’t always mean recruiting big-name celebs. To stay within budget, consider featuring industry experts or even YouTube personalities that already have access to the audience you are trying to reach, but make sure that person is well-suited to represent your company. Those Island Boy kids, Paul Logan, don’t do it. Research their social media profiles, reputation, and topics they feature. Do they line up with your brand’s product and values?
[4] Optimize your videos and target for each channel
Depending on the channels you choose to launch your campaign - optimizing your videos will get you as much engagement as possible.
Facebook
Design for mobile-first
Keep it short. Put the best stuff first
Add captions
Be ultra-specific about your audience
Go native. Upload directly to facebookYouTube
Wait two weeks after you have started running vid ads to optimize.
Familiarize yourselves with view rate and average cost-per-view (CPV)
Optimize for view rate. Pull them in. Play with titles. End cards. CTAs. Avoid fatigue.
Refine your target audience
Optimize everything else including your YT channel landing page, website, and other contentTwitter
Keep it short and native
Target right but don’t over target and run multiple campaigns (A/B split testing)
[4] Test. Test Again. Repeat
A/B testing will help you figure out what’s working and what’s not. Doing so will help you understand your creative message better. Perhaps your message is wrong. Perhaps it’s too long or too short. Repeating the test cycle will help nail down the optimal content and timing of your campaigns. Here are 5 metrics to measure campaign success:
ENGAGEMENT RATE
Measures the interaction someone has with your video. How much time did they spend on it? Did they watch the whole thing or leave early? Or did they skip the entire thing? This gives you an indication of the quality of the message quality and length of the video.
VIEW COUNT
How many times the video has been watched, but it varies across different platforms. For YouTube, a view is 30s. For Facebook it’s 3s. Knowing how each platform measures a count will help you figure out how much true engagement your video is getting - giving you insight on how to plan future campaigns and video content
PLAY RATE
The number of visitors who clicked play. This gives you an idea of how the video ad does on specific websites or social channels. This should tell you something about your audience. Play rate can also be influenced by the thumbnail, copy and size of the video.
SOCIAL SHARING
How many times your video has been shared by others on social media channels. People don’t bother sharing content if they aren’t interested it. If it’s being shared, then your message is resonating.
COMMENTS/FEEDBACK
Pay attention to comment activity. If viewers are leaving comments, read them - both positive and negative - and take them into consideration. If viewers are taking time to comment, whether as customers or not, the brand is getting awareness and could lead to more customers in the future.
Are you a marketing agency? Download the Video Multiplier Blueprint and get the most of your single shoot into an instant content repository. Word up.
