There’s no better time to consider adding video to your marketing mix. Here are 5 steps to get you started.
According to Hubspot, 78% of people watch video every week and 55% of people watch videos everyday. That’s a lot of video watching! Video marketing is an important tool in both B2C and B2B marketing, enabling you to communicate messages with your audience in more depth than ever before.
1. Know Your Audience
Before you buy that flashy video camera or hire a lighting rig, the first thing you need to do to ensure a successful video marketing campaign is to understand who your campaign is targeting. This will in turn impact upon your choice of platform (will you create a mini TV series on YouTube or a 10 second promo on Snapchat?), as well as the messaging that is inherent in good targeting.
2. Grab Your Viewers, Fast
Research by Visible Measures suggests up to 20% of people will click away from a video within 10 seconds. By two minutes, this number will rise to 60%. Desktop users tend to have a slightly shorter attention span than mobile users. Heed these stats and ensure you capture your audience as early as possible, communicate your core message succinctly and make sure your content is engaging!
3. Quality Counts
This may seem obvious but as with all forms of content, quality is key. Don’t waste your entire marketing budget trying to promote something that just isn’t going to resonate. Video content should aim to solve a problem, provide entertainment and/or new information. Are you fulfilling this requirement?
Facebook has stated that people watch 100 million hours of video per day on their platform, and is edging ever closer to YouTube’s video throne
Is your video easy to watch and to share? Consider using interactive video elements such as in-video links, surveys or forms. Provide a transcript if relevant. Add subtitles if it is likely to be watched on mobile. For example, Facebook videos may autoplay without sound and a viewer can still enjoy your content if key subtitles are provided.
4. Device and Platform are Crucial
Mobile video views grew six times faster than desktop views in 2015, according to a study by Invodo. It is now more important than ever to move away from the traditional ‘desktop-first’ mentality. Facebook has stated that people watch 100 million hours of video per day on their platform, and is edging ever closer to YouTube’s video throne. Understanding how and where your audience tends to consume their video will determine how successful your video marketing is.
5. Optimise for Search
You’ve got great video content, and you know your viewers will love it so don’t let it languish lost in the billions of videos available online. Do not forget search engines and SEO opportunities: do your keyword research, create catchy titles and keyword-rich descriptions, use video sitemaps to allow for faster, better indexing and ensure that your videos can be embedded for easy sharing.
Subscribe now for content marketing insights and trends straight to your inbox.
