Most employees know the importance of blogging for business. It’s getting them to create the content that becomes the obstacle. There’s never enough time; they aren’t strong writers; SEO is a foreign language – whatever the reason, getting consistent quality content is hard.

Luckily, we know some tips and tricks that can help make content creation a lot easier – plus, saves a whole bunch of time!

Using Video in Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

Inbound marketing is no walk in the park. When first embracing inbound, there are a variety of strategies and channels to master. One of the most overwhelming tactics being content creation.

If you don’t consider yourself a writer, things like blog posts, premium content, social media posts, links, and graphics can send you into panic mode.

From social platforms like Facebook Live and Snapchat to job interviews, video is the ultimate way to dictate how your story is told. If your business isn’t producing some form of video, you’re falling behind. 

Get Started with Video Interviews

It’s not uncommon for employees to be strapped for time. A video interview is meant to help alleviate some of the challenges of creating content while humanizing your brand. When you put faces to names, it creates empathy.

Every great inbound marketing or sales enablement plan includes a well thought-out content strategy, which is why we aim to create quality content and leave a stronger impression through video interviews.  

Tips for setting-up video interviews:

• Arrange for someone in your sales or customer service team to get on a quick video call or record a short video clip.
• Tell them they will be on video ahead of time so they will be camera ready.
• Develop questions ahead of time and have them prepare.
• Ask them about customers, the sales process, and buyers’ journey within your organization.

Examples of Interview Questions  

• What are the most common questions people have about our product?
• What are the most common misconceptions people have?
• What are the biggest questions people have when getting started with our organization?
• What do you think our company is best at?
• What do you think makes our company stand apart from the competition?
• What do customers call in raving about?
• What do they love about us?

Ask those questions and see where the conversation takes you. The interview shouldn’t be cut and dry; it should be a conversation with insightful and useful information. Ensure that your interviewee knows that this video will not be used in one long slice. Explain how converting video interviews into multiple forms of content can benefit the company and how you’ll use bits and pieces across multiples platforms in a variety of ways.

Ways to Convert Videos to Content

It is a proven fact that people process visual information faster than text. However, once the videos are complete, breaking them down into a mixture of content provide numerous SEO benefits. As consumers, we crave interaction with our content.

Ideas for Conversion:

• Transcribe into one evergreen blog post
• Break it down into several specific blog posts
• Take audio snips for podcasts
• Take pieces of the video for webinars or YouTube

Ideas for Promotion:

• Throw a quote from the video on Twitter
• Create a series of slides on LinkedIn
• Add a graphic to Instagram
• Find creative, quotable moments and phrases for Facebook

Stand Out Among Competitors with Video Interviews

• When conducting interviews, think about your target persona and gear questions toward only one of those personas. This will help you stay focused, on topic, and will allow for multiple questions centered on the specific stages of that buyer’s journey.
• Browse your content calendar. What themes and promotions are coming up? Are there holidays coming up that you can gear questions toward?
• Throughout the course of a year, ask the same types of questions to a variety of people at your organization. This allows for you to have a mashup of different perspectives and you’ll never duplicate content.

Get Your Team to Contribute

Whether you’re selling a product or a service, no one knows your customers and sales processes better than those who work on the front lines daily.  

Don’t tackle content creation alone! A short interview can easily become a staff meeting activity. Assign teams before the meeting, give them a worksheet and a list of questions, and send them off to a quiet corner to conduct interviews.

Too much work? Prepare a list of questions and have an intern travel around the office asking questions over a period of days or weeks.

Once you get used to the idea of using video to convert into multiple forms of content, content creation is going to get a whole lot easier for you!