Creating a Video Marketing Strategy

Video marketing has become increasingly more popular and effective over the past several years as consumers have transitioned to a more digital space for work and personal reasons. If you’ve never explored the option of video as a marketing technique for your business, what are you waiting for?

Your ability to reach your target audience and resonate with them through video will help you tremendously when it comes to raising brand awareness, increasing conversions, and connecting with your market. Let’s talk about how you can take your brand and visualize it in a way that will help your marketing strategy excel in ways like never before.

Understand Who You Want to Reach

Whenever you’re putting together a video marketing strategy, just like any other, you want to make sure that you know exactly who you want to reach and where to find them. To set the most efficient strategy in place, you should be aware of the viewing habits and what type of content resonates best with the target market you’re after.

Is your audience typically online first thing in the morning or later in the evening?

Can they be found on a specific platform?

If you’re going to run your video across OTT channels, do you know what kind of videos your target is already watching?

By collecting this information and using it when mapping out your video marketing strategy, you can better plan how to get in front of those you’re targeting.

Determine the Desired Outcome of the Video 

Every marketing strategy has a desired outcome that it’s aiming for. Before you begin strategically outlining the video itself, you need to determine the action in which you want the viewer to take once they watch your video.

Are you solely trying to build brand awareness around your business? Or are you looking to have the audience take advantage of an offer?

If you’re wanting to educate people about who you are, then focus on showing what you all do – highlight your products and services, share what it’s like working with you, and even consider including testimonials from customers. End the video with a call to action asking the viewer to subscribe to your newsletter or visit your website for additional information.

If you’re promoting an offer or a new product or service, make sure that the focus of the video is around that for the most part. Showcase how that product or service will solve their problem, make their life easier, or enhance their life overall. Then provide an offer for them to act on and lead them directly to where they need to go.

Once you know the goal of the video and what you want the audience to get out of it, you’re able to strategize the content of the video itself and determine how you’ll position the video when it goes live.

Optimize Your Video for the Right Platforms and Channels

After you’ve outlined the premise of the video, then you want to ensure you are optimizing the video for the platforms and channels you will be running it on. For example, when placing a video on Instagram, you have a different size ratio and time restrictions than you do for Facebook.

This is also true for platforms like Tik Tok, LinkedIn, and YouTube. If you’re trying to run a short ad, then you must plan your content around that time frame. But if you’re looking to create a more long-form video that will live on the channel itself or run as a commercial via OTT or CTV, then you want to ensure you have enough valuable content to fill that space.

Lastly, depending on where the video will be placed, will determine the language used in the call to action. Are you asking them to swipe up on a video to sign up for a newsletter? Or do you want them to click a link to shop? Your platform, call to action, and overall strategy needs to work in unison to see the best results.

Test Your Creative

After you’ve finished your video, it’s time to test it out! Make sure to incorporate some time into your plan to allow time to test out your creativity.

Set aside anywhere from 2 weeks to a month, depending on the offer and your audience, to see if your video is converting leads. Are you seeing a high click rate with little to no form fills? Or do you find that your clicks are lower, but the majority of those visiting the landing page is completing the action?

Once you’ve given your video an adequate amount of time to reach a segment of your target audience, look at the analytics and let them speak for themselves. If your video is getting a lot of attention and driving traffic to the right place, but once they get there, they aren’t following through, then you know the issue lies here. Carefully look at the messaging that follows the video and make sure that it aligns with the overall goal and what you would like to achieve.

If you notice a disconnect, then make the needed adjustments and continue to analyze how these assets are working for you.

The Benefits of a Video Marketing Strategy

When it comes to marketing through video, you have a chance to reach people in a way that other forms of advertising can’t. You can speak to many different senses and evoke emotions more than words or photos alone. Over the past few years, video has become more powerful than ever before.

When you strategize around your audience, their behaviors, and where they can be found, you will be able to reach and convert leads into customers more easily. Video marketing is for every business and everyone, you just must know how to position yourself and how to reach your ideal customer.