13 Facts About Video Marketing You May Not Know

There’s an old but true axiom in the marketing world: consumers justify their purchases based on logic, but they buy based on emotion. Your neighbor will tell you he bought that shiny, new convertible in his driveway because it gets great gas mileage, or performed well in crash tests, or its great resale value. The truth is he probably bought it because it’s sexy and tells you he’s climbing up the social ladder.

Creating that emotional connection with customers sells your products and services. And the best medium to sell with emotion is video. Video brings your company to life and shows rather than tells customers who you are, what you value, and why you’re better than your competitors. Study after study shows that consumers prefer a compelling video about a product or service to a comparable print description.

How Do You Sell Wearable Cameras? Rescue a Kitten

GoPro sells wearable action cameras, high-definition gadgets for outdoor sports enthusiasts who want to capture their thrill of victory moments skiing, surfing, and skateboarding. In 2013, firefighter Cory Kalanick got the call to rescue an unconscious kitten in Fresno, California. He was wearing a GoPro camera. That video, heart-breaking and hopeful, made its way to YouTube where it caught the attention of 1.5 million viewers in its first few weeks. GoPro saw an opportunity, edited the raw footage, added its logo, and re-released the result (“Fireman Saves Kitten”) on its own YouTube channel. The video went viral, capturing 5 million views in its first week.

Founded in 2004, GoPro racked up $150,000 in sales in its first year. By 2013, annual sales had shot up to more than $985,000. In 2014, that number jumped to almost $1.4 million, taking the company to an IPO valuation just shy of $3 billion. It would be hard to argue that a kitten put GoPro on the map, but it sure didn’t hurt.

Video Sparks Emotion and Emotion Boosts Sales

GoPro isn’t alone in boosting sales and company image by tugging at the heartstrings. For example, Chipotle’s video (and mobile game), “The Scarecrow,” brought awareness to its sustainable farming campaign with images of animal confinement and toxic pesticides. More than 17 million consumers have viewed the video on YouTube.

And then there’s HelloFlo, which sells feminine hygiene products. The company scored big with a video using humor and heart, “The Camp Gyno,” featuring a young girl who gets her first “red badge of courage,” then helps other girls at summer camp. The video cost about $6,000 to shoot, got 6 million views in its first week and was named ad of the week by Adweek.

By the Numbers

The numbers tell the story: video marketing works because it’s what consumers want. Here are 13 facts about video marketing you may not have known:

Four times as many consumers want to view a product video instead of reading about it
Half of internet surfers want to see a product video before entering a store
Consumers who see a video are about twice as likely to buy a product or use a service
More than half of internet users watch videos all the way through
Half of consumers say they want to see more company videos
Companies which use video grow revenues twice as fast
52% of marketers say video content has the best return on investment
Two of three consumers want videos of 60 seconds or less
More than 100 billion people are active users of YouTube
Half of all marketers plan to add YouTube to their marketing strategy in the next year
Two of five marketers plan to add Facebook video in the next year
Almost half of consumers watch an hour or more of Facebook and YouTube videos each week
80% of consumers say video demos help them make purchases

What now?

Video is an essential component of an integrated, inbound marketing strategy. To learn more about the ways you can generate leads and drive sales by engaging marketing content, contact us today.

by Christabelle Kolafa

What Should You Look For in a Digital Marketing Agency

You've tried juggling your marketing. Either you're doing what you do best—focusing on your core business needs—or you're losing hours on social media and trying to figure out why your website won't work right on mobile. Let's face it. You need a digital marketing agency.

A quick web search gives you plenty of company names. But how do you pick one? How do you differentiate between sizzle and substance? High bills and high conversion?

Here are a few things to look for when selecting the digital marketing agency that's right for you.

Social Media Experts

Content is king. You want a digital marketing agency that has tapped into where your audience gets their media. They should be able to formulate a strategy to put your company on the lips of your target audience. Engagement is key to social media. Will the agency craft a plan that tells your brand story in a way that relates to the audience? Look at how they handle their presence? Has their blog been updated recently? Marketing is ever-evolving. If there hasn't been a blog update in months or if their Twitter feed is empty, it's not the marketing company you should hire.

Adaptable and Innovative

You can't afford to be a step behind. You need to keep up with the competition, or better yet, stay a step ahead. Marketing is always changing. Radio was big. Television was huge. Now, social media is the current forefront of marketing, and the most consumed content is video. Social media platforms are adapting to the content their users want, and that means video. It will be the next cornerstone of inbound marketing.

Strong Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing means motivated customers come to you and want you to market to them. Rather than inundating people with expensive hit-or-miss ads, you generate content and capture an audience. They follow you because you talk to them, you interest them, you engage them. This is less intrusive, often less expensive, and establishes more than leads; it creates repeat conversions.

Flexible and Scalable

Would you wear a one-size-fits-all suit to a meeting with your biggest client? What would you think if a vendor came to meet with you? When choosing a digital marketing agency, why would you choose one that wants to sell your company cookie-cutter solutions? Look for a digital marketing agency that will tailor their services to your business needs. They should respect your firm as the unique entity you've worked so hard to create.

Real Data Analytics

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Data tells you about your buyers and how they are interacting with your company. They can tell you how you're perceived, what campaigns are generating leads, and, more importantly, what strategies are converting leads. Without sufficient data, an agency is fumbling in the dark. Sure, they might have an occasional hit, but they won't know why or how to duplicate their former.

Take your time and evaluate your options. At HARNESS, we tailor our services towards your company's needs to give you the best results. Whether you need us to complement your existing traditional marketing efforts or we're your first foray into working with an agency, our focus is you.

by Christabelle Kolafa

5-Step Guide to Video Content Marketing

Video marketing is the newer, shinier version of content marketing. By developing a solid message with quality video to portray your message and share it with others, you're creating the most powerful marketing strategy. Follow this 5-step guide to video marketing to create a strategic inbound marketing methodology.

1. Know Yourself and Your Customers

What is it about your brand that sets you apart? Why is your brand valuable? Think about your ideal customer and then study that population. People are like schools of fish; similar ones swim together.

Seek out this information by conducting surveys, gathering data and organizing that data to make it applicable to your strategy. If you find out what makes the customers tick, you can use that information to draw more people in. A strong message backed by attention to customer service is what improves your brand image and increases leads/sales.

2. Care About It

Why did women in the 1950s need to have those Tupperware containers? It was because Tupperware knew how to create messaging that appealed to women at that time—freedom and family. Owning a set of Tupperware showed women how they can have financial freedom while still espousing the happy American family way of life.

If you don't care about your message, nobody else will. What is it about your story that would make others care about it? How can you make your customers valued?

3. Know your Competition

It is most likely you're not the only one in your specific market. That is why it is essential to know your competition. If you have already video marketing content, review the material and identify if it addresses trends. Sift through your content and highlight areas that need to be changed or cut. Try finding weak parts could be improved.

Compare your history with the history of others within the same market. What are their gaps? Look at what all the other people are doing, brainstorm how it could be better and go for it.

4. Position Yourself Accordingly

Be reasonable with where you are in the market. Have you been in the industry for one year or fifty years? How long has your competition been providing the same products/services?

After doing all the research, plot out your growth. Where have were you years ago? Where are you now? Where do you desire to go?

Those three questions stated above, along with the information you gathered in steps 1-3 will lay the blueprint for your successful outcome.

5. Create

After you've done all the steps, you can now create a video marketing strategy that will take people's unfamiliarity of your brand to interest to emotional investment.

You lead people through this journey in one short film. Make sure your material addresses everything you learned in your research.

Set the goal to create video content that will stick. Think about the videos that have stuck with you, what was it about those videos that attracted you? There is a lot of factors involved but knowing your audience will make these easy to identify.

If implementing a video marketing strategy seems like a daunting task, contact us for help. All of your research is only worth it if you're able to produce a robust piece and execute your marketing strategy.

by Christabelle Kolafa

Video Camera closeup for video marketing

13 Facts About Video Marketing You May Not Have Known

Question: How Do You Sell Wearable Cameras?
Answer: Rescue a Kitten

GoPro sells wearable action cameras, high-definition gadgets for outdoor sports enthusiasts who want to capture their personal thrill of victory moments skiing, surfing, and skateboarding. In 2013, firefighter Cory Kalanick got the call to rescue an unconscious kitten in Fresno, California. He was wearing a GoPro camera. That video, heart-breaking and hopeful, made its way to YouTube where it caught the attention of 1.5 million viewers in its first few weeks. GoPro saw an opportunity, edited the raw footage, added its logo, and re-released the result (“Fireman Saves Kitten”) on its own YouTube channel. The video went viral, capturing 5 million views in its first week.

Video Sparks Emotion and Emotion Boosts Sales

By the Numbers

The numbers tell the story: video marketing works because it’s what consumers want. Here are 13 facts about video marketing you may not have known:

Four times as many consumers want to view a product video instead of reading about it
Half of internet surfers want to see a product video before entering a store
Consumers who see a video are about twice as likely to buy a product or use a service
More than half of internet users watch videos all the way through
Half of the consumers say they want to see more company videos
Companies which use video grow revenues twice as fast
52% of marketers say video content has the best return on investment
Two of three consumers want videos of 60 seconds or less
More than 100 billion people are active users of YouTube
Half of all marketers plan to add YouTube to their marketing strategy in the next year
Two of five marketers plan to add Facebook video in the next year
Almost half of consumers watch an hour or more of Facebook and YouTube videos each week
80% of consumers say video demos help them make purchases

Conclusion

The video is an essential component of an integrated, inbound marketing strategy. To learn more about the ways you can generate leads and drive sales with engaging marketing content, contact us today.

References:

GoPro
YouTube: Fireman Saves Kitten
Statistics Brain: GoPro Camera Company Statistics
YouTube: The Scarecrow
YouTube: The Camp Gyno
Hubspot: The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics

by Christabelle Kolafa

Girl using her drone for filming videos for video marketing

Is it Time to Add Video to Your Marketing Strategy?

You don’t have to look very hard these days to find marketing professionals and researchers puzzling over the millennial consumer market. According to Outside magazine, outdoor retailers are especially struggling to get a foothold on the millennial money mountain. As that article and most current literature suggest, inbound and video marketing are the way to go when it comes to reaching prospective outdoor recreation customers under the age of 35.

One way to take your video marketing strategy to the next level is to incorporate GoPro cameras or drones with cameras into your business model. That content can quickly be distributed to your audience through your website and will generate new leads and sales.

Video drones, GoPros, and smartphones have taken tech, recreation, social media, and video marketing worlds by storm. If you want to start attracting that next generation of outdoor adventurers and nature enthusiasts, you should find a way to bring new components into your strategy. You can set up your own YouTube, Roku, or Apple TV channels for your business. The channel can include streaming photos, videos, and other information related to your particular niche.

You can also get the cameras in the hands of your clients. Encourage them to host their outdoor adventures on your site. You can edit the video, as necessary, for time, quality and content. Remember: Most people do not have the attention span for irrelevant, slow, and low-quality videos.

Implementing new marketing solutions can do the following:

Add value to your product or service
Create new and exciting viral content
Generate new sales leads through social media

If investing in a GoPro or video drone isn't in the budget, there is always the option of renting.

However you want to generate GoPro-, smartphone-, or drone-captured content for your video marketing, make sure to obtain releases.

If any of this sounds complex, remember that there are online resources you can tap into or video marketing experts you can hire.

HARNESS Consulting can help assess the video marketing needs of your brand. Contact us now!

by Christabelle Kolafa

Facebook Live video camera illustrating the power of social media video for marketing

How to Use Video to Better Your Social Media Marketing

Engaging videos are highly sought after on social media. Viewers share, engage, and discuss videos that speak to them. So, give the people what they want - more video! Here are five different ways to incorporate video into your social media marketing and create better experiences for your followers.

According to Social Media Today, video posts on Facebook have 135% greater organic reach than photo posts. Videos yield crazy engagement on social platforms… and there’s no slowing down. People are consuming videos from their mobile devices at rapidly increasing rates. It is key you position your brand to capitalize on this movement.

Adding video to your social media marketing offers huge benefits such as increased brand exposure, better follower engagement, and more opportunities to drive traffic to your webpages.

Your audience will appreciate the variety you bring to their newsfeeds while giving an alternate approach to engaging in your content.

Five Ways to Create Video That Engages Consumers on Social Media

1. Your Story is Important…Share it!

Storytelling is a time-tested tactic that works great at pulling your audience into your brand message. People connect with you through your story. It helps you establish common ground with your followers, making you relatable and real. Stories also separate you from other brands which give you that competitive edge in the industry.

Humanize your brand by communicating its story on video. Delve into the “why.” Who do you desire to inspire and what problems are you solving through your products? What charitable contributions do you make to your community? Share what motivates your team to get up and go every morning. Sharing your story will add greater meaning and purpose when people do business with you.

2. Offer Short Instructional Videos for Your Followers

An excellent move to promote your brand with social video is to create short, instructional videos demonstrating how your products can be used to solve a problem for the viewer. How-to videos are extremely effective because you’re showing people how to achieve a specific result. As a result, you’ll keep viewers engaged while strategically placing your brand in front of your social following.

Reduce your video to the most basic steps of the process then speed up your video in production (editing), so it only lasts for about 30 seconds. These social video snippet can be product-related or simply something relevant to your niche. The beauty is they quickly solve a pain point for users.

3. Answer Your Viewers' Questions

Consider the FAQs that often hit your inboxes or are typically prompted by your prospects. These are excellent content pieces for your blog, email campaign, social media posts, and of course, videos. You see, you’re giving the people exactly what they want because these inquiries derived from your audience. By addressing their questions, you’ll boost thought-leadership and be viewed as an expert in the industry. Plus, it gives you endless content to share across your marketing platforms.

Enhance your credibility by posting videos that highlight one question then offers an in-depth response.

Since many social users are leveraging search as a way to connect and discover new brands, be sure to include keywords or hashtags that your audience is actively searching for. Hashtags reign on networks like Instagram and Twitter, but keywords perform better on Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest.

4. Go Live!

Live-streaming platforms such as Facebook Live, Periscope, and Instagram Stories are driving tons of engagement on social media. There’s something special about connecting with someone in real-time. People get to see and experience the real you! Live videos quickly build trust and can accelerate your brand’s presence fast on social media.

Use these tools to your full advantage. Invite followers into your world by taking them behind-the-scenes at the office, in the field, or company event to share a taste of your brand’s culture. Host live Q&A sessions where you give your audience a chance to ask you anything industry or product related to getting on-the-spot responses. Report breaking news and share your insight and opinion. This gives your followers a chance to do the same to foster conversations.

Commit to making live-streaming a regular content strategy in your social media marketing. With consistency, you’ll experience a significant boost in engagement and followership.

5. Highlight Fan or Influencer Content

Did you know that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation? Positive testimonials and reviews are killer ways to foster trust with your audience especially those who haven’t heard of you before. Prospects want to see if your products or services actually bring results. Sharing others' experiences with your brand is a great way to show it! Content featuring influencers and brand ambassadors has a similar effect.

With that said, use your fan’s content as a form of an online review. User-generated content can be creatively compiled into one video as a promotional tool or multiple videos to build up your content vault. Give influencers credit by mentioning them in the post. Growing this strategy can prove to be a valuable tactic in your inbound marketing as you highlight your customers and give social proof that you’re making a difference.

Ready to amplify your social media marketing with video? We know how to create compelling video marketing campaigns that humanize your brand and gives you the slight edge. Reach out to us today and let’s chat!

by Christabelle Kolafa

How to Plan Effective Video Marketing To Engage Customers

Video marketing is the most compelling way to promote your brand in an ever-evolving digital age. Effective Video Marketing helps you get in front of your audience, raise brand awareness, and it leads viewers to take action. The key to an effective video strategy is ensuring that your content aligns with each stage of the buyer’s journey.

You see, your marketing will attract different prospects who are at different phases in your sales funnel. You may have a visitor who is ready to invest in your service yet another who simply wants information. It’s important to create content that suits these needs at each stage that moves them to the next stage in your funnel.

The ultimate goal is to convert prospects into buying customers. Video marketing is a top tool in inbound marketing to help you achieve this objective.

In this guide, we’ll outline the three stages to the buyer’s journey and how to use different types of video marketing in each phase for maximum success in your strategy.

Awareness Stage

In the awareness stage, the prospect is in the discovery process of your brand. They understand they have a problem and begin researching ways to resolve the issue. As a result, they land on your content as the solution. Your prospect is simply looking for educational content that will help them quickly overcome their pains and challenges.

Your goal in creating video content for the Awareness Stage is to do just that build awareness of your brand. Here, you’re positioning your company as a resource, expert, and solution in the industry. It’s where you let your audience know what you offer so buyers recognize what you do and how you can help them.

Therefore, you want to engage your visitor in a way that encourages them to indulge more in your content by focusing on their pain points, not your products or brand.

How to Use Video Marketing for Awareness Stage

Here are the typical content types that work best in the Awareness Stage using video:

1. Social Videos:

Social promotion is an excellent medium for building a following and community around your brand. It’s also a huge asset to getting your video content in front of an engaging audience.

There are three types of videos to consider when posting on social media:

Sharing videos from your YouTube channel – As the second largest search engine, building your channel is smart towards growing brand awareness. Be sure to optimize your videos for better ranking
Uploading organic videos directly to social media – you’ll obtain greater reach with your audience using organic videos (Source: Social Media Today)
Live-streaming video – Facebook Live, Periscope, and Instagram Stories are generating massive engagement on social media. Excellent tactic to build exposure to your brand fast

2. Include Video in Blog Content

Your company blog is the perfect platform to create quality rich-content that educates your audience while increasing visibility to your brand. Add videos to these posts to enrich website-experience and keep people on your page longer (this also improves your SEO).

Consideration Stage

Good news! Your prospect has warmed up to your brand and you’re now viewed as a credible source. They’re also clear on their goals, are committed to addressing it, and now looking at options on how they can handle their issues. At this stage, they’re actively looking for content related to solutions.

Content in this phase needs to be incredibly informative and help the prospect gain clarity on how to solve the problem they are experiencing. In the Consideration Stage, you’re also focusing on capturing qualified leads by leveraging compelling lead magnets to get them in your sales funnel.

How to Use Video Marketing for Consideration Stage

The beauty of using video here is that they’re highly successful in moving viewers to action. This is especially important for growing your email list. Giving a clear call-to-action in your video that directs users to the next step will have a tremendous impact on your conversion rates.

Here’s how to put it to use:

1. Video on Landing Page

Landing pages that include video can increase conversions by a whopping 80% (Source: Hubspot)

2. Webinars

Webinars allow you to showcase your knowledge and expertise. You can dive deeper into topics and give people a chance to ask questions for further understanding. It also bolsters your lead generation as each participant must register before joining your broadcast

3. How-to’s and Instructional Videos

YouTube and live-streaming are ideal platforms for how-to and instructional videos.

4. Promote Your eBook

eBooks are ideal sources for product comparisons, how-to’s, or giving detailed instructions. Shoot a video that promotes your eBook and shares how viewers can opt-in to get their copy

5. Mini-Video Series

Consider repurposing your popular, evergreen, or long-form blog post into a mini video series that you can distribute on social media or use as a lead magnet. Repurposing content fills your content calendar, giving you ample content to share with your audience.

Decision Stage

Your prospect is now closer to making the financial decision to solving their problem. Through your email nurturing tactics, they’ve been cultivated by your content (whether blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.) and perhaps ready to make the purchase. In fact, nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads (Source: Emma). Your video marketing strategy is about to pay off big… but we’re not finished yet!

The content used to help close the deal will be different from the content leveraged in the previous stages. Your focus here is to make the sale, so it’s vital to create a smooth transition to the transaction.

How to Use Video Marketing for Decision Stage

Videos will help get the job done. Hubspot also shares that after watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy that product online. You’re using the right tool to convert leads into customers.

The following ways show how:

1. Gather Customer Testimonials

User-generated content and sharing testimonials are extremely effective in boosting sales revenue. It builds trust with your audience and shows that what you have, works! Compile your customer’s social videos into one, compelling marketing video to share with your list

2. Live Demo

Show prospects how your products work live and in living color by hosting a webinar or live-streaming video on social media. Outline the benefits, features, and how people use it as their solution. Allow an opportunity for participants to ask questions for immediate response

3. Share Your Story

Storytelling is a powerful strategy to pulling your audience in and connecting them with the vision of your brand.

4. Product Videos

Create an extensive video for each of your products and services. This can be evergreen content that you can use forever that highlights the details, advantages, and how viewers can purchase.

Final Insights For Effective Video Marketing

Video marketing is a powerful tool in the inbound marketing box! By honing on your video strategy, you can significantly boost brand awareness, get more eyeballs on your content, grow your leads, and increase revenue. The key is ensuring that you’re leveraging the different types of videos appropriately to effectively move your audience.

Use this blueprint as a guide to creating your video marketing strategy. Be consistent and patient with your results. Regularly test your outcomes to discover what’s working best with your audience and what needs to be modified. In due time, you will experience the desired growth in your business with video.

Are you ready to ramp up your video marketing in 2017? We are equipped to help you get in front of your audience and achieve results in your inbound marketing. Reach out to us here and let’s chat!

by Christabelle Kolafa

This team uses their video marketing strategy to create content that authentically connects with their audience.

How to Create a Strong Video Marketing Strategy

Implementing a video marketing strategy is a must if you desire to reach today’s consumer. The popularity of video is undeniable as more consumers are using it to discover, engage and stay connected with brands.

Video marketing can enrich every aspect of your digital inbound strategy. From growing brand awareness, improving lead generation, boosting engagement and driving revenue. Videos can be the secret sauce you need to amplify your inbound efforts. The key is creating a video strategy that aligns with your ultimate business goals and the needs of your customer.

Are you ready to add video marketing to your inbound marketing mix or looking to improve your current one? If so, here are five steps to creating a robust strategy that gets in front of your customers and generates results.

1. Be Clear on Your Audience and Goals

Knowing who your target audience is and the results you desire from your video marketing campaign are essential to your strategy. It sets a solid foundation and serves as a guide to ensure that the content you publish aligns with your goals and speaks to its intended audience.

Create Buyer Personas

Perhaps you’re already clear on your target audience from your inbound marketing plan. If not, the best way to gaining this clarity is by creating buyer personas. This process allows you to paint a clear picture of your ideal customer which positions you to produce content that appeals to their needs.

You’ll glean data such as their job description and responsibilities, the problems and pain points they have, what their role is in the buying process, keyword phrases they’re likely to use when searching online, their unique goals, and more. It helps you create the content that your audience wants to see. Therefore, making your strategy highly effective.

Know Your Goals

What exactly do you want to achieve from your video marketing strategy? Are you seeking to build brand awareness? Capture leads? Increase your sales?

Whatever the goals, it’s important to know upfront to keep your campaign centered on achieving them. When your business understands why you’re creating video stories, the content becomes intentional and purposeful.

2. Brainstorm and Decide On Your Video Content

There are a plethora of video content ideas. From how-to’s and product videos to customer testimonials and video email marketing, the options are many when considering the video topics you want to publish for your audience.

In addition to key videos, every business should have that highlights their brand and purpose; it is important that you create content that supports different points in the buyer’s journey to hit all targets in your audience.

You see, some may be familiar with your brand through social media or as an email subscriber. Others are more in the discovery phase. Having videos tailored to each prospect maximizes your reach and impact. Viewers are likely to move in your favor (opt-in or purchase your product) when your content relates to their specific journey.

With that said, here are different types of video content every brand should have in the vault and ones that relate to each stage in the buyer’s journey:

Videos Every Brand Needs

Explainer Video – videos that explain your product or service or offers an in-depth explanation of a specific facet of your product empowers future clients to make educated buying decisions
Product Videos – each of your products and/or services should be featured in its own exclusive video. Highlight the benefits and the results your customers have achieved through your business
How-to Videos – showing your customers how your product works is extremely beneficial for customer success
Customer Testimonials – did you know 88% of people trust reviews as personal recommendations? Posing your testimonials using video can be a power-packed strategy to building trust and converting leads into customers

Videos for the Buyer’s Journey

Awareness Stage - Prospects are simply looking for educational content that will quickly solve a problem. You want to position your brand as an expert. The best videos here include social videos, YouTube (for search), and ones shared in your blog articles
Consideration Stage - Prospects are looking at options on how they can handle their issues. They view you as a trusted, credible source and looking to stay connected. Optimal videos in this stage include webinars, instructional, mini-video series, and adding a video to your landing page to boost conversions
Decision Stage - Your lead is closer to making the buying decision. Make it easy by sharing demonstration, product, and customer testimonial videos

3. Decide How You Will Create Your Videos

With clarity about your audience and content topics ready, it’s time to create and publish remarkable videos that capture attention and WOWs your audience. You have to decide whether you’re going to make your videos in-house or leverage a video production team that can bring your ideas and vision to life.

Using both approaches to creating your videos is highly suggested as you can designate professional ones for evergreen and promotional content and others such as live videos and webinars can be performed by your team.

For videos produced on your own, use these tips to help you in the creation process:

Get to the point quickly, keeping it short and concise
Showcase your personality to stand out. Allow viewers to relate to your brand through your style and message
Make great eye contact. Refrain from looking at yourself in the screen but rather gaze into the lens, so it appears you're looking directly at your viewer
Give a call to action. Tell your audience what to do next to improve engagement. Whether it's to opt into your list, give a comment, or share with their friends, make it clear, so people follow your instructions

4. Create Your Video Promotion Plan

Getting your video in front of as many targeted eyeballs as possible is crucial for brand awareness and meeting your goals. Traffic, lead generation, and sales opportunities are dependent on how successful you promote your video content. In fact, you should spend 54 minutes promoting your content for every hour you spend creating it (Source: CoSchedule).

Although there are tons of ways to spread the word about your video, be sure to include the following tactics in your promotion plan:

Social Media Promotion - Each network has a different tolerance of how often you should post and the way you tailor the headline for that specific network. It’s okay to share your video more than once to increase exposure. Just be sure to switch up your headline, so it appropriately speaks to the audience when you’re promoting your video
Video Email Marketing – Your subscribers should be the first to know about your video as your fans. Keep them connected by including your videos in your email strategy. Create your campaigns if your videos are designed for the buyer’s journey
YouTube – Although a no-brainer, simply uploading your video on YouTube is not enough to drive engagement. Optimize your video and its title, description, and tags for SEO to improve ranking in Google and YouTube search. The title should include the full keyword you’re aiming to rank for. Also, consider uploading a transcript for further optimization
Influencer Marketing – Leveraging influencers can play a big role in getting your video in front of new people. They already have a large active following that supports their content. Build relationships with influencers in your niche to create winning partnerships where they promote your video in exchange for something (whether intangible or tangible)

5. Decide How You Will Measure Results

The final step to creating a strong video marketing strategy is measuring your results to test effectiveness. There’s too much invested in “hopes” that your video generates desired engagement to meet your business goals. You must know what’s working and what isn’t so you can continuously make improvements to your strategy to yield favorable results.

The good news is, deciding on how you’ll measure your efforts isn’t complicated. You can create a simple system of questions that analyzes and gauges your outcomes. Here are a few to consider to test your video marketing strategy:

What keywords are people using to locate my video in search (on Google and YouTube)?
Which content topic generates the most shares (i.e. explainer, tutorials, social videos, etc.)?
How long are viewers watching my video? Are they staying for most of the video or leaving after the first few seconds?
How many views did my video receive?
Which content topic produced the most social engagement (combination of likes, shares, and comments)
How many leads did my video generate?

A Strong Video Marketing Strategy Engages Your Customers

Video is a game-changing tactic to capture attention and increase engagement with your target audience. Engaging video helps your brand become more visible in search results. Best of all, it converts prospects throughout the funnel. It’s one of the best tools you can leverage in your inbound marketing.

Use this blueprint as a guide to building a strong video marketing strategy in 2017. You will appeal to today’s consumer and find your company quickly meeting milestone goals for your business.

Much success.

Are you ready to publish compelling videos that sell your product, educate and delight your customers? Reach out to us here to discover how we can help get you to your next level through video.

by Clay Chaszeyka

3 Strategies to Leverage the Power of Video in Your Inbound Marketing Campaigns

Study after study confirms what common sense suggests: when it comes to influencing customers and prospective customers, moving them through the buying cycle or increasing any of the metrics associated with growing your business or boosting your sales, video has no equal. Video has consistently demonstrated its ability to outperform every other medium in reinforcing brand messaging and driving business.

Consider these statistics compiled by HubSpot:

Video included in landing pages boosts conversion rates by 80%
When videos are embedded in emails, they increase click-through rates by 200-300%
64% of users are more likely to convert after watching a video
Combining videos with full-page ads boosts user engagement by 22%
Real estate ads which include videos receive 40% more inquiries

Of course, these metrics reflect average performance, and not all videos are created equal. So, what makes some videos so effective, while others fail to meet marketers’ expectations? The videos which achieve or exceed their marketing objectives have three traits in common:

1. They Grab the Viewer’s Attention and Defy Expectations

The increased popularity of online videos means there’s much competition. Creating another so-so video might get viewers to begin watching, but it is no guarantee they will finish, or that they will think more of your brand or your product. Grabbing the audience’s attention requires creativity and taking some calculated risks—risks which pay off handsomely when they are successful.

Think of Google Android’s “Friends Forever” video. The concept is simple enough—Google put together some unlikely animal pairs, like a monkey climbing on a horse’s back and a parrot feeding spaghetti to a husky. The video was successful because viewers did not expect it—and because the message of shared experiences linked seamlessly into the company’s brand promise.

2. They Convey Powerful Emotions

The combination of moving images and sound (in particular, music) create a unique platform to build buyer trust through shared emotion. Consider Reebok’s head-turning video, “25,915 Days.” The goal of the video is to link the company’s product to undaunted human striving in the face of our ultimate mortality.

Choosing the number of days (25,915) in the average human lifespan for their title was a marketing coup. Telling the story by playing out one woman’s athletic life in reverse was a stroke of marketing genius. Framing that story in video makes it compelling by evoking powerful emotions in a way no other medium could have. Note how the video flawlessly conveys its emotional message through images and music, without a single spoken word.

3. They Communicate More Information in Less Space

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a video is worth 1 million. A well-executed 1 or 2-minute video can convey more information about a company and its products or services than the majority of long-winded eBooks, white papers or product descriptions—a fact which busy consumers appreciate and reward through their purchasing decisions.

When Facebook wanted to educate current and future users of the social media platform about the site’s functionality, they could have delivered a series of lengthy disquisitions which likely would have left those users both bored and unimpressed. Instead, they created their “Tips” series of videos, each highlighting a particular Facebook function (like how to turn notifications off, add a friend to a group or use stickers to convey feelings that are challenging to express in words) as it relates to real-life application scenarios. This Tip on how to use labels says everything Facebook needs it to say in just 19 seconds—without fuss, without waste, and without an ounce of excess verbiage.

Video represents a unique opportunity to ramp up your inbound marketing campaigns. The best marketing videos, like the best inbound campaigns, communicate compelling messaging without an overt sales push. They present engaging themes which grab viewers’ attention without detracting from brand or products. They build trust with emotion and pack a great deal of relevant information into a subtle space.

As such, videos are a critical component of your inbound marketing strategy. To learn more about the ways you can grow your business and drive sales with engaging marketing content, contact us today.

by Christabelle Kolafa