The internet has made it easier for businesses to use different types of content for marketing purposes. Many of them typically create textual content like blog posts and articles they post on their websites or shorter copy they use on their social media accounts.
Many businesses are realising these types of content are not enough in a highly competitive marketing environment and that video holds power they can harness to their advantage. In this article, we will go through what you need to know about video marketing to better understand it and what you should use in your business.
What is Video Marketing?
Video marketing is a marketing strategy where video content is the main medium of promoting a brand, business, product, or service. Businesses that use video marketing create videos they share on digital platforms to reach their target audiences and achieve specific marketing goals.
Video Marketing Content Focus
Content focus is the primary purpose for which a business creates video content. A business can use video to introduce a new product, showcase company culture, explain a service, or share customer testimonials.
It is also becoming more common for businesses to pay for user-generated content. This is content created by their customers and product users telling others what they think about them. This type of content has become very powerful in marketing due to its authenticity, cost-effectiveness, wide reach, and ability to help businesses create and curate new types of content.
Video Marketing Platforms
Businesses can place their marketing videos on different platforms, typically social media and YouTube. Every major social media platform now allows users and businesses to upload videos even though they are slightly different, such as in the length and quality of the videos they can upload.
YouTube remains the most popular video-sharing and uploading platform globally. Its popularity, reach, and number of daily and monthly users make it one of the most potent video marketing tools businesses can use. To add to this, YouTube’s algorithms share videos with users interested in specific businesses, products, and topics. The benefit of this is that you get a lot more mileage out of your video without doing extra work.
Finally, you can use your website to host and showcase your marketing videos. Recent research shows that many people prefer videos and other visual content to textual content, which is why we are seeing videos perform so well compared to other mediums.
You can post different types of videos on your website, but it all depends on your aims. The content you post will also determine the underlying infrastructure because you want to provide your viewers with the best experience possible. If you host webinars and other live events, investing in video streaming infrastructure that supports your large audience can help. If you want static hosting, you can use a cloud service platform that allows faster access, has very low latency, and ensures easy uploading, processing, and distributing of your videos.
Benefits of Video Marketing
A major benefit of videos is their much higher engagement rates. They capture attention much faster than textual content, stimulate auditory and visual senses, and can tell a compelling story that keeps viewers engaged in a relatively short time. All these combined lead to better user retention, deeper brand connections, and better click-through rates.
Improved Search Engine Optimisation
Google also prioritises video content in their search results for specific keywords and search queries. They do this because videos sometimes provide much better and more in-depth information faster. They also provide a much better user experience considering many people do not want to read long blocks of text to get the same answer as they would watching a one to two-minute video.
Businesses that optimise their videos for relevant keywords, transcripts, and thoughtful and useful descriptions are more likely to see their videos shown to users for specific queries.
Videos are a Cost-effective Marketing Medium
Producing high-quality marketing videos is expensive, there is no denying that. The business has to write a script, hire a team to produce the video, ensure it is edited properly, do final checks and then post it.
The cost savings come from the infinite shareability of a single video. With the right creative editor, businesses can edit a video to get snippets they can share across different platforms. It can cut two versions for YouTube videos and Shorts and several short versions for Instagram. It can also post a much longer video on YouTube to reach even more people there.
It can do the same for textual content, but it usually does not have the reach and engagement that video content does, making the latter a much better choice for doing this.
They Make Products and Services Easier to Understand
In some situations, such as in highly technical industries, businesses must explain their products and services to potential customers. While they can create documentation to help with this, video is a much better medium.
First, it is more engaging so its viewers are more likely to absorb the information it is passing. Second, the business can create chapters for important parts of the videos so viewers can skip to them directly. Even though documentation contains a table of contents, finding the correct page takes longer than clicking on a video chapter.
Strategies for Effective Video Marketing
Businesses and markets want a return on their marketing investments. To realise it, start by having clearly defined target audiences and marketing objectives. These will allow you to narrow your focus and create content that benefits your business.
You should also optimise your video for SEO to reach as many people as possible. Once you have worked on the tags, descriptions, and titles, share the video on as many platforms as possible. You should also use calls to action to increase engagement by encouraging viewers to take specific actions.
Video marketing has emerged as one of the best video marketing tools in the digital age. It allows businesses to pass information to viewers faster, reach many more people, and increase engagement and conversions.
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