Video Marketing: Your Ultimate Guide

Why Video Marketing is Gaining Importance?

Video is quickly becoming the de facto content format online, in fact, it is no surprise that as of this year, it suffices to say that “2021 is the year of video“.

With that let’s look into some of the key video marketing statistics:

82% of the internet traffic will be video by 2022 according to Cisco, while that is only a few months away.

Moreover, the world’s largest platform, YouTube is the second most popular website on the planet, according to Alexa.

It is important to note that people not only visit YouTube but also spend significant amounts of time there.

In fact, individuals watch about 1 billion hours of YouTube videos every day.

Surprisingly, these views are more than Netflix and Facebook videos combines.

The average user spends about 40 minutes a day watching videos on YouTube on mobile devices alone.

Even today, on social media, sites are not traditionally video-focused and are transitioning to video.

Furthermore, about 60% of the internet users now watch videos on Facebook according to emarketer.

The further you dig, the more you will realize that online video is a lot more than cute cat videos.

Consumers are using video to help them make decisions about what to buy and who to buy it from.

Additionally, 72% of the consumers prefer to watch a video about a product than just read about it.

Half of the internet users also look for videos before visiting a store, according to Google.

Why are more Businesses going All in with the Video?

You might be surprised to know that more businesses are using videos as a part of their marketing campaigns.

86% of businesses are using videos to help market their product and services.

80% of the marketers state that they are happy with the ROI that is getting from the video ads.

About 93% of marketers report videos to help them to get more customers. Because video has a high ROI, 99% of the marketers state that they plan on continuing using videos as a part of their digital marketing this year.

Developing a Video Marketing Strategy?

At first, a video was a way to you could throw into your content marketing now and then.

However, in order to succeed with video marketing today, it is important to have a solid strategy that you can use.

Therefore, your video marketing strategy should include:

• researching your customer’s pain points
• outlining or scripting out your video content
• developing a unique look and feel for the videos of your brand
• shooting and editing our videos
• incorporating videos into your text-based marketing content
• distributing your videos on social media platforms and dedicated video platforms like YouTube
• measuring the results of your vides
• improving your content strategy based on the data and feedback from your target audience

Now let’s discuss the video marketing goals and targets.

Video Marketing Goals and Targets

The first step of your first video marketing like any other campaign is to decide on your goals and target.

Why are you making this campaign and how will you measure it?

Without getting too heavy on therapy, the best way to define the purpose of your video marking is to define its place in the marketing funnel.

Let’s discuss this funnel as follows:

Top of the Funnel: Awareness
If you want to introduce your brand to more people and begin a long-term marketing relationship with your customers, then your goal is “awareness“.

This is a good option if you have a high value per sale or contract. Moreover, awareness videos can also one useful for growing your audience.

Thus, if you are making awareness videos, then set your target that is related to the discovery of your brand, not just sales.

Certain factors like total views, 3-second views, and view duration are great markers of success.

Middle of the Funnel: Consideration
In order to deepen your relationship with potential customers and create interest, then making such videos is “consideration” content.

Thus, if you are operating in a heated marketplace and want to develop a relationship that is not based on discount prices, then it is worth doing consideration style.

Moreover, consideration content is based around your area of expertise and will also help to prove that you are an expert in the field.

Furthermore, it can particularly be useful for growing the number of subscribers on YouTube and your followers on other channels.

The most important factor or metric is:

• click-through rate
• view length

Bottom of the Funnel: Conversion
If you want to sell a product or a service right away, then your goal is “conversion”.

This is the pointy or last end of the marketing funnel and if you are meeting your customers for the first time, then sharp prices or unique selling points can be helpful.

For your conversion videos, the most important factor or metric is sales, and the other important metric is click-through rare.

However, if the people are clicking and not buying, then you may have a disconnect between your marketing and your actual product.

Now, let’s discuss the video content templates in the next section.

Let’s discuss the temples as follows:

Template #1: The How-to Video

The How-to video is just like it sounds like, it is a video that shows your target audience how to do something, like bake a cake or do a certain type of exercise.

For a lot of businesses, how-to videos will be your bread and butter.

In fact, how-to videos are like a video version of your blog content.

If you are thinking about how these videos are beneficial for your potential customers, then these videos help you to create brand awareness, and thus, you can create product demos in your video marketing.

Let’s divide the elements as follows:

Intro
The main goal of your preview is to let your viewers know that they are in the right plant.

This means that you do not need to tell your potential audience the topic and why it is important, Rather if they have landed on your video, then they already know it is important.

Therefore, try to make your intro short, sweet, and to the point which can dramatically increase your audience retention.

Step or Tips
This part of the video contains the actual information that you want to share with your viewers.

Depending on your video, you can outline a series of steps or give them a list of tips.

For instance, if you were to talk about 9 SEO Strategies for 2021, then you can list out the 9 strategies in your video.

However, there is this one important thing you need to keep in mind:
Keep things moving
This means that you do not need to cover everything there is to know about a step or tip.

Yes! you should cover each step in detail, however, as soon as you are done, it’s time for the next step.

This is because people have short attention spans online and if you go on and on about the same thing, you are going to lose the attention of your viewer.

Warp Up
After covering the whole top, you can quickly cover the main things in your video conclusion.

These are:

• a quick recap
• examples
• next steps

Template #2: Product Demo

In case you are introducing a new product, or want to let your users understand the working of your product, then nothing beats the benefits of video content.

Here is the following template:

Introduce the Problem
A number of product demo videos often start off with why their product is beneficial.

However, it is a HUGE mistake.

Yes, you can tell your audience about the benefits of your product, however, for a second only.

This is because, the goal here is not to show off your product, (yet).

Instead, in the intro section, you need to introduce the problem your audience is facing and that your product can solve the problem.

Moreover, this one is an old infomercial trick that 1000% applies to product videos.

If you watch them closely, you will notice that about 80 to 90% of the infomercial is not about the product itself, but about the problem the product solves.

Tease the Solution
Now that you have hit the pain points of your viewers, then it’s time to tease a better way.

You can go ahead like this:

The first is to cover common solutions that your viewers use to solve the problem you introduced in the intro.

You can also go ahead with something straightforward.

Product Reveal
It is time for the Product Reveal.

In this part, you can finally reveal your product or service.

Moreover, you do not need to be fancy here. Just show a nice shot of your product with an exciting introduction.

Features and Benefits
After introducing your product, it is time to cover some key features and benefits.

This depends a lot on the type of product you are introducing.

If it is software, then you can show all the beneficial features of it, on the other hand, if it is the latest mobile device with new features, you introduce the features.

Examples and Testimonials
Next, show off examples, case studies, and testimonials.

Call to Action
At the ending section of your video, it is time for a CTA.

In most cases, it is going to be CTA to make a purchase, however, that also depends on the product or service.

Let’s consider that you are selling a piece of mobile equipment for $50k.

In this case, your CTA could be “learn more’ or “book a demo”.

You want to give your viewer something specific to do after finishing your video, either way.

Template 3# Explainer Video

This one is a video that helps to explain your product or video.

Here are the steps:

Introduction
In this section, you will introduce the concept, and there is no need to beat around the bush.

Just let your viewer know what you have for them.

The Questions
Before diving into explanation, ask a few questions that your viewers might have in their minds.

Moreover, these questions make your viewers watching more curious about the explanation you have.

Why?
This is because these questions are probably what makes them wonder. And when you ask the same questions early on, it makes your viewers more PRIMED.

The Explanation
This part of your video is the real content, what your viewers have been waiting for.

How you structure this depends on what you are explaining, however, in general, you would want this section to be pretty short.

Make sure to give just enough and a basic understanding of the concept.

In other words: you are not trying o give your viewer a Ph.D. on your topic.

Instead, you are going to give them enough information so that have the basic knowledge.

The Product Tie-In (optional)
In case you want your explainer video to pitch your product or service, now is the time to do that.

However, the key here is to have a smooth transition from your explanation to your product.

This means that it should feel like an ad tacked on at the end of the video.

Making Videos

Whether you are a pro at making videos with a camera or a beginner using a smartphone, you will have to create awesome videos to gain viewers.

Thus, if you are wondering how to get them out of your camera, mic, and lightening, you will learn a lot from this topic:

1# Use a Script or Outline
Scripts or Outlines help you to more really fast. This is because when you script your videos in advance, then you can cover 2 to 3x more content in the same amount of time.

Moreover, if you are shooting the video yourself, then you can really benefit from the outline you will make.

However, you do not need to write every word ahead of time.

Make sure to write a detailed outline that covers what you want to cover in the video.

Use 3-Point Lighting
In simple words, you need to point your light at 3 areas:

• the background
• the subject, or the person
• ambient light

However, if you do not have all three of these, your lighting can look unbalanced.

Thus, if you have enough ambient light, both in the room and on the subject as well as on the backdrop, your video will look bright.

Soundproofing
You can have the best mic, however, if you shoot on a room that echoes, then your audio will sound awful.

If your room has a lot of echoes, then you can have some soundproofing material from Amazon.

However, if you want to have a budget-friendly option, then you can use thick yoga mats on the floor.

Most of the time, the echo comes from the sound bouncing back and forth off the floor and ceiling, however, yoga mats will stop them from bouncing up and down.

If you are looking for video production services, then we at Markfinit have the best services in store for you.

Learn more about Video Production here.

1# Vidoe Boots Conversions and Sales

One of the most important of driving many businesses to use video marketing is it boosts conversions and sales.

Thus, adding a product video on your landing page can increase conversions by 80%.

Moreover, a video can lead directly to sales. Studies indicate that 74% of the users who watch an explainer video about a product or service subsequently bought it.

Therefore, you should also start crafting your exciting product videos now.

The effectiveness of a video is not even that surprising if you think about it.

After all, vision is the most dominant sense and most of the information that is transmitted to your brain is visual.

So if images of a product or service can boost engagement, imagine what moving pictures can do to your business.

2# Shows great ROI

To get you to understand the benefits of video marketing, consider the following:

83% of the businesses say that video provides them a good return on investment.

Even though video production is not a cheap task, it pays off big time.

Besides, online video editing tools are improving constantly and become more affordable.

Even your smartphone can make a pretty decent video.

Another good news is that your videos do not have to be perfect, it is the content that matters.

Studies show that users are mostly impressed by videos that do not explain the product or service clearly enough.

Low quality and poor design do not matter as much as the content.

3# Building Trust

Conversion and sales depend on trust and this is the foundation of both these factors.

However, building trust should be a goal on its own for your brand.

The whole concept of content marketing depends on trust and creating long-term relationships with your target audience.

Moreover, one should stop selling and let the people come to you by providing them interesting and useful information.

Video about your product or service does it all. It is more likely to engage your users and ignite emotions.

And when we are talking about elites in the audience, YouTubers have become one of the most powerful social media figures to promote your brand.

Thus, if you are serious about content marketing, you must be serious about videos as well.

Furthermore, promotional videos can foster trust as well.

Some consumers, however, are still skeptical about buying products and services on the internet as they fear fraud and cheating.

But effective marketing videos present your products in a conversational form that creases a sense of individual approach.

4# Google loves Video Content

With the help of videos, you can increase the time your visitors spend on your sites.

Thus, longer exposure builds trust and signals search engines that your site has good content.

According to the stats of Moovly, you are 53 times more likely to show up first on Google, if you have a video embedded on your website.

As Google now owns YouTube, there has been a significant increase in how much videos affect your search engine rank.

However, make sure to optimize your videos on Youtube for SEO.

Writing interesting titles and descriptions, add a link back to your website, products, and services.

Give potential customers that way to take the next step, and explore the world of interactive videos to encourage a call to action, CTA.

As Google owns YouTube, they like ranking their own site for a myriad of keywords. Unless you are willing to make a video, you are not going above the fold.

5# Appeals Mobile Users

Videos and Mobile go hand in hand.

In fact, 90% of consumers watch videos on their mobile phones. Moreover, mobile videos have grown more than 233% globally and only YouTube reports mobile video consumption rises 100% every year.

As people like to watch videos on the go, and the number of smartphone buyers is also growing, your video audiences keep getting bigger and bigger.

Moreover, according to Google, smartphone users are twice as likely as TV viewers and 1.4 times more likely desktop views to feel a sense of personal connection to brands.

With the growth of mobile vides, brands need to be sensitive to the personal experience their target audience has on their smartphones.

6# Explains Everything

If you are launching a new product or service, then creating a video can help and increase awareness.

About 98% of the users say that they would like to watch an explainer video of the product or service before making a purchase.

That is why about 45% of the business that uses video marketing say that they often have an explainer video on their home page.

Out of these, 83% are of the view that the explainer video on the homepage is very much effective.

Moreover, if you are trying to explain a difficult concept, you can make use of animated videos.

Animation brings concepts to lie that no text or live video can, besides in some cases, boring talking heads are not enough to break through the clutter.

However, make sure to use a process that gets you the results, like in the above section.

7# Engages Even the laziest Buyers

One of the important tools for learning is video content, however, it is also very easy to consume.

Today, life is too busy to read long product descriptions or dig deep into services.

Your target audience today ant to see the product in action.

Moreover, video preference is one o the most important driving forces of using video in your content marketing.

It also has the ability o capture a wide target audience and it works on many different levels.

Even on the laziest ones. However, make sure to target not only the eyes but also the ears of your potential client.

Your competitive advantages will get double power!

8# Encourages Social Shares

According to the 8th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 60% of the social marketers used video content in 2015 and 73% of the total respondents planned to use it in 2016.

Social media channels encourage video content with their new features. With that Facebook launched 360-degree video, live video, and Lifestage.

Instagram uses a 60-second video and stories, white Twitter has periscope. Furthermore, YouTube is the second most popular social network in the world.

However, video marketers need to remember that people share emotions, not facts.

76% of the users report that they like to share a branded video with friends if it is entertaining.

Therefore, creating fun entertaining videos helps to encourage social shares.

It is important to note that emotions are not exactly ROI, however, social shares can increase traffic to your site and you can take it from there.

Final Thoughts

With that, we come to the conclusion.

With changing world dynamics and people on the go, they prefer watching videos about the products or services before making the purchase, thus, with the help of video marketing, you can not only increase the traffic but also generate more leads.

We would like to hear from you: which strategy you are going to try first from the video content templates? Are you going to start making a longer video or start focusing on the intro of your video?

Let us know in the comment section right below!