Do you have videos in your content library, or are you considering adding video to your marketing? If not, you should consider the benefits of doing so. Video helps you connect with audiences that prefer to watch and listen over reading lengthy content: 60 per cent of site visitors will watch a video first before reading the text. It also helps humanize your business when you are willing to get in front of the camera. Additionally, video can better demonstrate steps and concepts that are difficult to convey through static images alone.
In this post, we're going to look at seven simple but effective ways to incorporate video into different aspects of your marketing campaign.
1. Incorporate video into your social profiles.
There are a number of ways to incorporate video into your social media profiles and pages. Facebook video, for starters, is growing at a rate that may overtake YouTube. The social media company recently added a new feature that allows you to add video right above your page's “about” box. You can add this video from the library of videos you have uploaded to your page. (Be sure to include your domain in the description of the video, such as salesforce.ca, so that people viewing the video can click through to your website to learn more.)
When you share videos on Twitter and Facebook, they will also be added to media boxes to the left side of your “profile” and “page” respectively. Each video share should include a link to your website, especially if the video mentions particular products or services that you offer. That way, people can watch the video and click through to learn more about your brand. Videos can boost engagement for your tweets as much as 28 per cent.
For LinkedIn professional profiles, you can add media to your summary and each of your work experiences as a way to showcase your main portfolio items. If you have products and services, it's a great way to advertise those to the people who visit your LinkedIn profile.
YouTube offers the unsubscribe channel trailer, which is a video you can select to play for people who have not yet subscribed to your YouTube channel. The goal of this video is to introduce your business, products, and services as well as encourage people to subscribe for updates on newly added videos.
You can pin videos on Pinterest to help drive more views to your videos on YouTube. You can also test whether image or video pins get the most engagement. You can browse through your competitor's Pinterest profiles to quickly see which performs best for them.
And, of course, there are the networks devoted to photos and video such as Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, Meerkat, and Periscope. All of these networks allow you to record video from your smartphone and upload it to the network or stream it live.
As you can see, social media video is very marketing-friendly. Hence, the more video you can get out there, the more opportunities you have to connect with your social media audience.
2. Add videos to your emails.
Want to get more clicks from your email marketing campaign? Add videos to your emails. You can do it in two ways.
First, you can add an image of a video that links people to the video. Or, you can simply link to a video. The first option will likely get the most clicks because people may be more inclined to click the visible play button rather than a link on its own. One study showed the increase in click-through rate with a video in an introductory email was as high as 96 per cent.
As with most things that you want your email subscribers to do, you will want to position your video with a strong call to action. Add some header-sized or bolded text that tells people to click on the video to learn more. The direct messaging and big “play” button will be hard to resist.
Also if you email a lot of people on Gmail, inserting a YouTube link in your email means the YouTube video will pop right up in their email. The Gmail recipient can then click on and play the video directly from Gmail. This doesn't help with click-through rate to your website, but it can help persuade more people to watch your video immediately.
3. Use videos on your landing pages.
Studies have found that some businesses receive an 80 per cent jump in conversion rates by adding videos to their landing pages. This can include landing pages aimed toward growing your email list, getting people to attend a webinar, signing up for a free trial of your software, submitting a lead form for your services, or purchasing your products.
Consider video placement as well. Take this landing page for example. A video at the top of the fold shows people they can create landing pages to grow their email list quickly with their tool. Beneath the video, you find the traditional landing page text and feature breakouts. Both the video and text help convert those who prefer taking in information by watching or reading. You can also use video as supplemental content further down your landing page, or video that takes over the entire landing page itself.
Video testimonials on your landing pages can increase your conversions by allowing visitors to hear other customers explain how your products or services helped them.
No matter how you use it, video on your landing pages will get noticed, and can help visitors connect with your message.
4. Record videos as ads.
You can use video to advertise your business, products, and services on networks including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. One statistic shows consumers are 27 times more likely to click through a video ad than a standard banner ad.
With YouTube (through Google AdWords), Facebook, and Twitter, you can get an added boost in video ad conversions by targeting people who have already visited your website. Since they have previously shown interest in your products and services, they will likely produce a higher ROI than people unfamiliar with your business.
As far as length with online video ads, statistics compiled by CMO.com found that 36 per cent of online video ads ran longer than 30 seconds, and 72 per cent of viewers watched in-stream video ads to their completion. This means that instead of trying to cram a message on a banner ad, you can really communicate your message through a 30-second video.
5. Upload videos onto popular video sharing networks.
YouTube isn't the only video-sharing network. While most others are not as popular, video-focused platforms such as Vimeo and Dailymotion still get a fair share of traffic.
Do some research to see if videos similar to yours get views on other networks and upload to them as well. Additionally, uploading directly to Facebook gives videos higher organic reach compared to linked videos on YouTube. Flickr and Pinterest also allow you to upload videos directly to their networks.
6. Share videos as review responses.
Most networks that allow your customers to post reviews do not have the option for video responses. You can, however, record some videos directly to YouTube and Facebook and link those videos to your review.
Why is this a good approach? For starters, not many businesses do it. But it is a personalized way to reach out to people to either thank them for a great review or to try to make amends with an irate reviewer.
The personalization of the response also helps humanize the thank you or apology. It's easy for people behind a computer screen to write anything. But it's much harder—especially when the feedback is negative—to do it to someone's virtual face.
Plus, reviews with video typically end up with the most helpful up-votes.
7. Utilize videos as part of your outreach campaigns.
One way to get the top influencers attention (in hopes they will write about your products or services) is to use video as a part of your outreach campaign. Instead of just sending a standard email or press release, send a personalized hello to the influencer and tell them why your product or service is a great fit for their audience.
You don't have to record hundreds of different full-length videos to do this. You can simply record three separate pieces. One portion of the video stays consistent: the part where you introduce your business and talk about your product or service. The two portions at the beginning and end will be specific greetings and conclusions intended for specific influencers.
Put the three pieces together, and you'll have a personalized video that can boost the results of your outreach campaign. It will get your influencers attention and ensure your message won't be lost in the sea of other targeted outreach campaigns.
Final Thoughts
There are many ways to incorporate video into your online marketing strategy. You can add video to your social media, sales pages, content marketing, customer service, and more to increase the chances that your target audience will consume your messages and take action.
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