There’s more to video marketing than picking up a camera and hitting “record.”
It goes beyond editing footage and adding special effects.
Even the distribution of video content through a variety of digital channels isn’t enough to make it a successful marketing tactic.
Success with video marketing is about considering all of the above, while ensuring you have incorporated the following elements as well:
A clear storyline that resonates with what your customers want and need, and how your brand is prepared to help.
Clarity on how to take the next step, whether it’s visiting your brand’s web site to learn more or making an e-commerce purchase.
Alignment with all the other marketing content you’ve developed such as digital ads, blog posts and podcasts.
At one time, there was considerable discussion across the marketing community about brands making a “pivot” to video. Instead of relying on more traditional forms of content, there was a notion that video would attract customers more readily and build brand affinity more quickly.
The reality is that video marketing is just one approach among many, and for most brands, it needs to be part of a cohesive and comprehensive approach that incorporates a variety of other forms. It should also be used with intention, whether part of a larger campaign or as a way of nurturing and sustaining customer loyalty over time.
Instead of pivoting to video, brands now have an opportunity to make it a core pillar of a more dynamic marketing strategy. In doing so, they are journeying in lock step with many of their customers, who can now create and upload their own videos more easily than ever before.
While there are no hard and fast rules around video marketing, there are definitely some practices that are worth following and some pitfalls to avoid. Read on to learn about some of the dos and don’ts of video marketing.
Do: Experiment – but with an undercurrent of authenticity
Not every video a brand creates has to have the production values you’d associate with a TV commercial. You might not need to build a set or hire actors to convey your key messages. You might not even need to make a live action video with a “talking head” format at all.
Test and learn by creating more “raw” videos with your smartphone that are similar to what your customers share online. Maybe use animation to explain a complicated concept. Mix text and filters into the video to look more like an Instagram Story. Whatever you do, just make sure your videos reflect your brand’s values.
Ask yourself: If your logo wasn’t on the video, would your audience recognize that it came from you?
Don’t: Upload onto a single platform
There is an ever-increasing number of places to feature the videos you use for marketing purposes. These include well-established and fast-growing third-party digital channels, as well as those you own and control.
Yes, upload your video to your brand’s YouTube channel. But don’t forget about TikTok, where short-form videos can quickly gain traction. Have you tried Twitch, where gamers are also consuming video content non-stop?
Make sure to embed your videos on your own website, and perhaps even create special landing pages to showcase them. There might even be a good place to feature videos in your brand’s mobile app. If you host events, videos can often be a great element to include in the experience.
Do: Make videos that can be broken up
A five-minute video might seem pretty short, and require a lot of creativity to distill all the messages you want your brand to convey. Yet there are audiences for videos of almost any kind of length, from just a few seconds of footage to those that are nearly as long as an episode of TV.
When you’re conceiving the story you want to tell, consider how you might be able to slice and dice the final result. You might post the full video on YouTube first, for example, but then increase the likelihood of engaging your audience by uploading snippets as YouTube Shorts.
Then take those snippets and post them on TikTok, Instagram Reels and other social channels. People may wind up seeing your story as a series of videos rather than a single clip.
Don’t: Assume everyone enjoys video content the same way
When someone clicks “Play” they expect to begin enjoying a video immediately. Nothing should come between them and that experience.
This means videos should be optimized for mobile devices, where the screens might be smaller. They should also take into account people who have difficulty hearing, and would benefit from captions or a transcript. Even the use of colour and contrast should be carefully considered in order to make videos accessible to all.
Don’t: Forget about SEO
Marketing teams have gotten used to ensuring they have woven competitive keywords into their blog posts, landing pages, and other content that needs to get indexed and ranked by the likes of Google. It’s easy to overlook this when you’re creating videos because it doesn’t seem like a text-based medium.
Look more closely, however, and you’ll see ample opportunity to enhance marketing videos with search engine optimization (SEO). The title of your clip and the video description are perfect examples of where this attention to detail matters most.
Do: Make data part of the big picture
Videos can be fun to watch, but they have to deliver results to the business. That’s why they should be treated just like other marketing assets in that the focus should be on analyzing performance based on data.
You can track everything about the time spent watching a video, for instance, to how often it comes up in search, and even more organic areas like comments and reshares. This should all be integrated into the reporting you do about your other marketing activities, where data helps your brand continually improve the way it connects with consumers.
People don’t necessarily clap when a video is over, but when brands use this medium well, they might get another form of applause – a growing list of customers ready to bring business their way.
