Video is one of the most viewed content forms online. Approximately 75% of internet users watch video at least once a week.
Video is being viewed on hosting sites like YouTube, on social media, and on company websites. If you don’t have video as part of your marketing plan, it’s time to consider it if you want to be successful online.
If you’re new to video or have been producing video content for a while without great results, you need to understand what you should be doing and what you shouldn’t.
Follow these video marketing do’s and don’ts to make sure you’re putting out high-quality content and getting great results in return!
Video Marketing Do’s
When creating video keeps these points in mind to make your video marketing a success.
Do: Have A Strategy
The first step in adding video content to your marketing promotions is to make a plan. You need a strategy in place that outlines:
- How videos will be planned, produced, and promoted
- Your video marketing goals and a timeline for achieving those goals
- Your video marketing budget
- Who your target audience is
- How you will analyze results
If you just make videos for the sake of it, you will not get good results. Formulating a strategy makes your chances of video marketing success much higher. It also sets up a framework to effectively analyze each video you share. This allows you to make changes and improve as you go.
Do: Have A Consistent Look and Create Professional Content
You should keep a consistent look across all videos to help with brand image and recall. Use the same font and colors across your videos. Also include your logo and other brand elements if applicable.
Even if you have a few different series/playlists, keep consistencies. For example, you may have one playlist with how-to videos and another with behind the scenes and Q&A videos.
Make sure each category is differentiated but keep brand consistency across them to avoid confusion about who is producing the videos
Formulating a strategy makes your chances of video marketing success much higher.
You’ll also want to be producing high-quality, professional looking video. Use good equipment, have a script and video outline, and use a well known editing program.
If you cannot do this yourself, outsource to an agency, video production company, or freelancer. The investment is worth it for the great quality content you will get. Producing low quality video can be worse than having no video at all.
Do: Create An Interesting Storyline and Include Personality
Video is a great platform to use to build on brand image and personality. It’s also a great place to get creative and produce something unique.
When making videos, think about your brand and how you can inject your brand personality into them. Also come up with ways to be creative and produce something different from your competitors.
Coca-Cola did a great job telling a story in this video showing how their product connects people to each other.
Coca-Cola did a great job telling a story in this video showing how their product connects people to each other.
Additionally think about your target audience and include points that will be most interesting to them. Your videos need to show how you can help solve your audience’s problems. Your content should provide something valuable and have a positive take away for the viewer.
Do: Use Video To Show How To Use Your Products and Their Benefits
Showing how to use products and the problems they solve is a good use of video. People like seeing step-by-step guides and these videos make purchasing and keeping customers satisfied more likely.
Some ways to show your products via video include:
- Doing product demonstrations and how-to guides
- Producing customer testimonial videos outlining the customer’s problem and how your product helped
- Featuring customer reviews on the experience of getting and using your product and what made it stand out to them.
Do: Include CTAs
While you don’t want to be overly promotional, do include a call to action in your video. This can be directly telling viewers where to go to buy a featured product. Or it can be a lower involvement call to action such as:
- Directing viewers to your website or a certain page on your website
- Asking viewers to follow you on social media
- Asking viewers to sign up to your email list/newsletter
- Asking viewers to like your content and subscribe to your channel
Think about what the content is promoting and what the most relevant call to action is. If the video is mainly talking about one product, telling people to visit your site to buy or learn more should be effective.
If it is a more personality based video, such as a tour of your office space, use social based CTAs such as asking them to subscribe to your channel.
When making videos, think about your brand and how you can inject your brand personality into them.
Do: Use Video SEO
SEO techniques for video are mainly based on the algorithms used by YouTube. YouTube is the second largest search engine after its owner Google. To have your videos found, it is therefore important to implement SEO tactics just like with web content. These tactics will help your videos rank for queries on both YouTube and on Google’s video section of SERP.
Use keyword research tactics to help with content generation. Include your keyword in your title and throughout the video. Including a transcript in the description is an additional way to feature your keyword. Be sure to also use tags and include your keyword in the description copy whether using transcripts or not.
Do: Make Videos Mobile-Friendly
Over 70% of video is viewed on mobile devices. It is therefore important that your video is optimized for mobile as well as desktop.
Make sure that video is produced to have the same effect on a small mobile screen as it does on a larger desktop screen. For example, use large fonts and shoot the video as close to the subjects as possible.
Do: Promote On Social Media
Along with having your video on a hosting website like YouTube and on your website, be sure to promote it across social media. Video content performs well on social media and is a great way to increase reach. Social media’s sharing features will help in increasing your video’s exposure even more. Try to edit videos for each platform.
Facebook and Linkedin are good for longer videos but try to shorten your content for Twitter and Instagram. You can also post teaser videos to social media, directing followers to your channel to watch the whole video.
Do: Look At Results and Analytics
Make sure you’re looking at all available analytics as you go. For every video you make and promote, look at its results and adjust your strategy as needed.
Look at the number of views as well as where people stopped watching your video. If viewers are not watching all the way through, edit your messaging to get them to watch the entire video.
Additionally look at the number of people who completed your desired action. Did you meet your goals for the video? If so, use similar techniques for your next videos. If not, think about why your content didn’t work and adjust.
Analyzing will help in showing what works and what doesn’t for your goals. You’ll also be able to see which platforms are best for which goals and content types. Use all this information to improve your strategy and get better results!
INCREASE ONLINE REACH AND BOOST SALES WITH A VIDEO CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
Video Marketing Don’ts
Along with following the above tips, keep these common video marketing mistakes in mind too in order to make your video marketing a success.
Don’t: Over Promote
Use your videos to educate and entertain. Do not use them as a way to just promote yourself to viewers. You can talk about your company and products or services, even including a soft sell. However, mainly focus on providing value to the viewer.
Show the user how your product or service can help them and add value in an entertaining way. Instead of just saying how great you and your products are, show how to use your products, problems they help solve, and proof of how they help through testimonials.
Don’t: Overly Rely On Sound
Over 80% of videos are viewed without sound. Therefore, create video that isn’t dependent on sound to get your message across.
Even if the narrative adds to the video, make sure it makes sense and is appealing without sound. Use captions on your videos.
Also, try to focus on telling a story through your video footage, using infographics and images with annotations if appropriate.
Over 80% of videos are viewed without sound so create video that isn’t dependent on sound to get your message across.
Don’t: Focus On Only One Platform
Don’t only upload videos to your website or only use YouTube to host them. There are a range of platforms to promote your video on so try all of them to see which work best for you.
Host your videos on YouTube and Vimeo to get the most exposure. Then embed the video from one of these sites on your website instead of uploading in directly.
Video files are large and can slow down your website speed if uploading directly to the server. This is especially true if you plan to include lots of video on your website. Embed from YouTube or Vimeo to avoid this problem.
As mentioned above, also share on social media to get increased reach. Consider the audience on each platform before posting. You may need to edit your content for each platform’s specifications and audience.
You want your videos to be appealing to as many members of your target audience as possible. Therefore, create a simplified script that gets your point across in an easy to understand way while appealing to a range of individuals.
Don’t: Use Jargon Or Over-Complicate Things
As you need to get your point across quickly, don’t make your videos too complicated. Also limit the use of jargon and technical language and explanations.
You want your videos to be appealing to as many members of your target audience as possible. Therefore, create a simplified script that gets your point across in an easy to understand way while appealing to a range of individuals.
Don’t: Make Videos Too Long
You need your video to be long enough that everything of value can be covered. However, having a very long video can be damaging and many viewers will not watch the full video.
Focus on making maximum impact in the shortest amount of time. Get to the point quickly and make sure you grab attention in the first three to five seconds.
Depending on the type of content, try to keep videos between two and 3 minutes long. Videos of around 30 seconds are good for sharing on social media and for quickly summarizing information.
If you need a little longer for some videos, keep them under ten minutes at most. If you feel like you need more time, also consider doing a series on the topic.
Want to make your marketing videos and imagery stand out? Check out our blog article on How Drones Can Help Your Marketing Succeed.
Break a longer video up into multiple two to three minute videos, linking to the next installment at the end of the video. This makes it more likely the video will be watched in full. It also makes it more likely that the viewer will decide to watch the next related video.
For example, try splitting a ten minute video into four two and a half minute videos. This can actually make it more likely that a viewer will watch all ten minutes of video compared to if you posted the ten minutes of footage as a whole.
Don’t: Have Unrealistic Expectations
One or two videos are not likely to get great results alone. Even if you frequently post good content, it can take a while to get traction and see a big increase in sales thanks to videos.
You need to be consistently creating and posting high quality video to start seeing success. You also need to be promoting your videos frequently, interacting with viewers, and analyzing results.
In Conclusion
Video can be a great addition to your marketing promotions. Hopefully these video marketing do’s and don’ts have helped you understand the basics of how to produce and promote video successfully.
If you’re considering using video in your marketing strategy but don’t know where to start, contact Brand Hause. We can help plan, produce, and promote high-quality video that meets your marketing goals. Get in touch now for a free consultation!
Engage your audience and boost conversions by harnessing the power of video content marketing.
