The evolution of digital media has transformed the way we communicate, marketed, and socialized. While video may be considered old hat when it comes to television commercials where brands show off new products or promote upcoming events, this type of content is still extremely popular online. Thanks to platforms like YouTube where users can upload and share their content for free, as well as dedicated channels for businesses, the use of video content continues to grow.
However, this doesn’t mean that every type of video serves the same purpose. For example, animal-related videos may be used to market pet care products or animal shelters, while short-form videos under three minutes in length are popular on TikTok.
Videos that tell a story are still considered the most effective way to describe a product or service. Moreover, some consumers prefer to learn about a product or service via a guided tour or demo rather than through a more static medium like an advertisement or a brochure.
Attracting and Retaining More Customers
The video marketing strategy you implement will depend on your business model, the size of your audience, and your goals. If you’re looking to attract more customers to your brand or to increase sales, you can use video to do so in a variety of ways.
The most popular method of attracting new audiences to a business or brand through video is by creating demo or walkthrough videos of the products or services you offer. In these videos, you can take the customer experience from a theoretical standpoint and show how a customer could use the product or service easily and effectively. You may also want to consider creating tutorials or other types of step-by-step guides that use images and text to guide viewers through the purchase process.
Another popular strategy for attracting consumers to your brand or business is by creating funny, relatable videos that connect with the audience. For example, if you’re selling beach vacation packages, you might decide to create a humorous video of a family’s vacation going wrong due to unexpected weather conditions or a missed flight. In this case, you’d be connecting with the audience on a very personal level and bringing them closer to your brand or business. You could also try out different marketing strategies such as showing a behind-the-scenes look at your production process or putting a human face to your brand via a comedic short film where the customers become the products.
Boosting SEO
With so much competition already online, brands and businesses have to find ways to get their products or services in front of potential customers who are searching for what they want. One way to do this is through SEO, or search engine optimization. When used effectively, video content can help your SEO efforts by providing multiple facets for search engines to analyze and, hopefully, bring you more traffic that leads to sales.
For instance, if you’re a real estate agent and you have a video showing off a particular home, you can take advantage of the video’s content as well as its metadata (the information gathered about the content) to increase your rankings on search engines. The content might include a brief description of the property, a video walkthrough, or a comparison of the property to similar listings. The metadata might include the date it was posted, the location, and the tags (words or phrases used to find the content).
The video’s content and metadata can also be used to draw more viewers to your content. For instance, if I use keywords in my description to attract potential customers to my website, the video’s content can also be used to build my web content’s authority. This is where video becomes a bit like a catch-all for SEO. The more video content you have on the web, the better. Having video content on your site means having more material for search engines to analyze, potentially increasing your traffic and, therefore, your business’ revenue.
The video’s content and metadata can also be used to measure the effectiveness of your marketing videos. By seeing how many views a particular video gets, you can determine whether or not it’s been successful in marketing your company or brand. If you look at the ratio of views to shares, you can also get a decent idea of how effective your video was at driving that specific action. For example, did the video increase web traffic to your site? Did the video result in an actual sale? What was the video’s average watch duration? How about its peak view count?
Creating Brand Awareness
If you’re looking to build brand awareness among a particular audience, you can use video content to do so. This type of strategy may be more effective at younger demographics, so if you have the budget for it, consider creating short-form video content for your younger audience. These videos can be used on your website, social media channels, and even in targeted ads on platforms like Facebook and Google ads.
If, however, you’re looking to build brand awareness among a more general audience, you might want to consider creating video content that’s more traditional in nature. In these cases, longer-form video content might be more effective since it has the benefit of becoming more of a timeless piece of content. This type of video could be used on your website, social media channels, and even in targeted ads on platforms like Facebook and Google ads.
The type of video content you create will depend on your business model, the size of your audience, and your goals. From a marketing standpoint, videos enable you to connect with customers on a more personal level, make your content more accessible, and show how your product or service can benefit the viewer.