Vidyard’s Ultimate Video Marketing Guide

April 5, 2023·13 min learn

Get began with video advertising! Learn the right way to develop your video technique, make the suitable movies, and distribute and analyze your content material to get the perfect outcomes.

If you’re advertising your services or products, you have to be utilizing video. After all, your opponents already are.

Video advertising is likely one of the finest methods to advertise your model. When you’ve bought the suitable plan of assault, video turns into your magic bullet for producing new leads, participating potential patrons, and driving extra income.

In this video advertising information, we’ll present you the right way to:

  1. Develop a video advertising technique that works for you
  2. Use your movies to evoke emotion in your patrons
  3. Create the suitable varieties of movies
  4. Distribute your movies in the suitable locations
  5. Optimize your movies for website positioning
  6. Measure your movies’ outcomes so you’ll be able to level to their particular ROI
  7. Incorporate video advertising into your different advertising methods

By the top of this information, you’ll have the data you have to dive into video advertising with confidence. So let’s get began!

  1. Contents
  2. 1. What’s Video Marketing?
  3. 2. 9 Steps for Building Your Video Marketing Strategy
  4. 2.1 #1: What Are Your Video Marketing Goals?
  5. 2.2 #2: Who’s Your Target Audience?
  6. 2.3 #3: What Kind of Videos Will You Make?
  7. 2.4 #4: How Much Will You Spend on Creating and Distributing Videos?
  8. 2.5 #5: Who’s Responsible for Making Videos?
  9. 2.6 #6: How Do Videos Fit into Your Other Marketing Campaigns?
  10. 2.7 #7: How Will You Host and Distribute Your Videos?
  11. 2.8 #8: How Will You Measure Video Performance?
  12. 2.9 #9: Who Else Will Use Your Videos?
  13. 3. Your Strongest Video Marketing Weapon: Video Storytelling
  14. 3.1 Delight Your Audience
  15. 3.2 Tell a Complete Story
  16. 3.3 Show, Don’t Tell
  17. 3.4 Think It Through
  18. 3.5 Tell One Story at a Time
  19. 4. Which Styles and Types of Marketing Videos to Create
  20. 4.1 Video Marketing Styles
  21. 4.2 Video Marketing Types
  22. 4.3 How Long Should Marketing Videos Be?
  23. 5. How to Host and Distribute Your Marketing Videos
  24. 6. How to Optimize Your Marketing Videos for SEO
  25. 7. How to Measure Video Marketing Analytics and ROI
  26. 8. How to Use Video Marketing in Other Marketing Strategies
  27. 8.1 Video Marketing for Demand Generation
  28. 8.2 Video Marketing for ABM
  29. 8.3 Don’t Forget About Account-Based Selling
  30. 9. You’ve Graduated the Video Marketing Crash Course!

What’s Video Marketing?

Video advertising (or generally “video content material advertising”) is a digital technique that leverages the ability of video to draw, interact, and convert an viewers into prospects or clients.

In plain phrases: Your patrons love video. If you create video content material to your model, you’ll be able to attain extra individuals and persuade extra of them to purchase your services or products.

Video can showcase product options, inform model tales, and construct relationships with clients far more successfully than just about every other medium.

Do you have got a tentpole e mail nurture that simply isn’t changing? Add a video to seize readers’ consideration.

Do you have got a key touchdown web page with an enormous bounce charge? Drop in a video to make guests wish to stick round.

Do you have got an incredible buyer success story? Turn it right into a video that you could splash throughout social media.

Use instances like these are the explanation why 96% of marketers say that video advertising is a crucial a part of their technique. Here are extra stats from Wyzowl sharing what entrepreneurs say in regards to the outcomes they get:

  • 91% say it will increase site visitors.
  • 95% say it will increase model consciousness.
  • 96% say it helps patrons higher perceive their providing.
  • 90% say it generates leads.
  • 87% say it will increase gross sales.
  • 92% say it provides them return on their funding.

And patrons love movies simply as a lot as advertising groups do. 89% of patrons say that watching a video has satisfied them to make a purchase order. Plus, 91% wish to see extra movies from manufacturers in 2023. So give them what they’re asking for!

9 Steps for Building Your Video Marketing Strategy

Yeah, you may simply dive in and begin creating movies proper now. But you’ll get far more worth out of your movies in the event you again them up with a robust video marketing strategy. When you have got a set technique, you’ll discover that it guides and improves the entire movies you make.

Don’t have a video advertising technique? No downside! To construct your individual, provide you with solutions for these 9 questions:

#1: What Are Your Video Marketing Goals?

Do you wish to unfold consciousness? Boost e mail efficiency metrics? Drive extra conversions? Break into new audiences?

Your particular objectives will affect the way you create and use your video content material. As lengthy as you retain your objectives in thoughts, you’re higher outfitted to sort out nitty-gritty choices in regards to the movies you make.

Here’s an instance: You know you’re making a video for social media to drive extra site visitors to your website. So you need to make that video fast, punchy, and fascinating to seize the eye of social scrollers. You must also pair that video with a transparent CTA that drives again to your web site.

#2: Who’s Your Target Audience?

How are you able to be sure your movies get seen by the people who matter?

Different audiences watch your video content material for various causes. Think arduous about your supposed viewers, and precisely what that viewers desires out of the movies you present them.

#3: What Kind of Videos Will You Make?

Depending in your objectives and your viewers, sure varieties of movies will work higher than others. An viewers of gross sales leaders may respect longer, extra in-depth video content material; a grab-bag social media viewers will in all probability want one thing shorter and lighter.

#4: How Much Will You Spend on Creating and Distributing Videos?

Generally, a much bigger funds makes for a greater video. But in the event you don’t have the money to throw round on a undertaking, you’ll be able to nonetheless make unbelievable content material; you simply have to get a bit extra inventive.

How a lot funds are you able to commit to a video undertaking? What are you able to do to maximise the consequences of that funds (even when it’s $0)?

#5: Who’s Responsible for Making Videos?

Decide who’s in control of video creation and what their particular deliverables can be. By having an outlined level of contact to your video content material, your group will know who to show to once they have questions or requests.

Here at Vidyard, we’ve a devoted video manufacturing group. That readability is particularly essential when your online business is distant (like ours). It means much less time sending Slack DMs, and making an attempt to trace down who can reply your video queries.

#6: How Do Videos Fit into Your Other Marketing Campaigns?

We’re speaking about issues like your account-based advertising (ABM) technique or your demand era ways. (We’ll cowl the specifics of utilizing movies for a lot of these methods later on this information.)

#7: How Will You Host and Distribute Your Videos?

What platform will you employ to host your video content material? What particular options will that platform have to have?

And as soon as it’s hosted, the place will you share it? Will you embed movies on internet pages? Include them in e mail blasts? Share them on social media?

#8: How Will You Measure Video Performance?

What success metrics are essential to your group? Exactly how will you measure them?

(If you’re unsure, don’t panic. We’ll speak about video analytics and ROI measurement in a later part on this information.)

#9: Who Else Will Use Your Videos?

Marketing isn’t the one group that may use video. Your gross sales, help, and customer support groups (for example) are all going to need totally different movies for various functions, too.

Will your group be serving them? If they’re, what’s the method for doing so?

Your Strongest Video Marketing Weapon: Video Storytelling

What’s probably the most impactful video you ever watched? No, we’re not speaking about Gangnam Style (geez, keep in mind that?)—we imply the heartfelt, memorable video that caught with you lengthy after you closed the window. It left an actual impression…however why?

Here’s the key. The key to a profitable video is emotion. Emotion builds a connection between you and your viewer, and it makes your model really feel human and actual.

So how do you evoke emotion? You inform a compelling story.

When you’re scripting your video, assume again to the essential storytelling methods you realized about in English class: Establish a personality, current them with a battle, and present the journey they take to resolve it.

Humanity has been telling tales this manner for 1000’s of years. People can acknowledge the define of a narrative on an virtually unconscious stage and use it as a technique to preserve data organized. For occasion, what do you discover simpler to retain: A video that’s only a record of details or a video that lists the identical data in an fascinating format of introduction-conflict-resolution?

“But the video I take note of doesn’t have a personality/battle/journey!” Not to fret. Instead, strive structuring your video this manner: Present an issue, then the answer, then the outcomes that answer created. This format nonetheless tells a narrative however can be utilized even if you’re lacking a type of conventional storytelling parts.

Remember that emotion = motion. If you may make your viewers really feel one thing, your video will stick of their thoughts after it’s over. And in case your video leaves that emotional impression, they’re more likely to take that subsequent step.

Here are just a few extra suggestions for video storytelling:

Delight Your Audience

Show your viewers one thing that they’ll get invested in. Tell a narrative a few loving household, or a cute animal, or one thing else that makes your viewers smile. If they’ve a constructive affiliation together with your content material, they’re extra motivated to remain engaged.

Tell a Complete Story

Make positive your video’s story has a starting, a center, and an finish. Your viewers ought to really feel fulfilled by the story’s decision. Don’t depart them hanging on the payoff until you have got a extremely good purpose.

Show, Don’t Tell

You hear this on a regular basis in inventive writing class. Don’t depend on a narrator to explain how your central character is battling an issue: Show it! This is a video, in any case. If you had been simply utilizing phrases to inform your story, you’d write a weblog put up. (Hey, wait a minute…)

Think It Through

Creating a video takes effort and time. Don’t leap at your first promising concept; take your time within the strategy planning stage to provide you with an idea that actually sings.

Tell One Story at a Time

Don’t attempt to stuff a number of tales into one video. Focus on a single story so viewers don’t get confused and distracted. Keep it brief, snappy, and easy in order that they by no means lose the thread.

Learn From the Pros

In this playlist of brief documentary-style movies, Bandit Tour for Good does an excellent job of telling a visible story (and picking the right background music to match the vibe).

Which Styles and Types of Marketing Videos to Create

There’s a ton of various types and varieties of video to select from.

A video style describes how you make the video. A video type describes what you make the video about.

Video Marketing Styles

Here are just some video types to contemplate:

Video Marketing Types

Then there are the video varieties. Oh, the kinds! The full record is exhaustive, however there are nine key video types that each enterprise ought to take into account making:

  1. Explainer videos
  2. How-to videos
  3. Promo videos
  4. Thought leadership videos
  5. Webinars and recorded webinars
  6. Case study videos (a.okay.a. buyer tales or testimonial movies)
  7. Culture videos
  8. Demo videos
  9. FAQ Videos

Each video kind serves a special objective and matches in a special a part of the advertising funnel. The hottest on-demand varieties for video advertising are model (or tradition) movies, demo movies, and social or promo movies, in keeping with our annual video benchmark data.

How Long Should Marketing Videos Be?

The reply modifications relying on the video kind.

Our video benchmarks have discovered that 58% of viewers watch a enterprise video right through if it’s lower than 60 seconds in size. At two minutes lengthy, that drops to 43%. At 20 minutes lengthy, it’s 24%.

In temporary: The shorter, the higher. As a rule of thumb, intention for beneath two minutes. (See our full guide on video lengths for a breakdown of the really helpful runtime for every video kind.)

How to Host and Distribute Your Marketing Videos

Video is in all places. That means you’ll be able to share it just about in all places, too.

But earlier than you’ll be able to share them, you have to host your advertising movies first.

You’ve bought just a few choices right here. Lots of firms go the YouTube route. It’s simple and ubiquitous and needs to be used regardless to spice up your group’s website positioning energy. However, it will probably lack a few of the extra sturdy options you’d get in a video platform that’s designed for businesses as an alternative of cat movies and response memes. So take into account including a correct internet hosting answer in the event you’re on the lookout for higher management of all of your video content material.

In our State of Video Report, we discovered that the highest options that advertising groups care most about in a internet hosting answer are:

  • Aggregate viewer analytics
  • Video sharing pages that match their model
  • Putting video on an internet site
  • Integrations into CRM or advertising automation methods
  • Individual viewer analytics

Once you have got your video content material hosted and constructed an acceptable video library, it’s time to distribute it. When it involves widespread video distribution channels, you’ll be able to’t go unsuitable together with your web site. But that’s far out of your solely selection.

According to our annual video benchmark information, advertising groups’ favourite video distribution channels are:

Other distribution choices embody:

2022 Video in Business Benchmark Report

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