Lights, Camera, Engagement! A Look at Video Marketing

Everybody wants to be a star. Which makes it no surprise that many businesses are now turning to online video production as a way to build brand awareness as a part of their digital marketing strategy.

Video marketing is easier to do than ever, and showing consistent growth on the number of marketers who use it. If you’re struggling to call “ACTION” on your own video marketing campaign, or don’t know how to capitalize on the different kinds of video content trending right now, then you’ve come to the right place.

Let’s get you ready for your close up.

What Are the Benefits of Video Marketing?

Video marketing is more popular and effective than ever. In fact, 96% of marketers say they use video content. Ninety-two percent of those that use video marketing see a positive ROI from the content.

Many marketers use video marketing to:

Increase brand awareness
Increase engagement of their target audience
Generate leads
Increase dwell time on their site
Direct potential customers to a call to action
Convert and retain new customers

Anything traditional marketing can do, online video marketing can do better. Perhaps the biggest challenge to use video content as a marketing tool is the ever-changing technology and trends of the digital landscape. But with some practice and info, you can master those, too.

What Do You Need For a Video Marketing Strategy?

If you’re sweating in your seat right now, imagining dropping thousands and thousands of dollars on cameras and mic booms and video editing and production services – calm down.

Depending on your goals for video creation and your platforms, you may not need more than a cellphone. Many new model cellphone cameras are extremely impressive – and if you’re aiming to do social videos on Tiktok or Instagram, then it’s the perfect tool.

If you want to go further with video advertising, you can look into purchasing a DSLR camera, a circle light, and a tripod to get started, none of which have to break the bank.

But those are all still pretty glitzy and while they serve a pretty big purpose, they aren’t the most critical parts to making a video. These are actually the most important things you need to get high-quality videos started:

A clear goal
An intended platform and audience
A script

Types of Video Marketing Campaigns

There’s many different avenues and types of content you can create as a part of an online marketing strategy. Your video creation process will vary wildly based on who you’re producing videos for, and where you’ll be publishing them.

If you’re making social videos, you’ll be making short-form videos and likely you’ll want to follow some of the current trends to rack up the video views. However, if you’re making a YouTube video, you’ll likely be making longer content.

Both short-form and long-from videos have different benefits and types of content – so the best digital video marketing strategy will use a mix of both.

Here are the most popular types of content that video marketers use.

Live Videos

These videos are unscripted – you shoot them in real-time. They’re great for brand videos where you’re letting your subscribers get to know you. Doing interviews such as AMA (Ask Me Anythings) are especially effective here, because you can field questions from the chat as you film.

Product Demo

Demo videos are a great way to convert new customers by showing them what your product does. These should be short, direct, and show the highlights of your product or address potential customers’ pain points. You can easily put one of these on a landing page selling the product as part of your marketing efforts.

Explainer Videos and Tutorials

Explainer videos are educational – and a little longer – in nature. They can teach your target audience about your brand, or explain certain features of a product. Tutorials as well may teach new customers how to accurately use your product, how to do repairs or how to troubleshoot issues. These will be a little more specific and educational than product demos.

Explainer videos placed on your homepage discussing who you are and what your business is about is a great way to increase dwell time and increase click-through-rates (CTR).

Video Ads

These aren’t so different from the video ads of TV – although depending on the platform you publish them, they may be shorter. You can purchase video ads on all major social media platforms – and they tend to have the highest CTR of all other digital marketing ad formats.

For effective digital video ads, you want to make the first impression one that grabs viewers attention. They’re far more likely to skip your ad or scroll past it than they were to change the channel. You also want to make sure to include a call to action (CTA) in the ad.

Testimonial Videos

Testimonials are a great way to build brand awareness and value – especially if you partner with influencers to do them. Testimonials are tried and true thanks to their personal nature – and influencers are especially trusted by their audience due to the highly personalized relationship they build with them. Partnering with the right influencer for video creation and content marketing is a great way to generate high conversion rates.

Social Media Video Content

Social networks are fantastic marketing tools if you know how to use them. And they’re popular places for users to go to watch videos. Almost every social media platform has some kind of video integration.

Instagram has five different video formats you could use for social media marketing:

Reels – 60 seconds, good for teasers and promos
Instagram Live – unscripted footage you film in real-time, great for interviews or webinars
Feed videos – 60 minutes, good for brand videos telling your story; showing how products are made; explainer videos showing product use; or customer testimonials
Instagram stories – 60 seconds, available for 24 hours, grabbing attention or promote

Facebook and Instagram are both owned by Meta, which makes cross-posting easy, but the demographics of who tends to use each site and why tends to be different. That said, you may want to be wary of repurposing content. Facebook video also allows for 240 minutes of video upload and a Facebook Live option – but remember to keep content short so that you don’t lose your audience’s attention.

Nearly the king of all video content is TikTok. Videos on TikTok can be up to ten minutes in length, but the shorter the better. TikTok is famous for viral trends and sound bites, and users love seeing quick cuts of how things are made or how they can be used. TikTok also has a live stream option, too.

But the true social network that reigns over all that is video production is – of course – YouTube. YouTube is such a busy platform that it’s the 2nd most popular search engine after Google. YouTube videos are capped at 15 minutes if you’re unverified, but if you get your profile verified, then you can upload up to 12 hour-long videos.

No matter what platform you’re using – remember to keep the content eye-catching, especially at the very beginning.

Measuring Video Marketing Statistics

What’s great about digital video marketing is that it comes with clear metrics on how well your video content has performed. Most social media platforms come with built in integrations that allow you to track your video’s KPIs.

When it comes to determining what video content is a success and which was a box office flop, keep your eye on these points:

Video View Counts: how many people watched your video for a set length of time. (This varies across platforms – Linkedin will count 2 seconds as a view, while Youtube will only count it if they watch at least 30 seconds.)
Watch time: the total amount of time people actually watched your video
Engagement: how many comments and likes your video content earns
Play rate – how many people clicked play on a video embedded on a landing page or your homepage

Lights, Camera, Lift Off

Are you ready to roll tape?

Or are you feeling creatively overwhelmed?

We get it – script writing can be hard. So can knowing when and how to jump onto social media trends. But that doesn’t mean your business can’t be a star! Give our experts a call and we’ll take your products to the screen with our video marketing expertise. We’ve got all the digital marketing tools you could ever need to make your brand shine.