Creating a Video Marketing Strategy

Create a video marketing strategy 

In an increasingly digital world, the phrase content marketing has been used a lot in recent years. Content marketing is a cost effective and customer friendly method of boosting engagement and generating new business. That being said, video marketing is also starting to gain momentum and increase in popularity. It follows largely the same principles as content marketing, but it is based around the creation and publication of video. Consequently, to succeed with video marketing you need to actively incorporate it into your wider marketing strategy and develop strong and strategic video marketing campaigns.

With a video marketing strategy, you will be able to create high quality, valuable video content that generates leads at every stage in the marketing funnel. A good video marketing strategy relies on effective planning, research and delivery of a comprehensive strategy.

Step 1 Define Your Goals

Although video marketing is about delivering content that your audience wants to see or topics that they want to learn about, you can’t do this well without being comfortable with your own business and your unique selling points. A video content strategy should always begin with a review of your business. You should aim to find an angle that will differentiate yourself from the competition. Why should people buy from you rather than competitors? What values do you have that you would like to convey through your content? What are your motivations and where would you like your business to be? All of these are important questions which will help shape your overall strategy. Carefully evaluate your reasons for video marketing and rather than creating videos that you like to create, think about the opportunities that exist in the marketplace or what problems you could solve through your content.  Typical goals could include:

Boosting engagement with your brand
Generating more business
Improving your audience’s understanding of your products or services
Enhanced customer service
More signups to your subscriber list
To generate awareness of an upcoming event

The more specific you are with your goals, the more likely you are to create quality content that achieves your objectives.

Step 2 Define your Audience

Now that you have a list of clearly defined goals, it is time to look towards the people that your content is aimed at. Who are they and where will you find them? The more you understand your target audience, the better your video content will be. Without taking the time to find out who your audience are and what they are interested in, it will be very difficult to create the type of video content that will produce the results that you require. Before you can start to create excellent content, you firstly need to understand what your audience want to see. To find your audience you will need to research. A really effective way to do this is to carry out a competitor analysis to see what they are doing and make your content even better. You can also undertake customer surveys, carry out interviews and find out what your audience want and need from your business. Once you have collected and analysed enough data you can start to formulate one or multiple buyer personas and then from these you can build your content for these distinct audiences.

Step 3 Evaluate the Market

As briefly mentioned in the previous step, looking at what people in your industry are doing with video is one of the best ways that you can learn and build great content for your audience. This step will involve identifying gaps or opportunities that exist in your market and then creating valuable content that fills these gaps. Look at the major competitors in your industry and carefully review what video content they are producing, how often and what types of content they are publishing. Is there anything that they don’t cover that you think your audience would really benefit from?

Step 4 Differentiate Your Business

Once you have a good idea of what types of video content work and what doesn’t work so well you will need to think of some ideas that address these points but also help you to stand out from all the other businesses out there competing for the same clients. How will you create better content than what has already been published? Can you offer something that no one else has? What gaps exist in the marketplace and how will you fill them? All of these questions ultimately bring you to your unique selling point. How can you really differentiate your business that makes you new, interesting or unique.

Step 5 Plan your Video Marketing

Using the information that you have gathered so far, you should start to formulate some effective ideas for video content for your business. You will need to create multiple videos and deploy them at various stages in the buyer’s journey. Content at the beginning of the buyer’s journey should be more in depth and informational than content further along in the buyer’s journey. In your plan, clearly define what type of content you will create whether it’s an explainer video, a tutorial or something educational and when it will be used. It’s also important to consider where your content will be published. Will you roll the content out as part of your blog? Or will the videos be promoted directly on your website or through your social platforms? Choose your publication platform wisely because you will need to deliver your content to places where your audience are, and ultimately where your videos will be seen.

Formulating a comprehensive video marketing strategy will help you be more focused in your approach and your content will be much more effective. It can be helpful to create a content calendar which will detail the type of content you will publish and when. Once you have your strategy in place you can then source the necessary resources such as a video production company and/or scriptwriter to help you create high quality video content that adds value to your audience.