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The Ultimate Video Marketing Guide for 2019
When thinking about where to allocate your 2019 marketing budget—and efforts—you’ve got plenty of choices. We’ve worked with many clients from a variety of industries (including home services, healthcare, legal, and real estate, to name a few) to improve their brand awareness, increase engagement with their online audience, and build a trust with their customers unlike they had yet to experience before.
Depending on your budget, your goals, your timelines, and many other variables, your go-to digital marketing strategies probably use services like pay per click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), social media, or maybe email marketing. (If you are interested in learning more about any of those services, we have digital marketing experts that you can contact to get started today!)
However, if you’re looking to increase brand awareness, connect with your customers in a more engaging way, and a tell a story that accurately illustrates your company’s mission and purpose—invest in video marketing. If you haven’t thought about using video as a tool to leverage your company’s goals before, now is the time. Here’s why:
- One minute is worth about 1.8 million words
- People retain 65 percent of information for three days longer when it’s supplemented with a visual aid
- 400 percent as many consumers prefer to watch a video than to read about a product
- Organic engagement on Facebook is higher when posts include videos
- Video earns 12 times more shares than text and images combined
- 87 percent of online marketers are already incorporating video marketing into their strategies
- Companies that use videos in their marketing say they’ve seen a:
- 27 percent increase in click-through rate (CTR)
- 34 percent higher web conversion rate
- 49 percent faster revenue growth year after year than those who don’t
If those numbers didn’t already convince you of the importance of video marketing in 2018 and 2019, check out this statistic from a Forbes article titled, The Growth Of Video Marketing And Why Your Business Needs It:
What Is Video Marketing?
If you’re new to online video marketing and you need an updated video marketing definition, we’re here to help. Our video team stays up to date on video marketing trends and examples to ensure we are providing our clients with high quality and effective videos for their websites, social media channels, and digital platforms.
Although video marketing may seem obscure, complicated, and expensive—it’s not! It can be as simple as shooting videos on your cell phone and editing them into one video with music and your company logo. Video marketing is really just the act of incorporating video into your marketing strategy to help increase brand recognition and awareness.
You know those sponsored videos that pop up in your social media feeds? That’s video marketing! Have you gotten any email newsletters with videos? That’s video marketing, too! What about videos embedded on home pages or blog posts? Yep, that’s also video marketing!
More than likely, you’ve already been immersed in the world of video marketing and you just didn’t quite realize it. But you don’t just want to be a spectator in this game—if you want to grow your brand and increase your impressions, views, and conversion rates—you need to step up to the plate and take a swing at it for yourself!
The Benefits of Video Marketing
In addition to the entertainment aspect, more and more marketers are focusing on video marketing strategies because of how beneficial they are. Think about it from your own perspective for a minute. Would you rather read a long page full of text or watch a quick video to learn about a new product? Would you rather spend time reading about the steps of a company’s sales process or watch an animation to associate each step with a visual aid? If you’re like 80 percent of the population, you’d rather watch the video.
Some additional video marketing benefits include:
1. Increased Brand Awareness
Brand awareness and recognition mean your company is top-of-mind when a consumer has a problem and needs a solution. Keep in mind, though, that while you want your brand to be easily recognized and remembered, you also need to make sure your company name is associated with positive experiences.
2. Increased Conversions
Many companies have reported an increase in conversions on pages with videos, including Wyzowl. They said, “74 percent of people who get an opportunity to see a product in action via an explainer video will buy it. And landing pages are great places to put videos, too—supposedly boosting conversion rates by up to 80 percent.”
I don’t know about you, but those numbers sound pretty good to our video marketing team. Even Google is touting the success of video ads, saying “conversions generated by YouTube ads are up 150 percent year over year.” With success like that, you should consider testing out some YouTube ads of your own.
Whether it’s breaking down a complicated process, explaining how a certain product or feature works, or even illustrating how to get in touch with your company, explainer videos provide a lot of value to both existing and potential customers.
When one of our clients wanted a video to explain the process of installing some HVAC equipment, we created this video to debunk a somewhat confusing process. Instead of continuously fielding the same questions about what to expect, how long the process would take, and any necessary preparations they needed to complete in advance, they decided an explainer video would be a more convenient and memorable way for clients to find and reference the answers to their questions.
3. Improved ROI
Shooting, editing, and producing videos has previously been a time-consuming and expensive venture that has seemed unattractive to many marketers. However, it’s now easier than ever before! With programs becoming more and more accessible, cheaper, and easier to use, people are finding themselves opening up to the idea of being both behind and in front of the camera.
Since the costs aren’t as steep as they once were (or were believed to be), the chances of seeing some form of payoff from your videos are now higher. In fact, 51 percent of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
4. Strengthened Trust
Building trust within your digital community of potential clients, existing customers, and possible employee candidates should be a goal in your video marketing strategy. If you imagine a video marketing funnel, the top of the funnel type of videos should aim to introduce your company’s service or product and then explain how it can help solve a problem.
We’ll talk more about these types of videos in the next section, but here are a few examples of how you can work to build trust by using videos:
- Expert interviews
- Product reviews
- Customer testimonials
- Case studies
Whether it’s a customer who has a had some form of positive interaction with your company or employees, or an industry expert explaining a complex product or feature, giving your viewers a glimpse into the people who make up your company can help to create emotional connections and, ultimately, trust.
5. Better Rankings
In case you haven’t heard the good news, search engines love videos! According to a study completed by Stone Temple, YouTube videos are most likely to show up in the first 10 results when you perform a Google Search. Also, this study shows they are rarely found in a position lower than the top 30 results. Take a look for yourself:
If you’re wondering how to actually take the steps to get your videos to rank on the first page, here are some options:
- Accompany your videos with transcriptions
- Optimize the title
- Optimize the descriptions
- Take advantage of category tags
- Implement video schema
- Embed videos into blog posts
When your videos include optimized titles, descriptions, and keywords, this helps the video to perform better, which in turn helps the page to perform better. That’s what we call a win-win marketing strategy.
6. Increased Engagement
Did you know that organic engagement is highest on Facebook when posts contain videos? Or that simply including the word “video” in your email’s subject line can increase open rates by 19 percent? One company went as far as to test whether video thumbnails in an email newsletter would increase engagement and they found that it was quite successful. They reported that nearly 41 percent more people engaged with the email if it had a video thumbnail, as opposed to a static image or just text.
In a disconnected digital world, people are seeking out ways in which they can feel a sense of engagement and connection. That’s one explanation for how authentic storytelling through the use of video is proven to increase engagement. Whether it’s through actions like comments, likes, or shares, if people are responding to your video marketing content, that’s a great sign that you’re on the right track.
Just like a customer testimonial or product review can help to build trust in your company, your brand, and your product, they can also help to boost engagement. Watching someone demonstrate how your product or service improved their efficiency or solved their problem is so much more believable (and memorable) than just reading an article about it.
Different Types of Video Marketing Examples
If you’re one of those people who thinks you can’t or don’t want to incorporate videos into your marketing strategy because you don’t like to be on camera or you don’t have time to set up a backdrop and professional lighting—don’t worry.
Not all videos require interviews or an on-camera element, and producing videos is easier than ever before. The quality of videos is important, but it doesn’t matter as much as the content, meaning people are willing to overlook a video of lesser quality if it’s funnier, more interesting, more relevant, more helpful, etc.
The types of videos you should consider creating and implementing into your online video marketing plan include:
1. Company Profile/Branded videos
A company profile video should provide a high-level overview of the products and/or services your company offers. It should also show potential customers and existing clients what your company is all about, and the ways in which you go above and beyond to do a great job for every customer—every time.
Company profile or branded videos that aim to highlight your mission and purpose can help to increase brand awareness and create more interest amidst your target audience. Company profile videos can also help to close sales or increase conversions by allowing visitors to visualize themselves buying your product or using your service.
This video will require on-location shooting and interviews to capture the daily operations of your company and the employees that the community can expect to interact with. Company profile videos should be on the homepage of your website and shared on social media.
2. Customer Testimonials
The purpose of a testimonial is to show potential clients that your company is reliable, professional, and trustworthy—because an existing client in your area had a positive experience with your company.
YouTube research shows that users spend a significant amount of time watching review videos that share people’s personal and unique experiences with a company or brand. Studies show these types of videos are more “trustworthy” and beneficial when they feel personable and honest, as opposed to professional and polished. This can help to build trust with your target audience and boost engagement through likes, shares, and comments.
You will want on-camera interviews with real, existing customers that share their experiences and interactions with your company. You’ll then want to share customer testimonials on every possible channel: social media, website, testimonial/reviews pages, YouTube, Vimeo, email newsletters, etc.
3. How-To Videos
Flex your expert knowledge by building trust with your online audience and educating them on your industry, services, and/or products. How-to and blog videos can also help to increase conversions by illustrating a tangible solution to a problem.
According to Google, “93 percent of millennials go to YouTube to learn how to do something.” Since YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, and studies show “how-to content” earns more attention than any other category, this is a great opportunity to showcase the employees that your clients will actually come face to face with at some point. By demonstrating your professional expertise and allowing visitors a chance to become more familiar with your team, you’re killing two birds with one stone. Plus, these videos can encourage interaction between you and your viewers if you ask them for future topics of discussion, feedback, questions, etc. in the form of comments or messages.
These videos will also typically require on-location shooting and interviews. They should also be embedded on relevant blog posts, posted on social media, and uploaded to YouTube and/or Vimeo.
4. Animated Videos
Animated videos are most commonly used to convey a complicated or lengthy message in a quick, visual way that makes it easier to understand. They’re great to outline a process, explain how a product works, or illustrate the series of events for a certain service to occur. Plus:
- Animated videos can help your audience to better understand certain aspects of your company—and remember them! When a video is supplemented with written content that is optimized to rank well on Google, that page is more likely to convert at a better rate.
- Animated videos are easy to share on social media, which can lead to increased engagement, brand recognition, and site visits. People associate animated videos with their childhood, and nostalgia is a powerful emotion.
- Animated videos are easy to commit to because they’re completed in-house and typically don’t require any materials or efforts from the client. Combining elements like text, images, color overlays, music, animations, logos, graphics, and icons (depending on the type of project), you’ll want to create a final product that is short, visual, engaging, and delivers the desired message.
- Animated videos perform well on relevant website pages or blog posts, social media channels, and email newsletters. People like animations and they can bring concepts to life that traditional videos can’t.
5. YouTube Pre-Roll Ads
If you want to get your message, your brand, and your company in front of an audience, you need to be on YouTube. In particular, YouTube pre-roll ads allow you to target audiences through:
- Demographics
- Interests
- Remarketing
- Topics
- Placements
- Keywords
That kind of control gives you a much greater chance of connecting with your target audience, and pre-roll ads have been proven to raise brand awareness. Plus, they can help you stand out from your competitors in a way that is unique and engaging.
For these ads, you can usually have a video marketing team, like Blue Corona, edit together some clips and sound bites from previous videos or on-location shoots, create graphics to convey discounts or specials, or buy high-definition stock videos and incorporate text and music with your logo.
These ads are uploaded to your YouTube channel and then promoted and tracked through Google Ads (formerly AdWords), so you’ll need to have a budget in place for the promotion of these ads.
How to Do Video Marketing: Strategies, Tips, and Best Practices
A question I frequently get is how to do video marketing and execute video marketing strategies.
YouTube put together a playbook to break down elements that contribute to the most successful ads. In that playbook, they talk about some ways to increase brand awareness through video ads:
- Use familiar faces – Whether it’s celebrities, community members, local leaders, or well-known employees, research shows that by showing recognizable people in the beginning of your video, you could start to see an increase in viewership.
- Incorporate humor and emotion – It might surprise you, but videos that are downright funny can help with ad recall and brand awareness. Humans are designed to remember an encounter that sparks an emotional reaction, whether that’s fear, enjoyment, or humor. It makes sense—think about some ads that stick out to you: talking animals, laughing babies, epic travel ads, and other simple videos that might seem innocent enough, but are really doing an incredible job of capturing and retaining the attention of their audience.
- Take advantage of video and audio – That means the audio that you choose to accompany your video matters a lot more. In fact, YouTube says that it’s possible to see a 20 percent increase in brand awareness and consideration when viewers watch ads with both audio and video.
Lastly, here’s one more pro tip for YouTube ad: Don’t use a template or “slideshow” with your logo on it to start off your video. While you do want to show your logo somewhere within the first five seconds, it’s better to show a clip with your logo on one of your products or services—or employees—instead of plastering your logo up on the screen. Instead of letting them know who your company is, it deters many viewers from staying on your ad because it loses their attention and interest.
Want the Most Impactful Videos? Make Blue Corona Your Video Marketing Company
After everything you just read about video marketing in 2018 and 2019, we hope you are in agreement that videos are going to be critical for your marketing strategy moving forward. Since people are more willing to watch and remember your message in a video format, instead of reading a blog post or looking at static images, you want to make sure you are putting your company and your brand in a position to reach your targeted audience.
Whether you’re looking for more impressions, more views, increased conversion rates, increased engagement, better rankings, better brand awareness, recognition, and recall—or you just want your online viewers to get to know your company from a different perspective—getting video marketing services from a reputable video marketing agency is a smart bet.
And when you’ve decided that you’re ready to incorporate videos into your marketing strategy, we would highly encourage you to contact our very own Blue Corona video marketing team. We have the tools, the programs, and the industry knowledge to take your videos from concept to completion.
About The Author: Blue Corona's Editorial Staff is determined to help you increase your leads and sales, optimize your marketing costs, and differentiate your brand by passing on our tribal knowledge. The team vigilantly stays on top of the latest in digital marketing, bringing you the top insights with expert commentary. Want to see something on our blog you haven't seen yet? Shoot us an email and our marketing team will get to work.
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The information on this website is for informational purposes only; it is deemed accurate but not guaranteed. It does not constitute professional advice. All information is subject to change at any time without notice. Contact us for complete details.
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