This is part 1 of our series Video Marketing Guide and focuses on questions that should help you establish your video marketing strategy. Part 2 will cover the production challenges.

In this guide, we’re not going to be focusing on whether you should use video marketing; instead, we’ll focus on how to prepare your strategy for it. Before comes the time to hire a video production company, or purchase a camera and start making videos by yourself, you need a strategy on how will the video be used. This is important because it will not only help you understand your goals better but make it easier to measure the return on your video investment.

First, you want to set the right goals, define what is it that you want to improve by investing in the video. Even though we’ll mostly be mentioning videos relating to different stages of your sales funnel, that’s not the only use of video in business. Internal coachings, new employee training, product tutorials for existing customers, etc. have also been proven to have a positive impact on businesses using them. Whatever message you need to spread to your audience, using a video medium is one of the best ways to do it.

Now we’ll be focusing on implementing video into our sales funnel and discussing how should the video for each stage look like.

AWARNESS

In the beginning, you are looking for potential new customers, introducing them to your brand and a product, service. From your customer’s point of view, that means they just realized they have a problem and started looking for solutions. You are talking to the »cold« audience here, who just found out about your product, so your video has to introduce your brand, product, service in a way that will highlight your solution to their problem, usually in a form of a commercial or explainer video. This video shouldn’t be too long and detailed as your audience doesn’t know you yet and are more likely to skip it. The video shouldn’t explain to the viewers how your product works, but make them acknowledge it, relate to the problem you are solving, and trigger their curiosity to seek more information.

CONSIDERATION

The consumer is not just thinking about their problem anymore, but actively looking for a solution. Odds are, they also checked out your competitors, read product reviews, asked for recommendations, etc. Now it’s time to remind them why should they choose your product over anything else.  You should assume the viewer already knows what your product is, but is still looking for that X-factor that’s gonna convince him or her to commit to the purchase of your product. Testimonials and product videos like reviews, unboxings and demo videos are a good way of building credibility in the eyes of the consumer and providing additional information at the same time. Lately, webinars have also emerged as a very popular type of video in the consideration phase of the funnel, especially in the B2B sector.

DECISION

If your prospective customer has made it to this point of your marketing funnel, they’ve clearly shown interest in your product or service. Now it’s time to close the deal with a video that will remind them of the value they get by purchasing your product. Depending on the sales incentives you use to sell your product (discounts, no shipping costs, money-back guarantees, free demos), your video should communicate it. Another good way of closing new customers is by showing them an in-depth tutorial on how to use your product – at this point, you can be as specific as you need to and treat the prospect like he’s already your customer by showing him how to use the product before he even orders it.

First, ask yourself what do you want to achieve with the video. Then figure out what to communicate to achieve this goal, what the key message of the video should be. Lastly, find a way to measure its performance.

Multi platform ads we made for Vibo Chocolate.

DISTRIBUTION

The next thing in our video marketing strategy is to figure out how the video will be used to get us the results we want. Is it for collecting leads on our website or landing page? Are you trying to improve conversions on your product page? Will it be displayed in a Facebook feed or as a youtube pre-roll?

Almost every platform has some unique features and specifications for the video content, that’s why it’s important to establish this before you start the creative process of the video production, like storyboarding and scripting.

Why?

Here’s an example; some youtube video ads are skippable after 5 seconds, but can last longer if the viewer decides to watch them. Other types of YT ads aren’t skippable but have a time limit of either 6 seconds as a bumper ad or 15s as a non-skippable ad. The specifications of the platform your video will be used on are very important when you start thinking of the script for your video. It’s a HUGE difference if you have 60, 15, or only 5 seconds to deliver your message. And that’s just for one platform; Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn all have their requirements for the video content that gets uploaded there, so make sure you pay attention to that as well.

Detailed breakdown: https://influencermarketinghub.com/social-media-video-specs/

AUDIENCE

Another very important part when preparing your video marketing strategy is considering your audience. We haven’t mentioned it much throughout this guide, as knowing your buyer’s persona is a task that goes beyond just your video marketing strategy, but it’s just as important here. You need to know who is most likely to watch it, which platforms they’re using, what kind of storytelling will appeal to them the most etc.

NEXT STEP

After you’re done defining your goal, audience, and distribution plan, it’s time to move on to the next stage. Considering your budget, you will have to decide on how will you produce the video you need to realize your strategy. 

 

This is part 1 of our Video Marketing Guide. In the next part, we focus more on the production of the video and share tips on how to create the best possible video to fit your strategy. You can read it here.