Video marketing in action: how and where to start using video for business

Probably even someone who has taken a slight interest in Internet marketing over the past few years has at least once come across the statement that video is the trend of the future. And now is probably a good time to tell you that the future has already arrived. Well, to continue that statement by William Gibson - it's just not evenly distributed yet. As expected, video content makes up about 80% of the world's Internet traffic and has a leading position in the toolkit of content marketing.

Connoisseurs of time-honored knowledge and quotes of greats like "Everything will pass, and so will this," may not have attached importance to the emergence of IGTV on Instagram and the growth of video on Facebook. But who would dispute the fact that YouTube has been the second most popular website in the world for years?

Those who want to jump in the video marketing rocket in time to conquer the expanse of social media with video content can still do so. But it must be said that the crush in the information space is becoming increasingly tangible. And in the long run, it will be difficult for those who stubbornly ignore relevant ways to communicate with their audiences to squeeze in among other businesses. (So read this article to the end and don't delay any longer - let's make a video!)

Where to start for those who rush to invest resources into video creation and apply notorious but incomprehensible video marketing to promote their business?

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1. Formation of the goal.

To begin with, it's worth defining your goals. These goals can be:

• reach,
• traffic,
• subscribers,
• sales.

A video aimed at a wide coverage serves to increase recognition and popularity. Viral or entertaining video content copes with such tasks. When creating a video designed to draw traffic to a target resource, you should pay more attention to its usefulness for users. Of course, these formats can be interpenetrating: few doubt the usefulness of humor. It is only important to keep in mind the relevance of video content and activity (is humor appropriate if your business, for example, ritual or banking services).

A video aimed at lead generation will contain a call to action and a promise of benefit. Such videos are created based on the degree of interest in the offer. The use of this type of video implies targeting the appeal and showing it to the target audience (targeting, retargeting, remarketing - that's it). On my YouTube channel I have a video dedicated to video sales funnel, you can watch it at the link.

2. competitor analysis

Before implementing video marketing, it's not unreasonable to ask what those you're competing with or peers are already doing in terms of video. Do your competitors have a vlog on YouTube? Maybe they've replaced textual information on their website with video, or put a video about the company on their home page? What can you do to differentiate yourself favorably? It can be as much about quality as it is about the number of videos.

If there are no videos on the subject you are dealing with in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, this is a rare stroke of luck. Then you need to look at what English-speaking colleagues are doing in your niche and learn from their valuable experience. Analysis of competitors, their strengths and weaknesses will allow you to think through a business promotion strategy using video and on the basis of this to make a content plan.

3. Using videos

It's not enough to create a video, it's much more important to apply it correctly. And how and where the video will be used should be taken into consideration at the conception stage. This will affect not only the structure of the video and its content, but also its technical data.

Frame proportions, the presence or absence of titles and sound, the duration of the video - the most popular social networks have different requirements for these parameters. Here it is worth giving priority to the format that gives the greatest impact and meets the requirements of the social network preferred by your target audience. Fortunately, all audiences today are represented on Facebook, and in terms of the effectiveness of using video, this social network is in first place. In spite of this, for direct sales to the female audience Instagram is more suitable, and for useful reviews and expert vlogs YouTube is indispensable.

The type of video you create depends a lot on the main promotion channel. Whether the video will entertain, inform or educate will prompt the level of demand for a certain type of video content on the chosen platform.

The above introductions are enough to start using video marketing tools in your business with confidence. The next important step is to analyze the results in order to improve them. There are various analytics services for this purpose: YouTube Analytics, Google Analytics, VidiQ, Clever, and TubeBuddy. They can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular video, as well as to compare the results of using different types of video content so that you can make adjustments to the video or content plan, if necessary.

Source: Bondars video