What is Video Marketing? Beginner's Guide
There is a lot of advertising no matter where we go. From listening to an ad on a radio station to watching an ad on TV, we now have the internet with endless ways of ads being presented to us. Today, a video marketing strategy is an important tool for digital marketers and advertisers to reach their target audience.
What is Video Marketing?
Video marketing is a type of digital marketing strategy where video content is used to promote a brand, product, or service. It teaches your audience effectively and helps increase engagement throughout your social and digital channels. It can also supplement your other strategies and campaigns, such as social media marketing and content marketing. The goal of video marketing involves creating videos that either directly or indirectly promote your company or brand, drive sales, increase awareness of your products or services, or interact with current and potential customers.
Why is Video Marketing Important?
Creating and uploading videos have always been proven to be an engaging way to keep your audience entertained and interested. Videos deliver meaningful messages that have emotional responses or inspiring calls to action. Video marketing can also be emotionally engaging because of memorable emotions such as happiness, fear, hope, and even anger. If this is not convincing enough, people spend an average of 19 hours per week watching videos online. The type of videos that they connect with are the ones that they found relatable.
The Types of Video Marketing
- Brand Videos
This video type has probably been around for the longest by far. To create a brand video, it would have to structure brand awareness for a certain brand while making it very interesting to attract a targeted audience at the same time. Brand videos are typically seen on television and digital advertisements.
Source(s): Dripify, Google
Google has their brand video ad for their AI platform called Google Assistant. The platform showcases various characters using the assistant to complete everyday tasks. The campaign increased sales for Google by pointing out the value of the virtual assistant to consumers.
- Demo Videos
These videos showcase how a specific product works. Demo videos can give users a tour of a product, or setting up a product in order to show its functional uses.
Source(s): HubSpot, SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey, a survey brand, has their own 2 minute video that quickly showcases their benefits and features of using their product. It allows viewers to quickly see how easy it is to make and send a survey by using SurveyMonkey.
- Instructional Videos
These videos are usually for educational purposes and can act as a guide for teaching viewers something they have never learned or heard of.
- Live Videos
Usually known as live streaming, live videos capture and stream video to a live audience in real time. Popular social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch have made live streaming accessible and a popular choice for marketers to stream video content.
Tips in Building a Video Marketing Strategy
- Have video goals planned ahead
Before beginning, outline your video’s goals. Shown below is the video marketing funnel graphic. The 4 stages consist of the awareness, consideration, and decision stages. The bottom level is where your video delights your customers.
Source: Lemonlight
- Find your target audience
Think about who your intended audience is or will be. This is important because if you create a video without a specific audience in mind, it will most likely flop and won’t do well. Your video should ideally show or explain who your product or service is for, which is the buyer’s persona. It should also have its own purpose, meaning there should be a point your video is around.
- Keep creative requirements in mind
Do remember certain people who will need to approve your people. They could be your manager, your company’s founder, your marketing department, and so on. There could be sudden changes in video scripting, messaging, and goals that could affect your entire video production effort.
- Always try to stick to your timeline
Timelines help you stay aware of how much video editing effort you have made and what is left to do. For example, marketing could have their own timeline, especially for production and your social media department. Do be a good team player by keeping everyone in your company or team informed of any schedules, changes, and completion dates.
Final Thoughts
Video marketing has been proven to be one of the most effective marketing methods up to today. It has a relatively easy learning curve so that anyone who lacks or does not have any prior experience in creating and editing videos can learn and gain experience naturally. Skillshare offers basic courses for you to get started! Uploading videos to your audience and the Internet helps increase engagement and ensures that your consumers will likely stick around for more content in the future from you. There are also certain platforms such as Monday that can help you formalize a video marketing strategy with your team, in addition to tips and tricks in making a video.
What’s Next?
