Trends continue to show more of the buyer’s online journey is moving to the digital world. A recent Forrester report, “2016 B2B Budget Plans Show That It’s Time For A Digital Wake-up,” B2B marketers are in need of new ways to generate more compelling customer experiences. “Simply sticking with what worked previously is a poor strategy,” the report says, “given that business buyers have become more sophisticated in their digital and mobile use.”
One of the report’s recommendations is that marketers should be, “focusing content marketing efforts on video…”
This doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. There are so many different types of videos that can be created and utilized in many different digital channels.
As you know, content marketing touches every marketing and sales channel. There is an opportunity for video to enhance each of your customer and prospect touch points.
“I’m Not Sure About Video Content”
We hear versions of this all the time. But we also hear, “I’m looking for content marketing ideas.” Let’s look at a few typical reasons for hesitation and ideas on how to overcome them:
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As a brand marketer, you’re telling me you don’t have a couple thousand dollars somewhere that could be used to put together one or two videos to test ROI? It doesn’t have to be expensive. If you’re on a budget, I have some great ideas on how to get started (see below). Here are some tips on saving production costs.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_accordion_tab][vc_accordion_tab title=”2. I’m just not sure how video fits into all of our other digital marketing efforts.”][vc_column_text]
If you’re not sure, pick one channel, any channel, and let us show you how it can perform better. You never win a race by staying on the starting line.
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Start with your content marketing plan, content calendar, events, services, products or a current marketing challenge with an identified goal, audience, and metrics. These are all great places to start thinking about online video content. Talk to a professional at a Video Marketing Company who will help you through the process, provide ideas, and help set up metrics to gauge its performance and optimization.
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This is why you hire professionals. They will walk you through it and make sure that you can reach your goals. This is also why I recommend using a Video Marketing Company vs. just a Video Production Company. The Video Marketing Company understands the digital marketing landscape and can help you with the strategy, from proper communication, calls to action and integration into your digital platforms.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_accordion_tab][vc_accordion_tab title=”5. My cousin is in college studying journalism and film, should I just have him make a video for me?”][vc_column_text]
Agreed, this will probably be cheaper, but you will likely get what you pay for in a video. If video production is new to you, I highly recommend hiring a professional. I recommend hiring a Video Marketing Company vs. just a Video Production Company. The Video Marketing Company understands the digital marketing landscape and can help you with the strategy from proper communication, calls to action, deployment, and can advise on how to efficiently spend your marketing dollars.
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When we hear this from marketers, we often find they have a lot on their plates and are feeling overwhelmed in general. But I will say that an honest video by your company can go a long way to connect with your audience, in a way that text content on a web page cannot. If you don’t start now, you will be left behind; digital trends are quickly moving to video, as shown recently when Snapchat dethroned Twitter as the 3rd social network: 5 Reasons You Should Incorporate Video Into Your Digital Marketing
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Just think about those job reviews that you have with your boss when she asks you, “What have you done to push the needle in our marketing efforts?” Do you want your response to be, “I’ve been keeping everything running smoothly as it is,” or, “I’ve started to incorporate video into our content mix and we’re starting to see some really good metrics from many of them, including increased organic traffic, improved engagement and conversion.”
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Some of our clients have felt this way, but they gave it a chance, have found it to be very successful for them and have now put video into their annual budget. Though video may not be a solution for every situation, there are very few that wouldn’t benefit from it.
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Video is the perfect vehicle for helping increase comprehension of complex topics or products. Video is highly consumable and retainable. There are many stats that support this, but according to Invisia, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch a video compared to remembering only 10% when reading it in text. And you can always include white papers as well for more-detailed research.
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Where to start with Video Content Marketing
Whew, okay, we got past those. Now you’re ready to get started.
An easy place to start to integrate video into your content marketing strategy is on your blog. Most content marketing strategies have a content marketing calendar that dictates ongoing blog posts. This is a perfect place to start, determine the message, and conduct a video content test.
If you are leveraging your blog posts, you also are promoting your blog post on social networks and in emails to your subscribers. Awesome! Video will help here too.
So we’ve just found a solution where a video that lives in one place can now affect multiple digital channels.
Oh! And I forgot a core channel, SEO. Would you like a rich snippet listing on Google? Not to mention a better ranking? Yep, video can do that too.
Which result would you click on in this result list?
My suggestion is to start with that blog content calendar. Determine topics that would lend themselves well to video. Things that are visual in nature, which show your brand personality and style (product demos, events, customer testimonial video) or that could help in understanding a complex subject.
Take that list and talk to a professional Video Marketing Company. Go through the due diligence of finding out who you like and how much it might cost. Based on your budget and preference, move forward.
Here are a few of the things that you should quiz the Video Production company on during your due diligence:
- How will they help you with video optimization for SEO? Do they offer other video optimization services for other digital channels?
- If you create more than one video, is there a way to achieve economy of scale?
- Will they help you write the scripts?
- Have they done video content marketing before? Ask to see examples.
- What is their production process, what are the roles they will take and what will be your responsibilities? It won’t be a completely hands-off process so it’s good to understand what kind of time will be needed from you.
- How will they help you measure the success of the videos?
My recommendation is to not just do one video, as it will be very difficult to measure success from just one. Like most anything else in digital marketing, you need to give video a little time, and try a few different things to see what’s working.
For content marketing, I would recommend starting with at least 10-12 videos. Our programs would spread this production and delivery over 3 to 6 months, depending on what your team can manage. This lessens the impact on your budget and provides a consistent flow of video assets that can be utilized. During this period, you will be able to try different topics and better understand how your audience responds. These videos can be animated videos, talking–head videos or a mix of the two based on budget (talking–head videos cost more in production, due to the need of a video crew on location to capture the content).
Once you see the results, you can determine how to proceed. You could test more topics, double-down on a topic that is doing well or continue on the same path. You could also start creating core videos, like a company explainer, product overview or customer testimonial video.
Okay, you’re ready! Rise to the call. Get imaginative and create more compelling customer experiences.
Would love to hear how video has worked for you or what you have learned from trying video content marketing.
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