Many brands are starting to realize the power of using video in their marketing strategies. Oftentimes, though, they share just one or two large branding or commercial videos per year. These videos may run on TV, or live on a website, or even get a little momentum on social media. But these videos often sizzle out and don’t leave a long lasting impact. Having some video is definitely better than having none, but in this article, we are going to talk about why consistently posting video content on an ongoing basis is beneficial to your business.
Different Moments in the Buyer’s Journey
One of the first reasons to utilize more videos on a consistent basis is the fact that not one video can engage a buyer at each step of his or her journey. For instance, a buyer who knows your company and is actively looking to buy a product or service you provide doesn’t need to watch an explainer video. A testimonial or even a benefits video will do better in securing their business. Vice versa, a buyer who is looking for a service or product you offer who may not know much about your company or that you even offer those products or services will resonate better with an attention-grabbing awareness video or even an about us video.
We preach the use of a video strategy that offers videos for each stage of the buyer’s journey from awareness to consideration to decision to finally the post-sales or delight stage. One way to do this includes sitting down and thinking about how your ideal customer discovers your business and how they ultimately take steps to buying from you. Having a video or multiple video(s) that are targeted for those steps can help funnel your customers towards a sale in a more efficient and effective manner.
Social Media
Social media is a huge part of a company’s content strategy. One of the struggles companies face with their social media marketing is producing enough creative content to engage with their audiences on a regular basis. By having a video marketing plan in place that pushes out video content on a weekly or monthly basis, your business is able to release content that continually engages your customers. Social media content is also expiring content so to keep up with your followers, a company needs to post consistently. A video on social media only has about 1-2 weeks average organic lifespan and produces most of its engagement in that time frame. Of course you can make these videos work a little harder for your company by using paid ads on social media or it’s possible that your video goes locally, regionally, or even nationally viral with the right creative and story.
A/B Testing
One of the best ways to gain traction when using videos in paid advertising on social media and other digital marketing channels is using A/B testing. For those who are new to the term ‘A/B testing,’ the best way to describe it is taking 2 different ads and running them with the same targeting variables on digital platforms. You can also do this for testing out different targeting variables such as marketing to different age groups but having the same ad creative. For video purposes, you may want to know whether a funny video or a more serious video will perform better on Facebook. You can create two different videos and run them on a small budget discovering which one performs better than allocate a larger budget to that video.
Different Screens
You’ve heard it for years now. Your audience spends time in front of multiple screens. Another area where having multiple video campaigns can benefit includes optimizing videos for different screens and platforms. Different platforms such as Facebook on your phone versus Facebook on your laptop often benefit from having vertical video versus horizontal video. You can also utilize different length videos along with different creative direction for specific screens. A 6 seconds video of a spokesperson directly speaking to a consumer on a YouTube pre-roll ad could perform better than a traditional 30 seconds ad that was made for TV on that pre-roll ad.
Consistent Brand Quality
The final benefit of maintaining ongoing video content is one that some might overlook. If your company is producing high quality video content either internally or with an external partner on a regular basis, you’ll notice an increase in perceived brand quality. Many businesses suggest you to market for the businesses you would like to attract. Or some businesses wish to market themselves as professionally as possible. Having consistent, high quality video content partnered with a well-thought-out video strategy, your business’s appearance to the general public will look more professional resulting in more qualified leads.
Video content is one of the most powerful tools a business can use from their marketing toolbox. The ability to catch a viewer’s attention, use emotion and storytelling to move that viewer to act, and ultimately communicate your business in an engaging way are all reasons why video has continued to be so popular since it first became a way to advertise your business. Now with all the screens and platforms, users are looking for more content to engage with and your business has the unique opportunity to provide them that content.
