72% of customers prefer watching a video about a product to reading about it and that’s why content with videos attracts more engagement compared to text-only.
As a content creator, adding videos to your content schedule can help you reach more people and even customers if you have a digital product. Research shows that 33% of the time users spend on the internet is focused on watching videos so it’s the perfect way to position your brand to your target audience.
However, to truly excel in video marketing, you must have a solid strategy. In this article, we’ll explain why you need a video marketing strategy and how to create yours as a content creator.
What is a Video Marketing Strategy?
Video marketing strategy is any plan you come up with as a creator to create, distribute and promote your video content online. The goal is to reach new people, keep your audience engaged and make money selling your products through these videos.
Why Do You Need a Video Marketing Strategy?
Considering the number of users on video-sharing platforms like Instagram and Tiktok, we’ve seen through research that;
- 82% of people prefer watching videos to reading social media posts.
- On Facebook, the number of engagements produced from videos is 73% higher than that of posts.
- When you create a reasonable and audience-related video, it drives conversion and increases sales.
- With time, a video marketing strategy increases your identity in your field.
- With more viewers on YouTube, you can join the partner programs and monetize your content
- You can better educate your consumers about your products and services
- Video marketing is a great way to get more social shares and engagements
Do you now see why your video marketing strategy is important? Video marketing strategy goes beyond creating and posting videos online. It helps you strategize on how to effectively pass this message across and generate revenue from it.
That’s why in the next section, we will be showing you how to build your video marketing strategy.
How to Create a Video Marketing Strategy
To create a video marketing strategy you need to thoroughly plan for the research, content creation and distribution process. Here’s a guide to help you develop yours;
1. Choose the social media channel you want to focus on
You can’t be active on every social media platform as a creator because you won’t be able to give all these channels your best. This is why we recommend sticking to one first.
To choose one, you must put the interest of your viewers first because it is how they respond that determines the growth of your brand. If you’ve gotten more brand deals and growth on YouTube but you prefer TikTok, you have to prioritize Youtube because you’re already gaining traction there.
If however, you haven’t started any channel yet, we recommend prioritizing your Youtube channel. This is because Youtube is a part of Google and so, it automatically shows up on Google’s search engine results page. With this, you’ll get visibility on the channel itself while simultaneously reaching your target audience on search.
Youtube also values creators compared to other social networks. In addition to the ad revenue, you can make extra income by just being a part of the Youtube partner platform.
2. Choose a niche
After choosing a suitable social media platform, then you should choose a niche. A niche is an area you want to specialize in as a creator.
The message you’ll be creating in your niche is not for everyone and that’s where your target audience comes in. What type of creator do you want to be? Do you want to be a food blogger, fashionpreneur, health, tech reviewer, entertainer, comedian, dancer, fitness trainer, or more?
When you have a niche, your videos reach a certain demographic who have that particular interest. This will gradually increase the recommendations and profile visibility you’ll get.
This is because your viewers get a better understanding of where you belong compared to when you just post on random topics without specialization.
Picking a niche can be tasking because you may have more than one area which you want to explore. To make sure you are picking the best for the channel, think about the topics you’re very interested in and those you have a lot of experience in.
3. Understand your audience
Your audience is your primary focus so their interest and contributions matter a lot. This means they have to be at the top of your mind when creating your videos. What are those things they frequently ask about? Do you have an answer to it? If yes, you can start from there.
For instance, you can study your audience’s reactions to your previous content. This will help you see if they prefer educational content to fun videos. When you created an educational video like “how to” and product reviews did you get more engagement than when you posted a fun video?
Your answer determines the tone they expect and giving it to them shows that you prioritize their interest in your brand.
If you are just starting and you haven’t created any videos yet, you can look out for other competitors and influencers in your niche. Check some of the videos that gave them the highest engagement and this will give you a hint of where you can focus on.
As a food blogger, you can create a video where you teach and give recipes for a particular meal. After your audience views and drop their comments, you can check for some frequent questions asked. You can build your next content strategy around answering these top questions.
4. Build your content strategy
Once you have a full grasp of your niche, it’s time to build your content strategy. You can research trending topics in your niche and make contributions about them. As we earlier mentioned, look at frequently asked questions and build content ideas around answering them.
When you have gotten great content ideas for your channel, the quality of your message is determined by the way it will be presented. If you have powerful content but a terrible presentation, there will be poor results. So in your strategy, consider video formats.
For instance, if you want to create Q&As or explainer videos on your YouTube channel and you want to repurpose them to your other social media handles like Facebook, how do you go about it? Remember, you cannot use the same format everywhere because the algorithm of each social site differs.
For example on YouTube, the landscape mode performs better while for Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok, vertical videos do the trick.
5. Create the videos and maintain a consistent schedule
Often, you may have other conflicting schedules. As a creator, you need to understand that you don’t have to show up every single day. What matters the most is that you have a consistent schedule for uploading your videos.
How much time can you dedicate in a week to video creation? Do you think you can create two in a week or can you do just one? You might only be able to even create and upload one video a month.
There’s nothing wrong with this, just make sure you’re consistent with your posting schedule. Once you’re predictable, your viewers start to expect a video from you during that specific period.
You can also batch create – that is, create these videos in bulk and schedule them ahead. So, once you have decided what videos you want to batch create, build your content calendar. Your calendar should contain
- Social media platform
- Date and time range.
- Visuals (e.g photos, infographics, GIFs, etc)
- Links
- A solid description
- And other important details.
Although videos within 2 minutes get more engagement, if your videos are longer, make sure they contain strictly relevant content. Remember to include action calls like “click the link in the description to make a purchase” “for more videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel,” and so on.
This will help your viewers know the next step to take after watching your video.
6. Optimize for SEO
When you optimize your content for SEO( Search engine optimization), it means you want to increase your video rankings across different social media sites. YouTube is for instance the second largest search engine online because the majority of Google search results are from YouTube videos.
To make your videos easily accessible on YouTube, you can adopt these strategies:
- Make use of a simple and catchy title.
- Use relevant keywords in your description and you can get this by using the YouTube ranking tool or SE ranking keyword suggestion tool.
- Use an SRT file to add subtitles and closed captions
- Add a link under 70 characters to your website
- Create colourful and high-quality thumbnails that attract your viewers
- Make sure you add hashtags correctly
- Always include a call to action at the end of your videos.
- Leave a pinned comment under your video posts.
Algorithms do not only favour top content creators. It can also favour you if you optimize for SEO because YouTube will show it with other related videos.
7. Promote your video online
No matter how good your video is, it may not get to the right audience, you need to promote it by publicizing some on your blog articles, websites, other social media posts and so on.
For example, if there’s a frequently asked question from your viewers and you want to create a video that provides an answer, you want to be sure that they all get notified once you upload it. So start by making teasers on your other channels.
All you need to do is to create a social media post that promotes the video you are working on and why they should anticipate it. By doing this, your viewers will be ready to see what you have in stock for them once you release the video.
Also, you can decide to run a YouTube ad after publishing a new video. This strategy maximizes your viewer’s reach because it displays your video before a user views his intended video. It also pops up in search results so you’re reaching a broader audience segment.
8. Measure the performance of your video
Checking the performance of your videos is very essential because it helps to determine the progress you have made from the steps you’ve taken above.
How many views have your videos produced? How many likes, comments and shares have been gotten? What are the watch times? And so on. Each site has its method of checking metrics, so it is important you know all these at the start.
Metrics are used to analyze the success and failures of your content and when doing that, make sure it’s in line with your objective.
For instance, if you venture into video marketing to create brand awareness, then your metrics should be measured based on the number of views, shares and reach. If you’re looking for sales, on the other hand, you might want to link your engagements to the purchases you got.
On TikTok, you can check your video performance by
- Opening the app
- Log in to your profile
- Check the top right of your profile and open the setting and privacy tab
- Click analytics.
On YouTube, you can check your video analytics by
- Opening the app
- Tap your profile picture
- On the middle menu, click analytics. After clicking, it displays your video results.
Checking your metrics consistently can be used to determine your audience’s area of interest. We also recommend analytic tools like social insider to help you compare the metrics you’re getting with other creators.
Conclusion
Having a great video marketing strategy will increase your brand awareness, attract new followers, and convince viewers to make a purchase. In fact, 65% of people who watch a branded video make a purchase afterwards. So we hope this article helps you launch your new content strategy across video-sharing platforms.
Remember, the goal behind getting more engagements from videos is to be able to monetize them. So start by creating a tip link with creathor today.
