7 essentials for a truly effective video marketing strategy

After you and your team emerged from the last marketing meeting, it became pretty clear that your company needs to have a real video marketing strategy.

The whole team is ready to get cracking, already thinking of all the benefits of video marketing you'll be able to reap from it...

Fresh and dynamic content, rising conversion rates, engaged audiences... only good things to come!

Keep this momentum and motivation going: you're going to need it to build a strong video marketing strategy. To help you do this, we've put together 7 essentials for achieving success. Fasten your seatbelts... let's get this show on the road!

Knowing your target audience like the back of your hand

You already know that any marketing strategy, digital or not, is based on a thorough knowledge and understanding of the company's target market. And a video marketing strategy is no exception to this rule.

As a good marketer, you already have an idea of who your target audiences are. But do you have an idea as to what they're expecting in terms of video?

Before you start brainstorming your creative video presentation ideas, take stock of what you know about your target audience:

• Topics and themes of interest. Beyond your products or services, what kind of online content do your potential customers like to consume? What are the challenges, the daily concerns to which your offers respond?
• Video consumption habits. Are your target audiences fans of long, 30-minute webinars, or short, dynamic "snack content" type videos? Would they rather watch them their mobiles or on their desktop computers?
• Video consumption channels. If you're reaching out to potential BtoB customers who are over 50 years old, you probably won't meet them on Instagram, but rather on LinkedIn or Twitter. The opposite would be true for someone marketing a restaurant. Think about where your target audience typically consumes content for your niche.

If you're just launching your video marketing strategy, you may not yet have a thorough understanding of your customers' expectations or how they consume content. You can start by monitoring your competitors who are already using video in their mix. You can also ask your existing customers about their expectations: for example, by offering a promotional benefit in your newsletter in exchange for a survey response. After all, maybe you'll be interviewing them in due course as part of your future video strategy?

Determine the objectives of your video marketing strategy

How can you succeed without objectives when launching a new technique or a new marketing channel? You have 3 hours. Go!

You can already put down your pens. The answer: it's impossible. Every web marketing strategy comes with precise and realistic objectives, which serve to guide each of your actions.

So take some time to select a few objectives for your video strategy. For example, you can imagine launching your strategy to...

• Boost your reputation on the internet. Video has a definite branding power, and helps you to build or solidify your brand image in the minds of your target audiences.
• Improve the search indexing of your website. By integrating video into your overall web marketing strategy, you've got Google in your pocket: the search engine loves to highlight the best videos in its search results!
• Increase the time visitors spend on your site pages. Visitors to your site will be tempted to spend more time browsing your pages when you include videos.
• Increase your conversion rates. Many studies show that using video can greatly increase the conversion rates of a website. For example, the king of SEO Neil Patel conducted an interesting marketing experiment: by integrating a video into a landing page, he increased his conversion rate by 64%. A micro-optimization that brought $21,000 in additional sales to the company, all the same. The video format offers the opportunity to finish with a very clear and persuasive call-to-action.
• Galvanize social media communities. Whether it's on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or even LinkedIn, video has the power to bring users together and spark authentic exchanges between you and your audience.
• Assist with commercial or after-sales services. There's nothing quite like a product demonstration video to better convince BtoB target audiences, or product tutorial videos to save time for your teams during after-sales.

This step in your video marketing strategy is essential. Organize a brainstorm with your marketers, sales and communication departments to determine your core objectives. When teams unite around the same objectives, the strategy is certainly heading in the right direction!

Integrate video into your current marketing mix

Armed with your best objectives and customer knowledge, you're now ready to make video a real asset to your digital marketing strategy. Congratulations! Now it's time to work out how your marketing videos will fit seamlessly into your current strategy.

For your videos to truly reflect your company or brand, be sure to think about these two key elements:

• The graphic designs for your videos. How will your logo appear in your videos? Will it be animated or fixed? Do you have a music jingle in mind, an idea for an outro (end screen) or YouTube thumbnails to develop?
• The editorial guidelines for your videos. What tone will be used in your videos? Are humor and playfulness key to your style, or will your videos be strictly serious?  What will be the key messages and values that you want to convey about your company?

In short, even if you're just starting your strategy, your video content marketing needs to reflect the style and tone of all your other communications.

Determine which types of videos to create

At this stage, you have a reasonably clear idea of where your video strategy is going to take you. So let's get to the heart of the matter: it's time to think about the different video formats you will be able to create.

If you've already implemented a digital marketing strategy, you will probably have a gold mine of content already at your disposal.

It's actually simple to transform your existing content into video, under the logic of 'repurposing'. What if certain sections of your latest white paper make a wonderful source of video content? What if your latest case study could be turned into an interview or a video quote? What if your last article was the basis of a streamlined 'Top 5' video?

As you browse through your back-catalog of content, you'll come up with a whole bunch of clever ideas for your video editorial planning. If that's not enough, Here are some particularly effective types of videos that could bolster your marketing strategy:

• Product or service presentations: the product packshots of the modern era. If you are wondering how to make a presentation, all steps and stips are in this article.
• Interviews with your customers, your employees, industry experts, partners, etc.
• Customer testimonials: your target audience would love to see the living proof of your happy customers as they discuss their experience of using your product or services!
• Product demo or tutorial: ideal for helping your customers get the best out of what you're offering them.
• Social video: short, fun videos designed for achieving maximum engagement on social media platforms essentially composed of images and subtitles. Need more tips on how to make an engaging video?
• Animated video: depicting situations your potential customers may find themselves in, and how your product or services may aid them.

As you were reading this list, you may have had some dazzling ideas... don't let them get away and write them down!  Remember, a good marketing strategy educates and entertains its audience at the same time! So be sure to integrate into your video marketing strategy various video formats and video storytelling. Also, talk about topics that are highly relevant to your audience, like their health.

That said, the most advanced video strategies are those that manage to create a real online meeting place for customers and prospects, creating an experience that keeps them coming back for more. You could develop a video series all based around the same theme, for example on healthcare video marketing.

Whatever types of videos you are intending to launch your strategy with, this step will give you a clearer idea of the budget you will need to make available. In reality, a video interview or an animated video presenting a product will likely require a bigger budget than a social video, which is easy to create by your own means with an adapted video tool.

Choose the right distribution channels

It's obvious that you're highly motivated to create videos and fuel your marketing strategy. But you should keep in mind one crucial element: creating a video only makes sense if you devote some time to thinking about how you're going to distribute it.

To put it another way: you could create the most out-there, ground-breaking videos the world has ever encountered, but if you don't manage to distribute them properly to your target audience... the only person contributing toward that view count will be you.

So remember to list all the places online where you're active, like a digital marketing footprint. Sow your video seeds, and nurture a real passion for your business in your target market.

• On your website? It's highly recommended to host your videos on strategic pages of your website: product pages, landing or sales pages, blog posts... A very effective way to increase the time that visitors spend on your pages and potentially boost your conversion rates.
• On YouTube? With over 2 Billion logged-in users visiting YouTube each month, YouTube is THE video platform to publish promotional videos. However, to be successful on YouTube, you will need to tune in to all the YouTube best practices: catchy titles, relevant tags, a well-designed final screen — to increase the time viewers spend on your channel...
• On social media platforms? If your target audience hangs out on social media, video provides the perfect opportunity to grab their attention. Whether it's Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter — each social media platform offers you the option to upload your videos natively, which increases visibility and distribution even further.
• In your online ads? On Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads or Twitter Ads the video format is a hit. With a click-through rate 7.5 times higher than traditional display ads, video will give your online advertising strategy a major boost and could increase your conversions.
• In your emails and newsletters? Even if video and email don't seem to get along so well these two formats are, nevertheless, a winning combo. By simply adding the word "video" to your subject line you can expect a 19% increase in opening rates. Attractive, isn't it? Learn more in our guide about video email marketing!

In addition, thinking about the various channels for distributing your videos online will guide your actual process of video creation. Because, depending on the different channels, the formats of your videos can vary. It's crucial to think about this beforehand so that you create videos appropriate for each distribution channel.

Here is a quick summary of the different video formats according to the platforms and how you can use them

Horizontal video

• YouTube ad on desktop computer
• Twitter ad
• Organic post on Youtube
• Organic post on Twitter
• Integration on website pages and blog articles

Vertical video

• Instagram Story
• Facebook Story
• Youtube mobile ad
• Instagram Story ad

Square video

• Organic posts on LinkedIn
• Organic posts on Facebook
• Organic posts on Instagram

The various video formats: a real headscratcher?

You're beginning to get the idea, right? A high-performing online video is one that has been adjusted to a format that fits the platform on which it is being posted. However, it's worth adapting each video you make into the 3 available formats so that you can distribute it as widely as possible. PlayPlay automates this process for you. In one click, your videos can be adjusted into the format of your choice. That's handy, isn't it?! Maybe you feel like creating your first playplay, just to see how easy it is?

Try PlayPlay for free!

Plan the creation of your videos

You now have concise goals, key messages, and initial video ideas in mind. So it's time to put it all down on paper, and start planning to create the videos themselves.

Start by aligning your video creation with your overall marketing plan. Are any of your product videos linked to a specific product launch? Are other videos scheduled to be released at the same time as your new advertising campaigns or your next white paper? Make sure to plan the release dates of your videos so that they fit in with your wider marketing planning.

It's also worth taking some time to create an editorial schedule specifically for your video content.

In this editorial schedule, create at least 4 columns:

• The subjects of your videos
• The resources you have at your disposal: think about your technical needs (filming equipment such as a microphone or a camera, or a specific editing tool), but also human needs (people in charge of scripts, storyboards, subtitles, and also a cameraman, video editor, motion designer...)
• The distribution channels you have chosen for each of the videos, and the formats in which you should plan to shoot/edit them
• Shooting, editing and posting dates

With this 360-degree approach to your video schedule, you will be able to create a real video marketing strategy. Vary the formats and themes, while maintaining a general coherence to the overall style of the videos. Creating a recurrence in your content a plan, such as "Thursday interviews" or "Friday's Top 5", could be a useful way to plan your content and bring some consistency to the schedule. Check out this blog post to learn more about viral video marketing.

How much time does it take to create a good video?

An important question for sure, in order to organize your editorial schedule! However, the answer isn't quite as straightforward as you might think, since it depends on the type of video you're thinking about and how much effort you put into video SEO optimization.

To create a traditional production such as a corporate video or a customer interview, including the time for filming and editing, you could need:

• One week to design an initial brief, with the agreement of your teams and potential stakeholders
• Two weeks to write the script and the storyboard
• One week for shooting and pre-production
• Two to three weeks of editing and post-production, with some back-and-forth discussions to be expected

That said, a personalized social video can take much less time than this to hit the web. After an hour of training, PlayPlay's clients typically take 20 minutes to create an original video. Not bad, eh?

Analyze the KPIs of your strategy

If you're embarking on an advanced digital marketing strategy, you know already it: key metrics analysis is absolutely vital. Tracking these numbers on a daily basis is essential to determine if you're going in the right direction, or if your video marketing strategy is just to please your boss — the big YouTube fan.

But which video KPIs to choose and monitor closely? The answer depends on the goals you set out to achieve and the channels you decide to use.

Here are a few KPIs that may be of interest to you for tracking the results of your video efforts:

Awareness and engagement objectives for your online community

YouTube

• Number of views
• 'Watchtime' on YouTube
• Number of likes
• Number of subscribers to your channel (there is even an unofficial market for buying Youtube channels based on subscribers count)

Social networks

• Engagement rate: likes, shares, comments, retweets
• Number of influencers reached on social networks
• Number of impressions your social media ads make
• Number of mentions your brand receives

Search engine optimization (SEO)

• Positioning in Google video search results
• Increased time spent on your web pages

Conversion objectives

• Click-through rate on your ads
• Click-through rate on your Youtube videos' final screens
• Increased time spent on your web pages
• Opening and click rate of your newsletters/emails

Commercial and/or after-sales service objectives

• Number of contracts signed where the prospect has watched a video beforehand
• Number of demo video requests
• Number of after-sales inquiries related to a problem using the product

Always keep these numbers in the back of your mind, and test different formats or channels, to learn what works best. The advantage of digital is that you can observe the results of the strategies you put in place on a day-to-day basis, to continuously optimize their performance.

You've followed each of these 7 steps? Congratulations! You now hold all the keys to launching a video marketing strategy that will engage your targets, develop your brand awareness and increase your online performance. Bravo!