This 4-Step Video Marketing Strategy Can Help Grow Your Business
Ever heard that ’80s song, Video Killed the Radio Star? Video has captivated audiences ever since its invention, and has remarkable staying power even today. With competition from all the gadgets modern technology has to offer, you might imagine the popularity of video would have begun to decline. But instead, we’ve just come up with ways to use all that new technology to watch even more video.
According to a recent study by eMarketer, Americans spend 1 hour and 16 minutes watching videos online every day. That’s almost nine hours a week! And while some of those nine hours are, of course, dedicated to binge-watching TV shows, a significant amount of time is also spent watching videos on YouTube and other websites.
Research by Invodo predicts that by 2017, 74 percent of all Internet traffic will be video.
What does this mean for entrepreneurs looking to grow their businesses?
From your home page to your blog, and from your product pages to your testimonial page, adding video can move prospective customers through the sales funnel more quickly.
It means that incorporating video into every aspect of your digital marketing strategy can be crucial for success. From search to email and everything in between, video may have the potential to consistently provide a higher ROI than any other form of content.
Including the word “video” in email subject lines boosts open rates by 19 percent, raises click-through rates by 65 percent, and reduces unsubscribes by 26 percent, according to the Invodo study. And a study by EyeView Digital found that using video on landing pages increases conversions by 86 percent.
Video can boost the effectiveness of every aspect of online marketing exponentially. To harness the power of video to grow your business, consider incorporating it into each of the following four areas of your video marketing strategy.
Search
Since videos tend to carry such weight with online audiences, a webpage with a video is likely to outrank one with text alone in its search results. How can you take advantage of this?
Start slowly and strategically. Add videos to the pages you most want to rank highly first, and be sure they’re the kinds of videos your audience will be searching for. Try a product demonstration video to boost traffic to that product’s page, for example, or an educational video discussing solutions to a common pain point your target audience faces to drive visitors to your blog.
In addition, you can capitalize on YouTube’s own search engine by hosting your videos on YouTube, and optimize its description there by including the search keywords you anticipate your audience using.
Social
Now that Facebook and other social media platforms have begun hosting user videos on their own sites, posts including videos have exploded on newsfeeds. And with videos typically leading to a significantly higher click-through rate, you should consider taking advantage of this trend.
Users under the age of 40, but especially millennials, are likely to share videos with friends on a regular basis, so to grow your business, you should create videos just begging to be shared. How? Any video that gets the viewer’s emotions involved, whether through humor, fear, sentimentality or any other strong feeling, may be perfect for sharing on social media. Keep in mind that people share things based on the image of themselves they want to project. Determining what your particular target audience wants others to think of them can help you decide what kind of video they would want to share.
How many different email newsletters are you signed up for? Inboxes across America are full of emails that never get read. So how can you ensure your email stands out?
Including a video can be a great way to pique your subscribers’ interest. Just be sure that it’s relevant to the email list they signed up for. Someone who signed up for gardening tips won’t necessarily want to watch a video about your latest product, but they would probably love to see an educational how-to video about pruning, for example.
Site Content
Every single page on your site could be more effective at producing conversions if it included a video. From your home page to your blog, and from your product pages to your testimonial page, adding video can move prospective customers through the sales funnel more quickly.
Don’t forget to create videos for each stage in the sales process, from brand awareness to education to persuasion, and keep them short and engaging. Anything over a minute long may be less likely to be viewed all the way through, so make your most important points toward the beginning, and work to hold viewers’ attention throughout.
By strategically incorporating video into each of these four areas, you can help boost the effectiveness of your online marketing, increase conversions and grow your business. Don’t get left behind—the future of digital marketing may lie in video, and those who jump in first may reap the most benefits.
