Video Marketing Strategy

Video has blossomed into a strategic medium for marketers. As a seasoned video producer and strategist, I’ve personally seen businesses of all shapes and sizes use the medium to generate more views, leads, and sales. And I’ve had a lot of fun being on the front lines figuring out what works and doesn’t work. Here are ten video marketing tips I’ve picked up along the way.

1. Capture the attention of the right viewer

Before you even write a script, establish a clearly defined goal for who your video is targeting. Are you making this video to enable sales leads? Build brand awareness with people who’ve never heard about you before? Or get more qualified prospects into your database? Creating your video for the “right” viewer is what you should be focused on. Casting a wide net is easy, but if you plan exactly who the video is for you’ll be more likely to make something that strikes a chord with viewers.

2. Strategically choose where the video is going to live

Where will this video live? Plastering a video across every outlet may seem like a great way to get your video seen, but in reality you might miss out on some key insights you can collect from selectively choosing its location, and on opportunities to optimize if you take a spray and pray approach. Here is a list of outlets to consider:

Your website is an excellent place to showcase a video to nudge people toward the next step in your marketing funnel.
Social platforms are a great way to engage your audience on the platforms they hang out on, and harness the opportunity to connect with their network through social sharing.
Landing pages are a go-to spot to help increase clickthrough rates and capture new leads with video.
One-to-one emails are where your sales reps can share a variety of video content to get noticed in people’s inboxes.

3. Choose an interesting thumbnail image

A thumbnail is the image a viewer sees before clicking the play button on your video. A rule of thumb, pun intended, is to choose a thumbnail that grabs a viewer’s attention. Videos that show a thumbnail of a person or interesting scene tend to get a higher play rate, like this example from GE. Thumbnail image example Avoid using a logo or text heavy frame like the NYC’s Mayor’s Office does here: Text heavy thumbnail example If you can’t find just the right frame within your video, design and upload a picture as a thumbnail. Little touches like this make a huge difference on whether people push play or click away.

4. Make your video easily shareable

Allowing viewers to share your video is a no-brainer. If your video is cool or funny or interesting or all the above, people will jump at the chance to share it with others. To make this easy, Enable share buttons across the video platform you use. You could include share buttons at the end of your video, or add them to the description like Water.org does in this example: Video share buttons

5. Optimize your video for YouTube

YouTube is the go-to platform for driving new traffic to your site with video. There are a variety of ways you can optimize your efforts there, like…

Choose a short but catchy title that include keyword(s)
Include a description of the video, link to your website and include a transcript of the entire video
Tag at least 10 different keywords or phrases to each video
Utilize annotation links and add cards

This is just the tip of the iceberg, if YouTube is a platform your business intends to build a presence on I recommend taking the Google Video Advertising exam.

6. Stand out on Facebook by keeping the news feed in mind

Not every video is a good fit for Facebook. If you decide that your audience is on the platform, and that your video would be a good fit for the news feed, then keep these best practices in mind:

Use closed captions on every video to ensure the message of your video gets heard, since 85% of all Facebook videos are played silently
Encourage viewers to comment, share, or like videos in order to increase visibility
Directly upload your videos to Facebook, since the company ranks them higher than videos hosted on other platforms

To see some quality examples in real-life, check out the videos REI puts out. They’re some of the best I’ve come across.

7. Win on Twitter with animated GIFs

Optimizing your videos looks a little different for each social platform. Here’s how to get the job done on Twitter:

Avoid using a YouTube link unless your goal is to drive traffic to your YouTube page. Instead, use a video hosting platform that is ad-free to help to keep your audience’s attention
Include the word “video” in a tweet if you’re linking to a landing page with a video
Increase engagement by using animated gifs of your video to show a sneak peek, like NASA does in this tweet…

8. Collect emails before, during, or after your video

View count isn’t everything. By collecting emails you’ll be able to stay in touch with your audience and convert those leads into sales with lead nurturing. But first, you have to provide the opportunities to opt-in. Place your email collector about 20% of the way through your video (if your video platform has this feature). At 20%, you’ve established enough trust and interest with viewers to warrant the ask and you don’t risk your audience missing the form altogether by placing it at the end (where you tend to see fall off in viewership). You could also build a gated landing page in front of a video if you’re showing something that’s valuable enough to potential viewers to give you their email. Or, ask people to subscribe for future videos like Unbounce does in the Landing Page Sessions. All the videos are available to watch without giving an email address, but if a person wants to be notified about the future videos they need to opt-in. When using tools like an email capture, you can measure the success of each opt-in moment to see what performs best. If you’re not happy with the results, try running an A/B test to figure out what tactics your audience responds best to.

9. Show ad-free videos when a person lands on your turf

Once you have a viewer on your turf (website, landing page, etc), use a video hosting solution like Vimeo Pro, Brightcove or Vidyard to offer an ad-free viewing experience. This will help keep viewers on your site and not distracted by ads or other video suggestions. Here’s a comprehensive set of reviews to help you find the best video marketing tool for you.

10. Pay attention to your audience’s behavior, geography, and conversions

No matter which tools you choose to host and monitor your videos, you will have a variety of analytics to dive in and assess. Here are a variety of different metrics to pay the most attention to: Engagement. With engagement data we can learn about the success of the length of your video, and identify where viewers are falling off or if they’re skipping around. This data is also helpful in planning your video efforts going forward. Geography. Almost all video hosting tools provide information on where your views are coming from. This information can be really helpful for getting a better look at where your audience is based. Have a lot of views coming in from Orlando? This might be a great time to make a targeted video for this area, host a local event, or run a regional promotion. Conversions. As we mentioned above, views are great, but they’re not everything. Comb through your data to see if your videos are adding to your number of leads and influencing your number of sales. Are people who are becoming paying customers engaging with your videos? Dig into the numbers to find out. There are a variety of ways your business can use video to grow your marketing efforts. Businesses who find the greatest success are those who map out their plan for optimization and set goals. For anyone just getting started I would recommend focusing on a few of the video marketing tips we covered in this post, and see what your audience responds to best. What video marketing tips would you add to this list? What analytics do you find most helpful? Let us know in the comments.