Most marketers understand that video marketing is important. However, not enough of them understand the depth behind using video as a marketing tool. Here are some interesting statistics on video marketing. People spend a solid 1/3 of their time watching online video content. Over 80% of businesses have used video as a marketing tool at some point. 81% of consumers state their buying decision was because of a video. Videos are a powerful and versatile tool. You can market just about anything from toys to Frontier Bundle packages if you apply the right strategy.
Developing a Low-budget Video Marketing Strategy
We knew that video marketing is important in the digital age. We also now know some statistics that prove video marketing is only going to get bigger. So how do you develop the right strategy to take advantage of this? For starters you can begin with following these steps:
- Know Your Audience and Goals
- Videos Should Reinforce Your Brand
- Carefully Budget for the Video
- Optimize and Target Your Videos for Different Channels
- Test Performance Constantly
Let’s take a quick look at each step in turn below.
Know Your Audience and Goals
The first thing you need to know when creating a video strategy from scratch is your target audience. This is your first point of research. You need to consider the following points about your audience:
- What audience is your target?
- What content makes an impression on them?
- What video channels do they use?
But knowing your audience is not enough to create a winning strategy. You also need to set specific goals to be able to measure your performance at the end of the campaign. When setting video marketing goals, think about the following:
- Do you want to use the video to drive traffic to your website?
- Do you want to use it to create awareness for your brand?
- Do you want to use it to generate more sales?
- Do you want all three of the above?
The object of the video is to resonate with your customers. This means your message and tone need to be pitch perfect. Doing this research on your own goals as well as your audience is just the first step in creating a video marketing strategy.
Videos Should Reinforce Your Brand
Your videos should always make one thing clear to your customer: know who is speaking to them. Videos are a crucial tool when it comes to getting your branding message across to your audience. Therefore, there needs to be consistency in your videos that reinforces your brand message. Your videos across all channels should follow the same branding guidelines. This means you need to make sure that all videos are a consistent reflection of your brand image and do not deviate.
Carefully Budget for the Video
Budgeting for the actual video is actually the hardest part of a low-budget video marketing strategy. Putting huge amounts of money into a video project will not necessarily make it successful. Spending too little on a video campaign could hurt your brand image by portraying it in low quality. The trick is to always keep your campaign goals in mind when you’re spending on the video. Always try to create shorter videos, a format which works very well on Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. You can even re purpose user-generated content for your own use.
Optimize and Target Your Videos for Different Channels
So you have created a video within your budget after following all the steps above. What’s next? The answer is optimization. You identified the different channels your target audience frequents in the first step. It is now time to optimize your videos for each channel. Your video should be optimized to get the most engagement possible. This means you need to make them shorter and add captions for Facebook. In YouTube’s case, you need to wait for two weeks before you can optimize your video for more content. On Twitter, this means you need to target relevant keywords and interests.
Test Performance Constantly
A/B testing is a commonly used process in most marketing and advertising campaigns. It helps you figure out the successful and unsuccessful elements of your video campaigns. This lets you see what you’re doing right (or wrong) and tweak your campaign accordingly. You need to constantly test your video for timing and optimal content. There are some items that should give you a fair idea, which include:
- Engagement rate
- View count
- Social sharing
- Play rate
- Comments and feedback
As you can see, there is no cut and dried method for creating a winning video marketing campaign. A lot of it depends on research, guesswork, testing, and tweaking. And of course, it also depends on how well you handle your branding message. Other than the video production, your only real expenditure is Frontier FiOS internet prices. If you can pull off the right moves by following the steps above, you can create a winning strategy too. Be sure to leave us a comment if you found this blog helpful. Share your video marketing pointers with us and our audience.