Video Marketing: The Most Extensive Guide On The Internet

A lot has changed in the video marketing playground since 1941 when the first TV commercial was aired.

Video marketing has gained massive popularity and the way content is created and distributed has changed too.

The problem is, most of the businesses do not know how to leverage video for their growth. I don’t blame them; there is a plethora of confusing articles written on the topic. There is no single resource to tap into all the knowledge required for becoming a Video Marketing Ninja.

But that’s about to end. I have created the MOST EXTENSIVE VIDEO MARKETING GUIDE ON THE INTERNET, just for you.

Let’s Start by Understanding the Term “Video Marketing.”

Let me break it down for you. We will talk about each of these in detail later in the blog.

• Systematic distribution – Well, the goal, target audience, distribution channels, timings, formats, budget – everything is pre-planned and pre-defined which makes this process a systematic approach.
• Video Content – This comprises all formats of videos – animated, graphics, stop motion or recorded ones and types of content like educational, promotional, entertaining, etc.
• Various Channels – accounts for various platforms where you will post this video – YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo, etc.
• Marketing – This includes spreading the intended message via different organic and paid marketing tactics.
• Product or Services – This is the product or service you are trying to promote.
• Companies or Individuals – With the emerging trend of personal branding, not only businesses but individuals too, invest money in marketing their products or services.

Now that you understand what Video Marketing exactly means, let’s see the WHY of this glorious equation.

2020: 5 Reasons Why Video Marketing Is More Important Than Ever

As I pointed before, a lot has changed since the first TV commercial was ever aired. If you have witnessed the transition from the 90s to the 00s, you already know how your video consumption has boosted, both, in personal and professional life.

Here are five reasons why video marketing should be your #1 priority in 2020:

• Videos improve SEO – Videos, by their innate nature, are engaging. Pages with video content clearly highlighted hooks the audience to spend more time on the page before going back to the search engine. Also, Google crawlers love a good mix of content formats. A mix of text, images, and videos will surely help you crawl to the first page of Google.

• Excellent Message Retention Rate – What do you remember more, a sentence from a book or a dialogue from a movie? Most will agree to the latter. We retain 95% of information from a video whereas only 5% of information gets stored from text content. This simple psychological fact enables businesses to provide impeccable value to the reader via videos.

• Stronger Emotional Connection – Videos have the ability to evoke emotions. They can entertain audio & visual sensory organs at the same time, giving viewers a pathway to engage more with the content delivered.

• High Social Shares – Did you know? Videos get shared 1200% more than links and text combined! I would say, forget the numbers and think of your daily shares or simply scroll through a social media platform. You will find videos all over the platform. This is simply because (a) people have been sharing images for a loooooong time and are now bored of it and (b) videos are engaging, images are static.

• Greater Conversion Rate – Videos give a terrific boost to click-through rates when added to emails, landing pages, or ads.  90% of customers have admitted that their purchasing decisions are influenced by product videos. (Hubspot).

With this, I hope I have already laid the grounds for you to understand WHY video marketing is so powerful in 2020.

How to Build a Video Marketing Strategy That Actually Works for Your Brand?

Step 1 – Define your Target Audience

What is the Target Audience?

“Target Audience is the specific group of people you want to reach with your marketing message.” (Hootsuite)

Why do you need to define your target audience?

You can’t expect to sell a comb to a bald guy. He isn’t interested.

You don’t want your health insurance ad to show up on a teenager’s browser. He won’t buy.

You see, defining your specific group will help you design your marketing strategy around them.

How to define your target audience?

Ask questions like these to define your target audience:

• What are the demographics? What age? Which country? Which Gender?
• Where do they go to work & entertainment?
• How do they consume media? Offline or online? Through which channel?
• What are their habits, personality, and personal values?
• What does their lifestyle look like?
• What are their goals?
• What are their challenges?
• What are the solutions they are exploring?
• How can your product help them?

It even helps if you could find a photo of what your customer looks like. Try to create more than one buyer persona if you cater to a variety of audiences.

Where to look for data?

• Current customers
• Website & Social media analytics
• Competitor’s customers

If you want to define your target audience in one sentence, it should look something like this:

Our target market is [gender] aged [age range], who live in [place or type of place], and like to [activity]. (Hootsuite)

Step 2 – Understand your Buyer’s journey

What is Buyer’s journey? 

“The buyer’s journey is the process buyers go through to become aware of, consider and evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service.” (Hubspot)

Why do you need to figure out your Buyer’s journey?

See, it’s simple. If you don’t know what your buyers are looking for, where and why are they looking for a specific solution, any marketing activity you do is like shooting in the dark.

If you do your homework and try to understand your buyer’s journey, you will know where they are looking for products similar to yours, and with good marketing, you can influence them to buy your product instead of other brands.

How to evaluate your buyer’s journey?

Every buyer goes through 3 phases in their journey towards purchasing a product or service. In marketing lingo, this concept is called Marketing Funnel.

To figure out each touch-point where your buyer stops by, start questioning your most regular buyer and people who did not convert/are stuck at one of the phases.

By first tracking the extremes – The advocates (uses your product all the time) and the rejecters (hardly makes a purchase), you will understand what worked and what failed. Then, question an average customer – the one who uses often enough.

Let’s walk through each stage in brief and explore what buyers are thinking and accordingly, what goals to set throughout your buyer’s journey:

Awareness Stage:

• What – Buyer identifies their challenge/opportunity and sets a goal
• Your Goal – Present your product as a solution

Consideration Stage:

• What – Buyers look for options to meet their goal
• Your Goal – Offer detailed information of your solution and back it up with testimonials

At this stage, if the buyer is not ready to move to the next stage, try to capture their contact and proceed towards the lead nurturing process.

Purchase Stage:

• What – Buyer has shortlisted options and considering to make a purchase of the best among them
• Your Goal – Offer deals, discounts, free trials and so on.

(We will post a detailed article on how to define a Buyer’s journey and what to do after. Stay tuned for the updates.)

Once you have defined your buyer’s journey, it’s time to design a campaign that leads to reaching your goal.

Step 3 – Create a Marketing Goal

Marketers who set goals are 376% more successful – CoSchedule

Marketing does not start with random posts and unplanned ads. It starts with a solid game plan in place.

Successful marketers always document their goals, strategies, and processes. Because, in setting goals, What gets written, gets done.

Here’s how you can create marketing goals that align with your company’s targets.

Define your WHY:

If you are looking to do a campaign, ask this:

Why do you want to run this campaign? Is it because you want to generate new leads or you want to spread awareness about your brand? Or perhaps you want to increase your social media following.

Setting a marketing goal:

I follow the broadly accepted goal-setting system – SMART goals and here’s how you can do it too:

• Specific – Define the  “What, When, Where, Why” of your goals.
• Measurable – Decide how you will measure your goals and which metrics will be your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). More about this later in the article.
• Aspirational – Make sure your goal is pushing you beyond existing boundaries. Aim for climbing the ladder, not just sustaining at the current level. Be aspirational but avoid setting irrational goals. Make sure they are actually achievable.
• Relevant – Does your marketing goals contribute to the organization’s goal? If yes, then go ahead. Stay relevant to your product.
• Time-Bound – Add a timeline to your goal. Create an action plan with set deadlines for each checkpoint.

Marketing goal in one sentence:

By {insert day, month, year}, the {insert your organization’s name} marketing team will reach {insert number} {insert metric} every {insert time frame}. (CoSchedule)

Examples of Marketing Goals:

•  Increase sales
•  Enter new markets
•  Introduce a new product
•  Build Brand awareness

Step 4 – Set a budget

Now that you have a fair idea of your goal, it’s time to set your budgets. Most of the companies allocate budgets to the marketing team even before they have a solid plan in place. Marketers then make plans according to budget.

I suggest otherwise. First plan, then see what budget you need. You can always go back to plan and make adjustments if the estimated budget is exceeding the number given by the management of your company.

This way, you will not think about the budget constantly while planning.

Okay, back to setting a budget. How do you ask?

First, let’s get our mindset right.

More the budget > More the investment > More the returns.

Setting a marketing budget is easier when you have tonnes of money to invest. However, if you are on a tight budget, every penny counts.

Digital Marketing Budget Breakdown to improve Online Presence:

•  Website – Domain, Hosting, Design, Development, Content, SEO & Maintenance cost.
•  Social Media – Scheduling app, Ads, Promotions, Social Media Manager, Content Writer, Graphic designer.
•  Blog – Content Writer, Graphic Designer, SEO expert.
•  Listings – Paid listing to relevant websites & platforms.
•  Search engine Ads (PPC)
•  YouTube – Production, Actors, Voiceover artists, Editors, Set up cost.
•  Influencer Marketing sponsorship cost.
•  Affiliate Marketing cost.
•  Any other paid media costs and software costs.

Remember, apart from the online marketing costs, you will also want to set up a budget for offline marketing activities. For the relevance of this blog, we have skipped the offline marketing budget.

Estimate out all the fixed and variable costs you will be incurring till the end of the marketing goal deadline. It’s always better to overestimate costs than underestimate.

Entrepreneur.com suggests allocating 12-20% of gross revenue for new companies and 6-12% for established companies as their marketing budget.

Step 5 – Create content for each funnel stage A/B test

As I have pointed earlier, it’s impossible to sell something when the buyer does not NEED or WANT or WISH for it.

Along with that, your content should also be relevant to where your customer is in their purchasing journey.

This entire system of using content to attract buyers is called Content Marketing Funnel. Buzzsumo has defined it quite clearly here:

So, you see, it is a PROCESS that motivates potential buyers to move from one stage to another and if done right, in the direction of buying your product instead of competitors.

Okay, so the trick is to look at the funnel and ask one question at every stage: What’s the Hook for those who are here?

What is the right content for each stage of the marketing funnel?

(This list includes all kinds of content you can create at various stages. I have highlighted where you can use video marketing)

At AWARENESS stage. Goal – ATTRACT

At this stage, the buyer is trying to identify a problem or an opportunity and finding solutions for it. In short, the buyer is trying to EDUCATE himself by looking at INFORMATION at the awareness stage.

At CONSIDERATION stage. Goal – CAPTURE

At this stage, the buyer already knows your product and is now COMPARING different solutions.

The goal is to give him an irresistible offer combined with detailed knowledge of your product so he can understand why your product is the perfect match for his requirement. We want the buyer to choose your product from the ones he has shortlisted.

At PURCHASE stage. Goal – CLOSE

This is the final stage where the buyer actually makes a purchase decision. They have compared and shortlisted all the solutions and are now ready to buy one.

All they need is a final nudge from you to use their cards and make the purchase. These leads are the most potent ones to be converted into actual paying customers and they should be your highest priority.

At RETENTION stage. Goal – DELIGHT

If you want to retain customers + want them to be your brand ambassadors (who doesn’t want that?), don’t disconnect with your customer after they make a purchase.

Go beyond and nurture them so well that they absolutely fall in love with the ecosystem that you have created.

IF YOU HAVE BEEN READING THIS CONTINUOUSLY, TAKE A WATER BREAK.

We appreciate your interest in our super long article, but we care for you and want you to stay hydrated.

Step 6 – Decide on distribution channels for Video Marketing

If it was me, I would go all out on all channels. But that’s because I own an imaginary multi-billion dollar company with an unlimited supply of marketing money.

But, if you have a limited budget and resources, work on channels that best suit your requirements. Try testing the waters by starting with 2-3 channels moving your way up to 6-8 channels.

Where to Post Your Videos for Most Engagement?

Website & Landing page

For an amazing first impression of your brand, video is a mandatory media to have on your website.

Videos will also help enhance your website’s SEO as Google loves to see multimedia on your website.

Plus, Google has now started displaying videos in their search result, making marketers all around the world to add videos in more and more places on the website.

What’s most important is that it increases the average time spent on your website to a great extent.

Even if you have testimonials in text, you can use our video editor platform, InVideo to convert into a professional-looking video in less than 3 minutes!

Blogs

You can boost your blog’s visibility exponentially, simply by adding a video to your content.

I recommend that you had an embedded YouTube video on your post. One arrow and two targets! You will benefit from the views on YouTube plus your blog page will not get too heavy to load.

Make sure the video content is COMPLIMENTING your blog post and not just REPEATING what’s already said in the blog.

Adding 1 video for every 500-1000 words is generally a good strategy.

With InVideo, you can convert any article into an engaging & informative marketing video. Simply copy-paste your article into the text box or paste your URL and let InVideo video editor do its magic.

Emails

Do you know? Adding a video in your email can increase your click-through rate by an astounding 300%.

People love videos, there is no doubt in this fact. If you have done email marketing for your company, you would know how difficult it has become to get the reader to open an email and actually click on the links it has.

Well, videos solve this problem. Since they are much more engaging than text, users usually agree to spend their time watching the video.

Just make sure that the thumbnail is interesting enough for people to WANT to watch it.

Media Distribution

Distribute your videos wherever possible. In the NEWS, online publications, as press releases, influencers’ websites, and other partner websites.

The trick is to repurpose your existing videos in many ways. Remember, if it doesn’t cost you much time or money, it’s worth an upload. Even if a few of the platforms are less popular, the cumulative views will fetch you greater engagement.

YouTube

Did you know? 300 hours of videos are uploaded EVERY MINUTE (Hubspot).

And, YouTube attracts the most ideal audience age 18-49 – those with a great purchasing power.

Is that a good enough reason for you to post a video on YouTube right away?

YouTube has been THE go-to platform for viewing videos and the second most used search engine in the world. If you are in an industry that thrives on educational content, YouTube should be your A-Game.

Making YouTube videos doesn’t have to be very complicated, especially when you are starting.

Convert your text content into a video using InVideo video editor and with the latest voiceover feature, you give your own voice to your videos. The YouTube video format is already set for you so you don’t have to worry about all that.

If your video is a professional one, Vimeo is a great platform to upload your content. Vimeo is the closest competitor of YouTube and the best part about them is that they host very high-quality videos, including 4K.

Instagram

With 1 billion active users, Instagram is undeniably the most favorite social app for marketers.

Since the platform is all about photos and videos, the competition is high here but equally rewarding too.

3 reasons to use video marketing on Instagram:

•  Instagram has product stickers & swipe up feature which let you make sales directly on the platform.
•  The app is exclusively designed for images and videos.
•  The engagement on Instagram is very strong.

Start making amazing videos for your Instagram feed in under 3 minutes – invideo.io

Facebook

Facebook has an all-inclusive group of users, meaning, whether you want to target 16-year-old teenagers or 60-year-old adults, Facebook is your best bet.

Users 65 years and older are the fastest-growing group on Facebook – SproutSocial 

Use this platform when you want to target an older crowd.

Because of these dynamics in the age group, Facebook predominantly has become a platform to stay close to family and friends. Use this fact in forming your video marketing message. Give it an emotional touch for the most engagement.

Facebook has a wide range of video ad placements that you can make use of according to your preference. Read all you need to know about Facebook Video Ads here:

https://invideo.io/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-facebook-video-ads/

Facebook Video Marketing Tips:

•  Uploading directly to Facebook instead of sharing YouTube links is the best way to share videos.
•  First 5 seconds are extremely crucial to attract a user attraction. Use it well.
•  Use featured video in Facebook’s About Us section.
•  Use the thumbnail as a magnet. Keep it interesting enough for people to get attracted to your video.
•  Always add a CTA.

Create Facebook Video Ads easily with these templates with custom Facebook video format – https://invideo.io/make/facebook-video-ads/

LinkedIn

If you are looking to build an audience of professionals or Businesses, LinkedIn is your go-to app and videos are your best friend.

In fact, according to LinkedIn, video gets 5x more engagement on LinkedIn, Live Video gets 24x more.

Tips for LinkedIn Videos:

•  Keep it short.
•  Optimize for mobile view (most of the LinkedIn users use mobile apps).
•  Set the tone as a professional.
•  Try personal DMs to influencers

Use these professional-looking video templates to create content for your LinkedIn profile – https://invideo.io/make/linkedin-video-ads/

Twitter

Video views on Twitter have grown 220 times what they were just 12 months ago – Twitter

You can use your video content in three ways on Twitter – Native videos, GIFs, and Live videos. Make the best use of all the three types in your video marketing content strategy.

Since Twitter allows you to add links, you can share a link of your video posted on other platforms like YouTube and repurpose the original video to make a GIF to show a sneak peek into the actual video.

I think it’s fairly understandable that Twitter is a great link between individuals and brands. Companies have now started looking at Twitter as an essential Customer Relationship component as it is possible to directly address user’s problems on the platform.

On such a platform where trends keep on changing on an almost daily basis, I recommend that you post educational, trending, or viral content. Short videos work the best as the efforts are low and you will be able to create content more often.

Other Video Marketing Platforms-

•  TikTok
•  Snapchat
•  Tumblr
•  Yelp
•  Reddit
•  Imgur
•  Pinterest
•  Medium
•  Instructables
•  LinkedIn groups
•  Facebook groups

How to Create Awesome Videos Easily using InVideo Templates

(You don’t need to be a creative genius to do this!)

Step 1 – Go to InVideo and create a free account.

Step 2 – Choose how you want to start.

You have the following options:

•  Article to video – Convert your article into an engaging video.
•  URL to video – Enter the URL of your article and convert text content into video.
•  Pre-made templates – Browse templates and edit the one you like.
•  Logo revealers – Make stunning logo reveals using templates.
•  Media first videos – Pull all the media you want and convert into one video.
•  Blank Canvas – Add everything from scratch using our in-built smart tools.

Today, I am going to use one of the 1500+ editable video templates InVideo video editor has, to create a video for my Instagram story.

I have a quote that I want to post but flat images have become ahh-bor-ringgg! So I am going to use one of the fancy video templates for this quote. Let’s make it together!

So, from the above screen, choose pre-made templates.

You will now land on the templates page. Search for the keyword you are looking to make your content (in my case, I’ll enter ‘quotes’) or choose from one of the categories below.

Choose the platform to automatically choose the desired video size. I will choose “Instagram story”.

Step 3 – Choose a template and if you like the preview, click on “Use this template.”

Voila, now we enter into the editor.

Step 4 – Edit your hearts out.

Here are a few things you add, delete or edit in your video template:

• Media – You can browse from a gallery of 1 million + images and videos and choose the ones you like and want to add in your video. Simply drag-drop whatever you want to add in your video.
• Text – You can edit text, change fonts, orientation, color, text animation, and text box animation in InVideo video editor.
• Music – Choose from the InVideo collection, categorized by the mood of the video, or upload your own music.
• Shapes & Stickers – Add stickers from a library of over 1000 designs of various categories. Add basic shapes like lines, curves, boxes, circles, and others.
• Animations – Don’t like the default animation? Change it from the right panel.
• Effects – Ah, my favorite part of the editing. Add amazing effects like confetti, fireworks, light leaks and more from the effects tab.

• Voiceover – Are you a YouTuber? InVideo lets you do voiceover directly on the platform. Or, just type your content and try out the automated voiceover feature with the voice of REAL humans. And not one, you have the option of choosing from 6 voices! Or, if you have already recorded your audio, simply upload from your computer.

With so many amazing video editing features, you will definitely enjoy playing around with your content. I suggest that for your first video, go all in and experiment with all the cool features InVideo offers.

Since I didn’t want to spend too much time on my Instagram story video, I just did a couple of edits UNDER 3 MINUTES and moved on to the next step.

With so many options available, finding a decent marketing video maker is a task today. InVideo is a single-stop platform for all your online video marketing needs!

Step 5 – Preview & Export

Click on the preview and export button on the top right. If the preview looks perfect, click on export.

Sit back and chill while InVideo processes a high-quality video for you.

You will be able to see whether your video is ready to download on the project screen.

You can also close the window. Once the processing is done, InVideo will notify you via email.

Step 6 – Download

Now your video is ready to download. Rename your project and download it. This video will stay in our cloud for you to access it whenever you want to.

To conclude,

Video marketing is a long process, longer than this post :-).

But not difficult, if strategically done.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this post as much as I loved putting it together for you. The thing about marketing is, you need to keep up with new trends constantly. So, if you have suggestions or tips on Video Marketing, help the community by commenting below.

Until next time, adios amigos.