There is one type of content that people prefer when they need information. This also happens to be the type of content they prefer when it comes to entertainment. Yes, we are talking about videos. Over the past few years, we have seen a surge in the number of videos flooding the social media realm.
Tapping into this trend, brands big and small have started actively incorporating videos into their marketing plan.
After all, videos are valuable assets in any marketing strategy. They are useful when you want:
For all this and more, you need a powerful video marketing strategy. That much most brands know. But not all of them manage to achieve something concrete out of their video marketing strategies, do they? Some brands start enthusiastically but find it tough to keep up. Some put in all the effort but do not get the desired results. And others struggle to even get things started.
So, let’s talk about the hurdles in video marketing that people don’t often talk about. These are the struggles that brands big and small encounter when they work on a video marketing strategy.
It is easy to start video marketing. You have so many channels that allow brands and individuals to share video content. The real problem is that some brands do not know where to begin. And this happens when you try to jump on the bandwagon without having a clear intent.
Different brands have different goals when it comes to video marketing. For yours to be successful, you need to know the objective and then take a dead aim.
84% of marketers report that video marketing has helped them in lead generation. But there are a whole lot of things you can do with videos. Some of the objectives brands have while planning their video content are to:
These are just a handful and a single video can sometimes help achieve more than one of these goals. But the key is to focus on just one of these targets and accurately plan your content along the lines of this target.
There is an evident content overload out there. In the battle for attention, your contenders are not just other brands but also content creators. Getting yourself heard in this noise might feel like a huge challenge, especially in the early stages when you still do not have a strong social media presence.
Consistently creating content for relevant social media platforms is the key to emerging in a competitive market.
Start by identifying the right channels by understanding where a majority of your target customers are. After this focus on creating bespoke content for your customers. Social listening goes a long way in helping you create content that gets noticed amidst growing competition.
Either with an in-house video design team or professional video design services have a strong video content plan in place. This should include diverse types of marketing videos for your brand created for different social media platforms. How often you should post depends on the social media channel you prioritize. But you need to have a strategy to engage your customers with videos at least a few times a month.
If surviving competition is one thing, getting enough reach on social media is another. Unless you reach the right audience, your videos will be of no use to your brand.
Low reach could be happening because you are having all your videos in one place only. A diversified approach works in marketing.
Some brands have all their videos on YouTube. And with the intent of reaching more users, they add links to these videos on their Facebook and Instagram pages. But do you think this is enough to increase your reach? Not at all. On Facebook, for example, the reach of posts with native content is nearly 10 times better than the reach for posts with links.
So, having all your videos in one place and expecting the other social media platforms to effectively increase your reach is a bad idea. Instead, plan and create video content that can be easily optimized for different social media platforms.
So, you have reached the right audience and got people to watch your video. Then comes the engagement part. You should engage your viewers effectively. And also promote your brand or your product. But your video should not sound too salesy or you are missing the point.
If every frame in your video is going to focus on the promotion part, people might not interact with it as intended.
People don’t have the time or patience to entertain a salesperson at random times. The same goes with a video that tries to oversell. Without waiting to see what you are selling or why it matters to them, they might end up quitting the video.
But if you offer value, they will stay back to see what you are promoting. For this, you can talk about their pain points to make the video relatable. This will show them how much you understand them. And they are more likely to trust a brand that understands them.
So, create content that delivers value without overselling. Ironically, when you don’t focus too much on making a sale happen, a sale will happen eventually.
To better understand the engagement rate of your video, you should be clear about the metrics to track. Each social media platform displays its own set of insights. This includes the number of impressions made to the number of people who visited your website or social media page from the video. Which among these metrics will be relevant to your brand? That’s the big question. To know this, see if your video is helping you achieve the objective for which the content was originally created.
After creating some great videos and uploading them, if you do not see much improvement in the traffic or an increase in the leads, there could be two reasons:
Ignoring what comes before means that you are not aligning your video with your brand’s visual identity. Your video looks different from the rest of the content or it does not look visually consistent in terms of the colors, fonts, or even the tone of messaging in it. This makes it difficult for existing customers to connect with your video.
Ignoring what comes after means that you are ignoring the CTA. You are not directing users to the next step. They see your informative video, but what next? Should they visit your channel for more such content or head to your blog for information? Or should they visit a site where they can purchase the products featured in the video? You have to tell them. They would not know otherwise.
Missing out on both these aspects reduces the conversion rates of your videos.
Periodic evaluation of your video marketing strategy helps. But how often you should do this depends on how often you upload your content and where. It also depends on the objectives of your content strategy. For example, if you are running a video ad to promote a sale that’s just a few weeks away, you should evaluate the performance a couple of times a week. This will give you timely feedback if something is not working and you can correct these details and retarget before the sale begins. On the other hand, if it is for your general social media videos, weekly or monthly analyses will be enough.
Short vertical videos for Reels, square videos for ads to be used on different devices, horizontal videos for YouTube, there is already enough on your plate. And then you have the video trends that might seem nearly impossible to keep up with. But if your brand does not keep up with the trends, you might not be engaging your audiences enough.
Keeping up with emerging video trends is one of the biggest challenges that many marketers face. To tackle this, keep a close eye on your target audience. Look for trends they actually interact with and only focus on them. Remember that not all video trends are relevant to your brand. As long as you have a strong team to support your video design requirements, keeping up with the trends that matter will not be a problem at all.
After all these efforts if your marketing videos do not gain enough traction tweak your promotion strategies. One idea to try is to use snippets from the video on your Instagram Story, Reels, or even YouTube Shorts. This should be the part that shows them that the video will offer them some value. Build anticipation so that they will be eager to know what comes next and add a link to the video. If the problem is perhaps with the quality of your video try to make it more interactive and professional by working with a professional video design team.
