What is Strategic Video Marketing?

And the steps it takes for a business to start planning for it.

From our experience, we understand that most business owners don’t want to create videos. They’re hard work, expensive, takes too long, seems contrived etc. 

What we know for sure though is that videos provide businesses with results IF executed and distributed correctly. After all, a video is as good as its engagement. 

In saying all that, it is incredibly important that businesses define their strategy behind the videos they want to produce to ensure that it doesn’t become a worthless investment. Never create a video for the sake of having a video, it is a waste of your money! The main objective to any video is to make someone from your audience take a particular action. Rise above the noise by ensuring your videos have a good strategy behind it.

On the pro-side, it’s proven that people are more engaged with videos than any other medium such as the written word or, even audio content, simply because users are often multitasking when they’re listening to something so you rarely ever have 100% of their full attention. 

If you’re a marketer or understand marketing, you’d know that attracting the attention of your ideal audience is challenging in an era whereby everyone is trying to get attention. Once you’ve got their attention, you also have approximately 3 seconds to engage them… long enough to communicate your message. 

So where should you start?

Your business goals. What business areas do you need to improve? Will a video help accomplish this goal? If so, how? What is the message? Who is the audience and where would it live? Answering these key questions will help you with a well-rounded strategy that not only measures the outcome but also allows you to improve it.

Next step is to look at your full marketing funnel and understanding your customer journey. What steps would your customer take to make a decision prior to purchasing? There are generally four steps to the decision-making process:

1. Awareness

2. Consideration

3. Conversion

4. Advocacy

As you work through each stage of the funnel, understand how you can handle each customer’s thoughts, objections and questions with videos.

Ways to Build Awareness

• Trigger emotion - testimonial videos, the why behind the business, the team’s passion to help.

• Storytelling - a relatable brand story that demonstrates how you’re trustworthy, experienced and outcome-driven. The hero is always the customer, not the brand. The brand is there to help the customer reach their goals. Ultimately, this video should show how your business will help make your customers lives better and easier. 

• It’s always about the WHY. Your purpose, cause or belief that drives you to do what you do.

For consideration, you need to establish and build a relationship with your prospects by offering value.

• Educational - weekly vlogs on industry updates or explainer videos. This allows your prospects to connect with you on a human level. These videos don’t need to be high-end. It just needs to be informative. These can live on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, IGTV or LinkedIn. 

• Conversion stage requires you to consider reasons why a prospect would hold back from purchasing. Address these concerns rationally. 

• Direct email response videos - a longer format video that does not go to public or socials. It goes directly to the lead and explains the benefits and details of the service provided. Common questions are also answered to provide further assurance. These videos must always have a strong call-to-action message to get them to the next stage. Use tools such as Vidyard and Wistia to track how your audience is engaging with your video.

• Testimonials & case studies can help your leads overcome barriers they may have.

Work hard on building brand advocacy

• Advocacy is the most important stage that is severely underrated. You’ve worked so hard to get them to convert, your main job is to ensure you retain them. 

• Personalised videos to thank them. It improves customer experience and encourages people to refer you to others.

If you'd like to learn more about how you could build a strong content strategy for your business, CONTACT US for a free strategy call.