Today, videos have become the key format for marketing campaigns with 86% of businesses now using it as a marketing tool. In this article, we’ll discuss practical video marketing strategies to help your high-quality videos hook your target audience better.
We will also give you actionable advice and examples to improve your video marketing efforts. This post covers various aspects of video marketing campaigns and explores the advantages of using stock video content on your video campaigns.
Once you’re done reading, you’ll be well-equipped to tell a captivating story and move your target audience to action with video marketing. Let’s get started.
5 Actionable Video Marketing Strategies For Maximum Engagement
As you go through each video strategy, roughly plan out how you can leverage the technique for your brand and identify the tools and skills you need for each.
1. Create A Captivating Hook
A video hook is a compelling opening segment of a video designed to grab the viewer’s attention within the first 3-5 seconds. It should be intriguing, surprising, or emotionally engaging, making sure that viewers are motivated to keep watching the rest of the video.
How do you make a good hook for a video? Ask thought-provoking questions.
Here’s an example:
A video starts with a montage of everyday people from different walks of life, each looking at their phone screens with different expressions of surprise, joy, and contemplation. Then, a warm, engaging voiceover comes in with a thought-provoking question: “What if one message on your phone could change your entire day? How powerful can a single word be?”
This scenario will pique curiosity and invite viewers to ponder the impact of digital communication in their lives. Then you can proceed with your sales pitch.
Also, delivery is crucial to your hook’s success. Make sure to present it with confidence and enthusiasm. Here are other ways to create a strong video hook:
- Issue a challenge
- Present a preview/teaser
- Share impactful statistics or facts
- Tap into emotions (curiosity, excitement, or humor)
- Highlight value proposition (low price, best customer support, etc.)
2. Embrace Storytelling
Storytelling is one of the most effective strategies that creates a lasting impression on your current customers and potential customers. It taps directly into people’s emotions, making it more memorable and impactful. When creating a story, focus on building a clear structure.
Your story should have a beginning, middle, and end. The human brain processes information better when you present it in a structured format. Start with the strong video hook, followed by these elements in the middle:
2.1. Core Message
The core message is your campaign’s purpose or the key takeaway you want your target audience to remember about your brand.
2.2 Create A Story Arc
The story arc focuses more on presenting a specific problem and how your product/service solves it. The ending should include the solution’s benefits. Because there is a lot of information to process, adding visuals will help your ideal audience stay until the end.
WebinarCare statistics shows that animation in marketing video can attract up to 300% of traffic. That’s why it became the most favorable way to increase loyal customer engagement. Animation allows for creative freedom and cost-efficiency. It brings complex ideas to life effortlessly without the logistical and cultural constraints of live-action. Plus, its timeless nature ensures your message stays fresh and relevant for longer.
Since animation can keep the audience engaged, this improves your marketing video’s completion rates. Ultimately, it will contribute to a huge return on investment (ROI). Here’s an example from the ShowerStart Express animated video by Evolve Technologies.
This explainer video combines modern graphics with a personal question, “What do you do while you’re waiting for your shower to get hot?” They continue pointing out the common habits people do to resonate with their audience.
After they show how boring and expensive waiting is, they introduce their product and how it can solve the problem. They conclude it with the perks their audience will enjoy if they use the product.
However, animation might not always suit your budget or video goals. In cases where showcasing real experiences and expert opinions is crucial for enhancing service credibility, conducting interviews or collecting video testimonials are practical alternatives.
Take Prosple as an example: they used video interviews to effectively showcase their success in connecting recent graduates with their dream jobs, adding authenticity and real-world relevance to their campaign.
3. Enhancing Your Video Content Using Stock Videos
Live-action or animated video often involves a complex and costly process. When resources are tight, leveraging high-quality stock videos conserves time and resources.
In the past, stock footage garnered a bad rap largely because of its misuse—often deployed without proper context, making audiences feel it staged or inauthentic. However, when used thoughtfully, stock videos can effectively enhance your message without sacrificing authenticity.
When using stock videos, keep it consistent. Pick clips that match your brand’s vibe and the story you’re telling. This way, your videos will look good, feel right, and connect with your audience on an emotional level. You can also mix it with original content. Make sure the transition between stock and original footage is smooth, so everything flows together perfectly.
It uses people and nature stock videos to showcase their dedication to building a carbon-neutral world for the next generation. It blends seamlessly so that the audience doesn’t notice which one is stock footage and filmed by the brand.
To take your video marketing efforts one step further, consider leveraging online video editing with AI features. This approach simplifies the process of creating professional-quality videos. By utilizing AI-driven tools, alone or with a team, you can efficiently generate subtitles, scripts, and adapt images – all within one platform.
4. Experiment With Different Visual Content
Using the same visuals again and again can make your marketing videos look uninteresting. Keep it fresh and exciting by using different video types. But what type of visual content should you use for marketing videos?
Some visual content is easy to match with specific topics. Let’s take memes as an example. It’s effective for promotional and product videos. They inject relatability and humor into your messaging, creating a more positive perception of your brand. You can even transform them into a viral video if you combine the following:
- Creativity
- Proper timing
- Audience engagement
- Search and mobile optimization
Here are 2 types of visual content you can use to increase audience engagement:
4.1 Slideshow Presentation
Promoting software and SaaS products can be quite a challenge, given their technical nature and the jargon that often comes with them. This is where slideshow presentations shine. Their clear, structured format distills complex information into smaller, more digestible pieces. This approach simplifies the concepts and makes the overall message more engaging and easier to grasp.
You can present your product’s key points in this logical sequence – benefits, features, and unique selling points. This is the same reason it became an excellent choice for creating educational videos (e.g. tutorials and user guides).
Here’s an example:
Explaining the nitty gritty of data analytics topics like metric and driver trees can be boring. So, aside from icebreakers, they also add the following:
- Ask questions to make it interactive
- Add flowcharts to visualize the business inputs and outputs
- Occasionally, break jokes to keep the content light and funny
- Divided the screen to show the speaker to establish a human connection with the audience
If you have tons of positive reviews and feedback from satisfied customers, you can also use this visual content. Keep in mind to ask self-evaluation questions for feedback. Add it to your customer testimonial video to format the reviews based on the submission dates or star ratings they provide. User-generated content such as this is a great addition to your social channels.
4.2 Screenshots
Screenshots are your go-to option if your video aims to show your target audience exactly what your product offers. Video marketers promoting eCommerce products display them from various angles and perspectives. You can take this video ad template for inspiration.
On the other hand, if you’re promoting a software or application, give your audience a tour like what Timeplus did as a demo for their analytics engine. Make them understand how easy it is to navigate the software’s platform and use its features.
5. Optimize Video Content For SEO
Like most digital marketing strategies, having high-quality content isn’t enough to be successful with increasing engagements. You have to optimize for search engines to enhance discoverability and search ranking. Here’s how you can apply search engine optimization to your video content:
- Set the correct category for your video
- Use relevant images/graphics for the thumbnails
- Add transcripts and closed captions using the SRT File
- Add your target keyword to your video file name, title, description, and tags
- Keep the video title under 60 characters, including spaces, to stay readable (125 characters for description)
If you’re optimizing your video content for mobile, focus on its design responsiveness. It should work seamlessly with different screen sizes and devices without decreasing the content’s quality. You can also experiment with multiple video formats.
The vertical video format is popular on social platforms like TikTok and Instagram. People are more comfortable with it because they can naturally hold their smartphones while watching. A horizontal video format is best for lengthy videos.
Ideal Marketing Video Length For Engagement & Conversions
When reading a video marketing strategy guide, one common strategy you will get is to create short, snappy video content. It isn’t surprising because short videos are convenient to watch on all screen sizes and likely to retain the audience’s attention. The only question is, how short should a marketing video be?
Vidyard research shows that 60% of online video content is 2 minutes or less. It provides ample time to cover more details, helping the audience to understand a specific topic better. It may be the industry’s best practice, but the ideal length will still depend on the following:
- Platform you’re using
- Types of content you’re sharing
- Target audience demographics, behaviors, and preferences
Here are best practices for different video lengths to give you an idea:
I. 15-Second Video Or Less
Idomoo explains that the audience can keep watching a 15–second video marketing content before leaving/skipping, making it ideal for YouTube video ads. You can send out announcements, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and other video posts that don’t require much explanation.
II. 30-Second To 1-Minute Video
Another online video content to publish on social media platforms (YouTube Shorts, TikTok, etc.). Video marketers often use this type to share quick hacks, promotional content, and product showcases. Make sure to leave a compelling call to action (CTA) so it can produce an immediate spike in your conversion rates.
Social proof has a powerful influence on consumers’ decision-making processes and actions.
III. 1 To 2 Minute Video
If your video marketing goal is to share product demo videos, this short-form video is the recommended option. It’s short enough to retain audience engagement but still long enough to highlight the product’s essential features and perks. Whether you’re showing the inner workings of how an analytics engine works or helping users understand how invoice payment terms work with your software, this video length will suffice.
Remember that while these are best practices, each social media and online video platform has its own recommendations. Follow them to make sure you reach a wider audience and maximize your video’s impact.
Film Or Download Stock Footage: What Is Better?
There is no better way to personalize your video content than creating it from scratch. It gives full creative control and makes it easier to reflect your brand’s style and voice. It also makes your brand more humane and unique.
However, video production requires a substantial amount of money and resources. From video pre – production to the post – production process, all need a team of specialists and equipment. Together, they ensure the creative vision and technical aspects are executed effectively within the video content.
Even if your business can afford them, the process still takes time. It can delay your marketing efforts or release schedules. Since stock footage is readily available, it can help you meet deadlines.
Most stock footage providers are experienced videographers. So you don’t have to worry about quality. The biggest advantage of it is they come in various styles. Whether you need nature scenes, urban landscapes, or holiday themes, you can find footage that matches your needs.
So what’s best for your campaigns? That will depend on your priority. If you need personalized shots, choose film. But if you are on a budget and need a faster turnaround, choose stock videos.
Conclusion
Attracting organic traffic and exposure for your brand is a real challenge. But you can overcome them and achieve meaningful results with the right strategies on hand. Combine SEO into your video and content, and you’ll set your marketing efforts on the right path – greater engagement and online visibility.
Remember, consistency builds trust. So, establish a content schedule that aligns with your audience’s most active moments. When your audience knows when to expect new content, they are more likely to return and see future updates.
Video marketing is an ongoing process. Make sure to monitor your video campaign’s performance continuously. Google Analytics is the go-to tool of video marketers because it can track both your website and video performance. It can track conversion rates, engagement, and video views. Video hosting platforms, like YouTube, often have their own analytics tool, so you can also freely use them.
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Author Bio
Burkhard Berger is the founder of Novum™. He helps innovative B2B companies implement revenue-driven SEO strategies to scale their organic traffic to 1,000,000+ visitors per month. Curious about what your true traffic potential is?
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