The video marketing landscape continues to shift and evolve as new platforms emerge, old ones grow, and user habits change.
Video content is more accessible than ever, with sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook all boasting millions of internet users.
This guide will cover video marketing definitions, why it can benefit your business, tips on how to create video marketing content in 2023, and mistakes to avoid.
Table of Contents
What Is Video Marketing?
Video marketing is using video content as an engagement tool or part of your overall digital marketing campaign strategy.
It’s a form of content marketing that uses video content types and marketing techniques to build an audience for your brand and promote a product or service.
Video Content Types for Businesses
A video can tell a story, promote and advertise your brand, engage with customers, and more. Video marketing comes with a range of content types, which include:
- Explainer videos
- Brand videos
- Marketing videos
- Screencast videos
- Social media videos
- Demo videos
- Presentation videos
- Tutorial videos
- Training videos
- Testimonials or customer story videos
1. Explainer Videos
Short and visual explainers help your customers understand your product or service.
They’re an ideal choice for B2B companies or product-driven video production companies that want to explain a complex product to their customers. Examples include SaaS businesses like Autopilot and SlideShare and tools like Canva.
This type of content also works well for businesses with an established brand image because people will come back again and again if they're familiar with what kind of product they're getting into.
2. Brand Videos
Brand videos are short videos that showcase the company’s culture and values.
They’re a valuable tool for increasing employee engagement and promoting internal brand awareness.
Brand videos come in many forms, from employee interviews to behind-the-scenes videos revealing the working environment.
3. Marketing Videos
Marketing videos or video ads are advertisements for products and services. This is the type of content you might create for your YouTube channel or for sharing on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
They’re usually short, visual clips describing the product's main features and benefits.
Alternatively, you can create long-form videos for in-depth product reviews. These are usually best for B2C companies and products.
4. Screencast Videos
A screencast video is simply a video of a computer screen being recorded.
All you need to film it is screen recording software. You can use screencast video alone or within another video; also, it can include other multimedia - for example, images or screenshots. Optionally, it can contain audio or be enriched with background music.
Screencast videos are a great solution when you need to film a quick video for your colleagues or clients or when you need to record a meeting.
5. Social Media Videos
Social media videos are used in social media video marketing; they are available in many formats and styles; internet users create them for the needs of specific social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Each platform has requirements regarding video format, length and resolution that users must follow for the best results.
One thing they all have in common is video caption - create an appealing caption and optimize it using crucial keywords; this way, you’ll make your video easier to find, but you will also provide context since many users watch videos without tone.
6. Demo Videos
A product demonstration or demo is a video that shows products in action. Instead of talking and explaining, the demo focuses on showing functionalities and capabilities to the target audience.
The point of the demo is to close the deal by demonstrating the value of your product or service to existing and potential customers. If the product is digital - for example, software - the demo will use a screencast video to show the software’s functionalities in action.
7. Presentation Videos
Video presentations are digital presentations that use video to communicate a message to the target audience. They can vary in styles and formats - from simplest, which include images followed by audio narration (PowerPoint presentations), to live performance of the presenter. Presentation videos are also known as lecture captions.
Presentation videos can have different purposes - introduce new products or services to the market, highlight customer testimonials or provide educational materials.
8. Training Videos
Training videos provide value for their target audience, whether it’s your employees or customers. It educates them on a specific topic, providing instructions on developing new skills or adopting new knowledge.
The subject of training or instructional videos can be anything - from how to use software to how to arrange the flowers for the dining table.
9. Tutorial Videos
The terms “tutorial” and “training” videos are often used interchangeably because they have the same goal - to educate the target audience. However, there is one subtle difference - training videos are mostly filmed for employees (although customers can use them too), while tutorial or how-to videos primarily serve customer education.
10. Testimonials or Customer Story Videos
Testimonial videos capture your satisfied customer who talks about their experience with your product. After introducing themselves, customers tell the audience about their pain points and how your product or service helped them solve these issues.
Customer story videos are very effective for lead generation and conversion. They also build credibility and trust within your target group and nurture a positive brand image.
How To Do Video Marketing in 2023
Understanding how video marketing works is essential to incorporate it into your marketing strategy. Here are steps that show how to do video marketing that delivers results and ensures you’re making the most of your investment in video content:
- Define Your Video Marketing Strategy Goals
- Choose the Platform for Your Video Content
- Choose the Video Type You’re Going to Film
- Create a Video Content Calendar
- Plan The Filming Process
- Promote Your Videos
- Measure the Results of Your Campaign
1. Define Your Video Marketing Strategy Goals
Before filming video content, you need to define your marketing strategy - understand your audience and define your video marketing objectives.
Some of the questions you should seek an answer to are:
- Who is your target audience and what pain point is it facing?
- What are you trying to achieve with video marketing?
- How can your video content help your target audience?
Your goals should be SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
For example, instead of a broad and unspecific goal, “I want to increase sales,” set a more specific goal - “I want to increase sales by 10% in one month”.
Define the metrics you will track to see the progress of your video marketing efforts.
2. Choose the Platform for Your Video Content
You can publish videos to all social media platforms, but their requirements regarding format and types of video content might vary.
The best platform for video content is the one your target audience uses. Some of the most popular video-sharing platforms are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.
- TikTok is ideal for short-form videos.
- YouTube is suitable for all videos of all lengths and styles. It has a huge user base. It is owned by Google and increases your chances of appearing in video search results.
- Facebook is a social media platform with the largest number of users and is excellent for raising brand exposure.
- Instagram is ideal for product showcases and video ads.
- Snapchat is a platform you should aim at if you’re targeting the younger population.
However, if you’re just starting with video strategy, use the platforms you already have followers on while simultaneously building a follower base on others.
3. Choose the Video Type You’re Going to Film
One of the key steps in your video strategy is deciding what type of video works best for your brand and your audience. Of course, choosing the primary video type doesn’t mean you cannot film other online videos - use the ones that contribute the most to your business objectives.
As mentioned above, you have ten types of video at your disposal - use them accordingly.
4. Create a Video Content Calendar
Once you’ve defined your audience and video marketing goals, as well as the type of videos you’re going to film, it’s time for action - choose a content calendar.
A content calendar is a planning tool that will help you organize recording and publishing videos, so that they contribute to your marketing goals.
You should create a calendar that outlines video release dates and subject matter. You can also use the calendar to plan other video content like blog posts and podcasts.
5. Plan The Filming Process
Whether you’re filming in a professional studio or using a mobile phone before you hit the “play” button, you need the plan. Without the plan, you could easily confuse and leave out some important parts of your product showcase or tutorial.
You won’t need to worry about the equipment if your video is recorded within the production company. Make a bullet point reminder and tape it somewhere you can see it during filming.
However, if you’re filming in-house, follow this list of steps to ensure you have all necessities for the video creation process:
- Gather all the equipment you’ll need
- Write a script
- Choose the people who will be featured in the video (actors, influencers, employees or your customers, for example)
- Identify the perfect filming location
- Determine the people who will control the recording process and video editing.
6. Promote Your Videos
You’ve created great content, but it will not do any good if you don’t promote it. You need to find ways to promote your videos so they get in front of as many people as possible.
Post video to your website, social media and popular video-sharing platform (such as Vimeo, Metacafe or Daily Motion). Include video ads in your email marketing campaigns and paid search engines and social media advertising.
7. Measure the Results of Your Campaign
You can’t improve the results your video achieves unless you measure them. You need to track various metrics, from the number of views videos receive to the times they are shared.
The most important metrics you should monitor are
- View count - the number of people who viewed your video content.
- Engagement - actions people take when watching your video (like, share, comment).
- Play rate - the number of times users clicked “play” on your video.
- Watch time - total time people spent watching your video.
- Social share - the number of shares on social media platforms.
Video Marketing Statistics
Video is one of the most efficient marketing tools available, yet many businesses still hesitate to include it in their content marketing strategy.
Even though video has been around for a long time, and there are many different ways to create videos, it's only recently that it has become more popular.
Here are some eye-opening statistics you should know.
- With the launch of YouTube, video marketing gained interest around 2005.
- It drives a whopping 1,200% of shares across all social media platforms compared to text and image, providing an opportunity for real impact.
- Not only have online video views surpassed televisions, but 96% of people search for explainer videos to learn more about a service or a product.
- Studies show that 85% are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.
- Nowadays, 82% of people prefer watching videos to reading articles, eBooks, or written content.
Why Is Video Marketing Important?
The importance of video marketing is reflected in the efforts to create engaging and shareable videos that will help you get your message across to your audience.
In today’s market, videos can be more engaging than blog posts and can cause viewers to get drawn in more deeply. As a way to connect with customers, motivate employees, and spread your business' message, video marketing is way more effective than you can imagine.
Let's take a look at the list of the most prominent reasons why is video marketing important:
1. Content Is King
If you want to reach a large audience, you need to create engaging content.
However, engaging content takes time and effort.
Video content marketing allows you to create engaging videos tailored to your audience.
This means you don’t have to spend time creating something generic or monotonous just because it works best for everyone else.
You can create something unique for your audience and market it directly from that channel instead of trying to appeal to everyone else’s level by creating an average video.
If you’re having second thoughts about video content, here is one interesting piece of information: in 2023, it is expected that video content will account for 82.5% of all web traffic.
2. Videos Are Shareable and Highly Consumable
A video can be posted on a company blog, embedded on a website or shared with followers on social media. It also has the advantage of going viral, if it is entertaining or educational.
Humans are naturally visual creatures, so it makes sense that visuals are the best way to process information and retain it for later use.
In addition, videos are more memorable. When consumers watch a video, they retain 95% of the message, compared to only 10% when they read it in text.
Also, 97% of video marketers reported that video increases user understanding when "getting" a product or service.
3. Video Marketing Can Improve Your SEO
Blog posts with videos receive 157% more search traffic than text-only blog posts. Video marketing can help you improve your search ranking results and SEO. When done right, it can help give you a boost among your competitors.
You should keep the following in mind:
- Use the right keywords and title.
- Use the suitable description, tags, file name, file size, and file format.
- Use relevant and accurate information about your business in all these areas.
- And with SEO, you can build brand awareness and credibility.
- Video Content Builds Brand Awareness and Credibility
Video allows viewers to see your company in action and hear you speak about what makes you unique.
It’s one thing for someone who knows nothing about you to read what you do on your website. But it’s another thing when they watch a 20-minute video that shows how cool you are and why they should check out what else you have going on.
3 Video Marketing Challenges
Video marketing strategy can bring many benefits — drive traffic, boost conversions and increase ROI. However, you should be aware of a couple of video marketing challenges.
1. Undefined Video Marketing Objectives
The very beginning of every video marketing strategy is having clear and measurable objectives — what do you want to achieve with your video?
Think about your target audience and its pain points. What problems are they dealing with and how can your product or service help solve them? The answer is the goal you’re aiming at.
Once you have the answers, think of the best way to present your videos.
You can use one of the many video formats mentioned above — tutorial, presentation, demo or maybe customer story video — to capture your target audience’s attention and gain their trust.
Ensure the video conveys the message and emotion you want to transmit to your customers and prospects. Also, always be careful not to sound offensive to sensitive audience groups.
2. Lack of Filming Ideas
A lack of ideas for video content can be a serious issue since you want to engage your audience and not bore them. You need to capture and keep your viewer’s interest and you only have a few seconds before they give up and click on the following video that sounds more interesting.
Some ideas could inspire your next video:
- Use keywords specific to your niche and search YouTube to see what your audience most frequently looks for. Create videos that help them solve their pain points.
- Go through the comment section - they are a great source of ideas that users suggest, searching for the solution to their pain points.
- Join niche-specific communities and groups and interact with people to get direct information on what kind of video content they could use the most.
- Create surveys and send them via email or post polls to your social media accounts.
- Go to the “trending” section on social networks to get ideas about the videos that could instantly go viral.
3. Ensuring the Audience Can Find Your Videos
Only the video content your target audience actually sees can bring results, but putting your content out there is one of the biggest video marketing challenges.
You want to get the most out of your video content. You want people to find and watch it, so they’ll see what you offer and be compelled to buy whatever it is. But how?
The answer is simple: You must know where your audience hangs online.
Then you can decide which platform is best suited for distributing your videos (and even create multiple versions of each video if necessary).
YouTube is a fantastic resource for sharing long-form content like podcasts or explainer videos. But putting this type of content on YouTube might not be as wise if you're making a short educational video or something more specific.
This is where TikTok comes in handy because it's more focused on short-form videos that entertain but also show viewers how to use their products and tools in real life.
To increase the visibility and engagement with your videos, include them in your email marketing campaigns and use them in guest posts and paid ads campaigns.
Common Video Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
- Talk to the camera. When shooting your video for the first time, it can be tempting to just talk to the camera as if you were talking to a friend and just let things flow. However, this approach is not conducive to creating quality videos that will get viewers excited about what you have to say.
- Read off a script. It’s important that you avoid reading off of a script while recording your video content. Doing so will make it clear that this isn’t organic material—it's just something someone made up ahead of time and is now reciting verbatim without any passion or emotion.
- Use stock music/images/footage/voiceover/video clips. While using some stock footage in conjunction with creating original material might be appropriate in some cases (e.g., when illustrating how certain products work), there are still plenty of ways around using other people's stuff altogether. You can do this by supplementing with an original audio track or finding creative ways not to need any visuals!
Video Marketing Takeaways
Video marketing is a powerful tool for businesses to reach customers online, especially when you have a solid social media content strategy in place.
It's a great way to share information about your product or service with potential or existing customers who may need it.
After you’ve created your video content, it’s essential to promote it and measure its success so that you can make adjustments and improve on future campaigns.
People are looking for more interesting ways to engage with businesses online. If you don’t offer them something visually appealing, you risk being overlooked by potential customers.
