Welcome back! It’s time for your 6th installment on ‘Video Marketing Revealed’ series. Now let’s understand how we can use video for inbound marketing efforts.
How to Use Video to Drive Inbound Marketing Efforts
If you're creating promotional content as a way to market your brand to consumers, then you're already utilizing inbound marketing. When you combine the power of email, blogs, social media, podcasts and other promotional channels you get a proven strategy that grows your brand- and by adding video, you move to another level of engagement where you maximize your potential for viewership.
Bellow, we'll discuss how you can introduce video into some of the more useful channels in order to maximize the effect of your inbound marketing campaign.
According to data compiled by eMarketer, companies that incorporate video in their emails record higher click-through rates, higher sharing and forwarding, longer time reading emails, increased conversion rates and higher revenue.
If your marketing strategy requires you to create and retain email subscriptions then incorporating video in the emails will be a plus for you. Eloqua, a company that specializes in providing automated email marketing services, notes that businesses that include video in their emails experience a 75% drop in subscriber opt-outs. Another firm dealing in online marketing reports a 51% growth in subscriber-to-lead conversion rates in cases where video is included in emails.
Though you may find it challenging to integrate video in your emails without any playback issues, don't let that stop you. Include a number of clickable links in the video as well as backlinks which lead to your website, which of course should feature more videos.
Blog posts
A large number of Internet users scan your articles for video content so if you don't feature any, you will lose prospects. Check out the statistics below:
40% of Internet users respond better to visual posts than they do plain text (Zabisco).
Compared to plain text, video content pulls in up to three times more inbound links (SEOmoz)
Viewers will spend 100% more time on your pages if you have video
Social media
As more companies drop money into social video apps like Instagram and Vine, you won't find a better time to incorporate video into social media. Keep in mind though, that the value of any social video lies solely on its sharebility; so if your target audience likes the videos and shares them on their networks, it will boost your visibility and increase awareness for your company.
BI Intelligence reports that social media and word of mouth are the main ways people discover video content online, so obviously you need to provide your subscribers and fans engaging videos if you're going to get better visibility. In order to drive traffic to your landing pages, ensure you include a clear CTA in the video posts.
Inbound marketing is more about 'pulling' at prospects than 'pushing' messages at them so you have to find a way to generate organic sharing around your videos. The shares expand the growth and reach of your message and as a result, your brand gets more valuable earned media.
Implementation of good video SEO
Truly effective marketing requires the synergy of technical and creative fields; this ensures that the videos remain relevant and engaging.
Proper SEO implementation involves significant technical work. Video SEO doesn't start with the production and it doesn't end when you click the publish button: a good SEO strategy will include significant technical implementation. This ensures your video gets seen by the right people in the right place and at the right time, and if you tap into your creative genius then the video views will convert into actual benefit.
Search engines refer to social signals when creating their ranking algorithms so the role of video in your marketing efforts will only get bigger in time. What held back video marketing in the past was the issue of cost but the success of short form video means marketers don't have to spend large amounts of money producing long videos.
Short videos encourage experimentation and creativity and they ensure the content being uploaded is reactive and much more relevant. Upload your videos to all the top marketing channels including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Metcafé, Vime and Google+ and tag the videos. When posting the video make sure you enable all the features that make it easy for users to share it on their own networks.
More people are spending time watching online video and as a marketer you should take this opportunity to market your brand to a larger audience by creating something of value for them to watch. When handling SEO for your videos, think first of the customer, then SEO second. When you optimize the video for your targeted audience it will be more effective in the end.
If your company is planning new marketing strategies or enhancing existing ones, then you know well enough how challenging it is to come up with ideas that work and gather the resources needed to meet your goals.
But don't focus on how challenging the project can be; instead look at all the different platforms you can execute your content in. These areas can be very useful in your marketing campaign:
Blogs
Webcasts and poscasts
Social media
Websites and Microsites
Events
Newsletters
Mobile apps
Online communities
Your main goals should include lead generation, online engagement and increasing brand awareness but of course areas such as customer education, conversion rates, direct sales, lead nurturing and site traffic also play a role in the success of your campaign.
The main obstacles for companies trying to implement video marketing include a lack of effective strategy, poor management buy-in and inadequate in-house resources. These are all in-house challenges and they can slow down traction if you don't pay close attention.
Problems arising from the industry side include a lack of budget for video production and bad content. Creating decent content is a simple matter of finding good writers and production team to work on the video.
Start looking at ways your business could implement video marketing without suffering the common problems many firms go through. With proper planning you should have an easier time working out the angles.
Now you know what it takes to use video for inbound marketing efforts. So that’s it for today’s installment of knowledge in ‘Video Marketing Revealed Series’. In the next blog we will discuss more about the YOU-TUBE nation.
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Until then If you have any questions, just let me know. I help Small Business with Big Dreams to achieve their true potential & much awaited growth. If this is useful for you and you’d like some help to leverage the unmatched benefits of video marketing, or just need to put in place predictive client generating strategy using videos - just send me a message with the subject ‘VIDEO’ at mithun@mithunnarkar.com, and perhaps we can help you put together a strategy to achieve your dreams & targets as well.
Hope this has been helpful.
Talk to you soon.
Mithun Narkar
P.S. Don’t forget, I’m here to help, so if you have questions just ask!
The fastest way to reach me is here: "www.mithunnarkar.com"
Hello! Why don't you create your own YouTube channel where you will discuss this topic? Moreover, editing is now very easy for beginners due to the fact that there are enough suitable programs for working with video. For example, you can find out what https://www.movavi.com/learning-portal/free-video-editing-software.html is and in a few tens of minutes learn how to do it yourself. I hope to see your YouTube channel soon!