Video content marketing is quickly becoming one of the most important marketing tools. Numerous studies have shown it as one of the most effective ways to educate people about products or services, reach target audiences, generate leads, and ultimately convert customers. Wyzowl’s Video Marketing Statistics (2022) reveal that brands around the world are understanding the value of using video as an essential part of their marketing strategies.
However, creating your first video can seem daunting. This guide is designed to help you through the process.
What is Video Content Marketing and Why is It Important?
In simple terms, video content marketing uses videos to market your products or services online. The most common types are webinars, YouTube video series, and video podcasting.
Like traditional marketing, the goal is to promote and market goods and services to increase sales. It also achieves objectives independent of video marketing, including raising awareness and creating product engagement online through digital and social media channels.
The popularity of video is skyrocketing. According to Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing Survey (2022), the average person watches 19 hours of video a week online, compared to 10.5 hours in 2018.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn have all prioritized video with features, such as live stories. Video-exclusive platforms such as YouTube and Tik Tok have also grown significantly among consumers. Video content can now be reshared on so many different platforms, which greatly benefits social media marketing.
Video content marketing is also important for SEO. People are drawn to videos. They capture a person’s attention in a matter of seconds. They also improve the user’s experience, engaging them to stay on your site longer or click through the video to your site — both major ranking factors for Google.
Google also includes YouTube videos at the top of the page for many search terms. Therefore, posting videos on YouTube is a great way to get your business on the first page of Google.
Different Types of Video Content and Their Purposes
There are many different types of video content used in the various stages of the marketing funnel.
Top of the Funnel
At the top of the funnel is brand awareness, and there are four types of videos used for this:
1. Brand Videos
Brand videos showcase a brand’s vision, mission, and core values. They help consumers understand who you are as a company and determine if their values align with yours.
2. Behind-the-Scenes Videos
These videos are made to give your audience a behind-the-scenes look at what your company is really like. It can show your office, your team, or where your products are made. The goal is to give people a glimpse into who your brand is.
3. Explainer Videos
These are one of the most common types of videos and made to show your product’s functionality. They help customers understand how your product works and if it can be used to solve their problems.
4. Educational Videos
Educational videos instruct a specific audience about relevant topics and can help to place your brand as a thought leader, thereby giving you a competitive advantage.
Middle of the Funnel
In the middle of the funnel is consideration. This stage is dedicated to helping consumers understand your product’s benefits when they’re considering their problem. Videos made in this stage of the marketing funnel show how your product will solve their problems.
5. Email Marketing Videos
These videos are sent by email to people who have already signed up to receive emails from your company. These people are already in the consideration stage and now need to be convinced that your product is what they need to solve their problem.
6. Product Videos
These videos showcase a brand’s specific product(s) and are for people who know your brand and now want to see what you have to offer.
7. Testimonials
Testimonial videos show people talking about or reviewing your product. In this stage, people already like and are considering buying your product, testimonials help solidify their decision.
Bottom of the Funnel
At the bottom of the funnel is conversion where a customer chooses your brand over competitors. Videos for people in this stage of the funnel help them make the final decision to buy your product.
8. Q&A or FAQs Videos
This type of video answers any remaining questions a consumer may have about your product before deciding to purchase.
9. Instructional or Demonstration Videos
These videos demonstrate how to use your product or service. Is your product easy to use? Does it work as advertised? Do people have the tools they need at home to assemble your product?
How to Create Video Content and Start Marketing with It
Launching your own video content marketing doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By breaking the whole process down into achievable steps, you can build a solid video process, which is especially effective for video podcasts.
Step 1: Develop a Video Marketing Strategy
Initially, you need to understand the objective of your video. Why are you making the video? Are you trying to raise brand awareness, convert your customer, build a community, or introduce the face behind the company?
To develop your strategy, you need to:
- Determine your video’s goals.
- Select your target audience.
- Plan for your type of video. What stage of the marketing cycle are you in? Are you a new company with no customers or are you well-established and looking to sell a new product?
- Choose your video timeline and budget.
- Decide where your video will be distributed or broadcast. Is it on social media, YouTube, or in email newsletters?
Step 2: Create Your Video Content
Generally, there are three phases to creating video content, and if you don’t have the in-house resources to completely execute each stage, you can find affordable partners to help out.
Phase 1: Pre-Production
When you already have an initial plan for your video, the next step is to write a script and design a storyboard. Once these are decided, you must choose a location, cast people to be in your video, and determine a shot list. You also need to ensure that you have all the necessary equipment to shoot your video.
Phase 2: Production
Throughout the production process, you need to ensure that you adhere to the plan and ensure that the video quality, sound, and lighting are on point. There are many different ways to do this, but you need to find the right process for your brand and what you intend to do with your video.
Phase 3: Post-Production
Post-production, you will edit the footage to create the video. In some cases, this is done in-house on Videoscribe or Tik Tok. Others outsource post-production to videographers with specific video-editing software.
To get you started, here are just a few podcast and video partners who can assist in bringing your podcast to life:
-
- Share Your Genius, an end-to-end podcast agency that helps purpose-driven brands strategize, design, and implement podcasts to build community, amplify content marketing, and inspire brand culture.
- StudioPod, a full-service podcast media and production company, partners with brands to fuel their content strategy by leveraging quality audio, video clips, social posts, and blog content to drive thought leadership, build customer relationships, and generate results for brands.
- Culture Collaborative specializes in editing, producing, sound/visual design, and podcast management to help clients build meaningful connections with their audiences.
- Resonate Recordings is a collective of audio, creative branding, and podcasting professionals dedicated to helping brands use podcasting to deliver their unique creative expression to resonate with audiences.
Step 3: Use the Videos to Market Your Brand
The whole reason for creating your video is to market your brand or product, and video provides you with so many impactful ways to do this.
At this point, you’ve already created your marketing strategy — now you must put it into effect. You can start by getting a good understanding of the platforms on which you will be sharing your video. This helps you determine the right day of the week or time of day to share your content, as well as the appropriate captions and tags. Will you run paid ads such as display ads, outstream ads, instream video ads, sponsored content, or influencer ads? Or will you share your video organically through Tik Tok? Or will you share it on your brand’s Facebook or Instagram Pages and include it in your email marketing.
Having a good understanding of these platforms will ensure your video reaches your target audience and the right audience is engaging with and resharing it.
Step 4: Measure Your Video’s Marketing Success
During the initial strategy development phase, you chose the goal(s) of your video content marketing. This makes measuring the success of your video easier. Several dashboards allow you to track performance and gauge your strategy’s success. Depending on your goal, you will want to measure things such as view count, playrate, engagement or re-shares, conversion rates, and click-through rates. The analytics are endless.
Get Filming
Video marketing is a great way for businesses to build relationships with their consumers. By developing a strong marketing strategy and creating video content to reach your audience in each stage of the marketing funnel, you can easily convert viewers into customers.
If you’d like to see how your B2B podcasting stacks up against the rest of the industry, take our 5-minute B2B Podcast Maturity Curve assessment. And if you’d like to see how Casted can help you do more with your podcast, video series, or content marketing strategy, request a demo.
