The best content marketing strategies include a wide variety of materials—case studies, white papers, best practices, infographics, etc. If video is a format you’ve not yet chosen to tackle, you’re not alone. Many companies lack expertise in producing videos and therefore choose to push that type of content down the priority list.
Well, if you don’t know already, I’ll tell you that there are a LOT of reasons you should bring that To Do to the top of your list, create some short videos—everything from product overviews to company introductions—and post them to your website. (And it’s not as difficult as you think. But, more on that later.)
First The Why, Then The How!
- Videos Are Great for SEO — Google, Bing, and the other search engines love websites that deliver a positive user experience, and nothing delivers that like video. Consequently, sites that have embedded video get a tremendous boost, and the video's thumbnail image attracts clicks in search engine results.
PROTIP: You get the most SEO value when you host the video on your own domain. - Readers Love to Be Viewers — When it comes to business, people consume most of their daily allotment of information by reading—web pages, emails, printed materials. When they have a chance to absorb information more passively by watching and listening instead, they are very happy to do so.
- Video Is Perfect for Mobile — No scrolling, no hunting, no tapping on links for more information… Simply hit play, kick back, and enjoy the show.
- YouTube is HUGE — If you post your video to YouTube (and you should), you are making it available to the hundreds of millions of people who use the site, giving your products or services a whole new (and greatly expanded) audience. You might consider using shorter video previews and YouTube's annotations. These are perfect to create in-video CTAs designed to link viewers back to the video resource library hosted on your own domain.
- Video Produces a Hefty ROI — Ask any marketer what kind of return they get on their videos versus other mediums and they’ll gladly tell you how well it does for them. One of videos biggest advantages is that it keeps people on your website longer, allowing more time for your other great content to catch their eye and reel them in. You should also use video in social media.
PROTIP: Facebook reports that video posts have the highest engagement. - People Share Videos More Than Anything Else — For the same reasons people love to view videos, they love to SHARE them. They know that they are inviting their friend or coworker to get some very helpful/entertaining information in very low effort kind of way.
Great Content, Without a Great Deal of Effort
Video packs a powerful punch. And contrary to what some would have you believe, it doesn’t take a huge budget or a huge effort to produce it yourself or have it produced for you. If you choose to be your own writer/producer/director, there are a host of software packages out there that even a novice can use to get up-to-speed quickly. These tools will allow you to quickly pull in video segments, a voiceover track, still images, etc. Add a bit of motion and some transitions, and voila… you’ve got a very solid short video.
If you decide to use an agency, the key to staying under budget is to look for a firm that understands that you are not looking for Academy Award-worthy material—because, frankly, your audience isn’t either. You just want a video that presents the information clearly and looks reasonably polished. Keeping the video short and exhibiting your unique personality is vastly superior to a professionally-produced video that bores the viewer to sleep.
To keep your video production costs to a minimum you should consider a combination of the do-it-yourself and have-it-done approaches. (We're a big fan of collaboration.) Having an agency, like 30dps, help you out with creative concepts, parts of the technical execution, the video editing, and the promotion of your video, while you do a portion of the writing and shooting of the video can produce great results at minimal expense.
Is video sounding more intriguing now? Give us a call (719-380-9996) or send us an email using the button below. Let’s talk about your first—or next—project!
