I will examine the following steps:
research
To plan
To produce
To build
research
You can never do enough research when it comes to your video marketing strategy. Even if you have a solid foundation, you need to keep an eye on your audience, industry trends, and potential consumers to produce successful video content.
If you already have an effective content marketing strategy, half of your work is done. If not, look at your audience and your company. You have to check your brand and your customers. (Video Marketing Strategy 2018)
Think about what type of video content best appeals to your audience. Think about which style best represents your company. Rate your goals. What do you hope to achieve with your videos? Would you like to drive traffic to your website? Do you want to sell a product or service? Would you like to promote an idea or initiative?
Answering these questions is a good place to start to flesh out your video marketing strategy. Your responses all affect the type of videos you produce or commission.
To plan
The next step is to apply what you learned in the research phase to your video blueprint.
Think about what you want to achieve with your videos and outline the topics and types that you will be dealing with. Here are some examples:
You are a business-to-consumer software company. You may want to split your video plan into different sections: instructions, FAQ, support. These videos may need to be informative to help consumers help themselves and reduce the workload in your customer service department.
You are a nonprofit that makes it easy for small businesses to get started. Your videos are probably webinar-oriented. You may have a weekly course that you would like to film and circulate to help entrepreneurs establish a foundation.
You are a retail company that sells waterproof outerwear. You may want to watch a variety of videos: those that tell consumers how reliable your products are (testimonial), those that promote your products (promotions), those that show your launch party (event).
If you are in the planning phase, you should think about where your content “lives”. Upload to Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? LinkedIn? Each platform requires a different tilt for each video. If you know in advance where your video will be sent to, you can prepare the relevant content.
Also think about how many and how often you want to post videos. This will affect the next step in your video marketing strategy for 2018.
To produce
Once you’ve created a plan based on your research, you’ll be able to figure out who’s actually creating your video content. Fortunately, there are several ways to do this:
Yourself / your team: If you want to produce numerous videos on a regular basis and on a modest budget, this may be the way to go. With today's technology, you can produce videos of decent quality yourself. This will likely take more time to research video techniques unless you have been trained in video production / editing. This strategy can make a huge contribution to the production of multiple videos suitable for social media.
Agency / production company: This is by far a more expensive option, but the video quality will be superior. If you want a video for television or for business use, this is the recommended street. You can hire a creative agency to create content for you. Agencies can work with you from a single project to your entire campaign. You will likely outsource any actual video production you need. It may be cheaper for you to go directly to a production company to create your video content. In this way, the "middleman" is deleted from the equation. If you're looking for a small number of effective videos, working with professionals can help ensure you get what you pay for.
Influencer / blogger: An influencer is essentially someone who has a large following on a social media platform. A blogger or vlogger with a large audience can also be used with this option. Instead of creating the video yourself, you could find an influencer / blogger with a relevant audience and work out a partnership. You can integrate your product or service into their content and thus advertise your company in a credible manner.
To build
The build phase is perhaps the most important phase in your video marketing strategy. After you've done your research, planned your content, and created your videos, you want to get people to watch them.
This requires strategic support. Of course, you want to distribute your videos on your company's website, on social networks and on video platforms. You can also distribute by email. If you are a small business, you can encourage your employees to share your content on their personal platforms.
Another example of promoting your content is writing on a company blog. This gives you another way to share your video: you can share the original video, write the blog post, post it on your website, and then share the website link. You will receive at least two pieces of content with a video.
You will want to keep an eye on the audience. Check out which videos work and which don't. Check out the demographic data of the people who watch your videos. See what videos bring sales to your website / product purchase. With these observations, you can make adjustments.
Rinse and repeat
Maintaining your video marketing strategy is as important as the first one. Always be on the lookout for new information that will benefit your business. Research what works, what doesn't work, what your audience likes, and what trends in the market you can take advantage of. Create new video content. Promote this content.
