A 7 Step Guide to Realising Video’s Marketing Potential

Digital marketing consultant Annemarie Duff reminds businesses of the untapped potential of video marketing, and has advice on how to capitalise on it.

We’ve all seen the stats about how video is taking over and it’s well known that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Video will make up 82% of all web traffic by 2022, 78% of people watch online videos every week (55% every day) and 50% of people say video helps them choose which product to buy.

Still, seriously utilising video is often overlooked by Kiwi businesses who are just trying to get customers in the door. The market in Aotearoa sure is different to the global one, but even if you’re in a niche or “boring” industry there’s plenty of opportunity to gain targeted traffic from video content. 

Here’s a guide to get you started.

1. KNOW THE PLATFORM (AND WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO WITH IT)

YouTube can be a power house for relevant organic traffic and YouTube ads are a largely untapped resource for local cut through. Are you doing organic (unpaid) only or ads too? You’ll need to think about how to build a video that capitalises on suggested video and how to capture relevant search traffic (most channels get 15-25% of their video traffic from YouTube search).

Understand the traffic sources you’re going for, and what makes the algorithm tick. Suggested video can be a rich source of traffic and is affected by your video’s metadata (description, title, file name, tags, category).

Research similar videos that are already enjoying traffic that you could benefit from. Once you’ve done the research, know what you’re aiming for and where your video will fit in the landscape, build it around that. 


2. RESEARCH 


In the same way you would research keywords when creating content, starting a business or building a website, you should be doing this for videos too (YouTube is a search engine remember). Chat with your customers, get to know their problems and how you can solve them. Listen to the language they use when talking about your solution or industry. Put these words through your keyword planner of choice, then double check what those phrases return on YouTube. This should give you a good idea of which keyword to focus on (yes singular, best to choose one, and do it well).

If you’re not doing paid ads, you’re better to focus on longer tail keywords with less competition (eg. “flowers for cafes” is better than “flowers”).


3. DECIDE WHERE THE VIDEO FITS WITHIN THE BUYER JOURNEY


Just as with ads and landing pages, your video should fit in seamlessly with the rest of your brand experience and buyer journey. Video is a powerful step on the road to buying, so think about where it sits. Are you using it as an introduction to your brand? Is it a sales tool for further down the funnel? Is it a how-to video? And of course decide what the call to action will be.

It’s important to stick with this plan, as during the production process it can be easy to lose sight of. Write it down somewhere and refer back to it regularly. 


4. CAPTURE ATTENTION AND DRIVE ACTION


How are you going to capture your audience’s attention, and then drive the action you want them to take? A good place to start is this guide from YouTube, which you can pretty much use as a paint by numbers. There are so many key points to take away that pretty much give you a painting by numbers template for creating a successful video.

Do take some of the information with a grain of salt though. Their guide has a global and largely consumer based lean, so use common sense and decide which tactics are right for your audience and goals. 


5. QUALITY CONTENT 


Sometimes a phone camera will do the trick, but if you’re doing a more in-depth video, have a higher end market, products with a longer buying cycle, B2B or a product that requires a decent outlay, get it done properly. That means either engaging a production company, videography professional, or having an internal team member who can make that killer content. Look at your competition, if their content is a bit pants, you can easily impress your audience with great quality content that’s super engaging. If their content is looking pretty amazing, you’ll need to match or exceed the production value. This quality rant ties in with capturing attention, but it deserves its own point. Sometimes there is huge value in just having a kickass video.


6. VIDEO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION


There are plenty of ways to make sure your video performs the best way that it can on YouTube. We wrote a dedicated blog post on it here. Take the time to do this, setting yourself up for relevant traffic that builds as time goes on. Once you’ve identified your keyword and created the video content around it, you’ll need to make sure your video is optimised on YouTube itself. The file name, title, description, tags, categories and thumbnail all influence the search rank of your video, and what videos will be suggested after. Get versed up on video SEO, or get hold of someone who knows what they’re doing.

If you’re up for some DIY, a good place to start is our Video SEO Blogpost. Backlinko is also a brilliant source of information, Brian Dean is an absolute whiz and is great at communicating SEO in a straight forward way. 


7. RINSE AND REPEAT


Now that you’ve got people’s attention (and are using re-marketing audiences so you can nab them again), keep them coming back for more. Keep potential buyers engaged, existing clients happy and stay a step ahead of your competitors.


Annemarie Duff is director of Electric Blue. 
Email [email protected] or visit www.electricblue.co.nz