A Winning Video Marketing Strategy

If marketing is part of your job description, you’ve doubtless heard all about the countless statistics that suggest the effectiveness of video as part of your content strategy.

But just because video marketing can be effective doesn’t mean it will be effective.

What’s the difference between a good campaign and a bad one? The right strategy. We’ll break down a winning combo that you can put to use to ensure the success of your next campaign.

Have a (Very Specific) Goal in Mind

It sounds like common sense and, to be honest, it is. But you’d be surprised how many videos are released without any kind of clear goal in mind.

Most ideas that start with “it would be cool if___” or something along those lines don’t end up driving any real results…unless they’re developed further.

Just because it would be cool to capture drone footage of x or behind the scenes of y doesn’t mean you have what it takes to engage an audience.

And besides that, you also have to be acutely aware of the result that you’d define as success. Lots of views? Additional sales? Click-throughs? 

Know all about what your video is being sent out to do, and keep that in mind throughout your entire development, production, and distribution process.

Develop an Ultra-Focused Video

Once you’ve decided on your end goal, you have to be relentless about your pursuit of it. It’s easy to start adding things to a video because they’re funny, clever, or informative, but just because you can add it doesn’t mean you should.

Even a funny moment or a helpful tip can simply end up as a distraction from your primary goal.

That’s not to say that there’s no room for humor or informational value in an on-target video. It’s simply a suggestion to evaluate what the “plot” of your video is so that you can evaluate whether these moments or anecdotes fit the “story” that you’re putting together.

Know Your Distribution Strategy

If you already have a great video in hand, beware, because this is where many campaigns fall apart.

Ideally, you and your video production team have already discussed where you’re hoping to publish this video and what it will be used for. But either way, you have to be strategic once you reach this step.

Consider what the best platforms for your video are – what are people looking for from a brand when they’re on Facebook, YouTube, your website’s home page, or a product page? In all cases, the videos that would be fitting are drastically different from one another.

You may have the ability to effectively crosspost the video and get multiple uses out of it, but you should be aware on the front end of the platforms that are or are not worthwhile.

Once you’ve discovered them, your job is only halfway done. Now, you have to decide how you’re going to handle the distribution. Take care when developing copy, buttons, links, or anything else that might have a significant impact on whether or not someone even starts the video in the first place.

After that, decide when to publish or release the video.

Be Ready to Share + Support

Here’s another common place for a video marketing strategy to fall apart. Many people fail to realize that once a video’s out there, it may not perform on its own without additional support.

This is especially true for videos released via social media. Due to the way that algorithms work on the major platforms, great content can go unnoticed unless it gets a reasonable amount of engagement in its earliest hours.

Have your team support the video by sharing it and engaging with it, but realize that you may also need to put some ad dollars into play to really give the video the boost it needs.

When your video’s being distributed to an audience via other means, it might not be quite as essential to initiate the sharing process, but of course, it never hurts!