Why You Should Use Video Marketing & How to Develop Your Strategy

Anyone that uses social media will know that videos are overtaking your social media news feeds, you can’t scroll more than 5 seconds without seeing a video clip. It has become a popular everyday occurrence and is now considered to be one of the most powerful and effective social media marketing tools available.
Social media platforms have made it easier for marketers to adopt this technique with all the new features that are constantly being introduced. The way we use social media has evolved and long gone are the days where we will sit down a read a long bit of text for 5 minutes, people would rather watch a short clip that expresses the same message whilst keeping them entertained. Ironic since this is coming from an article of text….but articles do still have their time and place!
Video marketing has not only become a dominant feature of social media but also a great way to grab your audiences attention and engage with them on a level that makes them want to share it.
So what are the statistics around video marketing and is it worth it?

YouTube: More than 5 billion videos are watched each day
Facebook: 8 Billion average daily views
Twitter: Video views have grown 220x than 12 months ago
SnapChat: 10 Billion videos are generated every day
Instagram: 300 Million Share Instagram Stories Every day

Still not convinced? Let’s look at the business side of things and see how the statistics compare:

81% of people who watched a brands video were convinced to buy a product or service
85% of businesses consider video content the most important part of their marketing strategy (up 82% from 2017)
81% of businesses use video content as part of their marketing strategy (up 63% from 2017)
95% of people will watch a video to learn more about a product

With stats like that how can you not see why video marketing is dominating social media in the UK and abroad, we all know the famous saying ‘A picture speaks a thousand words’ so why not use a video to say the words you want?

Developing Your Video Marketing Strategy

If you have never created a video for marketing purposes before we understand how overwhelming and tricky it may be. This is why our highly skilled London video marketing experts at Social Warehouse have put together a 4 step plan to help you on journey to becoming a successful video marketer.

Step 1: Understand your audience
This is probably the most important step in video marketing, if you want to create the perfect video you need to need to understand who your target audience is and ensure you are sending the right message. Don’t take this step lightly and make sure that you are doing research into your target audience and working out what works best. Creating a video can be difficult and can sometimes take trial and error before you get it right, which is why it’s important to try and get it right the first time.Understanding your audience also means understanding what journey you want your audience to go through, emotion is always the main goal here. However, emotion is such a broad range you need to work out what type of emotion it is you are trying to evoke. I.e. if you were a charity for children without clean water, the type of emotion you would try to evoke is sadness and disarray to connect with your audience whereas a fashion brand needs provoke a desire to want and emotion around beauty.
Step 2: Create goals and KPIs
This is just as important as step 1 – as with anything new that you decide to venture in within your social media marketing strategy you need to have an end goal. Without a goal or KPIs put in place how will you know what you are trying to achieve and whether you have achieved it or not.
Make sure your goals and KPIs are realistic and measurable otherwise it is a waste of your time and could possibly have the reverse effect on your social media marketing strategy.
Step 3: Choosing what platform is best for you
As you are aware in today’s world there are various different platforms that you can utilise to share your video and message some of these are but not limited to:- Social Media Platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, SnapChat
– TV and other media
– E-Publications
What platform you should use to portray your message and video is dependant on what type of business you have, what your video is about and what your message is. You will need to do in-depth and thorough research into what is best suited to your business and your goals.
Create Videos that are Effective and Cost-Effective
There are a lot of factors to consider when creating a video but here are some important factors that you should focus on:- Remember what your message is: Don’t stray away from exactly what message you are trying to portray to your audience, after all this is why you are creating a video. Keep the message clear and simple and easy to digest.
– Ensure that your Brand is recognised: Don’t forget to keep your brand in mind, there is nothing worse than creating a great captivating video and no one knows who you are. Make sure your brand is easily identifiable within your video.
– Remember your Goal: Creating a video can be fun and exciting but it can also mean that you tend to forget what your goal is. Ensure to keep your goal in mind at all times and if you feel something is unnecessary or does not add any benefit towards the goal don’t be afraid to say it.
– Think about length of video: Understand what your message is and what platform you are using, you don’t want your video to be too short or too long. Too short can mean your message has not been portrayed properly and too long can be boring and turn your audience away.
– Think about costs: Creating a video can be costly, so you need to think about whether you want to do it in house or if you want it to be professionally made. Either way think about your goal when deciding to ensure that you are being as cost effective as possible.
When creating a video there are thousands of factors that come into mind, but if you stick to these factors your video and message should not go astray.

If you want to create engagement to get a message across quickly and effectively video marketing is the way to go.
Remember video marketing does not need to be complicated or costly and can be as simple as you want it to be as long as you get your message across. The key message to this article is that businesses are adopting video marketing more and more and social video will evolve as quickly as you can blink.
Our in-house London social media experts are always on hand for social media video marketing so get in touch today to discuss your project.