5 Essentials To Consider When Planning Your Video Marketing Campaign

Video marketing is no longer as simple as merely creating a flashy video and grabbing attention from the visuals alone. The internet is inundated with video content, making it a universal form of marketing that every brand is leveraging to its fullest potential. It’s a game of nuance - every video is now a finely tuned body of work, tailored to the perceptive frame of a specific audience.

In other words, broad strokes no longer apply. Consumers are now demanding a more focused and targeted approach from brands looking to get their attention, as well as resonating and authentic messaging.

Let’s get specific: 51% of consumers want to see brands highlighting their product or service, with 39% wanting to see customer testimonials/demos, and 34% reporting wanting videos that showcase a brand’s personality. The takeaway here is articulated, tailored, and genuine content that appeals to the consumer's needs.

Knowing this, we’ve put together this checklist-style guide to help you navigate the key areas you should be covering when mapping out your video marketing campaign to ensure you’re making the most of your video marketing campaign.

1. Have A Video Marketing Strategy

Have you ever seen anybody selling swimwear on LinkedIn? We’re going to make an educated guess and say that the answer is no, and there’s a reason for that. Strategically speaking, it doesn’t make much sense!

Strategising is always the first place you should start when planning your video marketing campaign. Ask yourself where the video is being published in accordance with what you are selling or promoting. Certain platforms accommodate specific products, so it is important to do your research.

Specifically, you have to first establish your target audience, as well as where they are most likely to spend their time, as this will help you choose the best platforms to distribute your video. Doing this will also inform your messaging and will help you choose the right types of video for your personas. Executionally speaking, this will also inform how you format your video, especially in relation to aspect ratio and video length. Short-form videos tend to perform better on specific platforms, longer videos tend to work well on others. One size does not fit all!

This all goes to emphasise how important it is to start with a video marketing strategy, as this strategy will inform all of the important decisions you make during the video creation process, serving as a bedrock to the purpose of your video. So, establishing a purpose early on will help you avoid the dreaded whirlwind of re-shooting, re-framing, and editing, which will save you time in the long run.

Within this strategy, it’s also vital to set out which metrics you want to track and how you will measure success. Defining these goals will help you understand whether you’ve accomplished what you set out to achieve. Our advice is to choose several key performance indicators that correspond with your goals, as opposed to using the default metrics available in your platform of choice. Whittle them down to have a more focused approach, and keep an eye on them as your video hits people’s feeds.

Last but certainly not least is to consider your budget early on. This will allow you to scope out the work moving forward, and make sure you don’t rack up additional costs further down the line as a lack of foresight!

2. Committing To The Video Format

One of the driving factors of success when it comes to video marketing campaigns is responsive design. Committing to video means ensuring it performs well across devices. If your brand's video content is fit for consumption for computers, mobile phones and the variety of platforms, you have a better chance of expanding your reach, boosting accessibility, and making your content more user-friendly and consumer-focused.

That’s not all. Committing to video means establishing a basic framework of how you’re approaching your strategy. For example, a basic framework for any video campaign usually entails a protagonist, a conflict, a quest, or a resolution. Try to use these strategies and format your video accordingly to help take your viewer on a seamless journey.

Take a product video for instance. If your video’s purpose is to promote a product, determining the nature of your messaging early on can help you decide which format to lean into. Possibilities include a teaser or a promo video, a tutorial or explainer video, or a product demo video. These factors are also heavily informed by the target audience you have in your sights. Ask yourself what purpose your video will serve for them; is it supposed to introduce them to a new product or educate them about an existing product?

So, whatever the nature of your video campaign is, consider the format first and foremost. This will help you keep your audience in mind from the get-go, and you can build out your narrative and messaging from there.

3. Interactivity

You’ve heard this a million times; Engaging content builds more brand recognition and trust and is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience. However, there are many routes that lead to making your video marketing campaign engaging. With that in mind, interactivity is one of the most effective ways of achieving this.

A substantial 88% of marketers concur that using interactive content is an effective means of distinguishing your brand from competitors, helping to establish a unique identity in the market. Interactive video has the power to turn a passive viewer into an active one, giving your videos more conversion potential. Now, whilst they do require more effort to create, they work wonders when it comes to elevating your video marketing strategy and boosting engagement from your audience.

Considering an interactive approach when it comes to your video marketing campaign is also a good way of keeping your viewers accountable. This is a big factor, as it subverts the usual order of engagement, putting more of an onus on the audience to engage with your video to get the ball rolling. Think of it as a collaborative approach to video marketing!

One example of how to integrate an interactive approach to your video marketing are creating an interactive call to action. Create a clickable feature at the end of your video to drive the desired action; this creates an easy, all-encompassing experience for the consumer.

You could take it a step further and use interactivity to make your video more fun. Think of creating some kind of a quiz to test your viewers, or implement a decision-making narrative into a story-based campaign. The opportunities are endless.

4. Make It Educational

Amongst the many reasons why you might want to create a video campaign for your brand, 52% of companies say they create videos to educate their target audience about their product. This could be a great place to start for your own content, as these video styles tend to see the most engagement and the most ROI.

Educational and truly helpful content is one of the best ways to forge a connection with your target audience, as well as build trust in your brand. Think of ‘how to’ videos as an example; these are quick and simple ways for your potential customers to gain valuable information, while at the same time building up trust in your brand’s authority. It helps paint the picture that your brand is a source of useful knowledge, backed by a reliable name. Above all, you’re teaching and instructing as opposed to selling, which makes viewers trust you more.

Educational video marketing is an angle that can also help you take the pain out of a complex topic. This is especially relevant if your product exists in an industry full of specialised jargon and concepts that take some background knowledge to grasp. For example, you can use an educational video format to take what may be a complex B2B product and boil it down to something clear and accessible. This will also provide the viewer with more incentive to find out more about your product, especially if your video piqued their interest and curiosity.

Above all, these videos can give your audience confidence. If you help educate your audience about a product or a service and demystify any complicated notions surrounding it, this builds buying confidence and will make them more intent to buy. The best thing about educational video marketing campaigns is that they can work anywhere in the marketing funnel. You can use them to engage viewers, prove your expertise to prospects, and keep customers informed.

5. Quality

Professionals have standards! Achieving a professional and polished look is just as much about technique as it is about the tools you have at your disposal. Things like lighting make a huge difference in the quality of a finished professional video and should be one of the top priorities to look out for during filming. If you don’t use enough properly placed light, your video will end up looking amateurish, even if it’s great in every other way. Another aspect of quality video is to make sure your sound is crisp and clear. Your audio shouldn’t be fuzzy or indistinct, so make sure everything is audible and easy to hear. On top of that, simple editing is something that goes a long way in ensuring that your video looks most professional.

With all of these elements in mind, it is definitely worth carving out a video budget that allows you to extract the expertise of a videography agency (like us!) to help you achieve the best results out of your video quality. It makes a massive difference to your video marketing campaign, and it is one of the best investments you can make when it comes to having a solid, quality video. This route also provides you with a very high ceiling on what you can include within your video, rather than being hamstrung by a lack of tools or techniques as a DIY project. Although, it’s always key to capture the personality and authenticity of your brand to ensure you stay relatable to your audience.

By allocating a budget for professional video production, storyboarding, and editing means you get the best out of all of the aspects that make a video great. All of these elements combined, and when done correctly, are what make your video of high quality, and thus more engaging. This includes things like having a good script, animation, sound effects, music, acting, storyboard, and branded elements that make your video more captivating.

So there you have it! Consider this as a mini checklist of some of the most important factors to consider when you get the ball rolling for your next video marketing campaign. Always remember to start with strategy first, we really can’t stress this enough! The rest of the essentials on this list will take shape from there forward, but never rush through strategising as this will be the foundation for everything. For more tips and tricks within the world of video, please check out our other articles on our website here, and get in touch with us to talk about your next video campaign.