Have you been considering integrating video into your content marketing strategy?

Businesses that use video marketing get 66% more qualified leads per year! The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video, and 95% are more likely to remember a call to action from a video compared to text.

You’re making a wise investment!

Video marketing is a great way to interact with your customers, establish yourself as an authority, and ultimately drive sales.

If you’re ready to embark on this journey but need some help getting started, you’ve come to the right place. Check out this guide to learn about the top video marketing tips.

Define Your Goals

Before you embark on this journey, what are your goals?

Will your videos be driving traffic to a specific place like a website, lead magnet, or blog? Are you trying to increase enrollment for an online course?

Define these goals, and then you can create a content strategy around these goals. Defining your goals will not only help you create your content topics and strategy, but it will also help you measure success.

With a view on Facebook only being counted after 3 seconds and 30 seconds on Youtube, what is the best measure of success? Is it clicks on your landing page, new subscribers, or enrollment in that course?

Understanding your goals will allow you to measure your success and adjust your strategy when necessary.

Equipment and Software

Selecting equipment and software is an important part of creating high-quality content.

You don’t want your videos to look cheap and poorly thought out. You want to create a good impression of your brand.

First, you will need to select a camera that meets your needs. Consider using a microphone, tripod, and backdrop while filming.

Next, determine what software you will need to edit your videos.

This step doesn’t have to be expensive. The equipment and software that you select will be based on the needs of your specific business.

Create Compelling Headlines

Now that you’re ready to film, brainstorm for the best headlines.

Headlines are important for all content marketing media, not just emails and blog posts.

How will your video stand out in a sea of thousands? According to a study done by Moz, number headlines perform better than any other type.

If you are an accounting firm, for example, you could create a video titled 5 secrets to save money on your taxes.

Be sure the headline informs the user of how your video will help them. You can use the Youtube search bar for inspiration and follow video marketing trends to stay on top of popular content topics.

Create Captivating Thumbnails

A thumbnail is equivalent to a book cover. A thumbnail can be the reason your video gets viewed over the next, so don’t take this tip lightly.

It must be eye-catching and consistent with your brand’s theme.

Try not to use the same exact image and background for multiple videos, as they can be mistaken for the same video. Stay consistent but use a differentiator.

Using an image of the person featured in the video is recommended to help users connect with the content.

Creation tools like Canva make creating thumbnails easy!

There are tons of free thumbnail templates already available, so you can spend less time on this step and more time creating that great content!

Hook Your Viewers

Do you remember learning to create essays in middle school? One important piece of any essay was the hook.

Your English teacher will be proud to know his or her lessons still stand.

Hooks are equally as important, if not more, in videos. 20% of your viewers will click away from a video in 10 seconds or fewer, so you have to hook them immediately.

The first 10-15 seconds should convey the value. Will this teach? Entertain? Inspire?

Know what value you are providing and present it in a compelling way.

Don’t Focus on the Sale

As with blogging, your video shouldn’t be focused on sales.

Utilizing the previous tax example, you wouldn’t want to overly focus on your services as a tax preparer. Focus on the topic at hand, ways to help users save money on their taxes.

You can drive your users to your website, lead magnet, or elsewhere without being spammy. A content upgrade, which is another blogging technique, is a perfect way to do this.

Let users know they can download your free ebook, checklist, or budget template (in the personal finance example) by clicking the link in the description.

This will allow you to capture email addresses to increase your engagement level.

Educating your audience is one of the best ways to build trust.

Utilize SEO Practices

Youtube treats search results much like Google, and videos can also improve your Google search page results.

You can embed videos on your website to give them more places to be found and improve your inbound marketing.

You should optimize your video description by doing the following.

Be sure to tag your videos with relevant keywords as well for better visibility.

SEO is just as important with video as it is with written content.

Put These Video Marketing Tips to Use

The demand for video is increasing by the day, so don’t wait to begin this journey. Video is a great way to gain and build trust with your audience and ultimately add them into your sales funnel.

You can utilize these video marketing tips to get you started and explore our blog for more marketing tips.