Video

Video Marketing 101: From Basics to Benefits Here’s What You Need to Know

January 17, 2022

5 mins

We all know that video marketing is a powerful tool to promote your business, but creating great marketing videos is anything but easy. Our video marketing 101 guide will help you get started.

Most of us have seen bad marketing videos and cringe at the thought of creating one ourselves. Just peruse YouTube for a few minutes and you’ll see a million armchair productions that are generating—at best— lackluster results.

You don’t have time to waste figuring out marketing videos on your own, but you know that to remain competitive you can no longer drag your feet on this one. It’s time to add video to your digital marketing strategy, and we can help.

In today’s post, we are drawing from decades of marketing video production expertise to share everything you need to know to get started.

Video Marketing Basics

Video marketing is a digital marketing tactic that utilizes online videos to promote or sell a product or service. Video content is the fastest-growing form of online advertising with over 80% of all internet traffic coming from videos. Websites with videos also enjoy a higher click-through rate and can experience a significant increase in dwell time—in some cases up to four hundred percent!

Some major goals of video marketing are to create an emotional connection with the consumer, increase brand awareness, and build trust. Videos that teach or entertain tend to be the most successful from a viewership perspective.

Small businesses and nonprofits often use marketing videos for brand awareness, lead generation, direct sales, customer testimonials, product demonstration, training, or to retain and delight existing customers.

Read More: Five Marketing Videos That Can Make You More Money

Marketing videos are used pretty much everywhere. You can find them on websites; social media posts, stories, and reels; online advertising, email campaigns; digital billboards and kiosks. A big benefit of digital marketing videos is that they are easy to share. And speaking of benefits…

Video Marketing Benefits

There are many benefits to using video in your digital marketing strategy. Depending on your business and your goals, adding video to your marketing could be the gas you need to take sales to the next level in the new year.

YouTube video

If you’re still weighing the pros and cons, here are some additional benefits of using video marketing:

1. Offers Clarity and Accessibility
Our brains like to conserve calories and energy and will always look for the path of least resistance. Sometimes it’s just easier to watch a video than it is to read something complicated. The easier you make it on your potential customer to do business with you, the more likely you are to win the lead.

This is one of the reasons why YouTube has skyrocketed in popularity. The brain is naturally drawn to video tutorials over reading text-based material on websites or blogs, especially if they’re complicated topics we don’t fully understand yet!

Additionally, new-to-market products and services may require a more thorough explanation in order to make a strong customer connection. Marketing videos enable new brands to make inroads using creative visuals, compelling storytelling, music, and more.

Read More: 7 Reasons Why Your Next Email Marketing Campaign Must Include Video

2. Boosts Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Marketing videos strategically placed on your website, YouTube channel, and social media channels will enable your brand to cover more ground online and expand your digital footprint.

The more content you create and share with a unique URL allows you to rank multiple times for the same keywords. The reason for this is that the video indexing feature by YouTube helps it rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP) because the algorithm favors content with images or video clips rather than text-based articles.

Read More: 7 Ways to Repurpose Video Content Across Platforms

YouTube video

3. Provides Social Proof

If you can make it happen, there is no greater benefit to using video in your marketing strategy than testimonial videos. Having other people talk about why your product or service is great, useful, helpful, etc. is immensely powerful.

We’ve all heard the saying “seeing is believing.” In many ways, social proof is seeing someone else believing, which often proves to be the most powerful way to sell a product. For example, if you are buying something on Amazon, where is the first place you scroll to before buying? The review section. What’s even better are the reviews that include video!

​​Video testimonials provide an authentic look into what it’s like to use your product or service. Written reviews on their own just aren’t the same because they lack the personalization that comes from seeing and hearing someone else talk about their experience working with you or using your product.

4. Makes a Personal Connection

Marketing is all about building relationships. Not all marketing does this effectively, but the businesses that are growing their client base and keeping them happy are the ones that are making personal connections with the people they’re serving.

Video marketing helps foster personal connections between your business and your prospects, leads, and customers. The more you can get “face time” with your target audience, the more trust you’ll build. And when your audience trusts you, they’re more likely to do business with you—both now and for years to come.

Read More: Video Marketing: How To Stop The Scroll and Get Your Customer’s Attention

What to Know Before You Begin Video Marketing

Before you get started, you need a good understanding of everything that goes into producing a marketing video that will generate leads for your business. If you’re trying to do this on your own, it may become complicated once you start wading into the weeds of your project.

At a minimum, these are the steps you’ll take before creating your first marketing video:

1. Identify your target audience
2. Develop a timeline and budget
3. Assess your equipment needs and make any required purchases
4. Write a script
5. Hire actors (if necessary)
6. Find a filming location
7. Film your video with a smartphone, tablet, or webcam
8. Edit your footage using free software like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker
9. Package your video for its intended platform, e.g. social media, your website
10. Promote your video using SEO, PPC, and social media marketing

YouTube video

Remember, the steps above are a thirty-thousand-foot view into the video creation and production process. Even within each step, there are many additional steps that must be followed to ensure a successful outcome. This is why we recommend trusting a professional video production team to guide you through the process.

Read More: Three Things to Consider Before You Begin Video Marketing

How to Get Started With Video Marketing

If you’re ready to get started, you basically have two options: find the right professional team to help you or figure out how to do it yourself.

Now we will admit, technology has advanced so much in the modern age that video creation and production are now widely accessible to most people. That said, there are serious considerations relative to quality, budget, and timing that need to be considered before deciding to do this on your own.

You can try to DIY your video marketing strategy, but ask yourself this: do you have all the right equipment? Do you have the bandwidth to dedicate to planning, pre-production, filming, and post-production? It’s crucial that you have the time and the dollars to do it right before you get in too far.

Or, you can hire a professional video production company to create marketing videos for you. You may think that hiring a team is only for the “big companies” but let us assure you that a team like ours can take your ideas and bring them to life in a way that fits your schedule and your budget.

Take a look at the marketing videos we created for these clients:

Examples of Effective Customer Testimonial Videos

Case Study: Video Marketing for The Falafel Shack’s Downtown Chambersburg Restaurant Location

This Brand Video Looks So Good You Can Practically Taste It!

Cross & Crown will make beautiful brand videos for your website using the best practices in digital marketing. Our goal is to deliver high-quality content that works hard for you 24/7 by increasing conversions and sales, while also helping build trust between you and your customers or clients.

Please schedule a meeting with us to learn more, or check out this blog post detailing our video production process. If you are wondering what it’s like to work with our team, this post should answer many of your questions!

Read More: How to Produce High-Impact Marketing Videos From Start to Finish

Cross & Crown

About Cross & Crown

Cross & Crown is a team of creatives who are passionate about solving problems through design and technology, taking what is there and making it better. Based in Chambersburg, PA, we strive to help educate, advocate, and thrive in a digital world.

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