Add Video to Your Marketing or Risk Everything
On February 14, 2005, the domain name www.youtube.com was activated and over the next few months the website began to take shape. The first youtube video was titled Me at the zoo and shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005. It has since had 37,002,609 views. Fast forward to 2013 and Business Insider published an article stating that users were watching 4 Billion hours worth of video every month. That's 72 hours worth of video every minute. AND - that was 4 years ago. Today, TechCrunch purposts that YouTube users are watching 1 billion hours of its clips per day. As I'm writing this blog I'm literally shaking my head that ANY COMPANY would think that video is not an important part of your marketing strategy.
I understand that some marketers still believe people are watching video for personal stuff and because they are a B2B company they don't find it useful. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Check out this stat as reported by Hubspot: in 2014 video content used for B2B marketers jumped from 8% to 58%. Now we're talking. Hubspot goes on to share that social media posts that contain videos boost views by 48% and visual content on Facebook specifically increases engagement by 65%. That's absolute real ROI folks! (You can read the rest of Hubspot's article here: Free eBook).
So why are marketers still shaking their head and not pursuing great video content? In short, they don't know how. The fear of big budgets and new staff make them stop in their tracks and push the thought to a "later date." But that's not necessary. Here are a few quick tips to getting started with great video content.
1. What results do you want?
The first step you need to take is figure out what you want to accomplish with this video. What do you want the viewers to do? Maybe you want them to visit your website or read your blog or see a new product or sign up for a class. Whatever the end result is supposed to be, you need to identify it first so that your video is actually working towards the end goal.
2. Don't be a drag.
I've seen it before where someone thought they could hit the record video and talk to the screen. Sorry folks, that's not going to entice anyone to watch more than 2 seconds before they move one. Let's add some pizazz, some funk and make sure you get right to the point. Truly, unless it is a "how-to" video, you're looking at less than a minute to get your point across. Attention spans are short these days so say what you need to say and let them move on to the next video. Just make sure you communicate effectively.
3. Repurpose content
Did you write a fabulous eBook, put it on your website, but it's not getting many downloads? Well did you make a video about this fabulous eBook? Seriously, do it. Now. Stop reading a blog and make a video about your awesome eBook and why it's so awesome. Or maybe you have a blog article you feel needs to be read by the masses - well use a video to tell the masses about it. Honestly, your video can be about absolutely anything - just START MAKING VIDEOS PEOPLE!!
Deep Breath.
4. Check out the results.
Now here's what you don't want to do with regards to video. You don't want to put the effort and work into the video, throw it out for the world to see and never understand the analytics of how it performed. Numbers teach us stuff folks. Seriously. You might find out that one type of video gets great response while another type of video is just meh.... How many views, how many click-throughs to your website, how many shares - all of it matters. In the beginning the numbers will be small, but then they will grow and you'll get better understanding of what works and what doesn't.
In the end, not having video content is going to hurt you so don't stop. Get to it! If you're still reading this blog I'm a little disappointed that you didn't listen to me in No. 3 so listen now. Get outta here and go make a video. That's what I'll be doing. Cheers!
