How to Produce a Killer Video Marketing Strategy

You are good, there is no denying it.

Let’s be honest here, you are now at the point where you are planning your very own video marketing strategy. Whether you work for yourself or as part of a team this is a big responsibility, something that you should definitely be proud of. With 2015 labelled as being the year of video marketing, there couldn’t be a better time either.

Video is soon to be an invaluable tool throughout every business, the sooner you start with your video marketing strategy, the sooner you can get that competitive advantage over your competition. Don’t know where to start? My guide should help you understand everything you need to know about how to plan a killer video marketing strategy.

But I don’t even know what a video marketing strategy really is!

Don’t panic! It sounds more complicated than it is; a video marketing strategy is in fact just like any marketing strategy, it is a rough guide on what sort of video you want to produce for whom, what you are trying to achieve and how you are going to measure its success.

Decide on what you want to achieve

Before you start you need to come up with an end goal for your strategy. This will be crucial in your strategy and underpins the whole plan.

A good place to start is simply by taking a piece of paper and writing everything down which you would like to achieve. Once you have this you can create a mission type statement summing up your strategy. For example: ‘Video My Business will use a promotional video to increase their twitter following by 500 followers as well as gain an increase in 30 customers subscribed to their site’. By using such simple and clear goals it is then easy to work to achieve them.

Who are you targeting?

The MOST important part of your strategy is understanding the demographic of the individuals you are targeting. Ask yourself; Are they old or young? Tech savvy or not tech savvy? Etc. You get the idea. By having a true understanding of who you are targeting you can vastly improve the success of your videos by simply making sure they are of interest to the individuals you are targeting.

What type of video should you use?

You now have a goal and an in depth understanding of who you are targeting. The next stage is thinking about how you can best achieve that goal with video. Coming up with fresh new content ideas and concepts is not always the easiest of tasks, however there are a few simple things you can do to help break the process down.

First, take a blank sheet of paper and write down the types of video you might want to use. Think about the following categories: sales/promotional, branding, health & safety, internal communications and corporate events etc. If we were to use Video My Business as an example I would write down we are an online website in the service based industry looking to create a promotional video to achieve our target of increasing customers and twitter followers. A promotional video would be right for us due to the nature of what we want to achieve

I’ve decided on the type of video, how do I come up with ideas?

Great, you’re all set with the type of video you need to produce, but what now? Well of course you need a concept and ideas to tie everything together! Your best chance of coming up with a great video concept is by telling a story with your video(s). Telling a story is a great way of engaging viewers and really helps to make an effective video. Take our look at our guide on coming up with promotional video ideas for more tips and inspiration.

A great example of a well thought out concept:

Do you have a video producer?

All you need now is somebody to put your strategy into action, a Video Producer. You may already have a video producer you know or perhaps not. Either way, hiring the right video producer is crucial in making sure your strategy is a success. By hiring the right video producer you can make sure that your strategy, vision and ideas have the highest chance of being successful and giving you the greatest return on investment.

Video Producers are fantastically creative individuals whose experience and input is invaluable in creating your video(s). Don’t fight them thinking you know best, take their advice and guidance very seriously. After all, they spend all day everyday producing video – they know what they’re talking about.

If you are looking for a video producer check out our sidebar to the right to be put in touch with over 70+ quality local Video Producers for free!

Get your video out there

You may well be thinking, surely I just put it on YouTube and embed it on my website!? Brilliant, this is a great start. However there are a few other things you can do to better optimise the placement of your newly produced content.

Including a plan of how you distribute your new content is an important part of any strategy as it will often determine how successful your video will be. As first mentioned, uploading it to YouTube and/or Vimeo is a good start; it allows you to share and embed it easily throughout your blogs, website and social media, as well as allowing others to do the same. Once your content is on a platform such as YouTube or Vimeo you can then embed and link to your video onto your blog, or in any guest articles you write. You could even submit it to industry related publications to see if it is of interest to them and their online readership.

Measure its performance

Having spent all this money creating a great looking video, everything is looking good. But hang on just a minute, you need to be able to measure the performance of your video right? After spending thousands on your latest strategy you need facts on what's working and what’s not? By having these facts you can adjust your strategy so your future videos are more effective and provide you with a greater return on investment. Beyond the usual platforms of YouTube and Vimeo, there are lots of other video hosting platforms out there which combine in depth analytics and video hosting. One of these platforms’ is Nideo. Nideo is much like Google Analytics for your video. It provides you with huge amounts of performance data and feedback as well as being able to use a fully customisable player for your videos. Sure you have to pay for it but at the end of the day the data and feedback it can provide you with could prove to be invaluable.

Feeling any better about your strategy now? I hope so! If you have any other questions or feedback then please leave a comment below. It is always great to hear from you.