With the rise of digital marketing, thanks to the internet and social media, businesses have adapted the use of images, infographics, texts, and videos in their marketing strategies.

Over the years, however, they have chosen to lean on videos and video marketing as a way of communicating and reaching their audience.

I mean if a picture is worth a thousand words you can only imagine how much a video is worth.

They are not wrong.

Videos give room to add personality and emotions to your content which allows you to capture your audience's attention and influence their decision making. (As explained further in the article)

Also, most people would rather spend their time watching videos about a product than reading articles on the same.

It's no wonder a video supporting platform such as Tik-tok has grown rapidly in numbers since its debut.

Research shows that online users spend an average of 19 hrs weekly watching videos. That translates to roughly 163 minutes per day per user.

Mind blowing.

Now, if your goal is to grow your business online, increase sales, create awareness about your products/services or learn about Video marketing, this article is for you.

Buckle up.

What is Video Marketing and Why is it Important?

Video marketing is the use of video content to reach your audience. It can be in the form of moving images, animated characters or live characters.

Video content provides more information, context, and depth in a shorter period of time compared to written content.

Source: Hubspot

Here are some benefits of using video content marketing strategy.

* Video content has a higher ROI (return on investment).
Videos make it easy for people to experience, relate and understand your content better.
This builds credibility and trust with your audience who are highly likely to act on your calls to action.

* It is an easy way to communicate with options like, audio, moving images, animated characters, captions, and color.
They make it favorable for your audience to grasp the message and respond to your calls to action.

* It builds relationships with your audience.
Video marketing can also be used to connect with your audience on a human level by telling stories and evoking emotions.

Personal stories about your business, you as an employer, your loyal clients, your employees, etc are great ways to build a relationship with your audience.

When Should You Consider Video Marketing

Video marketing works at any stage of your business.
Whether you want to advertise your products and services or you want to engage with your audience.

* For advertising, shorter compelling videos with strong calls to action and captions are highly encouraged. As much as video content has less text, captions with keywords help your videos rank better.

* For engagement, funny, entertaining, and educational videos are more suitable, depending on your target audience and the type of business you have.

How to Maximize Video Marketing

Video marketing can be done by any business regardless of its nature. Whether you're a construction company or a cosmetics brand, video marketing is for you.

Video marketing has categories that vary in nature and serve different purposes.

The key is to find a category that aligns with your business. This way you will be able to reach your audience and still stay true to your brand.

These categories include:

* Entertainment Videos: pranks, comedy skits, parodies, unboxing, challenges, etc.

* Lifestyle Videos: travel vlogs, cooking, self-improvement, couple vlogs etc.

* Educational Videos: tutorials, product reviews, recipes, documentaries, how tos, etc.

* Branding Videos: customer testimonials, culture, thought leadership, case studies, etc.

Apart from the above categories, there are many factors in video marketing that guide you to a successful video marketing strategy.

Knowing Your Target Audience - Having the right audience for your business will save you the trouble of focusing your time and resources on people who are less likely to purchase your products or services.

Consider their gender, location, age, and interests.

For example, people from a younger generation prefer short entertaining videos of challenges they can jump into or funny clips they can share and watch with their friends.

Knowing who your target audience is will allow you to create a suitable video that will have a higher conversion rate.

Your Business Goals - what do you want to achieve in your business? Do you want people to know about you? (this works best for new businesses or ones that are rebranding), do you want to make sales, gain followers, introduce a product or get traffic to your website?

Answers to these questions will allow you to pick a video that will help you achieve that goal.

For example, if your goal is to make more sales, videos that show the credibility of your products or services such as customer testimonials and product review videos will be more effective.

Your Budget - Different types of videos require different budgets.

A video with moving images for example, is likely to cost cheaper since you'll only need images and some basic editing skills compared to a video shot in different locations with actual people which requires high quality equipment, transport, and labor fees.

Having a budget in mind is a good way to stay on track and work within your limits.

Your Brand's Identity - what is your brand's niche? What do you specialize in? Your brand's identity will influence the type of video content you choose.

A brand that deals with cosmetics has the option of capitalizing on product review videos, how to videos, product collection, etc. Whereas a fast food brand can maximize recipe videos, Questions & Answer videos, food vlogs, etc.

Focusing on one niche that your brand identifies with gives you room to select videos that work for you and makes it easier for you to gain expertise.

Your Audience's Stage in The Buying Cycle - the buying cycle consists of stages a buyer goes through before making a purchase.

It is made up of Awareness, Interest, Decision, Action, and Retention. Each stage represents different needs.

A customer in the awareness stage has no knowledge about your product apart from the fact that it exists so a video that displays your products content will push them to the next stage, Interest.

In the second stage your customer will now be filled with curiosity about your product so creating a video that shows its unique features, customer and product reviews will feed their curiosity and push them to the next stage.

Decision.

In this stage the customer has decided to purchase the product but they need something to motivate their decision so a video with a discount or offers may lead them to take the Action.

Once the purchase is made you can create another video with exclusive deals to make them stay.

Followed by videos of related products and use it to target the same customer(s) and the cycle continues.

Tracking your video performance.

After creating and uploading your video it is a good idea to always track its performance.

How many clicks it had, number of views it got, how long people watched it, etc.

How you track your metrics will depend on your objectives.

The Best Video Marketing Platforms

Finding the right platform is as important as knowing your Target audience.

Each social media platform has unique features that favor different video types. Some, such as YouTube, can accommodate longer videos, some like Tik-tok are meant for short videos while others like Facebook support both short and medium sized videos.

These platforms are also influenced by the type of audience that frequently use them and what they are about.

YouTube - this is a media platform that only supports video content.

The advantage with YouTube is that longer videos perform better and are embraced by users.

The main reason for this is that people who visit the platform do it with the intention of watching a specific video.

And the platform being a search engine of its own, makes it easier to find the video.

YouTube videos can include but are not limited to, tutorials, vlogs, skit videos, pranks, music covers, compilation videos, etc.  

Facebook - Facebook is known to be a social platform where people go to connect with their friends and basically build a community.

With a high competition of user's attention on the platform, short and medium sized videos tend to perform best.

It is also advisable to upload your videos directly instead of sharing them from another platform. This way Facebook will reward you with a higher organic reach.

Funny animal or baby videos, comedy parodies, song covers etc do well and serve the purpose of bringing a community together.

Instagram - the platform where the glitz meets the glamor. While Twitter is where celebrities hang out, Instagram is where they come alive.

From quality glamorous pictures Instagram is known to be the place where creativity and art is embraced.

Features like insta stories and reels have impacted the rise in video content on the platform. Users spend much of their time in reels and stories compared to the news feed.

Leverage its flashy and glamorous reputation by posting short and high quality videos.

LinkedIn - LinkedIn is known to be a professional network where businesses can connect with other businesses, recruit qualified talents, and promote their business, therefore, creating videos for this platform can be slightly different than other social platforms.

Your LinkedIn videos should be professional and of high quality.

Medium sized Case study videos, How tos, customer testimonials, explainer videos, etc are suitable for the platform.

Tik-Tok - about 90% of Tik-tok users are below the age of 50. More than half of that percentage are between the age of 18 years to 35 years. If you have a younger target audience then this is the best platform to use.

Tik-tok has unique features that allow you to use trending sounds, hashtags, duet videos, and royalty free audios to create stunning videos.

As a business, jumping on trends and incorporating them with your brand, while also creating tiktok challenges, is an effective way to communicate and build an audience. Keep the videos short, fun, and engaging.

Twitter - there's not much to be said about Twitter videos apart from the fact that short videos and medium sized videos perform better on the platform.

Since it's a highly competitive platform for attention with trends and live tweeting features, it is hard for a user to spend more than 2 mins on a video. So a short video below 2 mins will perform better.

Video Type	Duration	Category	Platform	Uses
Short	15 sec Max	Giphies, Gifs	Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snap chat, Tik-tok	Quick promotions, instant replies in comments
Medium	30sec to 2mins	Tags, challenges	Tik-tok, Facebook, Instagram, twitter	Engagement, promotions, ads.
Long	5mins - 1hr	Tutorials, vlogs, Gaming, educational, unboxing, etc.	Youtube, IG TV, LinkedIn	Education, entertainment, storytelling

Video Marketing Tips

* Create high quality videos.
High quality videos show expertise in your brand. It sets a high standard of how your audience perceives your business. If you sell high quality products but you make low quality videos about them, your audience will judge the quality of your product by the quality of your video. Hire professionals if you have to.

Preferred video setting for a quality video is 4k or 1080 HD Resolution.

* Explore different angles, lighting and filters while shooting your video.
This is a great way to make unique and compelling videos for your brand. You can even adopt shooting your videos on specific angles using specific filters to create a unique style that your audience can easily identify you with.

* Use royalty free audios for your video.
Some platforms have their own royalty free music.
e.g Facebook sound collection, YouTube studio, and Tik-tok offer royalty free songs you can use.

* Use professional video editing tools such as Adobe premiere pro, Trello, Imovie, Video show.

* Optimize your videos for mobile.
If you decide to upload videos on your website, you should consider making them suitable for mobile users as they make a huge percentage of users online. Create vertical videos (9:16), increase font size of text, make it short, and captivating.

* Optimize your videos for search engines.
Your videos, especially YouTube videos, need to include keywords in your captions, calls to action, and the video itself. This will make it easier for your videos to be found and rank better on search engines.

Final Thoughts

Video marketing is here to stay.

With the rise in smartphones and video platforms such as Tik-tok, video marketing will only get more popular.

Ignoring the use of Video content in your marketing strategy is only delaying your progress and success.

The only way to stay on top of your digital marketing game is to embrace it and do it in a unique way fit for your brand.  

Remember, high-quality visuals, audio, some humor, emotions, a strong Call to action and keyword captions are the key ingredients to a compelling video.