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According to Garen Arnold’s article Fundamentals of Video Marketing: A Complete Guide to Harness the Power of Online Video to Generate and Convert Leads, most people spend about 3.5 hours per week watching online videos, and on average, 77% of video watchers visit a company site. An estimated 16% to 22% of video watchers are likely to talk to their family and friends about a video they watched, and 9% share it with their social networks. Videos have a long shelf life and strong branding components if executed properly. Videos can also bring a personal component to a website like a video from the founders of the company describing their journey and the establishment of company’s existence. Identifying goals for the video strategy should be the first step in setting up the video marketing campaign.
Learn more about video marketing
What do you want your video to achieve?
- Increase brand exposure and awareness
- Increase product or service awareness
- Increase viewer’s knowledge about a topic or product
- Increase website traffic
- Increase website authority through external links
Video Best practices:
- Highlight Your Brand in the Video
Include your brand in the background of the video and in the video introduction. Use your brand logo as part of the video so it can’t be edited out. Think of the video sharing sites and social networks sharing your video and the brand awareness gains.
- Include Clear Calls to Action in the Video
Give your audience clear instructions on how you want them to proceed after watching your video. Guide them to your website, and ask them to submit a contact form, “Like” you on Facebook, or leave a comment on your YouTube channel.
- Video Content and Duration
Include your most important points at the beginning of the video to gain the user’s attention and interest. Consider the length of your video and your audience’s time. Many video sharing sites, like YouTube, limit the video length to 10 minutes. Limit your videos to 5 minutes or less, depending on the subject, to keep people engaged in your video message.
- Use Keywords in Your Video File Name
Using a file name like “video123” will not yield good search engine rankings for your key terms. Use keywords relevant to your video in your file names.
- Include a Video Title and Description
Video titles and descriptions are important not only for search engine ranking, but also to appeal to the searchers to click on your video listings rather than other videos on the search results page. Use keywords relevant to your video and your brand/product in the title, and provide a brief description of the video in the video description.
- Create a Video Transcript
Video transcripts allow the search engines to “see” or crawl your video content. It provides an additional area to search engine optimize the video.
- Create a Video Sitemap
Although Google doesn’t guarantee that a video will rank in their result pages, they do recommend submitting the video sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.
Here is an example sitemap provided by Google:
- Choose a Good Thumbnail
Just like creating a good video description, a good video thumbnail will increase the chances of your video being watched.
Video Distribution:
- The following is a list of video sharing sites and their share of audience provided by comScore. It is important to create unique videos for each site; otherwise, it might be considered duplicate content and will not benefit your audience when they find your video on more than one site.
Content is key with a successful video. Create videos with interesting content that have personality. Allow your viewers to relate to you and your brand through your video; increase their trust, and improve your conversion rate. Remember to keep your message short and sweet with no more than 5 minutes per video. Optimize your videos with keywords in title and description. Take advantage of this fast growing digital media to gain brand awareness, increase site traffic and conversions.
Sources:
Creating an Online Video Strategy by Kate Matsudaira
