Expert Marketing Tips: How to Use Videos Effectively

It’s a well-known fact that using video as a part of your sales and marketing strategy is now necessary if you want your product or brand to be successful. The numbers are simply too amazing to disregard video as an effective marketing tool. Digital videos are no longer “new” and audiences have come to expect them.  In fact a, study by Cisco states that “globally, IP video traffic will be 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021, up from 73% in 2016”.

So what can you do with videos?

Most people associate digital video marketing with advertising i.e. building awareness about a brand. There is so much more you can do with digital video though. You can use it to:

• Create awareness
• Drive traffic to your website
• Gain new customers
• Help customers understand your products
• Retain customers
• Upsell your products
• Simply say thank you

In short, videos can be used for every stage of your customer’s journey. We’ve put together a few tips on how to get started and use your videos more effectively.

1. Video tracking and ROI

Let’s face it; making a video requires time, effort and money. It is pointless to unleash a video upon the virtual world and then just hope for the best. It is vital to know what is working for your brand and service and what is not.  Track metrics like:

• Time spent on landing page
• CTR on landing page
• Percentage of viewer that watch the whole video
• Percentage of viewers that respond to your Call to Action
• The videos that generate the most leads

Here are few must-have tools for analytics and to track ROI:

1. Clicky: Allows for live tracking of customer activity and breaks visitor activity into marketing demographics. It offers, as they claim, “Ridiculous Detail”.
2. Wistia: it actively tracks engagement and you can tell what actions your visitors took when they finished watching.
3. Brandwatch: This tool allows you to gauge brand awareness and identify consumer sentiments about your brand to see which videos are working for you and which ones aren’t.

YouTube offers analytics for videos hosted on its site and it also fairly easy to set up Google Analytics for your website so as to glean more information on your visitors.

2. Using digital videos to create brand awareness

Okay, so this one might be the most obvious use for digital videos. This is the stage where most people use commercials to drive traffic to their websites and gain new customers. Create fun, engaging content to let people know your brand exists and how you can help them. People might not know much about your brand or your service at this stage so there are a lot of things you have to play around with apart from advertisements.

• Make videos that talk about your company
• Create interesting video presentations
• Embed videos in your blog
• Create videos that demonstrate how your product works

Types of videos that work best for creating awareness

1. Brand promotion videos
2. Corporate videos
3. Infographic videos
4. Teaser videos

This video by the Dollar Shave Club garnered millions of views in no time at all, showing their customers that they didn’t take themselves too seriously.

3. Discovery and consideration

This is the stage that occurs after the awareness stage and the customers are trying to understand how you can help them overcome a particular challenge or solve a particular problem.  This is the stage where you convert the leads into sales. There are number of different kinds of things you can do to engage potential customers at this stage. Try:

• Live streaming videos like Facebook live
• Holding online events around these live videos
• Encourage existing customers to generate content of their own and share it
• Film customer testimonials: it helps potential customers make the right decision
• Making interactive videos and including your Calls to Action (CTAs) in the videos

Types of videos you can make to engage your customers

1. Explainer Videos
2. Tutorial Videos
3. Webinars
4. Interactive Videos
5. Customer Testimonials

Okay so this video isn’t actually promoting anything, but have a look to see how you can use interactive videos in your campaign.

4. Customer retention

Existing customers can often be forgotten in the chase to gain new ones. Video is a great way to let your loyal clients know that you appreciate them. You want them to keep coming back as well as to tell others about how wonderful you are. Here are some things you can do to make sure your existing customers do not feel neglected:

• Have your CEO / Account Managers create a video to say thank you and send it in a personalised email
• Ask customers to share their own how-to / instructional videos about your product
• Create webinars / virtual events exclusively for existing customers
• Create videos that encourage sharing and offer incentives for conversions (like refer a friend etc.)

Types of videos that encourage customer retention

1. Thank you Videos
2. Troubleshooting Videos
3. User Generated Content
4. Brand Promotional Videos

Check out this video by a GoPro customer that shows how User Generated Content can really be used to promote your brand if you encourage your customers to create it.

No matter the type of video you need to make, a vital factor is its quality. A good video production company should be able to help you through every stage of creating videos for your brand, from conceptualisation to postproduction.

So whether it’s for brand-building purposes, or customer retention, Toolbox Studio would love to hear from you! Call us at +91 20 46607590 or write to us at [email protected] to know how we can help you with your digital video production needs.

Featured image source: https://yourstory.com/2015/12/video-marketing-strategies/

Aashay Gatade

Last updated: October 4, 2024

Aashay Gatade is a film editor with over 10 years of professional experience. He has worked on feature films, short films, web series, TVCs etc. These include commercial success as well as critical acclaim. Also he has been teaching film making for more than 3 years.