Video Marketing Basics

May 29

Image courtesy of @thomasw via Unsplash.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you might have heard about the rise of video marketing online.

From a quick search, there were just under 1 million news stories on video marketing – and a staggering 4.5 billion results overall.

And with good reason:

Videos on landing pages can increase conversions by up to 86%.
(source: eyeView Digital)

Videos in emails increase click-through rate by 2-3 times.
(source: Forrester)

52% of product-centric video watchers share those product videos.
(source: the e-tailing group)

Video adverts have an average click-through rate of 1.84%, which sounds low, but it’s the average across everything – it’s also the highest CTR of all digital advert mediums.
(source: Invespcro)

Videos on social media get 21.2% more engagements than image posts, and 18.6% more engagements than carousel posts.
(source: SproutSocial)

64% of video watchers purchase after watching a branded video on social media.
(source: Tubular Insights)

Your business is 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of a Google result if you have a video on your webpage.
(source: Video Explainers)

A video on Facebook gets an average of 135% more organic reach than a photo.
(source: Socialbakers)

Video marketing can get your business 66% more qualified leads per year.
(source: Aberdeen Group)

But where do you start with video marketing?

Never fear, I’m going to guide you through the basics.

Image courtesy of @chrislawton via Unsplash.

What do you want to achieve?

You need to know the purpose of your video and why you’re creating it before you start, so you can determine what type of video to produce, and what your messaging will be.

Here are some types of video to get your creativity flowing:

Tutorial
Demonstrating how your product works for those who might not know, or showing them some other uses of the product.

Advertising
Broadcasting the benefits and features of your product, with your product as the main focus of the video.

Vlog
A more informal, usually roughly scripted video of one (or a few) people speaking directly to the camera.
It’s also a good idea to interject your static video with some stock footage or text, to break it up a bit more.

Presentation
Particularly good if you run regular events and have speakers making presentations – why not record them?
That way, you have a lot of footage ready for you to repurpose beyond the event.

Behind-the-scenes
Give your audience a sneak peek of how you create your product, who your employees are, where you’re based, and how you work together. Humour always helps with these sorts of videos – they help remind your audience that you’re not just a brand, you’re people.

Interview
A one-to-one with someone relevant to your product or brand. Get your audience more engaged by asking them to submit questions, for additional content for your video.

Webinar

Often a slide presentation on a specific topic, a webinar is something that your audience will have to pre-register for so they can watch it live, and you can also share the slides and recordings with them afterwards.

Reviews and testimonials
As I’ve said before, feedback is gold dust.
And video feedback is gold dust with teeny tiny diamonds sprinkled about it.

Have your customers send in short videos of them singing your praises, and put them into a longer video – showing exactly what you can do, and why your customers love you.

Animation
I love animated videos – they really stand out in a sea of ‘human’ faces and real-life videos.
However, they need to be done well to stand out, otherwise they’ll just look… well... crap.

This is something you need to invest in to get it done properly – if you do it yourself, it’ll show.

Livestream
Another video that’s great for events companies, or even another format for interviews or tutorials and Q&A sessions.

Livestreams are great for getting your audience engaged with your content – they feed into the idea of FOMO (fear of missing out), and generate a buzz around your content.

Storyboarding and scripting

The next step of making videos for your marketing communications is to storyboard your video.

Storyboarding is key – it doesn’t have to be beautifully sketched or perfectly detailed – just a rough doodle will work.

Having a storyboard helps you to keep your video sharp.

Speaking from experience, it’s easy to just ‘keep going’ when shooting a video – when I studied filmmaking at university, for our first short film, we didn’t storyboard, and ended up with hours of footage for a five-minute video.

We wasted a lot of time.

You want your video to be as short as possible – no fluff – without detracting from how the video looks.

Just like writing, every second should serve a purpose, and that purpose should be clear.

You can have shots where no-one is speaking, because sometimes those shots help break up a video, and you can have shots where there’s text on a background, because that helps to explain some points that are hard to describe verbally.

As long as they serve a purpose – and storyboarding helps you to determine exactly what you need in your video.

Similarly, scripting can help further flesh out the details of your video – particularly useful to those who might be camera-shy.

Even a few bullet points can help to guide which direction you want the video to go in, especially if you’re improvising to camera.

Preparation

Proper planning prevents piss-poor productions!

Storyboarding can help you to determine exactly what you need to produce and record your video – equipment, props, outfits, actors…

For larger-scale productions, you’d be surprised how many elements you need to create a video.

Of course, the majority of video marketing now is much smaller scale – there aren’t as many companies producing expensive adverts played across major TV channels.

Most video marketing is for social media – Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook, to name a few.

But even for the smaller-scale videos, you’ll still need different elements, and you need to plan and prepare what you need in advance of your shooting.

Part of your preparation will involve deciding how you’ll film your video.

A lot of videos, particularly for social media, are filmed on smartphones – any technological disadvantages are a thing of the past.

If you’re filming larger-scale videos, a smartphone won’t have the capacity you need – sound quality and shakiness are two of the main things you’ll sacrifice when filming with a smartphone.

However, you can fix this issue with add-ons – a decent-quality microphone and a tripod can make smartphone-filmed videos seem like bigger-budget films.

Another option is investing in an HD camera, but this can be an expensive option, although you can potentially rent a camera to keep your costs down, if you’re planning to record a larger-scale video on a budget.

Another consideration when planning and preparing to film your video is your environment.

Test the sound quality in your filming location – if you’re outside, you might need to consider a more powerful microphone, or a buffer against the wind.

You’ll also want to make sure that the lighting is appropriate – sometimes, filming outside without setting the white balance on your camera can result in colours looking pallid and pale.

Working with your environment, you should test different angles to see what works best.

Action

Now for the fun part – let’s get rolling!

You’ll find that filming is the part of the process that takes the shortest amount of time when creating a video.

Try to roll as much as you can – don’t stop and start, if you can help it.

That’ll make it much easier to edit afterwards rather than going through lots of different snippets of videos, or editing while you’re filming.

Filming for as long as possible without stopping is also handy for those in front of the camera – you can repeat lines that don’t quite sound right, and re-do any segments that you feel necessary.

That way, post-production, you can find the best versions and piece them together.

If you’re improvising on-camera, try not to waffle or over-repeat yourself – your content has to be valuable.
But if you find yourself down a rambling route or verbal wastage, don’t panic – you can always fix it in post!

If you’re freezing in front of the camera, have someone hold up cue cards, or even a tablet with your script on it, magnified so you can read it without squinting.

Tripping over your words is something we all do, especially when put on the spot – if you find yourself fumbling or stuttering, take a breath and centre yourself.

You will find your flow.

Editing

This is where the most effort is put into creating a video.

Make sure you have an editing software that you’re comfortable using – try out a few first, before uploading your footage.

There’s not much more frustrating than uploading your footage onto three different editing platforms and softwares before you find the one that works for you.

I’ve used a couple, and I get on with them both quite well – Camtasia (inexpensive and easy to learn) and Final Cut Pro (more expensive and trickier to master).

Of course, there are free editing softwares, but you do get what you paid for, and if you get it for free, you won’t have as many of the bells and whistles or flexibility of paid software.

Be brutal with your editing.

Just as you would be when editing any copywriting, you need to be as ruthless with your video footage.

And don’t use too many transitions – the changes between scenes.

Star-wipes and Star Wars-esque screen wipes don’t have a place in most videos, and, more often than not, you don’t even need transitions, just cut to the next scene.

Don’t forget the importance of sound – if someone’s talking, and then, for a while, they’re not, the silence will be deafening.

Add background music that isn’t distracting – you can find a lot of options for free music with a simple search online – Youtube have their own library of free music you can use, which does the job.

Hints and tips

Add captions to your videos, not only to make it as accessible as possible, but also if you’re posting it on social media – a lot of users watch videos with no sound, so subtitles are essential.
If posting on social media, don’t link out to your video. Instead, upload it to your social media platform – their algorithms will give you an extra push, as they don’t want users to leave their site.
Keep experimenting – try different ways of filming, editing, and distributing your videos. New app for videos? Try it out! Seen someone else’s recording style that you like? Try it out! Test everything, it’s the only way to achieve true growth.
If you’re using a script, don’t let it stifle you. Improvise with the script – you’ll sound much more natural.
Know the purpose of your video and always work towards it. Your content should be enriching your viewers’ lives, in one way or another, not wasting their time.
Just do it! Give video marketing a go – even if you’re ‘bad’ at it, you’ll get better with time, just like any other skill.