Video Marketing for Beginners: Strategy and Tips (2024)

If you’re looking to infuse visuals and video into your marketing mix and need a video marketing for beginners guide, then you are in the right place.

No doubt that brands need a video marketing strategy. What has changed is how important video has become on every platform and channel.

It’s no longer just one piece of your overall marketing plan. It’s central to your outbound, inbound and campaign efforts…

…especially your social strategy.

Video has absolutely dominated social. In a recent HubSpot report, social channels occupy four of the top six preferred channels for video consumption.

In addition, a Facebook executive recently predicted that the platform will be all video in less than five years.

Why is this important? Well, if you aren’t creating videos, you’re likely falling behind. But, don’t fret. For most videos, the more simple and raw it is, the more authentic the content seems.

Better yet, video production is more cost-effective than ever, These days, you can shoot in high-quality, 4K video with your smartphone.

Agreed, video creation is cheaper and easier than ever. But, between camera equipment to lighting to editing software, the topic of video marketing can still seem pretty complicated.

We know this because video marketing has become a very integral part of our overall inbound and digital marketing mix here at Digital Marketing Skill Institute.

From our podcasts, student testimonials, webinars, industry events, to live videos, we invest so much in video content creation for our marketing, as well as class training. We basically help our students understand the essence, practical steps and monetization process behind video marketing.

And that’s why we have compiled this video marketing for beginners guide for you. Alternatively, you can register for our digital marketing training for more detailed, actionable and immersive lessons on video and the entire digital marketing industry.

This guide breaks the video marketing process for beginners down to show you how easily (and quickly) you can get started with video for your marketing, whether you’re looking for small business video tips or you’re looking to create videos for a larger company.

Are you ready? Stand by…Let’s shoot!

What is Video Marketing?

The definition of video marketing is not complex. In fact, it’s rather simple: using video to promote or market your brand, product or service.

Get the gist?

A strong marketing campaign incorporates video into the mix. Customer testimonials, videos from live events, how-to videos, explainer videos, corporate training videos, viral (entertainment) videos —the list goes on.

Think of it this way…

If a photo’s worth a thousand words, then how much more valuable is video?

That’s the basis of video marketing, a forward-facing marketing strategy that integrates engaging video into your marketing campaigns. Now, you know what video marketing for beginners is. Let’s know why you should focus on it as a strategy.

Benefits of video marketing

1. Increased Brand Awareness: Videos can help businesses appear on customers’ radar early, building trust and relationships.
   Boosts Conversions and Sales: Adding a product video to a landing page can increase conversions by 80%.
2. Improved SEO: Well-executed video strategies can significantly impact search engine rankings, leading to increased traffic and visibility.
3. Increased Engagement: Users spend 88% more time on websites with video content, keeping them engaged and on the page.
4. Accessibility: Video marketing allows companies to reach a wider audience, including those with varying levels of literacy or who prefer visual communication

Why You Need to Focus on Video Creation for Your Marketing

2016 saw a surge in the popularity of video as a content marketing format. 2017 saw video rise to the top of your marketing tactic list.

What has 2018 seen? In short, 2018 has transformed video from a singular marketing tactic to an entire business strategy.

Here’s how.

Video is a Gold Mine for SEO

Video can increase your search engine ranking, click-through rates, open rates and conversions. But you have to reach your target audience.

YouTube is the second largest search engine (second to Google). What’s better: YouTube is owned by Google. So that means a properly tagged and keyword rich video can work wonders for your SEO.

Video Boosts Conversion Rates

A recent study found that 57 percent of online consumers were more likely to buy a product they were considering purchasing after watching a video demonstration of that product.

Explainer videos, product demo videos, how-to videos about your products can help give your leads an extra pushing towards converting for sales.

Video is Easily Accessible 

There are endless platforms for video marketing. YouTube, broadcast television, video boards and street marketing, you name it.

The possibilities are endless.

With a smartphone, consumers can access online video anytime, anywhere. The same is not true with traditional or offline marketing. With video, you can reach your audience wherever they are in a cost-effective way.

Video is Effective

Studies show that retention rates for information that is both seen and heard is as high as 80 percent.

Those numbers drop to 20 percent for information that is seen and just 10 percent for information that is heard. What does this tell you? Combining visual and audio is powerful.

Video is Emotional 

Video allows you to make a direct appeal to the emotional centre of a person’s brain through music. With video, you are also able to attach a face to a concept.

The human connection through video is more influential than reading facts in text.

Popular Types of Marketing Videos

Before you begin filming, you first need to determine the type of video(s) you want to create.

Here, we have curated a list of the major types of videos that you can use for your marketing.

1. Demo Videos

Demo videos showcase how your product works —whether that’s taking viewers on a tour of your software and how it can be used or unboxing and putting a physical product to the test.

2. Brand Videos

Brand videos are typically created as a part of a larger advertising campaign, showcasing the company’s high-level vision, mission, or products and services.

The goal of brand videos is to build awareness around your company and to intrigue and attract your target audience.

3. Event Videos

Is your business hosting a conference, round table discussion, fundraiser, or another type of event?

Produce a highlight reel or release interesting interviews and presentations from the gathering.

4. Expert Interviews

Capturing interviews with internal experts or thought leaders in your industry is a great way to build trust and authority with your target audience.

Find the influencers in your industry, whether they share your point-of-view or not, getting industry experts to share their reviews about your products would be a good way to convince early leads to have interest in your product.

5. Educational or How-To Videos

Instructional videos can be used to teach your audience something new or build the foundational knowledge they’ll need to better understand your business and solutions.

These videos can also be used by your sales and service teams as they work with customers.

6. Explainer Videos

This type of video is used to help your audience better understand why they need your product or service. Many explainer videos focus on a fictional journey of the company’s core buyer persona who is struggling with a problem.

This person overcomes the issue by adopting or buying the business’s solution.

7. Animated Videos

Animated videos can be a great format for hard-to-grasp concepts that need strong visuals or to explain an abstract service or product.

They help to use creative and animated motion graphics to communicate marketing messages for easier understanding.

8. Case Study and Customer Testimonial Videos

Your prospects want to know that your product can (and will) solve their specific problem. One of the best ways to prove this is by creating case study videos that feature your satisfied, loyal customers.

These folks are your best advocates. Get them on-camera describing their challenges and how your company helped solve them.

9. Live Videos

Live videos give your viewers a special, behind-the-scenes look at your company. It also draws longer streams and higher engagement rates —viewers spend up to 8.1x longer with live video than with video-on-demand.

Live-stream interviews, presentations, and events, and encourage viewers to comment with questions.

10. 360° & Virtual Reality (VR) Videos

With 360° videos, viewers “scroll” around to see content from every angle, as if they were physically standing within the content.

This spherical video style allows viewers to experience a location or event, such as exploring an apartment up for sale or take a virtual reality tour of a tourist site.

This allows viewers to navigate and control their experience. These videos are usually viewed through devices such as Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard.

11. Augmented Reality (AR) Videos

In this style video, a digital layer is added to what you are currently viewing in the world.

For example: You can point your phone’s camera at your living room and AR would allow you to see how a couch would look in the space. The IKEA Place app is a great example of this.

12. Personalized Messages

Video can be a creative way to continue a conversation or respond to someone via email or text. Use HubSpot Video or Loom to record yourself recapping an important meeting or giving personalized recommendations.

“These videos create a delightful, unique moment for your prospects and can drive them further down the purchase journey.

Essentials of Video Marketing

Devising an effective video strategy is no mean feat.

Although the barriers to entry are lower for brands compared to other media channels such as TV or cinema, marketers must think carefully about the type of video content they produce, the audience it is aimed at and the platforms on which it is shared.

This next section is to help you get started on creating a video marketing strategy.

Choosing a Video Format

From a 15-minute series to six-second Snapchat clips, the sheer volume of video formats and channels available means marketers need to carefully consider how video works for their specific brand.

These are the options:

Long-form video

As the home of long-form video content, YouTube is a favourite with brands looking to break the conventions of TV schedules and go direct to consumers. 

Short-form video

Whether it’s a six-second Snapchat clip or a polished, high-end Instagram Stories campaign, marketers are increasingly adding short-form video to their media mix.

This means marketers are experimenting with how to use the screen space to make a real impact.

Live video

Live streaming is currently being tried, tested and launched via various platforms. Twitter announced its plans for a 24/7 live video stream in April, Facebook and YouTube continue to try and grow their live offering and other players in the market are proving their worth.

Brands can advertise against live video streams to reach their desired audience but increasingly it’s a way for brands to create their own live content.

Aside from creating this content with Google, Facebook and Twitter, other platforms are emerging that offer the tools to take control and brand a video experience rather than having to use the existing platforms and all that comes with them.

Stories

Brands use Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook Stories to build awareness for their brands.

Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook all offer a ‘stories’ function on their sites. Stories originated with Snapchat in 2013 and allows users of the social media platform to play a series of ‘snaps’ or videos in one sequence.

Instagram and Facebook followed suit in 2016 and 2017 with their own not dissimilar versions of the feature.

Video Distribution Tips by Platform

Your Website

• Make sure your video content is easy to find
• Test your site on a mobile

What to post: Company Overview, Product Videos, About Me Video, Customer Testimonials

Facebook

• Avoid the hard sell
• Captivate in the first few seconds
• Target the right audience
• Go square in your images
• Use text

Instagram

• Think visual
• Keep it short
• Showcase a product
• Remember to set a cover image for your videos

YouTube

• Plan for intent
• Optimize meta data
• Educate your audience
• Be eye-catching

Twitter

• Keep it short and simple under 1 minute
• Be punchy and captivating with your caption
• Use hashtags to get your videos in front of a wider audience

Creating a Video Marketing Strategy for the Marketing Wheel

Too often, companies jump at the opportunity to create their first video. They spend tons of money on an explainer video for their homepage, but as soon as the project is complete, all future video ambitions screech to a halt.

Considering the time, money, and resources involved, video marketing can’t be an impulsive guessing game. Instead, you need to create a comprehensive video marketing strategy that applies to every facet of your flywheel.

This means thinking in the context of the inbound methodology.

The inbound methodology is the marketing and sales approach focused on attracting customers through content and interactions that are relevant and helpful. Each video you create should acknowledge your audience’s challenges and provide a solution.

Looking at the big picture, this content guides consumers through the journey of becoming aware of, evaluating, and purchasing your product or service.

In the following sections, we’ll cover the types of videos you should create for each stage in the image above. 

Attract (Marketing)

The first step of the inbound methodology is to attract (or turn strangers into visitors). Consumers at this stage are identifying their challenges and deciding whether or not they should seek out a solution.

Therefore, the videos you create should empathize with their problems and introduce a possible solution in your product or service.

Ultimately, the goal of this kind of video is to expand the reach and build trust. Because you are looking to garner shares for your video, it’ll likely be more entertaining and emotion-evoking than educational.

But, you should still provide enough information to associate yourself as an authority on the topic.

Convert (Marketing + Sales)

Now that you’ve attracted video viewers and website visitors, the next step is to convert these visitors into leads.

With most inbound marketing content, this means collecting some sort of contact information via a form. Video can aid this process by visualizing a solution to the buyer’s problem, whether that’s before the form on a landing page or as the offer itself.

Overall, the goal of this kind of video is to educate and excite.

“Convert” videos may include a webinar filled with tactical advice, product demos sent via email, landing page promotional videos, case studies, or more in-depth explainer and how-to videos.

Close (Sales)

You’ve attracted a new audience with your videos and converted the right visitors into leads. Now’s the time to close these leads into customers.

At this point, the consumer is weighing their options and deciding on the purchase. Therefore, the goal of this kind of video is to make your audience visualize themselves using your product or service — and thriving.

Great “close” videos include testimonials of customers with relatable stories, in-depth product demos, culture videos that sell viewers on your quality of service, or even personalized videos that explain exactly how your product could help their business

Delight (Customer loyalty)

A purchase may have been made, but there’s still a lot video can do to leverage the post-conversion stage of your flywheel.

During the “delight stage” of the inbound methodology, your goal is to continue providing remarkable content to users that makes their interaction with your product or service as incredible as possible.

It’s also in hopes that they’ll tell their connections about their experience or up-sell themselves. Therefore, the goal of this type of video is to encourage your customers to embrace your brand and become brand evangelists.

What Results to Measure in Video Marketing

Below are some popular metrics you’ll see when you publish and track video.

• View count: View count is the number of times your video has been viewed — also referred to as reach. 
• Play rate: Play rate is the percentage of people who played your video divided by the number of impressions it received. 
• Social sharing and comments: If you’re on social media, you’re probably familiar with sharing and commenting. Social shares and comments are good indicators of how relevant your content is with your target audience. 
• Video completions: If you took the time to make a video … you probably want people to watch the whole thing, right? A video completion is the number of times a video is played in its entirety. 
• Completion rate: Completion rate is the number of people who completed your video divided by the number of people who played it. 
• Click-through rate: Click-through rate (CTR) is the number of times your call-to-action (CTA) is clicked divided by the number of times it’s viewed. 
• Conversion rate: Conversion rate is the number of times visitors complete your desired action divided by the number of clicks on your CTA. 
• Bounce rate and time-on-page: Are you thinking about adding a video to a web page? Take note of the page bounce rate and the number of time people spent on the page before you add the video. 

Conclusion

I’m guessing you’re feeling a little overwhelmed right now. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Video editing and marketing can seem daunting at first, but with a little practice and patience, you can easily produce high-quality content that is unique to your brand.

With 71% of consumers watching more video online than they were a year ago, brands can no longer ignore its growing popularity.

Thankfully, creating great content has never been easier! I hope this post helped.

FAQs

How to Create a Video Marketing Strategy

1. Define Your Objectives: Clearly outline the goals you want to achieve through video marketing, such as increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or improving customer engagement.
2. Identify Your Target Audience: Understand your target audience’s preferences, interests, and behaviors to create videos that resonate with them effectively.
3. Choose the Right Platforms: Select the most suitable video platforms for your target audience, considering factors like audience demographics, video content type, and platform-specific features.
4. Develop a Content Plan: Create a content plan that outlines the types of videos you’ll produce, their frequency, and the themes they’ll cover. This plan should align with your overall marketing goals and target audience.
5. Create Engaging Content: Produce high-quality, engaging videos that showcase your brand’s personality, values, and products/services. Ensure your videos are visually appealing, informative, and entertaining to capture and maintain the audience’s attention.
6. Optimize for Search Engines: Optimize your videos for search engines by including relevant keywords in titles, descriptions, and tags. This helps improve video discoverability and drives more traffic to your content.
7. Promote Your Videos: Share your videos on social media, email campaigns, and other relevant channels to reach a wider audience and increase viewership. Additionally, consider collaborating with influencers or other brands to expand your video’s reach.
8. Measure and Analyze Results: Regularly monitor the performance of your videos, including views, engagement rates, and conversion metrics. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and optimize your video marketing strategy for better results.