Video marketing has become essential for businesses looking to grow their brand and reach diverse audiences. With the increasing popularity of video content, most notably on TikTok and other platforms that emulate its short-form video strategy, it is no wonder that video marketing has become a top choice for eCommerce businesses of all sizes.
One of the most significant advantages of video marketing is its ability to engage and connect with viewers in a way that text and static visuals cannot. Videos allow ambitious brands to showcase their products or services, tell their brand story, and demonstrate their offer’s value in a visually appealing and informative way.
Simply put, the growing preference for video over text-based content allows brands to communicate with their target audiences more effectively. Video helps potential customers understand your brand’s purpose and what makes it stand out, which increases their likelihood of choosing you over your competition.
Below is our straightforward guide on using video marketing to boost brand growth.
Develop an Appropriate Video Marketing Strategy for Your Niche
Before you start creating videos, it is essential to clearly understand what you want to achieve and who you want to reach. This means you first must focus on developing a video marketing strategy that aligns with your brand’s goals and target audience.
When thinking about your overall goals as a brand, ask yourself what you want to accomplish with video content. For example, brand growth is closely tied to increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, and generating more leads. Having these goals set out is essential to digital marketing of any kind and will therefore help guide your video content and distribution strategy.
Then, think about your specific niche, and consider the unique qualities that make your brand stand out in it. You’ve probably already pinpointed the main differences that, once correctly advertised, could help customers differentiate your offer from your competitors. Your future video content should clearly explain how your products or services solve specific problems and address (unmet) needs of your target audience.
Additionally, when thinking about the people you want to reach with your videos, consider factors such as demographics, interests, and pain points. This understanding will help you create content as described above so that it is relevant and appealing to highly relevant leads.
Use Different Kinds of Videos
ECommerce businesses can use many different types of videos to boost their brand’s growth. However, before investing in creating as many videos as possible, think about the kinds of videos you most often see in your niche. Keeping up with successful video marketing trends is critical to understanding where to start if you haven’t dabbled in video content before.
That being said, here are some examples of different types of videos that you can use in your video marketing efforts:
- Explainer or demo videos. These videos provide a visual introduction to a product or service and are used to explain how it works briefly.
- Customer testimonials. These videos feature real customers discussing their experiences with a product or service. Testimonials are often a good choice for video marketing as they can build trust and credibility with potential customers by showcasing the positive experiences of others.
- Brand-specific videos. These videos tell your brand’s story and showcase your business’s unique qualities and values. They can help build brand awareness and establish an emotional connection with your audience by adding a human touch and an element of authenticity — both highly marketable traits in the digital sphere.
- Live videos. Live videos, or live streams, are recorded and broadcast in real-time. They can be an effective way to engage with your audience and generate buzz around your brand. Live videos also add authenticity and show your willingness to interact with your target audience more closely.
- Animated videos. These videos use fun or engaging animated graphics to tell a story or explain a concept. They can be an informative and visually appealing way to convey more details about your offer to your audience.
A specific tip to have in mind when creating content for TikTok and similar platforms is that the most effective strategy is to use trending sounds or meme video formats that many users can recognize and relate to. It is easy to understand how a trend works after watching multiple videos with the same concept, so don’t be hesitant about this approach.
In addition, you should research what kinds of videos manage to garner the most views and positive sentiment from audiences. Young adults will typically respond favorably to humorous, short-form videos. At the same time, an older audience will accept a more serious tone of voice in long-form videos that bring clarity and a sense of reliability.
Optimize Your Video Content for Search Engines
Optimizing your video content for search engines is an integral part of a successful video marketing strategy. By including relevant keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags, you can increase the visibility of your videos in search results and make it easier for potential customers to find them.
Here are three essential tips to optimize your brand’s video content for search engines:
- Use specific keywords and tags. Choose keywords that are most tied to your eCommerce business and the content of your videos. Avoid using overly broad or generic terms, as they may not be as effective at attracting organic traffic — which is essential to boost the growth of your brand.
- Include keywords in your video titles and descriptions. Using your primary keywords in titles and descriptions will help search engines understand the context of your videos and make them more likely to appear in relevant search results.
- Utilize closed captions. Including closed captions with your videos can make them more accessible to a broader audience. Accessibility is something that search engines will also look at when ranking your content in their search results.
Promote Your Videos on Relevant Platforms
Although social media is an ever-changing marketing landscape, there are some universal steps that you must always take to promote your videos on any platform successfully.
First, using relevant hashtags can make it easier for people to find your video content. Apart from hashtags, ensure that you include a high-quality keyword or two in the rest of your caption because many social media networks will be crawling the accompanying text in its entirety when displaying search results to users.
Another valuable method is to collaborate with influencers. Partnering with influencers in your niche can help expose your brand to new audiences, increase the reach of your video content, and drastically improve your conversion rates. However, before reaching out to any particular influencer, you must research which of them can logically be associated with your brand. Generally, it is wise to have a person on your marketing team as a designated influencer manager to pinpoint and handle potential collaborations.
Of course, using paid advertising on social media can tremendously help increase the visibility of your video content and boost brand awareness. If your current marketing budget allows for it, you can run a paid campaign that features your videos. Be careful to choose suitable videos to promote; the short form is optimal for ads, as snappy yet engaging videos are best at grabbing and maintaining audiences’ attention.
Finally, encourage conversation and engagement with your followers by asking for their thoughts and feedback on your videos. Responding to comments and messages can help build a community around your brand and increase the reach of your video content.
Keep Testing and Tweaking Your Strategy
Measuring the success of your video marketing efforts to understand what’s working and what isn’t is another crucial step that falls under digital marketing 101. By analyzing data from your video marketing campaigns, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize future campaigns for even better results.
Several key metrics should be considered when assessing your video marketing campaigns. They include the view count for each video you publish; engagement numbers, such as likes, shares, and comments on social media platforms, as well as click-through rates for your CTAs; and conversion rates, which are essential for eCommerce businesses using videos to increase sales and traffic for their online stores.
Luckily, many online tools can help you gauge the success of your videos, whether you need a YouTube rank checker or an all-in-one software that tracks metrics across different platforms.
Once you’ve collected all this relevant data, use it to tweak and enhance your future video marketing campaigns. For example, if you notice that a particular type of video has a higher view count or conversion rates, focus on creating more content in that vein. On the other hand, if a video you put out has low engagement numbers or poor conversion rates, you will want to revise your approach or consider targeting a different audience.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, video marketing can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal for accelerating brand growth. By creating a sound video marketing strategy, utilizing different types of videos, optimizing for search engines, promoting on social media, and remembering to measure your outcomes, your eCommerce business can effectively use video marketing to reach and engage its target audience.
