Now we all know that content is pretty key when it comes to inbound marketing. Content is what drives traffic to our sites, converts visitors into leads, closes your leads into sales, and keeps customers coming back for more.
Content doesn’t just have to be written blog posts, though. There are a plethora of different forms of content you can use in your content marketing, like infographics, podcasts, webinars, and video.
Each of these different forms can help convey a message better than other forms. For instance, an infographic might be able to share key statistics better than a blog post or podcast. Or maybe you want to show some features of your software, which would be best demonstrated in a video.
Today, we’re going to dive into using videos in your inbound marketing program.
Why Use Video
Videos are a great way to help reach different goals, like…
- Traffic and/or conversions
- Brand awareness
- Social shares
Plus – it doesn’t take a whole bunch of money to do video marketing. All you need is:
- Camcorder
- Lapel Mic
- Lights
- Editing Software
And Wistia gives you this video and this video to help you make it even more cost effective!
Goal 1: Using Video for Increasing Conversions and Traffic.
Videos can be great for helping sell a specific product or service. Not to mention, these videos can really enhance your product or service pages. So what kind of content would you find in these types of videos? You would typically include a soft sell, hard facts, and maybe even some empathy for the viewer.
As an added bonus, you can include the transcripts to provides valuable information for users and unique and relevant text for your product pages.
Now when it comes to how you embed these videos, you’ll want to use a service like Wistia or Brightcove instead of YouTube. Here are a few reasons why:
- If you use YouTube, you’ll be driving traffic to YouTube rather than your site.
- Click-through-rates from YouTube back to a website tend to be very low (we are talking below 1%). That means you could lose up to 99% of potential traffic.
- Using a service like Wistia or Brightcove will allow you to get rich snippets on search engine results.
- These services allow you to create and submit your video to your sitemap.
- With Wistia you can capture email addresses (and integrate it with your HubSpot portal).
Goal 2: Using Video for Brand Awareness
TV ads over the past few decades have showed us that videos can be a great way to build brand awareness. And now, with the help of the internet, people can watch videos on places other than the TV.
There a few different approaches you can take with this type of video. You might share a creative story attached to your brand or you may choose to make it purely informational. Regardless of what direction you take with it, this video should be relevant for an audience unfamiliar with your brand.
Since your goal is to build brand awareness, you’ll want to use YouTube to share this video. Just as you would use Google AdWord Keyword Planner for your PPC ads, you can use the YouTube Keyword Tool for idea generation. And to measure success with this goal, you’ll want to measure user engagement, not number of views.
Goal 3: Using Video for Social Sharing
Video can be especially helpful when trying to produce highly shareable content. The key here is to create videos that people will embed or link to. These videos could be blogging videos (like our Friday Fails), interviews, or anything that people in your industry would like to share.
And as an added bonus - If you’re like most companies, you have a few people helping with your blog content. And writing might not be their strongest skill or favorite pastime. By giving them the option to do a video instead, you might see more engagement and willingness to help.
When it comes to your video hosting, you’ll want to use a service like Wistia or Brightcove to ensure that your videos are only visible on your domain. These services also allow you to customize your embed code so that it links back to you.
Focus on One Goal Per Video
Now that you know the different types of things videos can help with, make sure you pick only one goal per video and know who you want to measure that goal. And just like anything else in marketing, make sure to evaluate after a month, quarter and/or year if what you are doing is working.
Good luck and happy video shooting!
Photo Credit: Shopping Diva via Compfight cc
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