What Is Video Marketing? The Comprehensive Guide

Video marketing is exploding. Audiences can’t get enough video content – over 500 million hours are watched daily on YouTube alone. Video could comprise 95% of all internet traffic within years.

This presents a huge opportunity for marketers. Brands adding video across channels like social media, ads and websites see engagement, traffic, leads and sales surge.

But to capitalize, you need the right video strategy. This comprehensive guide explores:

Most impactful marketing video types
Steps to create effective video campaigns
Measurement tactics to optimize for ROI
Real examples of video marketing success

Follow our blueprint to use video content that educates, entertains and converts. Let’s dive in to ramp up results!

What Is Video Marketing?

Video marketing involves using video content to engage, entertain, educate, and inform audiences about your brand, products, or services.

Brands leverage video across various touchpoints in the consumer journey to attract new buyers, build trust and credibility, and increase conversions.

Types of Videos Used in Marketing

There are countless ways to incorporate video into your marketing efforts. Some of the most essential video types include:

Brand Videos

Brand videos focus on storytelling to increase brand awareness and convey your company’s vision, mission, products, services, and values to your audience emotionally. They help set you apart from competitors.

Explainer Videos

Explainer videos use audiovisual elements to showcase how your product or service works and why customers should choose you. They highlight specific features and benefits through demonstrations.

Product Demo Videos

Product demo videos provide an in-depth look at your offerings, often showcasing product functionality in action. They enable potential customers to see precisely how your solution would meet their needs.

Short-form social videos help raise brand awareness and engagement on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. They educate and entertain viewers quickly while encouraging shares.

Webinars

Webinars feature educational video content ideal for onboarding customers, nurturing leads, and increasing retention. They showcase thought leadership through interactive elements like Q&As.

Testimonial Videos

Testimonial videos leverage customer advocates to build trust and credibility for your brand. They provide authentic social proof that your product works through real-life examples.

Live Video Streaming

Live video streams create interactive events, announcements, Q&As, and product launches happening in real-time. Viewers can engage directly with your brand by commenting and reacting.

Why Is Video Marketing So Effective?

There are countless reasons why video content is an indispensable part of any modern digital marketing strategy, no matter what industry you operate in.

Captures Attention

Video is naturally eye-catching, engaging, and compelling for viewers. Audiences find it easier to focus on video content rather than blocks of text when browsing online. Videos help grab their attention instantly.

Builds Trust

Video enables brands to highlight authenticity and expertise. Demonstrations, testimonials, and thought leadership establish credibility. Customers trust video-fueled recommendations more than promotional copy.

Drives Conversions

Videos designed to guide viewers through each stage of the marketing funnel can effectively nurture leads while also compelling customers further down the path toward a purchase.

Improves SEO

Videos enhance organic visibility and search engine rankings thanks to increased click-through rates from SERPs, more backlinks, reduced bounce rates, and opportunities for keyword optimization.

Video performs extremely well across social media, consistently generating more overall engagement. Audiences are more likely to like, share, and comment on video posts.

Enhances Retention

Current customers appreciate continued education through how-to videos, webinars, live streams, and other evergreen video content types. This strengthens relationships over time through value delivery.

How Does Video Marketing Work? Steps to Follow

Launching a successful video marketing campaign involves careful planning and execution across nine essential steps:

1. Define Your Goals

Outline your objectives for video marketing upfront based on business needs and the customer journey. Videos can raise brand awareness, engage social audiences, educate buyers, drive conversions, or retain customers. Ensure you can measure results with quantifiable KPIs.

2. Research Your Audience

Conduct buyer persona research to understand your ideal customers. Discover details around demographics, psychographics, behaviors, pain points, and intent during the purchasing process. These insights will shape video messaging.

3. Choose Video Types & Topics

Align video content formats and topics to your audience interests, viewer intent, production capabilities, and business goals. Select the length, style, platforms, interactive elements, etc.

4. Write The Video Script

Flesh out every visual and dialogue component in your video within a script. Outline critical pieces that convey your core value proposition while engaging viewers based on their intent and journey stage.

5. Produce High-Quality Videos

Invest in experienced talent, equipment, software, and environments to produce a polished, professional video. Pay special attention to elements like camera work, lighting, sound, editing, graphics, actors, and sets based on the video style.

6. Publish Videos on Relevant Platforms

Distribute content across owned channels like your website and social media profiles first to retain full control. Then consider earned media like guest posts and influencer partnerships or paid promotion through ads.

7. Optimize for SEO

Incorporate target keywords in video titles, descriptions, captions, and associated web pages naturalistically to boost visibility. Prioritize elements that encourage engagement like CTAs to drive viewership metrics.

8. Promote Your Content

Spread awareness of new videos through email subscribers, website banners, cross-channel social posts, strategic hashtags, influencer collaborations, and paid ads. Make promotion an ongoing effort.

9. Analyze Performance

Use platform analytics to measure and track quantitative video success relative to the KPIs established in your goals. Monitor views, completion rates, traffic sources, lead generation, conversions, engagement levels, audience retention and more.

Video Marketing Statistics: Is It Worth Investing In?

Wondering if video production is worth prioritizing for your brand? The latest video marketing statistics paint a compelling picture:

92% of marketers say video provides ROI for their business
Video content is shared on social 1200% more than images and text combined
90% of shoppers say videos help inform their purchasing decisions
64% of buyers made a purchase after watching branded social media videos
Videos in email marketing can boost click-through rates by 200-300%
YouTube drives over 10 billion views per day
The average internet user spends 88% more time on websites with video

With billions of hours consumed globally across social feeds, YouTube, marketing emails, websites, and more – it’s clear video adoption will only accelerate.

Video Marketing Best Practices

Ready to kick your video marketing game into high gear? Keep these proven video best practices in mind:

Define Required Resources: Carefully map out the people, equipment, software, budget, and timeline required to hit production goals upfront. Secure all assets before filming to prevent delays.
Focus on Value for the Viewer: Obsess over creating tangible value for customers in your videos through education, entertainment, incentives to act or product capability showcases rather than prioritizing vanity metrics like views.
Hook Attention Fast: You only have a few seconds to grab viewer attention and set expectations. Lead with intriguing visuals, motion graphics, or questions aligned to viewer intent before delivering value.
Convey Authenticity: Let your brand personality and passion shine through hosted videos. Pursue thoughtful narrative techniques over aggressive self-promotion. Transparency and vulnerability can build trust.
Interact With Audiences: Increase comments and overall viewership by prompting social shares, reactions, thoughts, or questions to the audience. Make engagement intrinsic to your video strategy.
Diversify Video Types: Align different video styles, lengths, and formats to every stage of the customer journey. Short-form social videos, 1-2 minute demo reels and 20-30 minute webinars all have strategic roles.
Adopt Emerging Social Platforms: Stay on top of the latest video-centric platforms audiences flock to like TikTok and Instagram Reels to retain relevance. Be an early adopter of new features like livestreams.
Collaborate With Influencers: Work with credible industry experts, brands and macro/micro social influencers as guest contributors or brand advocates to expand organic reach.
Test New Video Styles: Continually experiment with innovative video formats like 360 content, augmented reality, fully animated videos, or conversational video to fuel referral traffic and social buzz.
Promote Consistently: Don’t let your video efforts go to waste by failing to promote across all owned, earned and paid channels sustainably. Share new and evergreen titles consistently.

Real-World Video Marketing Examples

Still evaluating whether video should be part of your 2024 digital marketing plans? Here are some powerful examples from leading brands seeing incredible ROI:

Microsoft

Global technology leader Microsoft emphasises video across nearly all products and solutions to onboard, educate and excite customers. The company shares short teasers, long-form tutorials, customer success summaries, webinars and more.

One of their top viewed technical videos breaks down how to use Excel pivot tables. Despite seeming dry on paper, it has over 5 million views thanks to strong SEO and continual promotion through owned channels.

Salesforce

Enterprise SaaS CRM giant Salesforce has an entire video focused “Customer 360” section of their website. Users can browse short clips by product, role and industry use case. Salesforce also shares live event reels, detailed help articles and expert-led webinars.

One of their most popular campaigns focuses on client success stories. These emotionally resonant testimonials highlight how diverse customers from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies meet objectives using Salesforce.

By putting client narratives front and center, they build trust and validation for the brand. Recent examples showcase a mid-sized clothing company going global with Salesforce Commerce Cloud and a biotech firm accelerating distribution with Hyperforce.

Beyond their owned channels, Salesforce stays active on YouTube with an extensive content library. Their most popular video is a humorous, animated clip entitled “What Happens When You Create Opportunities in Salesforce.” This viral video educating users on converting leads into customers has over 500,000 views.

HubSpot

HubSpot, a leading marketing, sales and service software provider, leans heavily into video across their owned channels and social media presence. One of their most successful examples is an educational video called “What is ChatSpot?” explaining their new AI-powered live chat platform.

Shared on YouTube, the video racked up nearly 250,000 views in under 7 months thanks to strong optimization and promotion across their site and social profiles.

Beyond turbocharging organic growth, HubSpot also tests paid video ads frequently. Recent examples sequence viewers through tailored video funnels. Initial awareness ads showcase product benefits at a high-level, while subsequent videos take a consultative approach focused on specific user pain points.

Key Takeaways and Conclusion

Video marketing is a powerful way for brands across every industry to engage audiences while guiding them on a journey from awareness to retention. It pays dividends across owned, paid and earned channels.

Numerous formats like social videos, testimonials and live streams serve strategic marketing roles
92% of businesses confirm video content provides positive ROI
Viewers spend 88% more time on websites with video over plain text
Production value instills consumer trust and enhances credibility
Videos that educate audiences generate the highest engagement
Measuring viewership, conversion metrics and engagement rates is key

For today’s leading companies, video creation is no longer an optional investment but an essential way to connect with target audiences online. The consumers of tomorrow expect rich media experiences versus static ads or plain blog posts.

As video production costs continue to decrease thanks to accessible equipment, editing tools and even AI, video content will become table stakes. Brands failing to What is Brand Marketingfincorporate it into their strategy risk falling behind. The time to start is now.