It almost feels clichéd these days to start any article about video marketing with a sentence stating how powerful a medium it is. Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have noticed yourself how dominant video has become on social media and the wider web in general.

Delve a bit deeper and a quick search on Google will bring up numerous eye watering statistics about the huge growth in online video, both past and predicted (this infographic from Hubspot collates some of the most interesting and pertinent stats from 2015).

But creating a video and posting it on YouTube does not guarantee you massive brand exposure and ROI. In fact, with an ever growing sea of video content out there, it’s getting harder to be noticed. With that in mind, we thought it high time at The Marketing Café to give you a rundown of seven top tips to obtaining more traction from your video content.

We’ll start as everything in marketing should start; with your audience.

1. 1. Know your Audience: Understanding your audience is the foundation stone upon which all video marketing should be built. Ultimately you want to create content that your audience and customers will want to watch. All too quickly companies will assume they know who that audience is, based on gut instincts about their company and its values, products or services. However, this assumption can often be wrong. Detailed market research and audience data is like gold dust to any video marketing campaign so make sure you invest time and resources into this before you even begin the creative process.
   2. Keywords and Video SEO: We’ve covered search engine optimisation for video content in a previous post and it’s certainly got to factor heavily into your video marketing approach. SEO is about discovery in search and that means understanding what your audience is searching for. So getting your videos optimised for discovery on platforms like YouTube and Google for key search terms really is fundamental if you are to get any traction in the search results.
   3. Use Strong Titles: As well as forming a fundamental part of your keyword strategy and an important ranking signal, strong video titles will also help boost click through rate (CTR). Creating strong titles that include your keywords isn’t always easy but a good rule is to always imply a little mystery to get people interested and reel in those curious minded YouTube browsers who have stumbled upon your content.
   4. Be Original: Of course, we all know that content is king, but what makes for royally good content is never straightforward. The exponentially increasing volume of video content online means that there’s a lot of very similar and samey stuff doing the rounds out there. Of course, originality doesn’t guarantee success (just because something is original doesn’t make it great) but if it has genuine entertainment or educational value and is well promoted then it does give you a huge advantage over all the other hackneyed content out there.
   5. Make a Variety of Content: Good content should educate, inform or inspire your audience so it makes sense to create a variety of content to cover all these bases. As a rule your occasional big brand videos should attract a higher budget and a far reaching multi channel marketing strategy, whilst your regular and episodic YouTube based content should aim to add value to existing and established audiences with more targeted marketing strategies. There are tons of options when it comes to content formats, from product demos and behind the scenes footage to video testimonials and big brand films. This excellent guide from Social Media Examiner has plenty of ideas to get your teeth into.
   6. Include Clear CTAs: Calls to action have a proven track record in improving click through rates and ultimately conversions so it’s important to include them in your video marketing. Having a CTA at the end of your video doesn’t mean making it sales orientated though. In fact, it’s important not to try and ‘close the sale’ with your video content, as this will often just put people off. Much in the same way this written guide is offering actionable advice, so too should your videos offer information that the viewer can go away and act upon, even if it has nothing to do with your brand. If the advice is useful to them, then that person is far more likely to share and seek out your content, and indeed your company, in the future.
   7. Go Beyond YouTube: We’ve talked a lot about YouTube in this guide and whilst we’d strongly advise that a properly structured YouTube channel with regular content should form the bedrock of your online video content hub, it shouldn’t stop there. It’s easy to embed content from YouTube on your website, as well as in guest posts on third party blogs and sites. There are also a huge number of social media platforms that allow you to post video content as well so find the ones that count and get sharing.

For more information on how video marketing can help drive awareness of your company and increase your ROI, then get in touch with us today on 01563 509005 or email.