Video strategy is a big subject and the Video Marketing Strategy Training course I run for Econsultancy takes a full day to cover all the elements at a high level.

Clearly I can’t give you all the answers in a short blog post. What I can do is give you some pointers to get you thinking about the right things and asking the right questions when commissioning content.

Video should fit into a wider campaign or strategy, and planned as far ahead as possible. A full video strategy will help measure the effectiveness of your content and help you decide how much it’s worth spending on video.

Okay, so you need to put together a strategy but what are the quick wins when it comes to getting more from video? 

Don’t create something you want to watch

It sounds obvious but so many people produce films that they think are great, with little consideration as to how the audience will react to the content.

If possible use research to better understand what your audience want to see, share and discuss, and more importantly what will encourage them to move on your call-to-action.

Do something different

It takes a little bravery to produce something different, but it’s that content that stands out and makes a difference. It doesn’t have to be a viral shocker, just interesting.

All video content should be engaging, and yes even B2B films shouldn’t be dull! Think to yourself, would someone choose to watch this?

Include a call-to-action

It’s important to remember the video has been produced for a reason, give your audience every chance to take action while they watch your content.

On your site, it may be a ‘chat’ button, phone number or email link, on YouTube: a clickable CTA that drives people through to your site. It’s important to get people away from YouTube! 

Use analytics

Understanding your analytics can give a fantastic insight into your audience and your videos. I produce regular reports for clients that detail the demographic of their audience, audience retention, view rate and CTR.

Try and plug into any existing analytics you are using, this can allow you to track a specific film through to a specific sale.

Test

Using A-B testing or multivariate testing will ensure that you aren’t pinning all your hopes on one film.

Produce multiple versions and compare their performance. You could change the edit, the call-to-action, thumbnail or tags for example.

Watch for exact copies though, YouTube won’t like duplicates.

Decide on KPIs

If all you want are views or likes on YouTube, or a pretty film on your site that ‘people love’ then that’s fine – if you want more, make sure you decide on realistic KPIs before you begin the project. These KPIs would be a core part of a video strategy but even on a single project basis they are important. KPIs for a video might include:

  • Views
  • Likes
  • Comments
  • Impressions
  • PR
  • Click through rate 
  • View rate
  • Sales/Leads
  • Calls
  • Chat
  • Awards
  • Subscribers 

Be realistic, some of these may need significant investment to achieve.

Views need a little push

Sadly, just because you’ve created a great film and optimised it for YouTube, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will get watched. Consider some paid advertising.

Using Adwords you can create very targeted video ads that will drive traffic through to your film. 

A good film can also create some great PR which can be great for your business and will raise awareness of your content. Journalists are keen for interesting, relevant content they can link to.

And that’s just the start

This is a really quick overview of some of the things you can implement to help your videos become more effective. My future blog posts will look at these elements in more detail.

The thing to remember is that video takes a lot of effort if you want to achieve positive results. If you put the effort in though, those results can be very impressive.

If you’d like to attend our next Video Marketing Strategy Training course, book your place now. The next date is 3 November 2015.