A video marketing strategy is essential to creating video content that serves a purpose. But how do you develop a working, flexible video strategy? Here’s everything you need to create a video marketing strategy that’ll make your company proud.

Determine what your video Marketing Strategy will accomplish.

The most vital step in creating a video marketing strategy is determining what the goal of your video(s) will be. Without a clear goal in mind, videos look scatterbrained and misguided. So, take a few minutes to decide what the purpose of your video marketing is. Need some ideas? Here are a few video marketing goals to get you started:

• Rank for SEO to appear higher in Google
• Increase site traffic
• Educate consumers about your product
• Convert consumers
• Boost brand awareness

Decide who your videos are for.

Now that you have your specific goals in mind, you need to determine who your content is for. Ideally, your brand has previously created a variety of brand personas that imitate your consumer base. When designing a video marketing strategy, keep in mind that most of your videos won’t apply to all of your buyer personas. And they shouldn’t. Your personas will have individual concerns and values that will need to be addressed. Trying to make a universally appealing singular video will only water down your message, making it ineffective. Having solid buyer personas in place makes designing effective, targeted videos much simpler down the line.

Define the best type of content for your goals.

So, you have your goals. You have your buyer personas. Now comes the time to determine what type of content makes sense to accomplish your mission. One way to begin this process is to develop a mission statement for your videos that explains who you are and what you want to accomplish for whom. Then, go a step further: boil your mission down to one word. Difficult, right? But once you have it, you’ll have a crystal-clear idea of the end goal.

Next, determine the best types of videos to get your message across to your consumers. Depending on where your consumers fall in the sales funnel, different types of videos are more likely to appeal to them. Here’s what videos appeal to different consumer stages:

• Awareness Stage: “What is this brand?”
  • Branded content
  • Entertainment videos
  • Ad campaigns
  • Topical videos
• Consideration Stage: “Why should I purchase/consider this brand?”
  • Product videos
  • Case studies
  • Culture videos
  • Business overviews
• Purchase stage: “I want to know all about X Brand!”
  • How-tos
  • Product announcements
  • Community building videos

Outline relevant video topics.

Now you’re ready to move on to the fun part: brainstorming specific video topics to focus on. While it may be tempting to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, you’ll want to take a more tactical approach. Ask yourself some questions. What type of story needs to be told? Are there common questions your consumers will ask? Are these videos short-term or evergreen content? Give yourself an idea of what topics need to be addressed.

Once you have some ideas, you’ll want to break them down and organize them into categories and subcategories. You’ll have broader “content pillar” videos and then videos that dive further into particular topics or subtopics. Create a chart of all your ideas so you can see what can be combined and what you’ll want to expand on. Keep in mind that your content should never be 100% short-term or 100% evergreen. Consider creating content for specific events or dates that are relevant to your brand while mixing in more long-term content. This gives your brand a beautiful blend of relevancy and staying power.

Decide who is responsible for creating your video content.

Determining who is going to create your video content can be a bit tricky as there are a number of factors to consider. How many videos are you creating? What do you want the quality to be? Does your team have the capability of producing what you want? While many large corporations have internal video teams, for smaller companies, it’s often not in the budget to hire someone full time. For that reason, hiring out to a production agency is often a more reasonable use of assets. It takes pressure off your team and allows the experts to work within your limitations to create something truly astounding.

Decide on a video marketing budget.

Ah, another tricky decision. If you do approach an agency, you’ll want to have a budget in mind for your project. This will give your video team an idea of what they are capable of producing and the best uses of resources. Sometimes it may feel that the project determines the budget instead of the other way around, but it’s important to have a ballpark in mind to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Determine where your content will live.

Your grand plan is underway. You’ve designed a masterful video campaign that will entice your buyer personas and achieve your video marketing goals. You can already see the crowds flocking to your brand and making you money beyond your wildest dreams. But wait. You forgot something. How are people going to see your video?

Deciding where your video is going to live is just as, if not more, important than what’s going in it. What’s the point of creating a visual masterpiece if nobody’s going to be able to see it? It’s time to strategize about video placement.

You’ll want to consider two things: where your video will live on site and where it will live off-site. Creating some sort of video hub on your website is imperative. It gives consumers a one-shop stop for any video of yours they’d like to revisit or reference. Then, you’ll want to consider where you’re placing your content off-site. Are you sharing it across your social platforms? Uploading it to YouTube? Running a paid advertising campaign? Where you place your video and how you’re promoting it will heavily depends on your budget and the goal you set for that campaign. Smart distribution and promotion is essential to making sure your video actually reaches your target audience.

Which metrics should you measure?

You’ve done it! You’ve created the perfect campaign and have put it out into the world. But how can you tell if it’s working? Metrics, that’s how!

Likes and comments aren’t the end-all-be-all of social metrics. The variety of social metrics available means there’s a lot you should be looking at. Here are some ways to utilize social metrics:

• Don’t only check CTR.

Don’t get us wrong; having people click through on your video advertisement is important. But bounce rate is just as important as your CTR, if not more. If consumers land on your page just to bounce again, chances are something’s not right. Bounce rates combined with CTR can show you where the most traffic is coming from.

• Check your conversation rate.

Having comments on your posts is great; it means people want to engage with the content you’re putting out. As we mentioned previous, this number on its own doesn’t tell you much. What you need to look at instead is conversation rate, the ratio of comments to your overall follower count. This is a much more accurate depiction of how and if your consumers are consistently engaging with your content.

• Sound on vs. sound off

Quick fact: 85% of Facebook’s video is watched with no sound, thanks to Facebook’s autoplay feature. What’s the big deal? Views are views, right? Wrong. If viewers aren’t watching your content with sound, chances are they’re not actively engaging. If the majority of your viewers are consuming your content without sound, consider reformulating future content to convey your message without it.

And there you have it! Follow these steps and you’ll have an effective video marketing strategy in no time flat. Would you like to learn more about creating a video marketing strategy, or about any other video topic? Reach out to IDR for additional information and answers to all your questions. You’ll discover why we’re Orange County’s premier producer of TV commercials, infomercials, and online videos for a wide range of businesses, organizations, and brands.