What is Video Marketing? Definition, How it Works, Examples, and Strategies

What Is Video Marketing?

Using video for marketing means incorporating a video format into your marketing strategy to promote a brand, product, service, or message. Video marketing educates your audience effectively and helps increase engagement on social and digital channels.

How Video Marketing Works

The "how" of using video for marketing is pretty straightforward. Your marketing people create videos that either directly or indirectly promote your company and brand, drive sales, raise awareness of your business's products and services, or engage current and potential customers.

Video marketing is a data-driven discipline, so your marketing department must track customer engagement and monitor various related metrics.

In general, video marketing is but one component of an overall marketing strategy or campaign. However, it so happens that video marketing's role is considerably more significant today, thanks to the Internet and social media.

The Importance of Video Marketing Today

Video marketing began gaining traction in 2005, thanks to the advent of YouTube. However, things took off after Google bought YouTube in 2006, and the platform boasted seven different ad formats by the end of 2009.

The rise of smartphone technology added more fuel to the fire, making it more convenient and easier to watch videos on mobile phones. This practice increased dramatically in the wake of the pandemic, which drove media consumption by 215 percent in the United States alone.

But the most significant factor that speaks thr ise of use of videos for marketing is how increasingly easy it is to create quality videos. This development makes it easier for marketers to incorporate videos into their marketing strategies, so if your business is not keeping pace with the new trend, it risks being left in the dust and becoming irrelevant.

Video marketing is a great equalizer, enabling small-to-medium-sized businesses to compete against larger organizations effectively. The right video marketing campaign can level the playing field because a good, eye-catching, memorable video is compelling regardless of the size of the business that released it.

Video Marketing Strategies

Here is a six-step strategy guide for making a high-quality, effective video marketing campaign.

1. Designate your resources: You will need a video budget covering resources such as video equipment, effective editing software, dedicated time to work, and a video marketing team to bring these elements together.
2. Build your story: Every video tells a story. What’s your story? What message are you trying to convey, and how do you want to share it?
3. Plan your audience engagement: Although your message may be great, you still need to ensure that the audience is vested in it. You need to hook your audience and keep the story interesting. How do you plan on accomplishing this?
4. Shorter is better: You've undoubtedly heard of the acronym TL/dr, standing for "Too long, didn't read," in the context of reading articles. The last thing you want is to have your video audience say, "Gee, how long is this video, anyway?" Of course, there's no established standard video length, but the shorter, the better. The online audience's attention span is short, so edit accordingly.
5. Publish your message everywhere: The name of the game is "saturation." You must embed the video on your organization's website, upload it to YouTube, publish it on all your social media accounts, and even place it on your profile page! Get that video out there, then heavily promote it.
6. Track the results: Keep an eye on the video’s metrics and stats. Take note of what videos perform the bes and, determine what the elements in the most successful videos are and what they have in common. Factor those findings in future video endeavors.

What is Video Marketing: Types of Video Used in Marketing

We now present a dozen assorted types of video marketing. But, of course, an effective video marketing campaign will incorporate more than one of them.

1. Animation: Who doesn’t like cartoons? Animation employs engaging imagery to convey otherwise complicated concepts.
2. Augmented reality videos: Augmented Reality (AR) superimposes a digital layer to what the user is viewing and is excellent for showing how something would look if the company’s product were inserted into the picture.
3. Brand videos: These videos build awareness of your company’s brand, mission, products, and services.
4. Demo videos: These videos show how your product works, including unboxing or conducting a software walk-through.
5. Event videos: Is your company running an event such as a fundraiser, conference, or discussion? Create a highlight reel!
6. Explanation videos: Simple and straightforward, these videos help the audience understand why they need your services and products. So often, these videos follow a standard formula of presenting a story where a buyer has a problem, and the solution lies with the company’s products or services.
7. How-to videos: These videos not only teach your audience how to do something new, but it also helps viewers gain an understanding and appreciation of your business.
8. Interviewing experts: Not a fluff piece, but an in-depth interview with an expert or thought leader in your industry.
9. Livestream: Live videos are an eye-catching, dramatic way to get the viewer’s attention, often using a behind-the-scenes format, interviews, and demonstrations.
10. Personalized message videos: Nothing drives engagement more than making the customer feel special, and personalized videos provide a means for the business to reach out to a customer to answer a question or make a recommendation.
11. Testimonials/Case Studies: These videos get your customers involved in the campaign. Word of mouth is one of the most effective means of advertising, so having satisfied customers tell their stories on video is a surefire winner.
12. Virtual Reality and 360-degree videos: Virtual Reality (VR) immerses the user in the video environment, letting them control and navigate their viewing experience. A 360-degree video enables the viewer to scroll around in a panoramic view.

Examples of Succesful Video Marketing Campaigns

Videos are so common online that you can find examples anywhere. You can find great and recent examples of successful video ads in this article on that describes how to leverage videos for business and marketing. 

Benefits of Video Marketing

By now, you’re most likely getting the idea that video marketing is a great idea. But let’s drive home the point further by spelling out the benefits of video marketing.

• Your product will stand out more and be remembered better. Videos boost information retention
• The message remains longer on social feeds, so you don’t have to spend excessive time tinkering and updating your material
• Videos boost the public’s understanding of your services or products
• Videos increase exposure and subsequent engagement
• Videos tend to rank higher in searches, so there’s a better chance that your website will show up closer to the top of the search page
• Video marketing provides an easy way to personalize your customer engagement, which builds brand loyalty and recurring visits

Video Marketing and SEO

Video marketing is a very valuable resource for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Videos help build backlinks to your company's website and increase shares and likes, which can positively affect search rankings. These factors will drive more traffic to your site — post your videos there and assign them relevant tags using keywords and phrases.. Also, remember that Google — the world’s premier search engine — owns YouTube. That’s why you should tie your video marketing strategy to your organic search, or SEO strategy tightly 

How to Make Videos for Your Business

Here’s a handy step-by-step guide for making a great video!

• Write your video script: All videos need a script. Create an outline and treat it as you would a blog post. Make it clear and relaxed, and don’t wait until the end of the video before telling the viewer what the video’s purpose is.
• Set up a studio: Prepare a dedicated space to make your video, and assemble your cameras, lights, microphones, tripods, and whatever other gear you need.
• Get the talent ready: This stage involves getting the video actors together with their scripts and directions.
• Plan your list of shots list and get acclimated to the equipment: Make a list of shots you want to incorporate into your video. Then take some practice shots with the equipment to get used to it. You want to be comfortable with the gear before shooting the actual video!
• Shoot the video: Here’s where the magic happens. Shoot your video, and be sure you have the following elements:

• A compelling, relatable. and/or exciting storyline that draws people in
• Engaging visuals and voiceovers
• High-quality sound/recording capabilities
• A clear, understandable message combined with a solid call to action

• Edit the video: This phase is often an ongoing process since you’ll most likely make a rough cut and show it to the stakeholders and interested parties. You will no doubt make edits based on their feedback.
• Select the music for the video: Music is essential to set the tone. Establish a music budget, figure out what kind of music synchs best with the video’s emotional tone, and determine what sound effects you need.
• Record voice-overs: The voice-over is the video’s narration spoken by someone off-camera. The narration helps fill out any gaps in the story and the voices you choose need to be relatable to the audiences you want to reach.
• Upload the video: Now it’s time to upload your video to your chosen platforms. First, ensure your platform supports your video format (MP4, MOV, MPEG4, WMV, AVI, etc.). Next, consider adding extra bells and whistles such as closed captioning, a headline and text description, and an end screen. 

The Challenges of Video Marketing

Since the issue of video-making resources has been effectively resolved, the challenges to video marketing are more strategic in nature. If you plan to engage in video marketing (and you should!), you will face three significant challenges:

• How to create content that people want to see
• How to build a solid, effective video marketing strategy that delivers results
• How to create videos that people will not only watch all the way through but also share with others

What is Video Marketing:  FAQs

Here are some loose ends we can tie-up with a few frequently asked questions.

1. How long should my video be?

Most marketing videos are under two minutes long. Business-related videos tend to run about six minutes on average.

2. How much does it cost to make a marketing video?

If you outsource your video production, it could range from $1,000 for a basic video to about $50,000 for a premium video. If you're doing it yourself, you can create a good, compelling video for less than $5,000.

3. Just how effective are video ads?

Amazon and eBay report greater sales conversions when using video ads. That should tell you something about effectiveness.

4. Why should I bother engaging in video marketing?

According to YouTube, people watch over a billion hours of video and generate billions of views on their site daily.

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