Content Marketing Best Practices with Lumen5
Table of Contents
What is video content marketing?
What is the objective of this type of video?
Examples of video content marketing
Video marketing - tips and advice
Conclusion
Introduction
Smart brands understand the value of regularly publishing valuable, relatable content that attracts and acquires a clearly defined audience to drive profitable customer action. Content marketing has long been synonymous with blog content, white papers, and other readable text; however, the value of using video in your content strategy shouldn’t be overlooked.
Cisco has predicted that by 2022 online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic.
Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text.
83% of marketers would increase their reliance on video as a marketing strategy if there were no obstacles like time, resources, and budget.
What is video content marketing?
Video content marketing is the distribution of written content through the medium of video. These videos allow marketers to convey the same message or information in a more visual, engaging and different format to their audiences, typically via social media channels.
What is the objective of this type of video?
Video content marketing is used to achieve different or multiple objectives, but here are a few of the most common ones:
Establish thought leadership, trust, and authority
Increase brand awareness and recognition
Increase social engagement and click-through rates
Strengthen relationships with customers and prospects
Improve SEO and prominence in social algorithms
Connect with new audiences that may prefer video over text
Video content marketing isn’t limited to social channels. Embed video across key landing pages to show your brand story or create how-to videos to share in your next email campaign. Diversifying your video content marketing will ensure that your audience fully receives your messaging.
Examples of video content marketing
Video is a great way to distribute various messages and can be used by marketers in any industry.
Real estate agency CBRE UK has created a great content marketing video from a blog post on working from home for LinkedIn.
Law firm Irwin Mitchell shared this content marketing video about Earth Day on Instagram.
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Publishing group The Economist Intelligence Unit created a content marketing video to convey the critical stats around a lengthier business report on LinkedIn.
Medical network Doximity has collated some valuable insights around the gig economy and doctors into a concise content marketing video for YouTube.
For more video examples, click here to visit our customer video showcase.
Video Marketing Tips
Tip 1: Set clear objectives
We’ll all familiar with SMART goals, so why not apply the same principle to your video content? Consider the following points before you start getting started.
What are you trying to achieve with this video?
What key message are you trying to convey?
What demographic are you targeting?
What social channel(s) do you plan to share it on?
Tip 2: Get to the point
A viewer will typically lose interest in your video after the first 5-10 seconds. Alarming, right? That’s why it’s imperative not to waste any time getting to your main point. For example, if you’ve created a brand video, ensure your brand logo is present at the start, or if you’re producing an explainer video, add a clear, explanatory, and exciting title to begin.
Tip 3: Add captions and subtitles
85% of people watch videos on social media with the sound off. This makes implementing captions in your social video even more crucial than ever. Many platforms nowadays such as Facebook and YouTube offer automated captions.
Tip 4: Brand, brand, and brand some more
There’s no point in creating a video that doesn’t contain your company branding (unless your video will be instantly recognizable as your brand, for example, Nike or Apple). Ensure that your company logo is visible from the first second your video plays. Check out our best practice guide, How to Sharpen Your Workflow, for more branding tips.
Tip 5: Use visually interesting backgrounds
No one is inspired to hit play on a fuzzy still. Choose or upload a designed image as the featured still for your video to help with click-through rates on social channels.
Tip 6: Include Calls to Action
Calls to action (CTAs) are a direct action that you want your audience to take next. Your video CTA should be strategically nestled at certain points in your video. Remember, not everyone will watch your video to the end, so it pays to have various CTAs throughout.
Tip 7: Think Differently
Treat your video as a new way to share your content and message — video content is not a case of taking all the copy from your article and stuffing it into a one-minute clip. Consider how you can take the key points and condense them into five or fewer sentences/highlights. For example, if you’re creating a video from a lengthy report, focus on the introduction, middle section, and closing statements. This way, you’ll ensure that your video covers the key points. Another great tip is to challenge yourself to summarize your article’s key points in five bullet points and then use that as a framework for your video.
Tip 8: Feedback counts
Before publishing your video, share the preview link with another colleague to get their feedback and test whether they thought the message was clear and engaging. This can save you a lot of time and hassle down the road.
Tip 9: Measure, measure, measure
Tracking how well your video campaigns perform will give you valuable insight into what worked well and what didn’t. You can check out our article on video metrics for help on measuring what really matters.
Conclusion
We hope you found this guide useful! We’re always open to feedback and if you want to get in touch to chat about this guide, or anything else Lumen5, contact your dedicated Customer Success Manager or email [email protected].
Updated on: 27/05/2022
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