7 Tips For Using Video To Transform Your Content Marketing Strategy

Create Deeper Connections With Prospects And Customers

Video won’t kill written content, but the best content marketing strategies today go beyond blogs, e-books, tip sheets and other static assets. Video is a powerful way to connect with your audience in ways that words alone can’t match.

The coronavirus pandemic only accelerated video’s growth as a form of content. According to Wyzowl’s 2021 State of Video Marketing report, 96% of consumers say the pandemic increased the amount of video content they watch online. Not surprisingly, 91% of marketers feel video is more important for brands in light of the pandemic.

Quality Videos Don’t Have To Break Your Budget

Video is increasingly versatile and cost-effective to produce, so today you’re limited more by your imagination than your budget. In some cases, you can make a video for around $1,000.

While at that price point you won’t get a 30-minute video with the special effects techniques of a Steven Spielberg film, your goal isn’t to create a Hollywood blockbuster. Good video content for marketing, sales and customer service needs to be focused on your personas’ pains, problems, challenges and questions.

Your videos should be professional with good lighting and sound, but they don’t have to be super polished. Assuming people can see and hear the video clearly, authenticity and messaging matter more than high-end production quality.

To learn more about creating video content – including best practices for scripting, lighting, sound and editing – check out The Complete DIY Playbook For Creating Killer Video Content From Home. 

7 Video Marketing Ideas For Your Business

What should you make videos about? If you have a content marketing strategy, use that to guide you in choosing the topics most relevant to your prospects and customers. Focus on topics in particular that convey information clearer with visual concepts.

Here are seven ideas for using video that can help tell your stories in ways that resonate with your personas.

1) Put together a reference reel of customer testimonials

Most prospects won’t simply take your word that you’re great to work with – they want proof from customers like them. That usually involves speaking with references, but connecting a prospect with a customer can take weeks.

Instead, proactively create a video reference reel featuring your best customers talking about their experience with your company. Prospects get to hear from the same people they’d be speaking with as references, and you save time at the end of the sales process.

Click below to watch a four-minute reference reel from Square 2.

2) Show your work with video case studies

Written case studies are ubiquitous, so you’re likely already showing work examples and results on your website. Go one step further and incorporate video into individual case study pages.

For instance, if you’re a design firm with pages dedicated to showcasing specific projects, include a video that shows the finished work. Even if the work isn’t particularly visual (such as an accounting software implementation), your video can feature the customer talking about how your company helped make the project successful.

Consider including some of your company’s key team members in the video, too. It’s a great way for prospects to meet your team and hear their passion for helping customers achieve success.

3) Prerecord demos so they’re available immediately

Many companies offer demos. For software companies in particular, demos are the de facto late buyer journey offer. The challenge is that scheduling a live demo takes time – a week can easily pass from the time a prospect requests a demo until the call happens.

A simple solution is to prerecord a demo so prospects can immediately see the software in action. You could email them a link to the prerecorded demo upon request or include the video on your website for anyone to watch.

If prospects have additional questions or want to see a function not covered in the prerecorded demo, they can request a live one-on-one demo. But offering the prerecorded option gives prospects a demo right away without waiting to schedule a meeting.

4) Create animated how-to or explainer videos

Cartoons aren’t just for kids (ever seen a Pixar film?), and your content marketing videos don’t have to feature real people. Animated videos are a fun and popular way to share information. They work especially well as how-to or explainer videos.

If you don’t have a big budget, animated videos are a smart tool for stretching your dollars. They cost much less than live-action videos, as there are no production costs involving lighting, staging and camera equipment.

Plus, many design software options are available, such as Powtoon, Toonly and Doodly. The software usually costs less than $100 per month and is intuitive to use, so even people without much video editing experience can start making animated videos quickly.

5) Produce live videos for real-time engagement

Live video is increasingly popular, especially on social media with services like Facebook Live and LinkedIn Live. From virtual events to Q&As and behind-the-scenes footage, live video offers endless opportunities for viewer engagement.

Be sure to record any live videos so they’re made available for on-demand viewing. For example, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we did a daily live videocast for a few weeks called On The Horizon. The videos are still available on our website as an on-demand series.

6) Interview industry experts to build authority

If you want to be recognized as an industry influencer, you need relationships with experts in your field. Interviewing subject matter experts (SMEs) is a good way to develop those relationships while also building authority with your personas.

These videos can be as simple as recording a video conversation on a platform like Zoom or GoToMeeting. If you’re at a conference together, consider shooting a live sit-down conversation with you and the industry expert.

No matter the format, be sure to do a deep-dive interview that discusses the topics your personas care most about. What are the biggest challenges they’re facing? What are the most important trends? The interview video needs to be focused on the personas, not on your company or the person you’re interviewing.

7) Develop a Q&A video library

You probably have a frequently asked questions (FAQs) section on your website. Build upon that by creating a series of short videos that answer prospect and customer FAQs. These videos should live on your website and video-hosting sites like YouTube. You could also email videos to prospects during the sales process.

Videos help make your answers to common questions more personal and similar to the experience people get when speaking with your team members. Even introverts like to see other people (in moderation, of course!), and videos with real people answering FAQs allow you to connect deeper with prospects and customers.

Start Harnessing The Power Of Video

Even if you’re someone who loves to read, you can’t rewind time and ignore the value video brings to content marketing today. Quality written content is still important, but you also need video content to connect with people and drive results.