Video is no longer a nice-to-have tactic in your marketing plan. It’s not a shiny new toy. It is now integral to your marketing strategy.
Over 50 per cent of us want to see more video (Hubspot research), Facebook and other social platforms are “video-first”, and moving content is the single most effective tool that we have to raise brand awareness, increase sales and measure ROI.
We often start working with brands on the strategy, creation, and activation of a single video, but after seeing the results, they choose to develop a suite of content. It just tends to be more effective to think about video as a whole and embed it in your marketing strategy. So in this article, I’m looking at the video heroes that can improve the return on your campaigns.
Video In The Sales Funnel
It’s not news that the mass comms sales funnel – where we bombard people with messages and hope some stick – is dead. But its replacement, the digital funnel – Awareness, Consideration, Action, and Retention – has become more complex too. Google recently analysed data from thousands of users and found that no two journeys were the same and the funnel could just as easily be diamond, hourglass, or pyramid shaped.
Certainly, the focus needs to be on creating content that keys into the intent of the target audience, or personas, rather than the platforms (although it is important to ensure you adapt the tone for each platform too).
In this environment, an over-arching brand story backed by insight is vital. This story can be weaved through the minutes and moments people are working, researching, and relaxing online. From 15 second ads to explainers to long-form native content, video is the best way to tell your brand story, grab attention, and engage.
The Real Heroes of Video Marketing
To ensure your content is working hard throughout your customers’ personalised journeys, Google’s HHH (Hero, Hub, Help) formula is really helpful.
Hero Content
Hero content is the flagship content that inspires your audience and raises awareness about your brand.
This is the primary content with a media budget to extend reach and cut through. It will be the most high-cost, high-production video of your output, but is also likely to comprise the smallest suite of content.
Mighty Hub Content
As brands have become publishers, we’ve needed hub content to encourage our audiences to hang out with us and return to our sites because they are entertained, informed, and educated.
Usually evergreen, Hub content is designed to build a community by targeting their passion points; it works effectively to capture audience attention in their varied consideration journeys as well as at the retention stage.
A Big Helping Hand
Help content is the secret hero, powering brands without a huge activation budget to reach new viewers and retain customers. This is a wide base of lower-cost, easy-to-produce video content which answers your audience’s questions.
How-to videos are a great way to benefit from video SEO and tap into customer intent and anticipate their needs.
… And Action
When you just need a final push to convert to a purchase, you need what we call Action or Go films designed with closing the sale in mind. For instance, this could be a short video on an e-commerce site near the shopping cart to motivate customers to click “buy”.
How To Track What’s Working?
Your video content can be tested, reviewed and reiterated at the planning stage so that your video has the best shot at meeting your goals. When setting your KPIs, don’t concentrate solely on video views – they are important, but they are not necessarily the most insightful for all stages of the funnel. For instance, at the consideration stage: PR links, view-through, engagement, subscriptions, and newsletter signups are all as meaningful as views.
Brands need to have a clear vision of what they want their content to achieve for them, and a winning video strategy can get them there faster.
I’ll be sharing more on why video works and how to use moving content more effectively throughout the customer journey at the Digital Marketing Summit. Delegates can benefit from 20% off my book, “Video Marketing Strategy“, with the code CMK20.