5 Ways Video Can Make Your Content Marketing Strategy More Effective

What is video marketing?

Video marketing focuses on live or prerecorded videos to educate, inform and entertain viewers while promoting your products and services. It can include live videos, such as Facebook Live Q&A sessions and webinars; longer videos on your website, blog (or vlog) or YouTube channel; and short-form videos posted on TikTok or Instagram.

Various content types are ideal for video marketing, including the following: 

• Product demonstrations: Product demonstration videos show your product in action and can explain setup and operating procedures.
• Testimonials: Satisfied customers can make compelling videos sharing their positive experiences with your products, services or company. Prospects viewing these videos will likely feel more comfortable buying from you.
• Behind the scenes: Behind-the-scenes videos can show your product creation process, demonstrate your product quality measures and introduce your team — a great way to humanize your company and build trust.
• User-generated content (UGC): UGC is a highly effective marketing tool that includes videos that actual customers create while unboxing, using and enjoying your products or services. UGC provides invaluable social proof to potential customers.
• Explainers: Explainer videos are great for technical or innovative products and services or offerings in a newer industry. These videos educate your audience by explaining the problem your target market is experiencing and how your product solves it. 
• Branding: Branding videos tell your brand’s story without directly promoting your offerings. These videos boost brand awareness online and are an excellent brand-building tool. 
• Promotions: Promotional videos are like TV commercials. They promote your product or service by highlighting its benefits and features, sometimes mentioning its pricing and value.  
• Influencer endorsements: Videos by influencers promoting your product can significantly increase brand awareness and website traffic.
• Thought leadership videos: Some knowledgeable professionals present at industry conferences or are interviewed by trusted industry sources. Videos from such events can establish you as a thought leader and expert, boosting your personal brand and increasing your company’s visibility. 

How to use video for a more effective content marketing strategy

One of the best things about marketing videos is that there isn’t just one way to use video. Tailor your video usage to fit your products and services and make a lasting impression on your target audience. Here are five ways to use video in your marketing.

1. Use videos to earn backlinks and boost visitor time on your site.

SEO and content marketing are closely tied, so any SEO strategy improvements will likely benefit your content marketing goals.

When you add video content to your site, you can elevate your search rankings by:

• Improving time on site: If a page has a high average time on site, Google recognizes it contains valuable information for visitors and will likely rank it higher.
• Enhancing backlinks: When other sites link to your content, it’s like a vote of confidence about your credibility. Quality backlinks can boost your search rankings.

Incorporating video content into your website can be organic. For example, say you’ve written on your business’s blog about easy exercises that accelerate weight loss. You can create a relevant two- to three-minute video, upload it to YouTube and embed the link in your blog post. The time your readers spend watching the embedded video will count as time spent on your page.

When you upload your video to YouTube, include a backlink in the video description to the blog post where you’ve embedded the video. These are no-follow backlinks, but they’re still helpful in sending you referral traffic and building your link profile. Several leading bloggers use this approach to improve their average time on site.

2. Create short explainer videos to hook your visitors.

High-converting landing pages often feature explainer videos. Short explainer videos (two to three minutes) help users understand your offer’s value quickly and how it can solve their problems.

Explainer videos work particularly well on your website’s landing page. Arriving visitors can quickly view a video to get an understanding of your business and its offerings. If your video is engaging, they may move on to your sales page, About page and other sections of your website and spend time learning about your company and products.

3. Use video testimonials to earn prospects’ trust.

Consider creating engaging 40- to 60-second video testimonials from satisfied customers and partners to strengthen your company’s reputation. Honest, credible and brief testimonials from satisfied customers and well-known industry figures can significantly impact your brand image and sales numbers. According to Wyzowl, nearly 40 percent of video marketers create video testimonials, making them the most popular video marketing vehicle in use. 

It’s crucial to make the video testimonial process as easy as possible for your participants, who may be uncomfortable in front of the camera. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Keep the video short (a minute or less).
• Get their honest input and then write out a script for them.
• If it’s more convenient, let them shoot the video with their smartphone.
• Get them on a video call to record their testimonial.
• If they agree, invite them to a professional studio or have a professional videographer visit them.

Generating video testimonials isn’t as easy as getting positive customer reviews, but their power makes them worth the trouble.

4. Boost e-commerce sales with product how-to videos.

Video content marketing is an incredibly effective way to build trust with e-commerce customers. Online buyers can’t touch and feel products before purchasing, but video can deliver the next best thing.

Consider adding short how-to videos to demonstrate how your products work and show them in action. According to Statista, over 25 percent of users want and will watch how-to videos. How-to videos are a natural fit for online sales, showing potential customers how they can incorporate solutions into their daily lives. How-to videos work well with e-commerce product pages, product review sites and other types of sales content.

5. Offer free webinars to generate new leads.

Lead generation is one of the primary objectives of most content marketing campaigns. Webinars are excellent lead-generation tools that also deliver value to prospects and customers. According to the 2024 B2B Content Marketing report, more than 51 percent of business-to-business (B2B) marketers consider webinars the most effective marketing and lead-generation technique.

Webinars are effective because customers and prospects can engage directly with a brand in real time and ask direct questions. Additionally, webinars help humanize your brand and are an excellent way to build brand trust through video. 

How to create a video marketing strategy

Like other marketing methods, you’ll take specific steps to create your video marketing strategy.

1. Define your video marketing goals.

The first step in creating your video marketing strategy is defining your goals, which will inform your videos’ content and length. Here are a few examples of video marketing goals and the type of content that will help you accomplish them: 

• Brand awareness: If your goal is to boost brand awareness, you’ll likely prioritize creating branding videos and influencer videos. 
• Education: If your primary goal is to educate prospects, you’ll likely focus on explainer videos, product demonstrations and webinars.
• Credibility: If you aim to establish market credibility, you’ll likely center videos on thought leadership sources, testimonials and user-generated content.
• Lead generation: If your goal is to generate more leads, focus on promotional videos and teaser videos. Prompt viewers to input their contact details so they can join your email list, subscribe to your blog or reach a salesperson for more information.
• Boost sales: If your goal is to boost direct sales, promotional videos are the way to go. You’ll highlight your offering’s features and benefits and provide purchasing information.

2. Define and segment your target audience.

Next, you must identify your target audience and their needs. If you are brand new in the market and your product has a highly specific customer, you may have one general target market. However, there are usually different types of potential customers. For example, you may have target customers at various places in the customer journey, such as: 

• Prospects who haven’t heard of you yet
• Leads who’ve heard of your brand but are unfamiliar with your product
• Potential customers familiar with your product who use a competitor’s offering
• Promising leads who’ve expressed interest in your brand by following you on social media or subscribing to your email list or blog
• One-time purchasers
• Regular customers 

Alternatively, your target audience members may differ based on demographics, income or geography. 

It’s best to segment your market into groups that use your product differently. For example, a hotel might market to vacation travelers dramatically differently than business travelers.

Every relevant market segment may have vastly different demographics and motivations, so creating buyer personas for each segment is vital. When you understand your audience, you can create relevant, appropriate, compelling videos for each market segment.

3. Pinpoint the media each customer segment uses. 

Different types of people are more likely to use specific media elements, such as various social media platforms, blogs, email newsletters, YouTube and podcasts. As the adage goes, “Fish where the fish are.” Ensure your video content lands where your buyer personas frequently visit.  

Consider the following examples:

• Business leaders: Business leaders are likely active on LinkedIn and YouTube and frequently access podcasts, blogs and B2B email newsletters.
• New parents: New parents may frequently check Facebook, view Instagram Reels, scroll through TikTok and visit Pinterest.
• Vacationers: Vacationers are likely active on Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest and may read travel-related blogs. They may also be on site-specific Facebook groups.
• Prospective business owners: Reach entrepreneurs via YouTube, blogs, Google, podcasts, Facebook Live and email newsletters.

4. Prioritize your goals and allocate your video budget accordingly.

Rank your marketing goals and examine your most promising media sources to properly allocate your video budget. For example, if your audience primarily views short-form video content on platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels and Pinterest, you can afford more videos with the same budget. Longer videos will cost more, so you’ll have fewer of them. 

Video production costs may include the following:

• Camera and lighting equipment
• A videographer
• An editor
• Video editing software
• Travel costs

5. Outline each video’s messaging and content.

For every priority goal, outline each video’s overall messaging, length and general content. You may want to write a script for each or talk off the cuff loosely following a content outline. 

Creating content plans ensures you cover all your crucial goals and approaches while staying within your video budget. It also helps you plan and pinpoint the best locations, props, background and talent needed for each video. 

The benefits of video for content marketing

If you’re considering video as part of your marketing strategy, consider the numerous benefits it brings to your campaigns, including the following:

• Video can improve SEO: When you create and embed a video, you can catalog the keywords you want to target for the clip. Google prioritizes video in its search results and its algorithm can recognize thousands of images in a video. This means Google can extrapolate key points in the video and use them as part of its search results, driving additional website traffic and getting more eyes on your content.
• Video keeps visitors on the page longer: Videos boost the average time users spend on your website. According to Wistia data, visitors spend about 4.3 minutes on a website without video but up to six minutes when a video is played. When users stay on your page, you have time to better convey a marketing message that captivates them and prompts them to buy. Longer site visits can also boost SEO, showing Google your content is valuable.
• Videos convert more leads to sales: Video helps increase successful lead conversions. According to Yans Media, video emails get 96 percent higher click-through rates compared to text-only email marketing.
• Video is easy to share: Videos work in many marketing channels. You can share them in emails and websites and use them in social media marketing. You can house videos on YouTube, where users will independently search for and view them. The more ways you incorporate video in your marketing, the more benefits you’ll see.
• Video builds trust: When viewers see product demonstrations, thought leadership keynotes and testimonials in a video, they can more easily trust your company’s quality, efficacy and customer support.
• Video humanizes your company: Seeing the people behind your company, whether it’s the founder or your team, puts a face to an otherwise faceless corporation and makes prospects feel more comfortable buying from you.
• Video educates and demonstrates effectively: People learn and connect more to information relayed through video than through written words. It can help them quickly get solutions to their problems, which can lead directly to sales.
• Video is persuasive. Testimonials and user-generated content, in particular, are highly persuasive video tools, providing social proof that prompts first-time buyers to take action.

Tips for video marketing

While your video marketing goals will vary, the following best practices can help you present higher-quality and more effective video marketing:

• Capture ample video marketing footage. Try to capture as much video footage as possible for each video while staying within your budget. You may be able to repurpose content for other marketing endeavors. 
• Use humor where appropriate. Funny videos increase engagement and sharing, so use tasteful humor when appropriate.
• Track each video’s metrics. Your video marketing goals will determine the metrics you measure, which may include video views, time spent on your website, opened emails and more. Note well-performing videos and try to recreate successful elements and approaches in future videos.
• Keep an eye on comments: Sometimes, your video just doesn’t hit the mark or may even be offensive or tone-deaf. The comments can let you know if this is the case quickly. If negative comments flood your video, take it down immediately. 
• Conduct A/B testing on your videos: Change up your marketing video’s length, descriptions and headlines and test their performance to find the optimal combination.
• Post and link to your marketing video from multiple places: Posting and linking to your video from several platforms will maximize viewership and reveal where you’re getting the most engagement.
• Maintain your branding in marketing videos: Every marketing video should reflect your company’s branding. That said, some platforms are more formal than others and your videos’ tones can reflect that. For example, LinkedIn videos may be more professional while TikTok videos may be more casual.
• Include captions in marketing videos: Many people watch videos with the sound off if they’re at work or in public. Captions help them access your video content without bothering anyone nearby.
• Avoid stock photography in marketing videos: Most stock photos are generic and make your video look cheesy and inauthentic. If you plan to incorporate still photos or video clips in your marketing videos, use authentic content you create when possible.
• Don’t speak in a monotone voice in marketing videos: A monotone voice is sure to bore your audience and compel them to switch off your video. Speak in an animated, personable manner. If this is difficult for you, have someone else narrate the video or include different speakers.

Best video platforms for marketing

Numerous online platforms can help you accomplish your video marketing goals, including the following excellent ones.

Best platforms for creating content marketing videos

Hiring a video editor can be expensive. Luckily, plenty of affordable platforms can help you create professional-looking videos.

• Movavi Video Suite: This full-featured video platform offers advanced editing capabilities, including artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled background and noise removal. It also offers AI motion tracking, which allows you to overlay graphics on moving people and objects, screen recordings and captions. The platform offers a free trial download, after which you can pay for Movavi Unlimited Business or individual modules. 
• Promo.com: This platform is great for beginners and includes tools like PromoAI, which can help you plan your marketing videos. It also provides numerous templates for different industries, mediums and goals as well as images, video and music. Finished videos are preformatted for the medium of your choice and ready to be uploaded. The company has a free trial, after which plans start at $29 per month, per user.
• Animoto: Animoto is a drag-and-drop video creator. This easy-to-use platform allows you to quickly upload your photos and video clips, choose music selections and output your video. It also has editing and screen recording tools. Animoto has a free version and three pricing tiers starting at $8 per month.
• Biteable: Biteable is another template-driven video creator. Add text easily by typing it like you would for a PowerPoint slide. It can create brand videos with your URL, animations and AI voiceovers. If you have a team working on your videos, you can use Biteable collaboration tools. The platform offers a free trial, after which you can choose from two plans starting at $15 per month (billed yearly).

Best platforms for sharing content marketing videos

After creating your marketing videos, it’s time to get them published and seen by your target market. Consider these top platforms for sharing videos:

• YouTube: YouTube was the original and is still the largest video-sharing platform. YouTube is a great way to build community and support for your brand. As of February 2024, the platform had 2.49 billion users worldwide. Nearly half (47 percent) of users access YouTube monthly. It’s free, provides unlimited storage and bandwidth and allows videos as large as 128GB. YouTube also supports multiple video formats, including MOV, MPEG, MP4, AVI and more.
• Vimeo: Vimeo focuses on high-quality video content, so if you have really beautiful and professional videos, you should consider this platform. Vimeo uses advanced video compression and transcoding to reduce video file size while preserving quality. You can share on the Vimeo site or embed Vimeo videos in your website, blog or social posts. It supports a more limited number of video formats compared to YouTube and is free for up to two videos per month, up to a total of 25 videos. After that, plans start at $9 per user, per month.
• TikTok: TikTok is a social media network that supports short-form videos, usually between 15 seconds and three minutes. Its audience is primarily young people, with 36 percent of its users between 18 and 24 and about 34 percent aged 25-34 (according to Statista). Because TikTok videos are short, you must capture users’ attention quickly, so the elements of surprise and humor work well. TikTok is free to use for content creators and viewers.
• Instagram: Instagram business usage is becoming more widespread. Because it’s primarily a visual medium, it’s a great place to post your marketing videos. You can also take advantage of influencer endorsements (be aware these are almost always paid for) and solicit user-generated content and testimonials from customers who follow you. Instagram is free.

Video can boost your marketing strategy’s effectiveness

We’ve only scratched the surface of the ways video content can empower your business, display your brand identity, increase sales and boost your digital marketing return on investment. Find ways to incorporate video in your marketing to build trust and credibility as this trend is showing no signs of slowing down.

Kimberlee Leonard contributed to this article.