Video Marketing: Determining Your Objectives

Earlier this week we took a look at the five biggest obstacles to video marketing success and how to overcome them. The biggest obstacle, according to Ascend2’s recent Video Marketing Survey, was lack of an effective strategy. Because the first step in creating an effective video marketing strategy is determining your objectives, we’ve put together this post to help you determine exactly what your video marketing goals or objectives are.

In addition to asking survey participants about what they viewed as the biggest challenges to video marketing success, Ascend2 also asked about the most important objectives of a video marketing strategy.

Understanding the objectives of others can help you determine your own objectives and, in this case, the top objectives listed are definitely good inspiration for setting your goals. We’ve listed five objectives from the list above, along with some notes about what types of videos work well for achieving these goals.

Increase brand awareness

Video can be a great tool for getting the word out about your company and your product offering. If this is one of your video marketing objectives, here are some types of videos that can help you achieve this goal:

• How-to videos and industry analysis that show off your expertise
• Short, light videos designed to capture attention in the Facebook newsfeed, on Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms
• Note: These types of videos should be memorable – try telling a story instead of creating a simple ad. And don’t forget to include your branding!

Increase online engagement

The great thing about online engagement is that it facilitates word of mouth marketing. If someone likes, comments, or shares a status you’ve posted to Facebook, retweets you, tags a friend in your Instagram post, or engages with you in some other way, their friends may see it and find out about you that way. Additionally, online engagement helps build a sense of community and gives people that may not know you personally a sense of security and a feeling that you are trustworthy.

Video is a great way to increase online engagement. In fact, Socialbakers recently reported that native video on Facebook gets far more reach than any other type of post. Types of video that do well for online engagement include:

• Short promo videos leading back to longer form content on your website, blog, or YouTube
• Videos with emotional appeal
• Videos that teach viewers something interesting
• Note: Videos shared on social platforms should be designed to be eyecatching. Check out our post on three steps to formatting videos to entice views on Facebook.

Improve customer education

Do you want to create content to help your customers better understand how to use your products? Video can be a great way. How-to videos and videos addressing FAQs can be posted on your website, sent as links via email to customers writing in, and included in email newsletters.

Increase sales revenue

If you want to increase the number of sales or average value of customer orders, product videos can be a great tool. In a Video Commerce Report earlier this year, Liveclicker reported a direct positive correlation between the number of product videos an e-commerce site has and dollars spent. Sites featuring video on the majority of product pages saw a 68% larger average order value (AOV) than sites with video on only a few product pages.

Increase website traffic

One of the simplest objectives of an online video marketing strategy is to increase a website’s traffic. Because Google favors links that include video, simply including video on your website (and on YouTube) will boost your discoverability. Some popular types of videos to include on your website include:

• A business overview
• Product videos
• Customer testimonials

If you’re just starting out with video, don’t be overwhelmed. Think about which of these objectives are most important to you and then start with one or two. As you become more experienced and grow your strategy, you can start using video to help you achieve more and more of your objectives. To learn more, check out our complete guide to video marketing.

What do you think are the most important objectives of a video marketing strategy? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

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