Video Marketing Strategies That Work

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Video marketing is a marketing strategy with a lot of potential

Perhaps the easiest way to think of “video marketing” is to look at the ads on TV – here in Australia there are 5+ adverts inbetween segments of tv shows and movies, so that’s A LOT of messages being pushed into our brains non-stop.

It’s easy to experience “ad blindness” where we just don’t notice them any more (because there are too many), but over the decades since tv advertising began, this has been one of the essential ways to get new customers.

Print advertising was another essential way to do marketing and advertising, and it has had to step outside the box and find ways to put print news online – with advertising – and make it interesting and entertaining.

These are videos for advertising.

As a business owner (currently it’s 2020), it’s essential to find ways to get your product, message or service in front of the EYES of the viewing public (everyone’s online now for shopping and learning) – so let’s embrace how we can use VIDEOS to find our potential clients, customers and followers — without driving them nuts :-) Are you ready? Yes? Fantastic!

If you own a smart phone

You’ve got your entire video marketing suite of tools already; add a few apps, and your marketing tools are also on the smart phone.

So — there are no excuses why you can’t get started today :-)

The key, however, is to be willing to study videos and methods that have worked well (and not so well) for others – then plan a strategy and learn to navigate all the ways to USE these videos.

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Ideas to get you thinking about making your first marketing video today

Here are some ideas you can review, to increase your understanding of how you can make video marketing work for you and your business website.

When you create a video for marketing purposes:

1. don’t ramble, get to the point, explain the BENEFIT the viewer will get from watching
2. ideally, aim for less than five minutes
3. keeping it under two minutes is even better for quick tips and info.

The Absolute Easiest Video Marketing Technique Which I Use

This might sound too simple, but trust me — I’ve seen this work for every kind of business I could think of!
Create HOW TO videos to answer EVERY question

you’ve ever been asked about your business or services.

Yes, it IS simple, but it is so powerful!

A Perfect Example of How To Do This

Have a look at this dentist, who makes videos with titles starting with “How To …” — for example:

• “How to floss the right way”
• “How to prevent dry socket”..

By the way, I don’t know this dentist, I just did a quick search on Youtube for ‘dentist’ and sorted by View Count to see the popular ones. If you like, you can view the Channel here:

• https://www.youtube.com/user/askthedentist

The screenshot below is of the thumbnails of these very informative videos which each ANSWER a QUESTION he’s been asked:

As at October 2017, the Youtube Channel had:

• 4,361 subscribers
• 5 video Playlists covering all his videos
• videos viewed many times, up to 267,000 for one of them!

Imagine if you had 10, 20, 30 videos all answering questions, and those videos were seen by hundreds and thousands of viewers, and they answered questions being typed into Youtube AND Google and other search engines. Would that increase the visibility of your business?
I bet it would :-)

As at 28th February 2018, the Youtube Channel had:

• 4,740 subscribers – wow! Great increase in 4 months!
• on the Channel, I clicked on Videos in the menu, then clicked on Sort By on the right-hand side,
• and I can see the most-watched video has now reached 279,000.

As at 28th October 2018, the Youtube Channel had:

• 5,520 subscribers and 60 videos!
• on the Channel, I clicked on Videos in the menu, then clicked on Sort By on the right-hand side, a
• and I can see the most-watched video has now reached 299,000 (that’s up 20000 Views on this
• ONE video since February!).

Would you like that much attention, so many visitors and potential customers for YOUR Youtube Channel and business? I’m pretty sure everyone would :-)

Second Great Example of “How To” Videos

Searching for “how to be a barista” resulted with some good results — this Channel looks really professional. The thumbnail images are similar (coffee cups, the Barista) and they are attractive — the “how to” labels are distinctive and easy to understand what each video is about.

• Visit the Quick Pour Barista Channel on Youtube >>

When sorted by “Most Popular”, the Channel has 165,000 views on one video – great!:

Third Great Example of “How To” Videos

I next searched Youtube for “how to make a margarita cocktail” and found some great Channels – this one “Cocktail Chemistry” is a terrific example, 376k subscribers, and the most recent video (posted recently) already has 72,000 views – so they’re definitely doing something right!

• By answering “how to” questions, this Youtube Channel has built a huge following with attractive thumbnail images on each video.
• Visit this Channel on Youtube >>

I’m hoping these examples are showing you how short, simple “how to” videos can boost a business online – and give you some ideas about how you too could boost your own business.

As a marketing strategy, this is one of the best and easiest ways to find potential customers and clients for any business.

Youtube Video Tip! Get viewers to watch until the end

Youtube wants our viewers to watch each video in its entirety, and if it is too long, the viewer might prematurely leave and click elsewhere, before watching to the end.

We want to avoid this happening.

One technique to get around this is to :

• mention a “bonus” at the beginning of the video, which you’ll reveal at the end
• for example a PDF, free video series, 15 minute Skype or Zoom consultation etc
• Offer something of great perceived value to the viewer, which solves their problem they’ve been searching for, and which will encourage them to sign up for it and be on your mailing list (the Holy Grail of online marketing).

PS — When you’re making the videos, and if you’re unhappy with the result, don’t panic!
You can always record as many as you like until you create one you ARE happy with.

Another Tip! Have several videos in a short Series (3, 5, 10 etc) to help create interest in what you have to offer. Youtube helps you make these more attractive on your Channel.

Aim for Simplicity

• Do not make videos that are overly complicated or difficult to comprehend.
• If each video answers just ONE question, then it has done its job.
• If you use a lot of technical terms and industry specific language, or use words that are beyond the eighth-grade reading level, you are going to bore many of your viewers.
• Make your videos for the layperson, using eighth grade (or lower) vocabulary.
• If technical language absolutely must be used in your video, make a second video to explain the terms and concepts.

When Making Vides: Don’t claim to be an “Expert”

If you are not really an expert on a topic, do not try to pretend that you are — it will be obvious you are faking a level of knowledge you do not possess.

Instead, use these techniques:

• interview people that are experts in your industry, and record the interview on video, and
• share your own knowledge as there is bound to be a group of people with far less knowledge than you on your topic.

For the first option, a seminar or trade show is a great place to meet people that won’t mind doing a video; these experts realise that they benefit from the exposure, as well. In these videos you are creating for marketing your business, be open, authentic, and candid in your communication. This will create trust, which attracts new viewers and retains previous ones.

Brainstorm video ideas with employees and team members

If you have a team of employees, get them all involved in your video marketing efforts.

Step 1

• Ask your employees or team to write down ALL the questions they’ve ever been asked by customers or potential customers. They can do this over a couple of days, or over a couple of hours when you’re all together in a boardroom etc.
• Have each person read out their list, and if anyone else has the SAME question, they should delete it off their list. After you’ve asked everyone to read out their list, you should end up with a good number of questions.
• Have someone type up the list, making sure they are QUESTIONS like:
  • how do I …
  • how can I …
  • when / where / why / what etc.

Step 2

• As a group, get together and now talk about how best to ANSWER each question. When the answer is agreed upon, have someone in the meeting type it straight into the document which has the Questions already in it.
• You might find that some people have different answers — and this is a great way to ensure that ALL staff members know the CORRECT response to every question.
• Of course, there are always more ways to ask and answer any question!
• If this is the case in your group, go ahead and make one video per each question and answer — so that no matter WHICH WAY the questions are typed in a search engine, you’ll have the right video answer for each one.
• This is not seen as “duplicate content”, because each question is unique, and each answer is unique to that question. The more videos you create on any series of questions, the better!

Step 3

Take a couple of hours to give everyone a “screen test” — this will result in fun, and the employees will bond over this fun little exercise.

Together with the team, choose the team member(s) who comes across well on the video screen tests.

• Having one or more team members in your videos has a ring of authenticity that hired actors cannot duplicate.
• Also, having a variety of people in your videos can make them more appealing to a wider cross-section of viewers.

Step 4

Once you’ve got your new Spokesperson/s, get ready to take videos.

1. The new spokesperson can ask, and then answer, one question at a time, so one video per Q&A.
2. Or one person asks, and the Spokesperson answers.

Make sure they look at the CAMERA LENS on the smart phone — if necessary stick something on the camera around the lens so they focus on that, otherwise they’ll look like they’re staring off into space :-)
As an alternative, use the Interview technique, where one team member asks the question (off camera), and the person taking the video is behind them and capturing the video over their shoulder, much like they do on tv sometimes.This also makes it less stressful for the person answering the question.

Quantity of videos + answering questions + plain English = more potential customers!

The more videos that you make and upload to your YouTube channel, the more viewers you will get. Just because one video doesn’t get many viewers, doesn’t mean that they will all suffer the same fate.

Keep publishing, no matter what!

Also, by making and uploading videos on a regular basis, it will keep your channel fresh and your viewers interested, and they will keep coming back to see what new content you have to offer.

Ask the Viewer to DO something

Have a Call To Action at the end of EVERY video for your viewers – ask them to like and share the video, encourage them to grab the Bonus PDF, Checklist, Cheatsheet, Transcription, OR sign up for your Newsletter, or to get more tips and techniques, or to sign up for your Course.

By encouraging your viewers to grab a bonus by leaving Youtube, business owners will be able to capture email names (the Holy Grail for all businesses!) when they sign up.

Being able to nurture the new relationship
by providing more tips, solutions, PDFs,
videos etc, is the best way to move forward.

Create a Simple Video Marketing Publishing Schedule

• This is also known as BATCHING tasks together, and is much easier!
• For the best results, decide how frequently the Q&A videos will be posted.
• Weekly is a good place to start.

 

Here is a simple strategy:

1. record 5 to 10 videos in one sitting all on the same day
2. do all the video editing the following day, all on the same day
3. prepare all the SEO and Video SEO the next day and add all the videos to Youtube — but do NOT publish
4. decide which one will be the first published, work out a distribution and social strategy for the next few weeks – write down dates to publish each video (monthly? weekly?)
5. then publish one video per week, which becomes a much easier task than doing an entire video (creation, editing and publishing) in one sitting.

What next?

In the PDF I provide a form to fill in, and I’d like you to brainstorm 5, 10 or even 20 “how to” or similar questions about your business. If you haven’t downloaded the PDF:

1. type into Notes or TextEdit or any other place you type notes\
2. if you like to use paper, go ahead and make a list.

Think of questions you’ve been asked by potential customers and clients as well as current customers.
Use this as the first step in planning short videos to boost your business.

Start with 5-10 Questions

If you’re still having trouble coming up with these:

1. have a look at your emails
2. when you receive emails from your website Contact form or other website pages, and they ask questions about your products and service, these will be the start of the 5-10 Questions
3. in my Gmail account, I “tag” questions like this with a Filter called “Question” so I can easily find them again later
4. I set up Google Docs forms for clients as their Contact Form for their websites – this makes it super easy to track later because all responses are automatically stored in a Google spreadsheet, and the person filling in the form has already chosen “Question” in the checkboxes on the form.
5. Can you tag your enquiries like this to make it easier?

Write MORE Questions for Potential Videos to Create

Don’t stop at 5-10 questions, if you have more, write them down as the Titles for even more juicy videos for potential customers and clients to find when searching online!

PS — if you want to attract “local” customers and clients, make sure to mention the location name/s in both the video and the Youtube Description, as well as on your website where you will also post the video.

3 x Youtube Video Creation, Editing & Publishing Tips

1. Post videos weekly, starting with a list of questions from the previous page.
2. Create videos in batches, as having a video creation “day” makes the whole task of publishing videos a lot easier.
3. Video EDITING generally takes the MOST TIME in this process, so if it’s not your best skill:
   • get someone to help
   • outsource to a Virtual Assistant (VA); find someone on Fiverr, Upwork or other sites where you
   • can find people with different technical skills.

 

Outsourcing Tips & Requirements

Before you even CONSIDER outsourcing, it is ESSENTIAL for you to:

1. do the tasks yourself
2. use screen-casting techniques to record via VIDEO what the video will be about, and how to perform that action or task (2-5 minutes long)
3. make one video for each STEP required
4. save videos into a secure Dropbox, S3 or other file hosting account
5. design a form or process (bullet point list in a Text document is better than nothing else; Google docs Form even better as part of a process for you to fill in a form for each new project for your VA)
6. create a second form/Checklist for the VA to complete as they work through each step of each Project. One Form/Checklist is used per Project, so every single step required is marked and everything is being saved into a spreadsheet to make your life so much easier!
7. when you’re ready to outsource, ask the candidate to watch the videos of the Processes you created, and ask them to let you know if they can or cannot complete the tasks required – this is a great first step, and weeds out those unsuitable for the VA role.
8. once hired, don’t forget to ask the VA to make suggestions if they think any task could be changed, improved, tweaked etc — your VA will become a valuable member of your Team – even if it’s only a Team of 2, you and them :-)

Do you know how to make sure your Youtube Channel is set up properly so potential customers and clients can find you online?

If you haven’t had time, or didn’t realise this could be done, you might be interested in my training course:

How To Kickstart Your YouTube Channel The Right Way To Boost Business

When you become a Student, I walk you through every single step you need to make to get your Channel is ready to start bringing in new Subscribers a.s.a.p.

You’ll be able to :

1. follow each of the short videos
2. download and mark the Checklists as you achieve each item on the list
3. share your results and ask questions in the Private Facebook Group for Students.

At the end of the Course your Channel will shine & let visitors know what to expect – you’ll be able to start building your business with intention!

Click this link or the image below to find out more >>

Want more information on Video Marketing Strategies That Work? Need training or help?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief overview of my video marketing techniques.

If you’re looking for more information on my Training Courses, pop over here:

• http://TeenaHughesOnline.com/courses

Upcoming Video Marketing training courses will cover the tools needed, the detailed planning and video marketing strategies I use.

The following will also be provided as PDFs to ensure you can do this on your own after each course:

1. My Resource list
2. Tools Required List
3. Video Storyboard Template
4. Video Marketing Strategy Template
5. plus the video Step-by-step lessons.

If it’s time for you to kick-start your business with Video Marketing Strategies That Work, I’d love to show you how!

If you’d like to chat further, please do send me a message here to set up a date and time (I’m based in Australia):

• http://TeenaHughesOnline.com/contact

Let’s set up a time to talk on the phone or over Skype, Zoom, Viber or iPhone Facetime — and I’m looking forward to that!

Cheerio for now,

Teena Hughes

http://TeenaHughesOnline.com/contact

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