Why You Should Include Video in Your 2018 Marketing Strategy Plans

Video is a must medium for today’s marketing and content strategies — and when it’s done right, it can result in more qualified leads and more sales.

According to Forbes, 59% of executives would rather watch a video than read text. Similarly, Animoto finds that four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. It further notes that about 80% of consumers say a video showing how a product or service works is important. And Google reports that more than half of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store. In fact, many marketers create videos for every step of the customer buying journey.

In fact, more than half (51.9%) of marketers worldwide cite video as the type of content with the best ROI. Notably, 55% of people consume video content thoroughly. Even more importantly, 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers.

It’s clear that video content is no longer optional for marketers. But for those marketers that have remained on the sidelines, it’s not too late to develop a video marketing strategy. To avoid being left behind, here are a few things to consider.

What stories should you tell with your videos?

It’s always best to start at the beginning. Think about who your potential customers are, and the types of stories that would be of interest to them.Hubspot reports that the top four most common types of video content are: explainers, product demos, how-tos, and testimonials. Vidyard adds other types to that list, including thought leadership interviews, webinars, and live-action videos.

Think Mobile first

Mobile video consumption is expected to account for 72% of all mobile traffic by 2019, reports Tubular Insights. So it is critical that your videos will be optimized for mobile devices.

Here are a few best practices to follow when you create your videos

• Ensure your video players are responsive: With a video that’s hosted on your site, a responsive player size should be the first thing you need to take into account. You’ll also want to make sure your video sizes feet to multiple devices. This means your video content should be visible on both an smartphone (640px wide) and a large monitor (1920px wide).
• Call to Actions: Ensure your CTA’s work on mobile screens. For your own site or page, use a video platform that allows you to have a clickable final CTA on mobile or create a CTA that’s external to the video but still on the landing page.
• Mute: Make sure your videos make sense when played on mute. Another good recommendation is to add subtitles, as most videos that are watched on mobile are muted.

The most important tip is to preview it on multiple mobile devices. Test your video without sound and make sure you nailed it.

You only have a few seconds to make an impression

Obviously, people have many distractions competing for their attention and patience is not something internet users are known for. It is important to keep this in mind when developing marketing videos. Keep it short and to the point!

Enough planning let’s talk tactics

Paid media is a critical part of an effective video content marketing. Here are five ways you can use Outbrain Amplify to maximize the value of your video marketing strategy

• Story Sequencing.Telling the right story to consumers is an essential part of a brand’s content marketing strategy. With Outbrain’s story sequencing feature, you can create storylines for your consumers and there is no better way to tell a story then using videos. Remember, the first step is to implement Outbrain pixel and to build your segment audiences. Here is a good example of how Renault used Outbrain Story Sequencing to promote their car models. Additionally, to learn more on how to use story sequencing, check out this post.
• Combine your paid media tools to work together. If you are in the business of digital marketing, I’m sure you work with Google Analytics and AdWords. Why not combine them with Amplify? The first step is to make sure your AdWords account is linked to your GA account. Then, create a custom audience in your GA account to include all the users who landed on your video landing page by traffic sources. Include only the ones who landed from your amplify campaign and exclude the users who convert. Now, go to your AdWords account and add this audience to your search brand campaign as RLSA with higher bid adjustment. If you have a large scale audience, I would even recommend creating a separate brand search campaign and excluding this audience in your primary campaign. This will help you reduce your CPA. It will also help you make sure you are not missing the audience who learned about your product from the video and then went on to Google to search for it.
• Nurturing your video landing page visitors. Build a dedicated landing page and make the video the star. Again, before you’re promoting your page across various media channels make sure you implement Outbrain pixel and create a new custom audience segment of visitors who visited the page and didn’t convert. Now, it is time to nurture this audience. Retarget them across Outbrain premium network with a follow-up video page to seal the deal. Israel’s Ministry of Tourism had a huge success with this tactic by using Amplify and video content. They ultimately had a higher conversion rate compare to search and social. You can read all about it here.
• Promote your app using a video. If you are in the app marketing business, this tactic is for you. If an image in the iTunes/Google play is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a thousand images! If you are not doing it already you should add a video to your app store listing. Here, you can learn how to do that for Google play & iTunes . Once you set it up, with Amplify you have the opportunity to drive cost-efficient downloads and track app engagement among a highly qualified mobile audience. Drive traffic directly to your app Google play/ iTunes URL and encourage them to watch the video to learn more about the app.
• Promote Your YouTube Channel. This is a more straightforward tactic in case you owned a YouTube or Vimeo channel. If you want to increase your channel subscribers and video viewers, Amplify is the right channel for you to use. With 1 billion interest profiles and 275B monthly recommendations, Amplify can skyrocket your channel.

Stay tuned, we will soon launch new features that will allow you to do even more with your Outbrain Amplify account.

In case you have any questions regarding how to use Outbrain in your video marketing strategy feel free to add them as comments below and I will reply.

Check now our new complete guide to online video marketing!