4 Steps on How To Get Started With Video Marketing

Video marketing is huge right now, and it’s no surprise. Video is easy to consume and share, and it’s a great way to engage your customers, improve your marketing performance, and ultimately grow your business. In this article, we’re going to take you through how to get started with video marketing, so you too can harness the terrific power of video for your business.

So before you pick up the video camera and start producing content, ask yourself these questions.

1 – Who is your audience?

Your audience will determine the type of video content you’ll create. If you create videos before figuring out who your audience is, you’ll have no way of knowing that your videos will be valuable to your audience, and ultimately whether or not they’ll be effective.

Do some audience research, think of your target customers, and that will give you a good idea of who your audience should be. Invest time in profiling your customers, and really understanding who they are, and critically where they live online. Also think about their needs and wants, and critically how you or your product or service can help solve their problem. This is a great starting point in creating connections, but remember, your content should always have the audience at the forefront of your mind. It’s not about you, it’s about your audience and how you can best serve them.

2 – What do you want your video to accomplish?

Do you want it to educate, entertain, sell a product? Do you want to get more clients? Do you want to retain existing clients, or do you want to find more employees? Do you want to create sales tools for your employees?

Video is a hugely powerful medium, and can be used to create effective films, to help with a multitude of aspects of business. So make sure you plan and create your video with your goals in mind. Focus on your primary business goals first, and then start there.

3 – What topics will you cover?

Before you start filming, you need to plan. The pre-production stage of filming is probably the most important step of your entire filming process. It’s really important to know what your video will discuss so that when it’s time to film, you know exactly what you need to do. Your plan doesn’t always need to be highly detailed and super precise, but you should at least have a really solid outline of what you’ll be talking about and what you’ll be showing in your video.

Now, if you’re comfortable memorising and reciting lines, feel free to write a script, but it’s really important to be natural and conversational in your videos. So maybe another good idea is to develop some talking points or topics that you’ll want to cover and naturally, and conversationally discuss them on camera without a script.

4 – What resources do you have?

You need to think about what resources you’ll have to create your video content. Do you have an audio/visual production team that can film and edit the video, or will you be doing it yourself? Do you have enough budget to hire a freelance video producer, or are you going to purchase equipment and software to create and edit the video yourself? Also ask yourself how much time do you have to devote to filming, editing and promoting your video?

Now, if you don’t know the first thing about producing videos, do you have the time and the patience to take the courses, get yourself upskilled and teach yourself how to use filming equipment and editing software. The head count, budget, skill level and time you have at your disposal will determine if you’re able to invest in creating higher end higher tech animated videos, for example, or it will say whether you should perhaps start on a simpler basis producing a more straightforward talking heads type video on your phone, for example.

In fact, HubSpot multimedia content strategist, Megan Conley was asked what she recommends for marketers just starting out, and she noted the importance of allotting resources to make your first marketing video as comprehensive as it can be.

Video is about investment at the end of the day, in money, sure, but also critically in time and commitment. But that investment will pay dividends once you grow and expand your audience over time, by producing valuable content that really serves your audience of potential customers.

I hope you got value from this. Don’t forget to check out our other videos on topics such as making videos on your laptop or the different types of video you can create for your business, depending on your business goals.

If you want to find out even more about our production company and how video marketing can help you business, be sure to check out: free YouTube resource.