Planning Your Video Marketing Strategy

Making your videos is the easy part, creating a strategy that works for you can be a little more tricky. After all, you want all of those videos to mean something, you want them to help you extend your reach and grow your business, you want them to take your business to the next level.

But more than anything you want your video to be the one that people find when they are researching your niche – and that has nothing to do with the quality of your video. The sad truth is that there are many video marketers who have put in the work and created clever videos that delivered a strong message and those video marketers still can't get their videos seen. What's even more difficult for these marketers is to see bad videos in their niche with thousands of views.

What is the difference? The person with the bad videos has a video marketing strategy.  When you have a strategy, it doesn't matter if your video is the best one out there, it doesn't matter if you have all of the bells and whistles because at the end of the day you know how to get your video in front of the right people. Creating a video marketing strategy is something you need to do – now.

What three areas should you focus on when you create your strategy?

Try to Create a Viral Effect

One thing you always want your videos to have is the viral effect. This means that people will want to share it, talk about it, thumb it up, and keep it going long after you have moved onto your next video. How do you make this viral effect happen? There are a few different options.

You can use the content of your video to focus on getting an emotional response from your viewers. This way they will be more than likely to share your video with others.

Try giving them an incentive to share. A good example of this is when you post a video on Facebook and you offer a gift of some kind to everyone who shares your video.

Use social media to give credit to others in your niche and get more views for your video in the process.

Make Your Strategy Easy to Implement and Manage

When you are trying to figure out your strategy, make sure that it is something that is easy for you to implement and manage. Sure, it might be tempting to have a daily plan of posting articles pointing to your video, making blog posts about it, and sharing it on social media, but how long can you really keep that up? Can you do it for more than a week or two while still building momentum in other areas of your business? When you have 10-20 videos that you are marketing, will you be able to spend time every day doing articles, blog posts, and social shares for each one of those videos?

Your strategy should be something that you can easily do over and over again. After all, if you are spending hours every day working on marketing the videos you already have, when will you have time to make more videos?

Make Sure Your Videos Push Your Viewers Into Doing What You Want Them To Do

The last thing that your marketing strategy should do is push the viewer into doing what you want them to do. This could be buying your product, signing up for your email list, or even just sharing your content. Whatever that ultimate goal that you have for your video is, make sure that your video pushes you towards that goal.

Using videos is a fast and easy way to grow your business, but you need to have a solid strategy in place. When you take the time to develop a solid video marketing strategy, you will watch your business grow beyond your wildest dreams.

Why You Should Survey Your Audience Before You Create Your Next Video

For many people, once they start video marketing they know exactly what they want to share in their videos. They understand their niche and they know what will appeal to their audience. This usually works great for awhile, but over time they find that they seem to be running out of things to talk about.

If you are stuck trying to figure out what your audience wants to learn about, you should really think about making a survey. Not only are surveys quick and easy to make, but they are also effective.
Think about it, when you make a survey, you are asking your audience what they want to learn. That means that when you create that video based on those survey results you know that you have an instant audience for them.

So let's say that you survey your list of dog groomers and they want to learn ways to give a poodle a French manicure. It sounds odd enough, there is probably no way that you would have ever guessed that was something they wanted to learn, but they do. You go out and learn how to give the poodle a French manicure and you create an exclusive video training series that you sell to your list. Boom, you have instant buyers because you already know that they wanted the product that you have just given them.
There is no more wasting time guessing what your audience wants to know, because a survey gives them the chance to tell you.

What’s the Easiest Way to Create a Survey?

Creating the actual survey is easy. There are many sites out there like SurveyMonkey.com that allow you to open a free account and start making surveys. You will be limited to the amount of surveys that you can make if you stay with the free account. But it is certainly a good place to start. Once you have created your survey, simply copy the link and share it everywhere that you possibly can. You can share it on social media sites, forums that you are a part of, and of course send it to your mailing list.

Give them an Incentive to Respond

You will find that even people who are interested in your survey don’t always respond. Either they don't feel like they can find the time or they simply forget about it altogether. A good way to make sure that people respond is to offer them something for participating. You can give them a free product, a discount code off of something that you have created, exclusive access to something that you have not released to the public, an advanced copy of the next product you create, etc. It doesn't have to be something backbreaking for you, (like a personal phone consultation), just something simple that your audience will enjoy.

One thing you want to keep in mind with your incentives though is that you need to have a way to keep track of the email addresses of those people that respond. Many free survey programs don't do this for you, so you might want to have a special "enter your email here" box for them to fill out.

Once you have your responses you can get started on your next set of videos knowing that you already have a hungry audience out there that is ready and waiting to buy your next product. Who knew it could be this easy?

Using Emotion for Viral Video Marketing

When you create a video, you are making something that is instantly going to catch the eye of anyone who sees it. Study after study has proven that people are naturally drawn to videos and they will watch a video before they read a boring article any day. Think about that for a second, think about the power that just one video can have over dozens of articles. Now imagine something even more amazing, imagine if you had five or ten videos like that…and all of them went viral. 

What is a Viral Video? 

To put it easily, a viral video is something that people can't wait to share. It gains popularity on its own and it doesn't matter if you are slaving away at your computer or enjoying a weekend at the spa, a viral is still spreading like wildfire. 

Why Do People Keep Sharing a Viral Video?

There are a lot of reasons that people will keep spreading a viral video, and all of those reasons can be taken back to one thing – emotion. When people feel something deeply, they want to share it with others. 

Using Emotions to Get People to Share

Sometimes people get mad. For instance, when there is a highly publicized child abuse case people will be sharing that video because they are angry and they want others to see what happened too.

It isn't uncommon for videos, (and pictures), of missing children to keep getting shared well after the child is found. The reason is because of fear. People are scared for the child and they want to keep spreading the word.  Sometimes a video makes people so happy that they have to share it. For example, at this moment the video of Prince William taking his wife and the new prince home from the hospital has more than one million views. And there are many more versions of the same video that have hundreds of thousands of views. People love William and Kate and this video was something that many people found joy in, so they kept sharing it with others. 

Controversy – A Key to Viral Video Marketing

And then there is the one thing that is almost guaranteed to make a video go viral – a good controversy. The thing that makes a controversial video unique is that people will usually share it no matter what. The people who agree with your view will likely share it because they feel the same way that you do and they want to spread the word so others might agree too. 

But the people who don't agree with your view are also likely to share your video. Why? Because they are just so darned angry at your viewpoint that they will poke fun at it or use it to show people how 'off base' your view is. Either way, it doesn't matter to you because you will still be getting those views that will make your video the most viewed video in your niche. 

Have a Plan

If you want to make your video go viral one of the most important things you can do is have a plan. You want to know what people in your market get emotional about and you want to figure out how you can use that emotion to increase your chances of making your video go viral. 

How to Make Great Videos Even if You Have Stage Fright

Even though many people know the power of creating a video for their business, there is one thing that seems to hold them back – they don't like to be on camera. Either they think that they sound weird, they don’t feel like they have a good background to shoot from, or they plain don't like the way that they look on camera. Either way, it keeps them from creating the powerful videos that they know they should have to extend their reach and keep building their audience.

Luckily, for those of you who are a bit shy in front of the camera, there are some easy options that will let you create a great video in no time.

1-Using Powerpoint and  a Screen Recorder

A lot of people don't think of Powerpoint when they think of their best business tools, but it is a really simple program to use and it can help your business out tremendously. You can create a clean Powerpoint presentation that shows everything you want to say in your video.

Each slide will represent something that you want to show your audience. Whether it is a graph, bullet points, or proof of a product that you are selling, you want to make sure that each slide has a purpose in getting your message out.  Once you are done, you can use a headset and screen recorder program to capture the presentation that you have just made. All you need to do is make sure the recording bar only shows the active Powerpoint slide. Then you can simply read your script as you record yourself scrolling through the slides.

2- Create an Animated Video

If you want your video to have a person in it, even if that person is not you, you might want to think about going the animated video route. When you create an animated video, you have a fun cartoon that viewers can watch while you tell them whatever you need to tell them about your services. There are many websites that will create animated videos for you, and some of them allow you to try them out for free.

3-Outsource It

The absolute best way to get what you want without dealing with any of the headache is to outsource it. Even though outsourcing is a bit more costly than your other options, it is a great way for you to get your video up and running quickly. The best part is that you can outsource everything from the video voiceover to creating the video screenshots and putting the final video together.

One thing that you should never outsource though is writing your video script. Because you are the one who knows your business and products better than anyone else, you should be the one to write the script. Even if you have someone else clean it up after it is written, it is important that the first draft of the script comes from you.

If you are looking for ways to create great videos without being in front of the camera, you are not alone. Use these easy ways to make great videos that stand out, even if you aren't in them.

Do You Know Why Your Script Is More Important than Your Video

For many people involved in video marketing, their primary focus is on the video that they are putting together. Sure, they have a general idea of what they want to say and they might even have a rough script that they want to go through, but overall the video itself is their main focus.

People focus their attention on how they are going to construct their video, what effects they are going to use, and how they are going to be marketing the video once it is complete – which are all very important things to know.

But without a great script, you can have the best video in the world and still get nowhere with it. If you don't have a script that is going to get your audience interested in learning more from you, they will simply take what they need from your video and move on.

What Should Be In Your Script?

Your script doesn't have to be long, it just has to have a good message, build trust, and have a call to action.  And of course, everything should flow along at a nice pace, you don't want a video that drags on so long that it loses the interest of your viewers.

These are the crucial parts that your script should have:

1-Your Script should start with a brief introduction, let the audience know who you are, what your website is, and what you do.

2-Introduce the problem. Let your audience know that you understand why this is such a problem and let them know how bad the problem can get if it isn’t taken care of. Your audience should feel a sense of urgency about getting the problem resolved.

3-What good is a problem without a solution? You want to show your viewers that you have a solution that will help to fix the problem they are having. You can also try to gain a little trust here by giving them another solution to their problem (although that solution should not be as good as the solution that your product offers). For instance, if you were selling a cream that erases wrinkles you could use this time to tell them about different salon services or medical procedures that they could try in order to get rid of those wrinkles.  Neither of these solutions is as easy or cost effective as your cream, but your viewers will appreciate that you are helping them to find a way out of their problem. And when you offer them your wrinkle cream, (which is much easier and cheaper than expensive salon services), they will be more likely to jump on the chance to get it.

4-Now you want to start talking about your own solution. Let your audience know how you are going to make their lives even easier when they use your product and how much more cost effective your product is than other solutions out there.

5-Proof, you have to have proof! Use screenshots, customer testimonials, or anything else that you have that proves your product does what you say it does. If you have a guarantee, this is a good place to bring it up as well.

6-Your call to action – give your customers the ability to have your amazing product today. You could also give them the option of either buying your product today, signing up for your mailing list (where they will get a free gift of some sort), or both. If you give them the option of signing up for your mailing list, make sure that you schedule some future emails about your product so that they don't forget about it.
One thing you want to remember when you are writing a script is that it takes much less time to read something than it does to write it. So even if you have a three page script, it can easily turn into a video that is under two minutes long.

When you start video marketing, you want to be sure that you make each one of your videos as powerful as you possibly can. Using a script will help you to get your message out more clearly and get more buzz around any products that you might be selling.

4 Video Marketing Tips to Save Your Sanity

Whether you are new to the whole 'video' thing or you have been doing it for awhile the truth is always the same – video marketing can be a bear. Sure, creating a video is much easier than having to type up an article and uploading a video is a breeze compared to the waiting game people used to play when they would put their articles on popular sites like Ezine articles.

But when it comes to the marketing part of video marketing, things tend to get a little tough. Many people are downright shocked when they upload their video to a popular site like YouTube and they can't seem to get any views to that video. They didn't do anything wrong, and in many cases those videos look nice and they have a great message to them. In fact, the only real problem is that many times these people don't have a video marketing strategy.

If you are trying to help your videos to become more popular, here are a few quick and easy tips.

1-Add Your Video to Your Website – Instead of leaving your video on YouTube collecting dust, why not get the ball rolling on getting more views by embedding your video into a blog post on your website? You can allow people to comment on it and you can even send the link of your blog post to your email list for instant views.

2-Watch Those Keywords – Even though Google owns YouTube, there is no guarantee that a YouTube video will make it to page one – especially if your video is on a popular subject. To give yourself better odds, add your keyword into the title and the description of the video.

3 – Get Social – After your video has been uploaded, add the link to your Facebook page, Twitter page, and Pinterest page. Be sure to share it wherever you can online. Just make sure that you are sharing it with people who will actually be helped by it, that way they will be more likely to send it on to other people who will be helped by it. In other words, if I followed you on Twitter and I had a remote control car hobby I would never share your video on kite building with my race car friends – their interest is cars, like mine.

4 – Get Chatty – Get on the site where you posted your video, (most likely YouTube), and find similar videos to yours. Leave comments, follow those people on their blogs, and on social media. If they like you, they will likely follow you back and share your stuff.
These are just a few of the simple tricks that you can use to take your video marketing to the next level. Remember, when it comes to marketing online you can be a winner in any niche, all you have to do is get a little creative.