Hi Guys Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullah How are you I hope you love me so much I have come before you today with Avery important issue : How to use Video Marketing to Grow Your Business
In 2017, 63%
of businesses were using video as a marketing tool. In 2018 that number rose to
81%. And in 2019, 87%. This is part of the reason why we jumped on the
bandwagon in 2018 and started publishing videos consistently. And it's led to
over 100,000 YouTube subscribers,
Millions of
views, and thousands of new paying customers. So today, I'm going to show you
how to use video marketing to grow your business, even if you're in a so-called
"boring" industry like SEO.
Stay tuned.
Video marketing
is powerful no doubt. And a lot of it has to do with accessibility. We watch
videos on our computers, mobile devices, and TVs. In fact, go to a metropolitan
area like New York, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, or wherever, and you'll likely see
videos playing on billboards. And the numbers speak for themselves. In a 2018
study, it was reported that 85% of US internet users watched online video
content
every month. So with such high demand for video content, how do we use it as
business owners and marketers to actually drive revenue? To answer that, let's
first define video marketing. Video marketing is using videos to promote and
educate your target audience. It's also used to increase brand awareness and
social engagement, allowing you to reach new and bigger audiences. Now, video
marketing doesn't mean you have to create shows or be a personality that people
fall head
over heels for. A report from Hotspot Research shows that 54% of consumers want
to see videos from brands, which was higher than any other content type. Video
is powerful for a few reasons. First, it allows you to demonstrate concepts
faster and more clearly. For example, as you're watching this video, you're
using your sense of hearing and your sense of sight
together,
creating a rich learning experience. Whereas text-based content limits you to
just sight. For example, if you wanted to learn how to do the reverse overlap
putting grip, you might read this blog post. There's an image showing the grip
and it says...
"Apply
your left hand to the putter grip and then, just beneath, rest your hand around
the putter grip. Link both your hands by lifting the index finger of your left
hand and wrapping it over the fingers of your right hand." Good luck doing
that and getting it right. But watch this video for 30-seconds and you'll
master the technique in no time.
Second,
video allows you to create a personal connection with viewers, which shouldn't
be undermined. For example, I was creating videos for Ahrens' YouTube channel
for around 6 months and then
went to
visit head office in Singapore for the first time. And when I walked into the
office, the first thing someone said to me was... "I feel like I already
know you." A few of the other people around us laughed and agreed. Now,
creating that effect through a blog post is much more challenging. Third, you
can reach audiences in places like YouTube, where video is the only way to play
the game.
Now, as
powerful as video can be you'll need to create them so they
a) resonate
with your target audience…. and
b) ideally
feature your products and services.
So unless
you're making money through ad revenues, views alone won't pay the bills. So
let's go through four steps to create great video marketing campaigns. Step one
is to define your audience. And to do that, start by thinking of who your
product or services serve. Knowing who your audience is in terms of gender,
age, profession, interests, or whatever information you can dig up, can help
you shape the format and content of your videos. So if you have an existing
list of customers, start there.
Define who
they are, what kind of problems they face, how they found you, and why they
chose you. You can do simple customer surveys or one-to-one calls and ask them
those specific questions. Get to know their business and the problems they
face. If you don't have any customers yet, you can use audience research tools
like Facebook Audience Insights. You'll need a Facebook Ads account for this,
but this tool is completely free.
Just fill
out the information in the sidebar of who you think your audience is. For
example, let's say I'm starting a new tabletop games reviews channel. I'll set
the Country to United States assuming that's my target audience, and I'll set the
Interests to tabletop games. And now you can see some insightful things like
the majority of people being between 25-44.
And if we go to the Page Likes tab, you'll see
some interests like electronics, collectibles and video games. Below that are
specific pages they like, which can give you a good place to start for reviews
to create. The next step is to define a primary objective. And there are three main
categories for objectives. These are brand awareness, education, and entertainment,
aka. BEE. Brand awareness videos are usually short, and the purpose is to just
make people aware that you exist. Think of commercials you see on TV.
It can be
anything from McDonalds promoting $2 Big Mac week or something like Slack's
Animals commercial, where they show a team using their software to create a
flying umbrella. The main point is that the viewer should know the brand name
and have an idea of what they provide. Educational videos are like the ones we
create on YouTube.
Most of our
videos are tutorials on SEO and marketing strategies. And as a software
company, we show how our tools make these processes easier and more effective. And
entertainment is self-explanatory. Think of shows or series. They're often
created as stories. For example, Red Bull does a really good job of this. They
create series and videos around extreme sports, which draws in their target
customers.
Now, just
because you want to entertain, it doesn't mean you can't educate or vice versa.
But in my opinion, you should choose a primary objective based on what you want
to achieve.After you've defined your objective, it's time to create the
content. While I can't tell you exactly what to create or how to create it, we
can talk about a few sub-categories under the umbrella of video creation.
So let's
talk about optimal lengths, formats, breaking through common struggles, and how
you'll get these videos in front of the right people. So let's talk about how
long your videos should be first. Content length will usually be determined by
your primary objective. For example, a brand awareness campaign can be as short
as 15 seconds, and usually won't Exceed a couple of minutes. Again, think of
commercials or those ads that play before you watch certain YouTube videos.
Educational
content will be anywhere from 5 to 120 minutes. Our videos are usually 7 to 20
minutes, while something like a webinar can easily go over an hour. As for
entertainment, this will also vary in duration. But I like to think of these
kinds of videos as shows. This can range from 10 to 180 minutes depending on
the format. Speaking of format, this is where you'll see quite a bit of
variance as it depends on your audience, objective, industry, and the message
you want to get across. Meaning, there are no set rules. But there is one
format that I've seen work for all audiences, all objectives, and all
industries.
And it looks
something like this. Problem, teaser, and solution or story. Whether it's a
commercial, tutorial, or blockbuster film, there's always a problem. Problems
make content interesting and it's something I recommend leading with.
Next is the teaser.
The point of
this is to show that there's a solution to the problem, without giving it away.
Finally is story or solution. And this will often depend on your objective
again. For example, educational videos will usually have a clear-cut solution.
Whereas
videos that go the entertainment route will likely have stories that lead to
the solution or conclusion. Let's go through some examples. In the 2019 Super
Bowl, Bud Light aired this famous commercial. The problem starts when a giant
barrel of corn syrup is delivered to their factory.
But since
Bud Light doesn't use corn syrup in their beer, they tease the answer that it. must be one of their competitors' shipments,
like Miller Lite. The story goes on to show the journey of delivering corn
syrup to their competitor. Once they arrive at the castle, Miller Lite says
they already received their corn syrup, and suggests to deliver the barrel to
another competitor, Coors light.
Bud Light
gang heads over to the Coors' castle, and they gladly accept the corn syrup. As
for educational videos, it's easiest if I use our tutorials as an example. With
this video I started off by sharing how important video marketing is. I then go
onto tease the solution by showing how we've used video to get over 100,000
subscribers,
millions of
views, and thousands of new paying customers. Right now, we're in the solution
stage where I'm sharing what we've done and a step-by-step way to use video
marketing for your company. Finally is the entertainment route. Just think of
your favorite sitcom. There's always a problem, they often tease what could be
if the problem were solved,
it leads
into the story which is the bulk of the show, and ends with some kind of
solution or conclusion. Now, I'm not saying that this formula is what all
successful videos follow. But if you're struggling to find your own unique format,
try it because it works. Alright, let's talk about some very real struggles
that come with the territory of being a video creator.
Even though
some of these roadblocks might seem like huge problems in the moment, I promise
that you can overcome them. So let's break down the problems and solutions. Struggle
#1: I'm not good in front of the camera. This was and still is one of my
greatest struggles. I don't feel natural standing here talking to a lens, knowing
that thousands of people are going to watch it.
But the beauty of video
is in editing.
As you've
seen from this video as well as others, we use B-roll like screencasts,
animations and text screens to take the attention off me while creating better
educational material. Another way to combat the jitters is to use a teleprompter.
This is what I use because it helps me deliver as much information as possible
in a short period of time rather than going off on tangents.
Struggle #2:
I don't have
equipment or the budget to buy it. Listen...video production quality is
overrated. Yea, we spend a lot of time trying to produce quality stuff, but at
the same time, it's not a necessity to create impactful videos. You probably
have a camera in your pocket everywhere you go. It's called a smartphone.
In fact,
when Tim started Ahrens' YouTube channel in 2015, he created all his tutorials on
a Go Pro which is far from Hollywood equipment. But those videos took our
channel from 0 to 2,600 subscribers in 5 months. No fancy cameras, microphones
or backdrops. This brings us to the last common struggle. Struggle #3 is that
English is not my first language.
Tim is
originally from Ukraine. And if you've watched any of his videos, you might
have noticed that English isn't his first language. Being a child of immigrant
parents myself, I know there are personal struggles in terms of how you think
others might perceive you.
So I thought
it'd be best to have Tim share his experiences on how he was able to power through
and overcome this challenge. Hey guys! So Sam asked me to share my experience
of creating video content while not being a native English speaker.
Should I
also say, not being even a fluent English speaker? So yeah, I did have my
hesitations to start recording videos or audio content because of my strong
Ukrainian accent. So much so that I even recorded a video-question to Gary Vie Show asking him if my heavy accent would be a problem and if it would make
people jump to conclusions and not listening to my content.
Well, what
Gary said was that it is true that some people would hate my accent and choose
not to watch my content because of it. But on the other hand, there are tons
and tons of smart, intelligent people all around the globe for whom English is
not their first language So my accent is absolutely of no problem for them as
long as the content is good.
So here's my
advice for you. If you want to start creating video content but you have an
accent, don't bother about it, just start doing it. If your content is good,
you'll find your audience and there will be many people who will appreciate
what you're doing despite your accent. And one last thing. Please, tell Sam
that this t-shirt looks much better on me than on him.
Type it in
the comments, please. Thanks! The final part to this video marketing puzzle is
likely the most important. And that's how you're going to get views to your
videos. And I'm not going to talk about things like TV, but I will focus on three
online marketing strategies that I've used to get more views. First is through
organic reach. And this means ranking your videos on YouTube and Google as well
as being recommended through other YouTube features like suggested views and
browse features. To prove that we've done this, here's a graph of our YouTube
organic search traffic. We've invested a lot of effort into YouTube SEO, which
has given us free and consistent growth over time. And here's the fruit of our
labor from our video SEO efforts. This
graph shows free and consistent views that we get from Google search.
YouTube SEO
works particularly well if your main objective is education. Naturally, people
are and will always be searching for helpful tutorials on various topics. Rather
than going deep into how to do YouTube SEO, we have an actionable tutorial on
how you can rank your videos in YouTube, which I'll link up in the description.
Another way
to get views is to embed videos on your blog or landing pages. If you have a
website where you're already getting consistent traffic, it's worth embedding your
videos in relevant places.
This is
something we do regularly at Ahrens and it's probably one of the lowest-hanging
tactics you can do. From what I've seen, embedding our videos on relevant posts
have helped us rank these videos in Google's video carousels, suggested clips,
and video search tab.
Next is through other social media platforms.
If you
already have a following on Facebook,
Twitter, or LinkedIn, I'm sure you're already posting videos there. Now, if
your goal is simply to get people to consume your content, you can try
uploading the entire video to the social platform and see how they perform. But
if your goal is to get people to your YouTube channel, then I recommend
creating short teaser clips and uploading them to the social platform.
And within
the description, add a link to your YouTube video. Every industry is different
and every audience is different too. Try both of these tactics and don't be
afraid to throw a bit of money into social ads. A little can go a long way. Speaking
of ads, that's the final strategy I recommend. With video ads, I've only tried
them on Facebook and YouTube. And from what I've seen, Facebook tends to work
well for brand awareness and lead generation videos.
Lead
generation videos are ones where you ask people to opt-in for a webinar or
something else that are free. From there, you nurture the lead and then try to
sell your product Facebook has arguably the best audience-targeting features. So
if you know your audience really well, it can help you get engaged views fast. As
for YouTube, we regularly use discovery ads for full-length tutorials.
These are
ads that appear at the top of YouTube's search results as well as in the
suggested sidebar. You can target audiences or topics much like Facebook's
interest targeting, and layer in demographic profiles.
You can also
do keyword targeting, where your ads will appear when a user searches for
specific. words or phrases.
Since our
videos are mostly created to solve specific problems, I've found keyword
targeting to work. really well to get
engaged views, meaning long ones.
Finally are
in-stream ads, which are those videos that play before a video. These work well
if brand awareness is your objective. It's important to take note of the format
of these ads. For example, people aren't able to skip the first five seconds of
the video. So two things you'll want to do in the first five seconds are
a) grab
their attention enough so they'll continue to watch;
and
b) make the
focus on your brand.
The second
thing to note is that YouTube only considers it a "view" if the user
watches at least 30 seconds of your ad. Or the full video if it's shorter than
30 seconds. This means, if your video is 31 seconds, and someone watches 29
seconds of that video, you won't be charged. So take that into account, too.
At the end
of the day, successful advertising will come down to your targeting, the
quality of the video, and how relevant it is to your business and audience. I
highly recommend trying out video ads. Even if you spend just $10 per day, you
can get hundreds of views. So by now, I'm hoping you feel an urgency to start
marketing with video.
Thank you