How to Get Started with Video Marketing
(Episode 2 of 2 with Adrian Sandmeier)
Welcome back to another episode with Adrian Sandmeier, founder of youstream, an award-winning video marketing company and author of Video Marketing for Marketers. In the last episode, we discussed five video marketing tips. In today’s episode, we’re going to continue our conversation about video marketing and explain how we can get started with video marketing.
Key Takeaways
We will cover the following key takeaways:
- If we want to produce our own videos instead of hiring outside talent, we should invest in proper training, equipment, and consider building an in-house media production team.
- Before we begin filming, we should set our goals and create a plan.
- One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to create content around our product or brand, and not our ideal customer.
- We should provide value to our customers in our videos.
- Instead of running videos that only involve our product or service, we should get people in our videos.
- If we want our videos to be successful, we have to make sure we reach the right audience.
2022 Video Marketing Trends
One of the biggest video marketing trends Adrian sees is that most companies and entrepreneurs want to prepare video content themselves. They don’t want to have an outside hire come in and do it.
“The problem [with this] is they don’t have the time, so they look for some shortcuts,” Adrian said. “What you actually can do if you’re a big enough company is build your own in-house media production. It doesn’t have to be 10 people, it can be one part time videographer that can help you with your video content. It will be a little bit of investment in the beginning, but trust me, once you get into the flow, you’ll produce more videos [and] gain experience.”
While we certainly can produce videos without an outside hire, we don’t want to try and take shortcuts. We don’t want to go the easy route just to save time. If we do this, our video quality will go down. If we want to produce videos ourselves, we have to put in the time and effort, and maybe even build our own in-house production team as Adrian said.
We can also invest in training programs to teach our employees how to create strong video content. Adrian actually sells workshops to help marketing divisions produce better video content and build strong strategies.
How to Get Started with Video
With so many companies shifting from hiring video producers to producing their own videos, many wonder, how do we get started with video marketing? We have to start by creating a content strategy; we don’t want to just pick up a camera and start filming.
1. Start with a Goal and Create a Plan
“It all starts with the goal, with the idea, with the vision,” Adrian said. “You have to know what your positioning is. Who is your audience? What problems does your audience have?”
Before we can begin the creation process, we should spend a good amount of time in the planning stage. How will this video help us with our business goals? What is our goal? Do we want to increase engagement or increase awareness? Creating a plan is key to producing a high quality, effective video.
Here are some other questions we may want to ask:
- What can we give to our customers?
- What problems are we trying to solve?
- Do we want to entertain or inform with our video?
- What channel do we want to post the video on?
- Who will act in the video?
- How long will the video be?
- What keywords can we use?
Asking ourselves these questions is likely the most important part of our video marketing strategies. Before we do anything, we should create a plan. One of the biggest mistakes video marketers make is jumping into the production stage too soon. Many people think video starts with filming, but that just isn’t the case.
“Preparation in all kinds of video marketing activities is also a key part of your success,” Adrian said.
2. Know Your Audience
Knowing our audience is key. Adrian said, “You have to know your audience; everything starts with really knowing your audience [and] knowing why they actually buy your product.” If our video doesn’t provide any benefit to our ideal customers, we shouldn’t waste time making it.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make when creating content is to create content around our product or brand, and not our ideal customer.
We should also focus on the uniqueness of our brand. How can we tell our customers that we are different from our competitors? What makes us stand out? We don’t just have to show our customers how we can help them; we also have to show them how we can help them in a way that’s different from everyone else.
“Before you think about anything about video, maybe call a couple of customers that you’re already dealing with [and] ask them why they were happy,” Adrian said. “[That will] help you define your positioning [and] start with a content strategy.”
3. Provide Value
Don’t forget to provide value. Our videos shouldn’t only be designed to gain a lead or make a sale. We want to give our customers something valuable first.
“A couple of years ago, an advertisement was about telling [people] how great your product is, but this doesn’t work anymore,” Adrian said. “Nowadays it’s actually showing value with [the] content that you produce. You want to leave your audience smarter. You want to give something to your audience.”
Instead of making content that promotes our product, we can create content that helps our customers first. As we give value, we’re making deposits in those emotional bank accounts with our customers. Eventually, they will likely want to reciprocate back to us. We facilitate the sale by providing value first.
4. Involve People
Adrian recommends we involve as many people into our videos as we can, such as our employees and team members. As we do so, we should remember to keep them involved. They shouldn’t just act, they should also be there with the planning and strategy meetings.
“Talk to the involved people . . . Involve as many people as you can into your stories,” Adrian said. “You want to make them excited. It’s also a strategy to win the customer [in the] long term if you can take the whole company with you and then cheer up the whole company when you produce video marketing.”
It’s much easier to connect with a face than it is to connect to a product. Instead of running videos that only involve our product or service, we should get people into our videos. We want to show faces and bring in emotion.
5. Focus on Reach and Promotion
Many people create a great video, but then don’t focus on reach. If we want our video to be successful, we have to make sure we reach the right audience: our ideal customers. We can’t just post our video on every channel and hope for the best. We should strategically determine where to post our videos in the planning stage so that it is seen by our target audience.
In addition to posting the video in the right place, there are a few things we can do in the production process to increase our reach. Every video starts with a click and if we expect someone to click on our video, we should include a great thumbnail picture and headline. These are just as important as the video itself because it’s what grabs our customers’ attention. If people don’t click, the video doesn’t start.
To increase our reach we should also invest in good content. The higher quality content we produce, the more likely it is that it will be shared and watched. For example, if I click on a video but the audio quality is terrible, I’m not going to keep watching it or share it.
“Invest in good content . . . and also don’t don’t be afraid of putting up a budget for your paid media activities,” Adrian said. We can invest in YouTube ads, paid social media posts, Facebook ads, etc. to help us increase our reach. We should also spend time on SEO.
As we follow these steps Adrian gave in today’s episode, we will find that we don’t need to hire outside help to create videos for us. We can develop our own video marketing teams and create great content ourselves.
Connect with Adrian
Thank you so much Adrian for sharing your stories and insights with us today. To learn more about or connect with Adrian:
Next Steps
- Get a free ebook about passion marketing, and learn how to become a top priority of your ideal customers at PassionMarketing.com.
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