Last Updated on April 13, 2022
Have you taken a look at the many different waysa businesses and brands are creating content for their audiences these days? It’s now more about video and interactive content than ever before. With so much focus on video, it means text content is quickly falling behind — not only as a method for content creation, but also for how content is being consumed by audiences around the world.
Thanks to the massive growth of social media, YouTube, and mobile usage, video is now being consumed and uploaded at a faster rate than ever before. With all of this in mind, it’s important to start thinking about how your blog, brand, or business can start using online video in 2018.
Instead of giving you our personal opinion and a bunch of industry stats, we wanted to let some of the world’s top marketers, bloggers, founders, and business owners share their expertise with you.
Be sure to run through each of the expert video tips below and start implementing such methods into your own content creation and marketing efforts today.
What are your best tips for video marketing and audience targeting in 2019?
The best tip for video marketing is to start doing it! A lot of people (including myself) have been ignoring this medium for way too long, however, all signs show that video is the way forward in 2018 and beyond. So set your goals, get into video and you learn as you go!
james
Jacob Cass – JustCreative.com
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The best way to boost your video marketing in 2018 is to start converting your most popular blog posts and articles into video format. This allows you to start with your best content first and amass a large following on platforms like YouTube.
Syed Balkhi – WPBeginner.com
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I believe that there is no question to where video marketing is headed, what do people do most of the time when they are online? They are learning. They want to know more about a topic, or how to do something. Whiteboard and explainer videos have really blown up on youtube and it’s for a good reason – it’s fun, and easy, to learn to an animated whiteboard video. The music, and the info, just go hand in hand if they are done well. My best video marketing and targeting tip for 2018 is – go where your audience is. If you are trying to get kids/teens that love cell phones to buy a phone, or a case, you need to be showing those kids/teens how to use their phones, or give them a tip, or a deal, that they can relate to and use! Do what you are trying to sell, find a way to be relevant in that space – if other people are doing what you are trying to do, do it differently – do it better. Competition today is huge, but there will always be a way to work harder than the other guy and get yourself on top with video marketing.
Andy Sowards – GameTomatoes.com
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Video can always be a challenge, even with larger budgets. It takes a long time to script, storyboard and produce videos. Many times with video, it also takes a few run thoughts to get a video right. One way I’ve been able to test scripts and see if they work is to use talent on Fiverr.com to do a reading before going to production. I can hire a voice actor to read the script and see if it clicks. I’ve done that a few times at HealthJoy and it’s led to a few rewrites before we go into final production.
Rick Ramos – HealthJoy.com
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I personally am still a big fan of writing text content and getting my sites to rank in the search results, however, I also know the power of video and how much more it is in demand. One of the best ways to use to take advantage of both opportunities is to simply create videos alongside some of our best content. This can be done through explainer videos, talking-head videos, or even just outsourcing the process and letting someone else create videos based off your text articles or blog posts. No matter what you are doing, just don’t ignore the important and mass usage of online video.
Zac Johnson of Blogging.org
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Be part of the market that you’re trying to target and know your influencers. It’s easier to target a niche that you’re already part of instead of risking it all by estimating what the audience might be looking for. If you can cluster yourself into a demographic and find the biggest converters of the niche, you’ve done all the work
Cody McLain – SupportNinja.com
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Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. You need to create content for them and not for anyone else. You need to answer questions real people are asking. You need to help them, educate them, inform them, entertain them and do it better than anyone else who’s currently trending, or ranking in search results. If you don’t think about your audience and their needs (and if you don’t put them first), you will not be able to create great content in 2018.
Marko Saric – HowToMakeMyBlog.com
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Pick your player carefully! There are two types of video players for two types of videos with two separate types of goals…
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- Traffic and awareness
For content marketing content (how to videos) I often recommend YouTube. This is because embedding YouTube videos will pump up the number of views, and views are a search ranking factor in YouTube. Also, if someone clicks on the little YouTube logo in the player and jumps over to YouTube, they might subscribe or share from there. It’s also a good place to host marketing videos because YouTube videos are more likely to rank in Google search than videos from other services, and people tend to search for the phrases and topics that are relevant to these how-to topics in these kinds of videos.
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- Conversion
For sales content (product and service pages) I usually recommend a nicer, paid player like Vimeo or Wistia. This is because you can customize the player to match the colors of the brand and the quality is really high. These players look great. There’s also no logo in the corner might take the visitor away from your sales page. There are no really missed opportunities because sales related videos (such as an about videos or a video testimonial) aren’t really relevant to key phrases that people search for.
Andy Crestodina – OrbitMedia.com
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Spend time on your captions, and keep your videos short!
We live in a world that is often too busy for its own good. We are impatient and aren’t willing to tap a video for sound, much less watch a minute to figure out what the video is about.
While much of the online world is this way, the following trends that cause people to stick around are highly effective:
- Caption your videos. Many programs, including Facebook and YouTube themselves, offer you the ability to add captions to your video marketing material. Expect that people will watch your video and read captions without sound first. If the subject matter entertains them enough, and they are in a place that playing sound won’t embarrass them, they may tap to listen in. Captions are a critical element to this and will increase your video marketing ROI.
- Short videos are watched – long videos are not. Two videos exist – one is 15 seconds long, and the other is 3 minutes long. In both cases, a viewer is going to check how long the video lasts. In the first case, chances are the entire video will be watched! In the latter case, you’re going to be shocked at how few people last longer than 15 seconds… If you want your message to be heard, figure out how to pack the important stuff into a 15-second timeframe.
Andrew Lowen – NextLevelWeb.com
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Video marketing is one of the most preferred ways to stay connected to your people.
YouTube is one of the traditional video marketing processes, but recently various others, including Facebook videos, have been added to the lot.
I prefer both YouTube and Facebook video marketing as the best video marketing tactics.
Here, I am sharing some interesting tips to drive your people to your videos:
- Analyze and research about your target audience – get familiar with their demography, interests, etc.
- Leveraging Facebook data – many marketers have used this technique to reach out to their people, who are mostly active over the social media site, Facebook.
- Utilize the power of videos that are created around the theme – how-to or a guide.
- Title and description, and call-to-actions that are impressive
- Data analytics
Vipin Nayar – Acodez
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I have been playing around with Youtube a lot in the last few months and to me, the best thing you can do is to keep your audience watching.
That is a simple statement which actually has a lot behind it. It means:
- content that either entertains or educates
- answers your viewers questions
- keeps them watching (so cut the fat)
- and is high enough quality to not be annoying (make sure at the very least your audio is great)
There is so much “other” content out there competing with you, you can’t afford to produce garbage or irrelevant content. So, invest in a little equipment and also ask your audience (or customers) about their biggest problems, then make videos on that!
If you want to see what I am doing on Youtube you can pop over and check out Madlemmings on Youtube.
Ashley Faulkes – Madlemmings.com
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Online video is a no-brainer. What’s more important is trying to figure out both, how you are going to create it, and how you are going to use it. Right now we are focusing our efforts on creating video for our social media and YouTube audiences. Since we already have a mass following on these platforms, we can test out different types of videos and see what our readers and subscribers like best. If what we are creating works, then we will move forward with creating more similar videos. Also, we are playing around with video ads on Facebook and seeing much better results than just static image and text ads.
Ninja Blog Master – Blogninja.com
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My advice is to do some customer research first, find out the top 20 questions your customers are asking and make 20 different videos using these questions. You can also do YouTube keyword research using Keywordtool.io and use that data to integrate it with the YouTube content.
James Norquay – ProsperityMedia.com.au
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Be viral! The idea of a viral video is one of the most misunderstood things. A viral video is less a lucky accident is more of a planned opportunity. Videos go viral for a reason.
Planning you videos as viral opportunities take a bit of research. First, you need to understand what has gone viral in the past and the elements for those videos’ success.
The basic elements of a viral video are the title and custom thumbnail. There are other factors but I’ll focus on these two elements for now. These two elements are what convert the searcher into a watcher. The title is what grabs the searchers attention it needs to be a balance of keywords that help it rank for popular searches and with click bait. The thumbnail can trigger a click because often people are very visual and an interesting image can make people react. Often images that feature a woman or celebrity will trigger the highest number of clicks.
Often the best way to know to make your video viral involves looking at past viral videos. After looking at many you’ll start to notice a pattern. Take what you learned and incorporate it into your videos. Remember do not try to go viral but be viral.
Allan Pollett – AllanPollett.com
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The best video marketing tips that I can suggest are as follows:
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- Know who your core audience is. And create and publish content that is exactly what they want and like.
- Publish content as regularly as possible. Audiences crave content. This will trigger growth.
I have shared more insight into video marketing and audience targeting in this post.
- Promote your video content via channels where your audience interacts. If they are on Instagram, create short video snippets (trailers) and then use it to lead people to watch the main video.
David James – BusinessGrowthDigitalMarketing.com
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It’s becoming more and more important to define exactly what steps you want the viewer to take after watching the video, and then make that
undoubtedly clear to the viewer.
We all already know that videos built for the purpose of brand awareness need to be different than videos with a target of directly selling, for example. However, too many people do not make it clear what they actually want the viewer to do after watching.
The fact of the matter is, people’s attention spans are shorter than they have ever been before, and are only getting shorter as time goes
on. If somebody has to think about what they should be doing, chances are they’re going to end up doing nothing. Likewise, if you give them
too many options, they are less likely to take any of them.
Set your videos up from the beginning with your core objective in mind – in the end, it will help you achieve the results you’re looking for.
James McAllister – Starlight-Baby.com
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Video creation, video marketing, and video usage is on the rise, and it has been for a while.
More businesses are realizing that videos do not have to be perfect or look perfect in order to be good; what consumers truly want is authenticity!
If you are real, genuine, and caring, your video will be accepted by everyone! People love it when they see something REAL, not a perfectly-edited video that ends up looking fake.
Company messages and branding will, therefore, be a bit “messier,” visually… but the auditory component will be clearer, more easily liked by the viewers, even if it contains a few “ums” or “ers” or “uhs.” It’s natural for people to speak in this way!
Facebook Live is gaining popularity, too. Many people take their Facebook Live videos and upload them to their YouTube channels. They also embed them into their blog posts.
We’re definitely going to see a lot more of this in 2018!
Lorraine Reguly – WordingWell.com
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I really like the idea of creating video content, but it’s not something that I’ve personally had a lot of experience. The good thing, is that there are plenty of solutions out there for not only creating your own video through a drag and drop platform, but there are also professionals you can hire through micro-job sites like Fiverr as well. This allows site owners the ability to explore different options when creating video, but also not requiring them to get in front of the camera in the process. Once you find a medium that works for you, then start spending more time on your marketing efforts and using video to grow your brand.
Brandon Johnston – BlogReign.com
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I’m really all in on Instagram right now. I’ve been able to use it to build a large following of super engaged people around my golf site, Breaking Eighty. It helps that golf lends itself to being visual and is a niche with a lot of passionate followers. That being said, once Instagram started introducing video components I felt like I’ve been really able to take that to the next level. I can do live video and shots from the courses I’m at around the world and I can highlight reviews of products I’m using, for example. With Instagram Ad Targeting, I can spread my outreach to more golfers since I’m operating in a very specific niche, which is awesome for growing my business. I can not only focus on interest which is pretty obvious, but I can dig down into location too, which works well if I’m at a specific course in a new area.
Sean Ogle – LocationRebel.com
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As marketers and brands fight for the attention of their target consumers, video marketing continues to grow in usage and effectiveness. This year, we saw live video on Facebook and Instagram blow up, and we should expect that trend to continue in 2018.
Live video is a highly effective way to connect with both current customers and prospects. You can use live video to offer viewers a behind-the-scenes look at your employees and office, or a product launch event. You can also use it to interview team members or satisfied customers, or to answer consumer questions in real-time.
Shane Barker – ShaneBarker.com
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Focus on your target audience. Define them. Find out what they want and create videos around their wants and needs. That’s how you can build a profitable business and audience from video marketing platforms like YouTube.
One more important thing is to spy on your competitors. Find out how they are creating and promoting their content on other video marketing platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo etc. Try to analyse their most viewed videos to find out what works and what doesn’t. That’s how you can create great videos that increase your brand and sales.
Anil Agarwal – BloggersPassion.com
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Be sure to find those that speak your language, who will connect with your branding or personality. We know that most people buy things because they want to be associated with those things or that person, or they think the people behind the brand, service or company are cool and relatable. Make sure they are interested in what you have to say, and make sure you are pushing your video to those who are like-minded. This can be more of a challenge if you are building a global company/product/service as video content is about people and a lot of humor, pain and emotion can be subjective to different cultures. You cannot be boring, people don’t consume boring. They don’t want information, they want a story, a character and someone to make them feel smarter. They want someone who can make them happy. They want to surround themselves with real life that they can assimilate with. That needs to be ingrained into your video content, and most of all consistency is key in marketing your business.
Andrea Loubier – GetMailBird.com
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You need to be involved in doing more video on LinkedIn. Native video on LinkedIn has started to really take off on an otherwise “dusty” platform and has reinvigorated the engagement there.
William Harris – Elumynt
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Simple… Tell Your Story In A Way People Will Care! When you tell your story in a way that people will care, you create a relationship, a connection, a value that goes beyond immediate $’s and cents. It is what creates conversation, the content that creates trust, loyalty, and advocacy.
A brand that steps up its engagement game will not only protect, and extend, its organic reach… but also find a significant competitive advantage. We all love when someone listens to us. When your fans hear from you, and know you are listening to them, their excitement will spread along with your reach and reputation… Return on Relationship. Fight quantity (clutter & filters) with quality (content & engagement). With every post, update and comment ask yourself, “Is it adding something meaningful or simply adding to the noise?”
Ted Rubin – TedRubin.com
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Make it funny. Keep the audience guessing the entire way from the beginning of the video til the end. At no point in the video should they know what is going to happen next. Run ads to it on Facebook with a solid call-to-action.
Rafi Chowdhury – Chowdhurysdigital.com
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Video marketing has changed so much, even in the last few years. For newbies, my biggest tip is to spend as much time building your audience as you do creating content. Videos/content come and go but your audience (will ideally) stay forever. And no matter what industry you are in, build an email list. I listened to this advice for YEARS then one day took the advice. I built a list to 100 subscribers and could not believe the return it provided. With video marketing you don’t need to have thousands of dollars worth of equipment. I can name 5+ million dollar companies that use an iPhone or Android to film their videos. Making a quality video is all about the perfect setting, lighting, and details. You can have the nicest equipment in the world but if your room is dark with a garbage can sitting in the foreground of your explainer video, your video is going to be shot. Animated videos are also an excellent way to go if you have a complicated topic or want to “explain” something, etc. If anyone ever has any questions I’m not a pro at making videos but can answer any audience or targeting questions you might have. Thanks for reading everyone! Hit me up on Twitter @pmkoom if you want to connect!
Patrick Coombe – Elite-strategies.com
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Kristel Staci – MarketingInfographics.org
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The best strategy for building an audience, for video marketing or any other digital audience is to constantly tweak and refine your targeting. We always start with a theory. And that theory must be tested and proven. We need specific objectives that can be easily measured so we can determine if our targeting is working. And we need to measure and refine our audience so our ad spend is targeted in the best possible way. We have a PPC guide and template over on our site that can help define and refine your audience.
Marcus Miller – Bowlerhat.co.uk
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Facebook’s default video view is 3 seconds. That’s a lot of accidental views, people who didn’t scroll fast enough on their phones, and perhaps some bot traffic.
Our favorite video targeting option is the 10-second video view on Facebook. We are consistently able to get 10-second views for a penny, which is the cheapest retargeting pool strategy on the planet right now– without having to sacrifice quality.
If you produce awesome video– meaning that your average watch times are north of 20 seconds– then you should have a low drop-off from impression to view to 10-second view. The average retention on Facebook is 30% from impression to view and then 30% that go from 3-second view to 10-second view.
Dennis Yu – BlitzMetrics.com
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I think video is going to become even more important in 2018, especially when marketing on Social Media.
Creating lots of short 15 – 30-second video clips is working really well right now especially when used in ads for Facebook and Instagram. Fashion and homeware industries can quickly inspire people to use their products. The service industry can create authority by showing off their expertise.
Jon Tromans – Jtid.co.uk
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It’s all about the story. So many people know they should be using video now to market their brand, so they through up a camera and shoot a video because it’s what they should do. This will not be effective.
It sounds crazy, but you cannot grow your business by promoting yourself. Instead, you need to tell a story that does three things – educates, entertains, and includes some kind of emotion. This story should not be all about your brand. Instead, it should focus on what your brand can do for someone else.
I just saw a Macy’s commercial for the holidays. The story really caught my attention because it was full of emotion and centered around a lamp designed like a baseball. It was clear in the commercial that one family recently lost a loved one and was drawn to another family because of this lamp and a flashing lamp. You didn’t even know it was a Macy’s commercial until the very end when the Macy’s logo popped up. If the commercial was for one of their weekend sales where they showed their deals, so you think I would mention it in this article? No. It’s all about the story.
So, when it comes to video – don’t do this yourself unless you know what you’re doing. Make sure it not only looks good and sounds good, but also tells a story.
Christina Nicholson – Mediamavenandmore.com
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Traditionally, most marketers tend to use demographic targeting with their videos. But, is it the most effective form of targeting?
The answer is, quite simply, no. In fact, there is research showing that even though a majority of marketers use demographic targeting, they also find it to be one of the least effective forms of targeting videos.
If your target is formed of 18 to 35-year-olds, that doesn’t mean that any 23-year-old would be interested in your product/service. The same thing happens with genders and locations – their age, location, sex, are just small parts of who these people really are. One of the best things to do is to test out your video targeting; meaning, try different target audiences to find out which audience groups convert best. For example, try targeting your email list; even those who don’t read your email broadcasts could watch your videos. Another great option is to create custom affinity audiences. This way, you can enter your own custom interests and keywords, instead of relying on the ones offered by YouTube/Google/etc.
Keep targeting different groups and monitor your results carefully – it could even help you learn something new about your target audience.
Lilach Bullock – Lilachbullock.com
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Well, since the start of 2017, we can notice a rise in different formats for the much-loved video platform. The introduction of 360 video, live videos, and virtual reality videos. So, I only have one simple tip for video marketing on 2018: As much as possible, try to verse yourself with all the varying video formats – to the point of being capable of doing it or being an expert in those formats. Why? Because every time a new video format is introduced, you can expect that most – if not all – people will be there to watch, assess, and determine if the new format is good enough to be a mainstay in the social media world.
Since video marketing goes hand in hand with audience targeting, focusing on one or the other help improve each other’s performance. If you already have a sizeable following, then through effective video marketing, you can engage your followers/audience in a way that they enjoy. If you focus on video marketing, and it really takes off, then you can expect to grow your followers – which is technically your target audience, because the people who share it are already enthusiasts of the niche you’re in, and when they share it, people who share the same interests show their support by either sharing the successful video or by following your brand. It’s easy to understand, right?
Sean Si – SEO Hacker
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My best video marketing tip for 2018 is to repurpose your existing high-performing content in video format and use the power of Facebook video ads to attract new audiences to your website.
Look at which blog posts or landing pages on your site are performing the best in terms of engagement metrics like Time on Page, Bounce Rate and Conversions. Then pull the key points, statistics or takeaways from these pages and turn them into a short video. You can use stock video from tools like Biteable or get a professional video done by a production agency if you have the budget for it.
Now it’s time to distribute your video. Facebook works great for this. Upload your video natively to Facebook as a video ad and include a link to the landing page you based it off of in the accompanying text. Target your existing audience, or target Lookalike audiences using your email database. The video will act to capture these people’s attention, and the link will encourage them to click through to your website, engage with your landing page and hopefully convert into new business.
Brett Langlois – PureSEO.co.nz
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Be genuine. The technology required to produce great video has never been more affordable or accessible, but all the expensive equipment in the world can’t make up for a lacklustre presentation. People don’t want to hear rehashed content, and they don’t want to see copycats. They want your authentic perspective. Getting vulnerable on camera is tough, but it’ll be a necessary part of standing out in 2018 and the years to come.
Finding your genuine voice comes down to practice. It means getting on camera regularly, putting video content out into the world and refining your approach based on what your audience and analytics are telling you is working. Which is great, because my second tip for video marketing in 2018 is volume. The people who are going to see long-term success from this are the ones who publish effective, targeted content most often.
Aaron Agius – Louder.Online
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I can answer in one word: Instagram.
Audience marketing tip: Instagram currently has 800 million users a month and is continuing to climb. Millenials are on Instagram and their parents are following their lead. Whoever your audience is, the probability is great they can be found on Instagram.
My best Video Marketing Tip: Again, I can answer in one word: Instagram.
Have you heard that plagiarism is the kindest form of flattery? If someone copies a good idea, you know it’s a popular idea. Ideas are popular when they’re good ones. Instagram has Stories that are only good for 24 hours. What do you know? Now Facebook has the same feature.
What is the advantage of Stories? I’m sure marketers know already:
- People trust people they can see. If you put yourself in your video, people can see and hear you.
- People answer a Call to Action when given a sense of urgency. The video only sits at the top of your Instagram feed for 24 hours. The result is a sense of urgency.
Market on Instagram. You can use Stories on any social media site that has them. However, if you’re interested in “one-stop shopping,” use Instagram.
Janice Wald – MostlyBlogging.com
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I think video personalization is going to be mission critical moving forward in 2018 and beyond. In fact, at some point in the near future, users will come to expect a personalized experience on every site they visit, and companies that don’t deliver a personalized experience will get left behind. Creating personalized videos helps marketers deliver the optimal customer experience, which leads to better engagement rates and more conversions. To create these custom, personalized video, I think most companies leverage a customer data aggregation platform to gather information on their prospects and current clients, and they use to compose these customized videos that are tailored to an individual user’s demonstrated preferences and needs. It’s how marketers can deliver the right message to the right user at the right time, which is huge when it comes to converting and can have major impact on lead generation and sales, and customer retention too.
Ken Lyons – Digital Examiner
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More and more companies are starting to use video marketing as apart of their digital marketing strategy.
However, very few videos contain the 3 most essential parts to having an awesome marketing video that actually WORKS:
- A video that has been created for a specific audience (your customer avatar)
- A video that has been created with a clear purpose (read: end goal), like raising brand awareness for a specific product that is being launched or get more highly targeted leads
- A clear call to action
It doesn´t matter how visually nice your video looks or how cool music it has or how great the voiceover is if you don´t create a video with the 3 parts mentioned above. Without them, your video will just be fluff and fairy dust.
And one more thing… When you have all of the above included in your video, you don´t go for a traditional video, you want to go for an animated video.
You want to stand out, right? This is exactly what my client Animer.no is helping companies do. And they are totally killing it by dominating the Norwegian market.
Tor Refsland – TorRefsland.com
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Most companies still don’t do video marketing. Or they make one or two videos per year. Taking video marketing seriously is still a significant investment of time (and often money), so I won’t recommend it to everyone. But if you want good results from it, one video every few months won’t cut it.
As for video quality, it needs to be good. But that doesn’t mean much; you just need to get the lighting to be okay, sound quality to be okay, and—most importantly—the delivery of the content to be okay. No need for world-class equipment or professional actors. But too many companies try video without taking it seriously. If the first few seconds of a video look amateurish, most people won’t continue watching it.
As for video content, there’s a lot of good options. Aim for concise. People don’t like watching very long videos—especially if they’re long because you didn’t bother to edit out the unnecessary ramblings.
Audience targeting is getting easier and more difficult at the same time. You have better targeting options in almost all platforms (e.g., you can target your ads to only people who have visited your site who also are married and are interested in dogs). But people are also being targeted more accurately by your competitors, so your hyper-targeted content won’t stand out as much.
If you can find a way to reach your audience that isn’t over-crowded, great. But in any case, focus on creating something they’re genuinely interested in. You can’t force them to do anything. You need to offer them something they actually want—whether you’re advertising, writing a blog, or talking at a seminar.
Peter Sandeen – PeterSandeen.com
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Video marketing is definitely my #1 focus in 2018 as videos are gonna be the main type of content that internet users consume in 2018 and beyond. I’ve been experimenting with Facebook videos and here are some of my key findings:
- Unlike Youtube videos, your Facebook videos can be really short and still do very well. Most of the best viral videos currently are less than 60 seconds.
- The first 3 seconds are the most important. You need to capture people’s attention instantly as they scroll through their newsfeeds.
- Make your text large so it can be readable on mobile phones.
- Make your video understandable even without sound.
- Facebook doesn’t like to send traffic out of their platform and your videos will get less views if you include your external URL in the description. But you can put your URL in the comment section and it’ll still get a lot of traffic.
- Remember to insert a call to action at the end of your video too.
Tung Tran – Cloud Living
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Let analytics light the way for better video marketing in 2018. You’ve got access to better understanding of your videos if you just look.
YouTube and other video platforms give us a whole host of information about how our videos are performing. Take a look at where people engage and where they drop off.
When was the last time anyone enjoyed the opening credits? Attention spans are at an all-time low and chances are you’re killing yourself by including those lame openings in every one of your videos. Get to the point and you’ll keep their attention far better.
Search for other items causing viewers to drop off. Find the sweet spot for video length and stick to the relevant information you must get across. If it can be cut while still getting the desired result, it should be. If you take too long to get to the point, viewers will find their answers elsewhere.
Ben Brausen – BenBrausen.com
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Draw a goal for your video marketing campaign. Defining your goal is necessary for any marketing campaign. Otherwise, you will just run a video marketing campaign like a headless chicken.
Video content matters most. Therefore you need to spend more time on how to build it. Make sure that your message can be digested easily. You won’t even bother to do hard selling if the content is superb.
Create a video with the highest quality. The quality of your video matters. Enough said.
Draw a target audience. You will want to make your video be seen by your targeted eyeballs. The more precise you are with your audience (age, income, location, demographic, interests, etc.) the better. Even viral videos have science behind it. If you are aiming to make your video viral, you can target influencers with high social media following through your video content.
Fix a budget for Google AdWords and run a campaign. YouTube is a vast jungle for video marketing. Go wild.
Fervil Von Tripoli – FervilVon.com
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I was pleasantly surprised by the power of videos on YouTube in early 2017 when I started a new niche which is product-oriented. I decided to get the ball rolling by creating a fleet of video reviews of the physical products I cover on the niche site. Amazingly, and with little YouTube experience and not the best video creation capability, I crossed 200,000 views fairly quickly. This proved to me that videos can be very effective for marketing, even for content that is seldom shared or goes viral such as product reviews.
Going forward, across all niches and whenever feasible, I now create product review and/or demo videos of products comprehensively covered on my sites.
Jon Dykstra – FatStacksBlog.com
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Here are 3 tips that can help you boost your video marketing strategy:
- Keep It Short: The purpose of watching a video is to get more information in less time. More often than not, longer videos have a high bounce rate, which reduces your conversion rate. Thus, keep your videos short and simple as this is the best way to connect and engage with your audience.
- Add a Call-to-Action (CTA): Be it subscribing to your video channel or visiting your website, in order to yield the maximum out of this strategy, ensure that you add a call-to-action at the end of a video.
- Ensure that the Quality of Your Video is Top-notch: The quality of the video being published plays a crucial role as to whether or not it will go viral. Clarity, audio quality, lighting, editing etc is as important as the content. Hence, it is vital that you create a professional quality video if you want to rank high in SERPs.
Nirav Dave – Capsicum Mediaworks
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The exponential growth in video marketing is expected to continue, maybe even accelerate in 2018. One of the most effective marketing will be careful targeting. Marketing to a micro niche will be a lot more effective in 2018, than trying to find your feet in a large, extremely competitive niche. Creating cutting edge video, that your audience would want to share with their friends remains one of the most effective ways to market your videos in 2018.
We have recently launched a new site called Hope Spring Charity Ecards. And with the next application of update, we are planning to focus more on video ecards because majority of internet traffic today is video content.
Evgeniy Garkaviy – Temi.co.uk
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As video marketing becomes more prominent amongst online businesses, as it should, there are some things to remember to make sure your efforts are not going to waste. For example, you should concentrate on telling the story of your business and making it relatable and personal to your target audience. In addition, you should also aim to make it short and sweet, because your target audience has an increasingly shorter attention span as technology advancements increase.
On a more practical level, I think optimizing your video content for your target audience is going to be the game-changer. As more website owners catch on to the importance of video marketing, the way to stand out amongst your toughest competition is going to be by optimizing your content to rank higher in search results related to your business. Host it on your own website, create a video sitemap, and never forget to describe your videos using keywords that relate to your brand.
Lindsay Liedke – WPKube.com
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My favorite video marketing and targeting technique right now is to build an audience on Facebook of people who watch and engage with your videos on the network. You can then re-market to them later, and at a lower cost, to move them down the funnel.
Harris Schachter – OptimizePri.me
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My best audience targeting tip is to be as specific as possible. It’s something you hear all the time: “Niche down”. But at the same time, there’s one big mistake people make when marketing or selling their products and services. They try to appeal to everyone.
Alternatively, they niche down a bit, but they still try to appeal to everyone within a segment. For example: A marketing consultant tries to target to all kinds of businesses. Think about it. A small law firm has completely different needs compared to a growth-focused startup. The same goes for B2C businesses. Take a fitness product. A 20-year old student has different fitness goals than a 35-year old mom.
Even within segments, you’ll find different target audiences. For example: If you sell cars to families, you’ll find completely different motivations within that segment. You have older and younger parents. You have those who want the latest tech. And you have people who want a car that fits their dog. And so forth. The point is: Target YOUR audience – not everyone’s.
Camilla Hallstrom – InfluenceWithContent.com
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For me 2018 is going to be the year of content marketing in video format. With the rise of video content consumption rate, I am sure that brands have to invest time and effort in video marketing.
For me. The best approach to nail the video marketing and audience targeting game would be to spread it all out in the open. Video content is everywhere and I would love to leverage the reach of video content on social media sites.
On Facebook and Instagram videos are the top performing content and my best tip to get the most out of it is using Live videos. They are fun, showcases your brand’s voice and a great way to engage with your audience on a personal level.
Another thing worth keeping in mind is to make sure audio isn’t a necessary part of your video because most videos played on social media sites like Facebook are played with the audio muted so having audio as a secondary element in the video instead of a primary functionality would benefit the campaign.
Swadhin Agrawal – DigitalGYD.com
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You only have a short few seconds to get your viewers attention. Use it well! Here’s how to take advantage of it.
- Use your first 10–15 seconds of your video content wisely. Share one of the most exciting parts of the video at the beginning of the video instead of starting your video with an intro. Be sure that it’s connected to the headline and your thumbnail. Otherwise, people will not want to watch the rest of the video. However, don’t share everything, leave the best part of the video. That will keep your viewers wanting more and will continue to watch the video.
- Avoid clickbaits: Clickbaits will not bring your new audience. It will get people to click on your video and probably give you a good amount of views, however, to get them to want to subscribe to you after that is unlikely.
- Create hacks video! People are always looking for hack videos. Create one that is relevant to your industry. Keep it short and sweet but adds value.
Aaron Lee – Short of Height
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Before creating any video, as with any form of content, you need to ask yourself one important question: Is this video adding value to my audience?
In 2018 and beyond, that question will become more and more vital to your success.
Video is an important aspect of content marketing, but you shouldn’t just turn to a well-known brand and mimic their strategy. Look to your audience and respond to what THEY want. Are they interested in longer videos? Do they want to hear jokes interspersed throughout, or are they a more serious bunch? Would they rather something they don’t have to watch so they can listen while getting ready in the morning?
Videos are becoming easier to create, and social media platforms are promoting them more and more in their feeds. As a result, the number of videos brands are producing is increasing daily. But viewers are smart. If you don’t put them first in all content creation – not just videos – they will begin to look elsewhere.
Mandy McEwen – Mod Girl Marketing
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Video marketing is going to grow in importance in 2018 and even into the future. A highly effective way to promote your business is to create and post video tutorials. Whether you are selling a product or service, this is going to help you establish yourself as an expert in your field. How-to tutorial videos are beneficial not just for your target audience but also for the wider market.
Create tutorials on how your product or service can help address your target audience’s problems or queries. You are never going to be short of new video content. And when optimized effectively, video content can rise up in search rankings. It can also create valuable backlink opportunities for your website. When your videos and tips are found to be useful, it can help bring back more of your customers and prospects to find out what is new in your video series.
Nisha Pandey – SEOTechyWorld
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It is very important to understand the fundamental user behavior online before you produce videos or try to do any audience targeting. The mobile is the most important platform to focus on and also at the same time the intent when a person turns to a device to act on a need – to know, go, do or buy!
Video Marketing:
If you take a theme or a category and do a keyword analysis on these subjects in YouTube, you will have a great foundation on what kind of videos you should produce.
With this information, you will probably notice that the user intents are need – to know or do. Therefore, the videos you produce should be focused for this intent!
Audience targeting:
The targeting options are many, but very often we forget about the volume and complicate the targeting. If the targeting volume is small, then the effect is very small. Start with the big volumes and you will in the long run see better results. Because every user that is or has been in the user intent need – to know or do, is going to be in the intent need- to go or buy, sooner or later.
Conclusion and advice:
The largest search volume and user intents are in the information part (need – to know or do), so this is a great audience to target. But, with the different advertising and targeting options YouTube offers, it is also a good strategy to build and create interest in your product/service through bumper ads or (non-) skippable video ads. After this, you can/should target the people that have shown an interest in your video.
The best advice is always focus on the intention of the user and understand the basics of micro-moments of a user online which you can do so by reading this.
Slavisa Gacic – Nettrafikk.no
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At Stone Temple, we’re quite active in video with our Here’s Why video series. There are a few things that we’ve done to help drive our success:
a. Focused on producing content of high interest to our target audience.
b. Actively recruited subscribers to our video series to develop a built-in audience.
c. Used organic social media to deliver our videos to those who follow us. Key to this is that our video content is thematically very tightly aligned with what we typically share on social media.
d. Last, but not least, we also use paid social to further expand our reach. How we manage the targeting there is that we looked over the profile of the people that subscribe to our videos or follow us on social media, and then set our targeting in our paid social campaigns to match it.
As you can see, the theme I’ve outlined above is the overall cohesion in content and targeting across all aspects of our marketing efforts.
Eric Enge – StoneTemple.com
How to Get the Most Out of Online Video in 2019
There is no doubt about it… video is the new king of the internet. Even with CMS platforms like WordPress and drag and drop site builders making it easy for content to be created online, video is still the preferred method for consuming content on the internet today. If you aren’t currently using online video within your own content creation and marketing efforts, you are definitely missing out. Worst of all, your competition is likely already way past you!
There is no better time than right now to get started with your first video ad campaign, or exploring new content creation and marketing ideas through the power of online video. Click here to contact Animated Video and let us create an amazing online video campaign for your brand today.
