Comprehensive Video Marketing Guide

Video marketing is a dominant marketing strategy to grow your brand.

Let’s put it this way – if you aren’t putting out videos, you are falling behind your competitors.

The reach of videos is universal. Beyond language, gender, race, culture, and demographics.

Above all, videos tell a story. They inform and/or entertain your audience.

If video marketing seems complicated to get started, we’ve got you covered.

In this video marketing guide, we go over the absolute basics and get you initiated into creating your very first video.

We all watch YouTube and Facebook videos daily.

Many of us don’t even realize it but we seek answers to our daily problems from video guides.

Problems like not knowing how to tie a knot for your tie.

Or a complex one like learning to code through a video tutorial. An important career decision.

Regardless, video marketing is a helpful resource that has changed the lives of many professionals and people worldwide.

For every video that you view, the creator of the said video had to go through a series of steps to produce it.

Primarily, video marketing grows a business or redirects traffic to a product for sales conversion.

The video marketer chooses to entertain or to inform their audience into subscribing and following their channel.

Once the channel grows in the number of subscribers, the number of options to monetize the brand increases.

2022 isn’t far away. Video marketing is still the preferred way for marketers to promote brands. If video marketing isn’t part of your marketing efforts just yet, these 5 marketing trends will change the way you think.

The type of content becomes incredibly important. After all, no one likes wasting their ad budget on content that offers half the return. Luckily, this statistic from HubSpot settles it.

Due to the way the video leads the viewer, there’s freedom in skipping parts of the video or muting it. Video lets the user choose the way they’d like to consume the content.

Brands use video marketing to tell a story of their product or for awareness. Ultimately, it’s the ROI that decides whether a marketing tactic works or not.

With 88% of marketers satisfied with video marketing – it’s clear to the masses, that video marketing is profitable and easily consumable by users.

With tutorials and video guides being the best ROI for marketers.

88% of marketers plan to use YouTube with Facebook gaining a 76% popularity.

These 2 gigantic platforms are only going to rise in the coming years. Thanks to the widespread attention that video marketing gets.

Users are likely to watch a video ad over reading text while browsing YouTube or Facebook. This gives an easy decision for marketers to choose video marketing and plan for their campaigns.

An average internet user is likely to spend 6 hours and 48 minutes of their weekly time watching videos. This is a 59% percent increase from 3 years in 2016.

All signs point to the increase in video consumption in the coming years.

Video plays a critical role in promoting your content. Especially, with audiences below the age of 36 spending time watching videos over other mediums.

If you made it this way, it’s no surprise that video marketing is the king as far as content consumption goes.

An estimated 82% of all global internet traffic will concentrate on video streaming. With over 56 exabytes of internet video being consumed in a single month (in 2017). It’s only natural to assume this figure will increase 4 times by 2022 to over 240 exabytes every month.

That’s a staggering amount of video consumption. Today is the perfect time to make your move and stake your claim in the world of video marketing. Read on to understand how to start your own video marketing channel.

You’ve probably put off video marketing as you lack the confidence to face the screen or either don’t understand the importance of it.

If it’s the former, we got you covered, if it’s the latter, we’ve got you convinced. Read on to find out how video marketing can help your brand.

Yes, Google is the king of the search engine world. But YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world.

And Google also owns YouTube. This directly tells you that YouTube is massively influenced by search engine optimization.

With 250 million hours of video being consumed on YouTube daily, it’s a shocking amount of coverage for a small business to gain in a short time.

How many overnight sensations have gone viral on YouTube and carved a destiny?

How many brands have gained instant recognition through a YouTube video?

Hundreds and thousands of them. And you could also have that success when you have a game plan.

Take advantage of over a billion users in an ever-increasing video space and create a YouTube channel today.

By making video tutorials and showing how to use your product, your brand gains recognition and increases sales.

A simple tutorial will improve your sales by 85%. People are likely to purchase your product once they understand its uses and features.

“How to” videos are extremely popular. Most users generally type “How to…” on the YouTube search to get the basic answers.

Ensure your brand covers every minor aspect of the explainer video to ensure maximum outreach and positive reception.

And guess what, once a user finds your video useful. The next step is to share it with their friends and family. Even more traffic and recognition!

Emails don’t have to be a wall of text that people ignore most of the time. What’s the next option? Upload a video? That would increase the chance of your email being marked as spam due to the large size of your email.

The easiest way is to embed a video to your email by using your YouTube URL for example.

The email body will contain the thumbnail of the video. With a single click, the user begins streaming your video.

For optimum interaction, you can set the video to autoplay after an interval or action taken by the user.

Personalizing videos through email marketing is a great way to improve conversions. Your email marketing efforts will gain more clicks thanks to video marketing.

Remember the time you last went to a movie and wept your eyes out. Maybe, you even laughed till your stomach hurt. That’s what movies do – they entertain.

Why not make your videos entertaining and ensure your users feel a strong emotion?

A funny video is bound to gain likes and fans instantly. While a motivating story may inspire people to take an action. A sad story is bound to get shared around.

As a brand, it’s necessary to plan the tone of your brand. Then execute a video series around a strong story and brand connection.

You could also see top brands and their videos on YouTube to understand how to start your journey.

Video platforms like YouTube and Facebook have a strong following for brand pages. Many of the following come online to check out posts or videos that the brand has. Other times, they’re checking out if there are any discount codes or ongoing promotions.

Whatever the reason, once a user becomes a follower, they become a loyal fan for life.

You must step up your game and surprise them with unique and eye-captivating videos.

Other times, you could simply share a video from another user to entertain them. Don’t forget to credit the original user in your videos.

Video marketing tends to project a strong connection than any other form of marketing.

This is because a video captures 2 human senses at a single time – sight and hearing. Unlike a blog, that can only be read.

When you capture more of your audience, they relate better and spend their attention absorbing your content.

In short, video helps convert your following into sales more often than copy ads.

So you are ready to become a YouTube viral star? Or at least give it your best.

But before that, you need a checklist of equipment that you need to invest in to get those gold-standard videos out.

Creating a vlog requires quality equipment. However, we understand not everyone can afford the best quality equipment that the world has to offer.

Don’t fret. We’ve got it all listed out.

A place to set up your video equipment. A nice clean space to record your daily videos. This is the most important part of your equipment setup.

The first investment goes into having semi-powerful hardware – a PC, Mac, or a laptop.

This is where you’ll be editing your videos and adding visual effects.

While a laptop allows you to be mobile, a PC lets you harvest the power of video production.

Once you’ve got your space and workstation figured out. It’s time to move on to the single most important equipment on this list – the Camera.

With the world moving at an ever-fast pace, it’s important to invest in the latest technology. In video production – the innovation of 4K is the ultimate goal.

Mesmerizing your viewer with high-quality videos is a top priority for video marketers. The quality of your video is directly related to the success of your brand.

The next big investment is your microphone. Ever seen a video that you loved that was filled with static noises and inaudible accents?

We didn’t either. And that’s why a video with clear and crisp audio is well received and understood by your viewers.

A good microphone helps effortlessly deliver voice-overs and podcasts. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive.

Headphones let you work in peace while you create videos. They also pick up hidden noise when recording that you’d otherwise miss on a speaker.

This is especially true when your headphones are of high quality and come with noise cancellation.

While noise cancellation can put a strain on your budget, it’s still a necessity in today’s video production equipment.

Ultimately, you good still go with a good pair of headphones minus the noise cancellation.

We can’t all shoot our videos in the presence of the sun. Sometimes, the natural light is inaccessible and it can be the difference between an amateur production and a professional one.

Lighting is often ignored and this can end up as a deal-breaker for most video marketers.

Bright and great quality videos come from exceptional lighting.

Unless you’re a mystery or horror brand, having dark videos is a shortcut to disaster.

Educational videos and tutorials are expected to have clear images for the users to understand what’s being instructed.

Likewise, when demonstrating a product, a quality lighting kit can bring the best quality of your brand out.

A good video editing software must be able to perform basic to complex tasks. From 3d animation, video masking, audio mixing, waveform visualization, speed control, video transitions, filters, keyframes, and other visual effects.

Here are the top 3 video editing software we recommend for beginners and professionals alike.

Lightworks is free to use and is capable of handling basic editing to complex high precision video trimming.

It comes with 720p video support, ideal for YouTube users.

For 4K support, an upgrade to the paid license is needed.

With Windows, Linux, and Mac support, Lightworks is ideal for your first video editing software.

The finest video editing tool available for free. Blender is open source and has advanced functions such as video splicing, video masking, syncing, visual effect, live preview, and up to 32 slots for images and videos.

The tool is great for beginners that want to move into advanced video editing.

Blender is available on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

When you want a video software that has the most basic visual interface – Avidemux is your best friend.

It’s free to use and has a completely beginner-friendly design.

You can get started on video editing in just about an hour with Avidemux.

As it’s a basic video editor it comes with basic functions like video splicing, simple cutting, encoding, and filtering.

Avidemux is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Now that you’ve got the basics covered and your workstation is set up. You’re excited and ready to get started on your first video.

But before you go ahead and record your first video, it’s necessary to get a few starting impressions right.

Introduce your brand and yourself to the world. Make the first video be about you, yourself, and your brand.

Since first impressions usually are everlasting. Make it your best.

Whether you do a full-face reveal or simply use your voice to make a self-introduction, your viewers will connect better when they understand what your channel is about.

Use gratitude and greetings to act as a warm-up to your viewers.

It goes without saying whenever someone is curious, they are interested in knowing more.

Use visual appeal and creative thumbnails to create an urge for your viewers to click your video.

Attractive titles are a great way to capture your viewers’ attention.

Every intro to your video should be short and explain what the video is about. This lets your viewers know the information they’ll receive.

Keep it fresh and be yourself. Don’t mimic another popular YouTube celebrity. Viewers will pick apart almost immediately that you’re being fake.

A story is a fun way to engage your audience. When you use storylines to break down a complex topic, it helps the viewer understand your information in a fun way.

If you have multiple topics to talk about, either make different videos about each of them or try to create a story that links these topics together.

It’s also easy to advertise when you introduce a storyline to your narrative. Viewers are reeled into your compelling content and they’ll subscribe for future content.

Seriously, when you get into the YouTube content. Quality wins.

If your content looks dated or has a poor resolution or audio recording, it’s the dead end from thereon.

People can be cruel on the internet and never give a content creator another chance to thrill them. It’s important to get your act together and focus on quality rather than quantity.

If your video is 2 minutes long with supreme quality. It will always go on to do better than a video that’s 20 minutes long with poor quality editing.

Shaky footage is another sin to include in your recording. It causes viewers to get seasick or feel uneasy when watching your video.

Use a tripod to keep the camera steady or have someone record you if it’s a video on the move.

Sometimes, it takes trial and error to understand which angle shows the best perspective of your channel.

Angles with clean backgrounds without too much clutter make for professional videos.

Tilting the camera or moving the perspective to a far-off shot can have better results.

Play around with the best effects and how well your brand communicates via different angles.

In time, you’ll notice that various angles and different shots require time and patience. But the overall result is a professional product.

And professionalism is the name of the YouTube game.

If you’ve read so far, it can be too much to take in at once. However, video marketing is easy to master once you’ve got the head start.

For more ideas, you can always convert a written blog into a video to give your viewers a new form of content consumption.

Now that you’ve got the knowledge to start recording. Grab your camera and start filming away. Good luck.