Tuesday, January 16, 2018

The Small Business Guide to Creative Video Strategy in 2018

video content strategy 2018As your customer service and marketing teams gear up for 2018, keep in mind that the strategies and content that worked last year may soon be outdated. Technology is changing at lightning speed, and if your team is not prepared to adapt, sooner or later, you will be left in the dust. In order for your business to acquire and keep customers, you must understand which up and coming trends to pay attention to.

While it’s impossible to accurately predict the future, if 2017 taught us anything, it was to pay attention to the power and effect of a creative video strategy. Over 500 million people watched video content on social media daily throughout this past year, and that number is expected to grow even more in 2018.

Simply put, you cannot be prepared enough when it comes to planning your 2018 creative video strategy. There are plenty of exciting changes in the future, as well as unpredictable trends that could mean great things for marketers – if they can keep up. These four strategies should be on your radar, and implementing them into your branding, marketing, and business development strategies could make all the difference in your results for the coming year.

Mix things up

Millions of people plan out their New Year’s resolutions in the last weeks of December. They understand the importance of changing old habits if they want new results. They resolve to exercise more and eat better to lose weight or to spend more time at the office to get that promotion they really want. In the same way, your business must be willing to change if you want to leverage video in 2018.

Tip: Don’t get so caught up in a single platform or type of video content, especially when it comes to your business website. While having a specific sense of style is important in building your brand’s voice, it can limit your creativity and your audience reach.

Get creative and split test your campaigns when it comes to the overall message and content of your videos. Produce different versions of your videos, analyze the results and make adjustments as needed. Preferences vary from customer to customer, so having various styles and objectives for videos can do a lot to help you reach new viewers. Comedic or funny angles are the most popular form of video online, but news and informative videos are a close second.

video content strategy

Be sure to incorporate different types of video on your business website to showcase your products, services, and specialties, too. Sticking to a tired old formula can result in boring, predictable content that will not excite your audience.

The new year is a time for change. Let 2018 be the year you experiment with different video concepts.

Become a source of information

If you’re looking to build a stronger reputation for your brand this year, or simply want to increase consumer trust and confidence, use video marketing to your advantage by positioning your company as an industry leader. Providing helpful information through tutorials or sharing some behind-the-scenes shots of how you do things is a great way to show your audience that you are an expert in the field.

The most important thing to remember when implementing this type of content into your video marketing is to focus on quality. 93 percent of viewers say that when a brand’s thought leadership content was high-quality, it improved their overall opinion of the business. However, 94 percent said that lower quality content caused a negative effect on their opinion of the brand.

If your company is dedicated to providing top-notch content and wants to be exciting and informative, consider recording or live-streaming webinars. Hosting a webinar with a video messaging tool like ClickMeeting is ideal for building your reputation as a source for insightful knowledge. ClickMeeting lets you host webinars from start to finish, with email marketing templates, branded meeting rooms, real-time polls, interactive presentation tools, and analytical reporting once things wrap up.

video content strategy

There’s no denying the emphasis placed on educating viewers in the modern sales cycle. Finding innovative ways to provide value to audiences is fantastic way to establish trust and build long-lasting relationships.

Personalize everything

If you want to practically guarantee that a viewer checks out your next video, simply mention them by name. Over half of customers are more likely to buy from a business that remembers their name. Remember their previous shopping habits and preferences, and that number jumps up even higher.

video content strategy

It may seem odd, or even downright impossible, to personalize video content for your customers. Fortunately, it’s much easier to do than it might seem. Switch Merge is a tool that combines information from your business’s email list into videos to create personalized messages that mention user’s names, as well as other information.

video content strategy

Make your content short and sweet

Thanks to technology, attention spans are dwindling at an alarming rate. It is no surprise that this decline in attention span has a pretty direct impact on content and video marketing.

A study conducted by Wistia found a significant drop in engagement as videos progressed past three minutes. The ideal duration was found to be right around two minutes. After 2 minutes, every second counts, and engagement levels start to drop off very quickly.

Quick and focused is the name of the game here.

video content strategy

If you want to keep your viewers engaged, focus on creating shorter, bite-sized stories that are easy to consume in a matter of minutes or less. Instagram Stories and Snapchat are great examples of how to do this, since each clip is a maximum of about 15 seconds. Have a little fun, get creative, and incorporate your brand’s voice, like The North Face did in an Instagram story that advertised sleeping bags:

video content strategy

Over to you

As this year quickly comes to a close, take the time to reflect on wins and losses throughout 2017. Learn from the past and get ready to adapt and change during 2018. There is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming year, so get excited about the innovations and changes in video messaging that that are yet to come.



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