Beside being a powerful tool for brand building, promo video will boost your SEO rankings and is an effective way to increase consumer engagement. It is known as rich media content and substantially increases the time spent on a site and helps convert sales. Used in a smart way and with purpose, video can transform your website into a dynamic interactive site attracting repeated visits. In the US alone, YouTube accounts for around 20% of all downstream internet traffic and even more impressively has a status of the world’s second biggest internet search engine. So, how to go about the video promo?

First and foremost, define the purpose of your promo video. Before you get in touch with a production studio or agency give yourself a little homework. The length, format, look&feel, detail level and the location setting (just to name few) will greatly depend on what you have in mind for this video to achieve. And no doubt, it will save you money. Here are the several examples what promotional videos are great for. 

  • Show off a service or/and product. If you offer your services or sell a physical product, video is best way to give people a sense of what is that you offer/sell.
  • Explain how to do something. ‘How to’ videos are a good way to give people some useful information, while also reminding them of your product or service.
  • Bring testimonials to life. Many companies use written testimonials on their websites. Stand out and commission a customer interview to be filmed.
  • Personalize your business. Welcome visitors to your site, introduce your staff or film a ‘typical business day’. This sort of content adds personality and increases the chance of emotional connection with potential customers, especially if you are a small business in highly competitive industry.
  • Share the insider’s expertise. You can use video to provide commentary on industry news, or to offer detailed information about your industry. This can help build your reputation and credibility.
  • Promote a project. If you’re involved in a project outside your core business activity or sponsoring an event, share it with your client base. They will appreciate it.
  • Moving premises. If you are moving to a new location, let your customers know.

Quality of content =  Attention span

Nobody likes being pitched to. Your promo video has to be way more than just a sales pitch. Make it stylish, tell a story that is uniquely yours, yet consumers can relate to. Ask video professionals for help with a script. Even modestly budgeted promotional video will stand out if originally scripted and professionally executed. Jupiter Research found out that 60% of consumers are less likely to return to a site if the video is of low technical quality.

video, digital marketing

Video content marketing

Marketing your online videos takes almost as much effort and finesse as making them. Several hashtags and a content description will not be enough. Here are several video marketing elements that the overwhelming majority of most successful online video campaigns have in common.

  • Produce a lot of diverse content, regardless if it’s for your YouTube channel, Vimeo or Vine. They all link back to your site and social media (great for SEO too!). Your videos can range from 20 sec impact sequences to 20 min talks. Take different demographics and geo-tags into account. Be prolific!
  • Create a visually symbiotic co-relation between your online assets – YouTube account and a website, for example. Consistent branding and YouTube channel customization occur in 63 percent of the most effective business-oriented YouTube channels. Other video platforms have similar stats and customization possibilities.
  • Engage your community. Audiences are about 10 times more likely to engage, embed, share, and comment on video content than blogs or social posts. YouTube and Vimeo are not just an online video repositories; they are also a powerful social media platform where you will more likely drive consumers’ action.
  • Embrace video platform advertising (YouTube in particular). It is a critical part of effective video content marketing and not the same as Google’s AdWords for example. Experiment with hyper-targeting options: contextual, behavioral, geo, retargeting and search. It will bring you up to 10 times more engagements and calls to action.
Online video is the Swiss army knife of internet marketing. It really can be used all over the customer life-cycle, whether it’s customer service, marketing, or even recruitment.

Mark Robertson, Founder ReelSEO

Digital Marketing Video