3 reasons you need to create a video strategy
Thinking about using video in your business can feel OVERWHELMING. There are so many moving parts, it’s not always easy to figure out where to get started or where to focus your efforts to get the biggest return on your time and budget.
You want to be sure you are creating the right content for the right audience and delivering it in the right places.
When you have a video strategy, it will ensure you are creating content that’s in alignment with your business goals AND where you’ll see the biggest return.
It's no different than having a business strategy. It's a map to reach your goals.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to break the process of creating a video strategy down into bite sized pieces to make it easier to implement.
If you’re like me, a lot of times the reason we don’t take action on something we know we need to do to move our business forward is because we’re doing something new. And when there are are so many steps and things we haven’t done before, we can become paralyzed and don’t take action.
When this happens it often means that we’re not clear about why we are doing something, or how it fits into the bigger picture.
When you have a strategy aligning your video content with your business goals, it makes it easy to know the next step to take.
On last week’s podcast Mike Kim talked about how he uses the Rule of Nine for his Instagram images.
Every nine images he uses an picture of himself speaking. He calls it "tell and show." If you are a speaker, then tell and show your audience you are a speaker through the images you use. If you are a coach, show them images of you coaching.
The same goes for your videos.T he images and messages need to align with your business goals. That’s how you build a strategy.
And remember, when you know your why, it’s a lot easier to stick with it when the going gets tough.
If you need a refresher on how to find your why and your business idea, Mike Kim covered that with his PB3 personal brand questions in episode 40, you can listen here.
So if you’re ready, let’s dive in.
Here are my top three reasons to create a video strategy.
1. Video is the fastest way to connect with your audience by building trust and relationships. Using video increases engagement, brand awareness and recognition, and search engine rankings.
One third of all content consumed on the internet is through video. And according to Visually, using video on your Landing page can increase conversion rates by 80 percent.
In another study by Invodo, 92 percent of mobile users said they share videos they watch, what a great way to spread the word about your brand, eh? And even more significantly, 80 percent of the internet users say given a choice, they prefer video to text.
If you want more reasons to use video in your marketing strategy, listen to episode 39. Knowing how you are going to use video to support your business goals really makes good sense.
2. Developing a video strategy helps you decide which types of videos you will create. Do you want to increase brand awareness, increase conversions, or viewer engagement? Knowing your goals will help you focus on the types of videos you need to reach them.
Brand awareness is the measure of brand recognition and the quality and quantity of mentions, views and shares you get.
Lead generation and conversion videos are designed to get viewers to take an action that leads to a sale
Viewer engagement is how long people view your videos and number of likes and shares.
We’ll talk more about the specific types of videos for each of these goals in a post. For now, I want to focus on the reasons you need a strategy.
3. When you are clear about what you want to create, it takes the mystery out of next steps. This makes it so much easier to ensure the content you are creating is aligned with your business goals and that’ you’re spending your video budget in the right places.
If you think of your strategy in terms of the 3 PS, purpose, plan and presence it makes it so much easier to visualize.
When you ask, what is my purpose for using video, you can create a plan to produce it and then present it on the right platform to reach your audience. Pretty neat how that works, huh?
Summing it up
Getting started producing video can feel overwhelming unless you have a strategy for why you want to do video and specific goals you want to achieve.
1. Video is the fastest way to connect with your audience and build relationships. Mobile traffic continues to grow and 92 percent of users who watch video on their phones share them - talk about engagement!
2. A video strategy helps you focus on the types of videos you need to create to meet your business goals. Do you want to increase brand awareness, create more leads or conversions or engage your viewers? Knowing your goals makes it easier to decide which types of video and content to create. Anytime something is easy or easier, the likelihood you’ll do it is exponentially higher.
3. A video strategy ensures you are heading in the right direction and spending your video dollars in alignment with your business goals.
Remember, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do.
Exercise: I want to leave you with some homework before next week’s post when I am going to walk through the first steps of creating a video strategy.
Take a sheet of paper or get out your journal and write out what you want to achieve by using video for in your business. Do you want to engage your audience? Build relationships? Increase conversions, or increase brand recognition? After you complete that, I want you to write down what you think that would look like. What types of videos would you use? Where would you put them?
I know this sounds like a simple exercise, but if you haven’t ever thought it through, I think you’ll find it helps you get some clarity. Please be sure to join me next week when I’ll walk you through the first steps to creating your own video strategy.
Until then, remember, when you know your purpose, you can create a plan and show up with presence on camera, every time.
Let’s connect on social media! LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | InstagramVal Brown is an Emmy Award winning television producer, story, visual and personal brand consultant, coach, and speaker. She shows high performing business professionals and entrepreneurs the skills they need to be confident on video to grow their business, influence and authority. Learn more about how Val can help you.
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