Kris Simmons
So you’ve seen how others are crushing it with video, and you’re ready to put video marketing to work for your own company. Now what?
As with any sport, project or goal, you need a game plan to be successful. You can’t just hope things turn out well. Your successful video campaign will take planning, practice and execution.
All you need to remember are the four important elements of the Video Marketing Game Plan: plan, produce, post and promote.
In this article, we're going to focus on the game plan. Knowing all the elements of your video project or campaign before you start the production process is crucial. Elements to consider include:
Target Audience
Who is your target audience and what problem do you solve for them? What do you do differently or better than your competition? Do you want to promote your overall company, or is the goal to promote a specific product, service or program? What phase of the customer lifecycle will your video(s) be designed to support? Will that phase be awareness, engagement, conversion, retention or advocacy?
Call to Action (CTA)
What action do you want your viewers to take after watching the video? Do you want them to visit a landing page on your website, sign up for an e-newsletter, call you to schedule a consultation, click the “buy now” button, make a donation to support your cause or visit your brick and mortar location?
No matter how effective your videos are at attracting and engaging your target audience, you must have a clear and easy-to-understand CTA that supports your primary conversion goal for each video.
Video Type
What type of video(s) will best help you achieve your marketing goals? If potential customers aren’t yet aware of your company, product, service or program, a great way to build trust is to produce testimonial videos that feature customers discussing the value they got out of working with you.
If you are a video marketing rookie starting from scratch, the first video you should produce is a company brand video that gives a high-level overview of who you are, what you do, who you serve and why you’re better than the other guys.
After you have a killer company brand video, you can then focus your efforts on creating product/service explainer videos, customer testimonial videos, FAQ videos, how-to product training videos, etc.
Distribution Channels
What marketing channels will be used to deliver your video content? Will your video(s) be featured in a trade show exhibit, on a website or landing page, on social media, in a meeting or at a conference? All of the above?
ROI
What do you hope to gain from your investment, and how will you measure success? If a video is designed to help you gain new customers, how many new customers will it take to break even on your video investment?
For the sake of demonstration, let’s say that a new customer relationship averages $1,000 in revenue to your business. If the cost to produce your company brand video is $10,000, that means you’ll need 10 new customers to break even on the investment.
Beyond that, any new revenue that your company brand video helps generate will go directly to your bottom line. Plus, you’ll now have a powerful marketing asset that will continue to help generate new business at no further expense to you.
Once you’ve reached and exceeded the break-even point with a company brand video, the next step is to produce explainer videos that feature individual products or service lines.
Budget
Using the break-even analysis outlined above, figure out what you are comfortable investing to have your video(s) professionally produced. Your goal should be to eventually have multiple videos out in the marketplace generating new revenue for your business.
Paying too much for your first video could make it difficult to continue investing in an ongoing video marketing strategy, so be sure to formulate a budget for production that will get the results you need without breaking the bank.
Next Step – Produce
Once you have a solid game plan in place, it’s time to move on to actually producing the content. For inspiration on the types and styles of marketing videos you can produce, check out some of 6 STRONG MEDIA’s work.
About
Kris Simmons is the Executive Producer and CEO for 6 STRONG MEDIA, an award-winning video production and motion graphic design agency based in Chattanooga, Tennessee with clients located throughout the U.S. and Canada. 6 STRONG MEDIA offers turn-key video solutions and production support services for corporate marketing, advertising, training and educational content needs. Learn more at 6strongmedia.com.
