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You’ve probably heard it a million times and will most likely listen to it a million more, but video marketing is here to stay. With over 54% of consumers wanting to see more video content, it’s hard not to justify using it in your marketing campaigns. As technology evolves, so does the best way to reach clients and potential prospects. Videos make it easy to catch the attention of possible and current customers and make it easy to connect with them.
The hard part of video usage is deciding the best way to use it after its creation. Some might argue posting it to social media as is and others might suggest cutting out the best parts for multiple posts. This article will go through the best ways to use video on your website, social media, email and blogs.
Working Video into Websites
Your website is one of the first places potential clients will visit when attempting to find a financial advisor. Research shows that around 38% of internet users judge a business by how its website looks at first glance. This makes your first impression all the more important, and guess what? Videos can be that extra push your site needs to truly impress visitors.
Including a video on your homepage is a great way to introduce your business to any site visitors. It’s said that the main point of the homepage is to both keep the attention of web surfers and to summarize what the site is all about. When using videos on your site, they should be there to help visitors self-qualify. For example, have your videos show off your expertise, share your background and (if compliance allows it) include video testimonials from those you’ve helped.
Stylizing Social Media with Video
Go to any company’s social media and you’re sure to find videos of some sort. Whether it be advertisements, long-form talking heads or anything else on the spectrum. The important point to take is that social media is a video lovers’ paradise. Much like a homepage, your social media posts should stop users from scrolling and start paying attention to you. While videos are popular on any social media platform, the type of video changes depending on the site you’re using.
For example, if you’re posting to Instagram, you’re much better off sharing an edited and condensed video. According to Sprout Social, the average Instagram feed video is 26 seconds and the first few seconds are the most important. That’s where you hook users and reel them in to finish out the video. If you want to post full-length videos, YouTube is a wonderful place to do just that. Boasting over 2 billion active users from across the globe. Making it the largest video-sharing platform on the world wide web and making it a great place for you to upload your videos.
After ensuring that you’ve chosen the best site for your video, it’s important to remember the importance of your thumbnail. Videos will effective thumbnails are guaranteed to receive more views, shares, and overall engagement than does with plain and generic ones. If you’re struggling with creating impactful thumbnails, check out this blog post on Creating Effective Thumbnails for Your Video Content.
Engaging Emails with Video
Emails are a classic way of communication with friends, family and most importantly clients. But what if you could make emails more engaging and include a nice personal touch? Well, it’s possible through the use of videos included in sent emails. Think of them as an additional piece of content that can be used to give updates on services, events and any upcoming deals. They are a great way to surprise and delight email recipients as it adds an extra layer of content for them to enjoy.
It’s important to take note that if you do plan on adding video to your emails try to keep it as a consistent piece of content. In this case, using it for newsletters would work wonderfully as you could have that video include important information and updates told by the “face of the company.” This would not only add a personal touch but also make the content more engaging as recipients would be able to watch and listen to the newsletter instead of having to read it themselves.
In addition, whenever you use video in emails, be sure to mention so in the subject line. This is a great way to increase open rates and boosts engagement.
Boosting Blogs with Video
Videos and blogs go together like peanut butter and chocolate but can be a little complicated to get right. One way to include videos with blogs is to have the video be the main focus and the blog be a transcript of the video. This way compliments the two mediums of information nicely and wraps it up in a nice package. Or you can take a different route and include a video(s) that relates to the topic at hand. Having both the blog and video bounce ideas off each other creates a more coherent reading experience.
If creating a video specifically for your blog, do keyword research beforehand and see if videos appear near the top of the search results. If that isn’t the case, it might be best to hold off on a video for that specific blog. The point of a blog is to boost engagement and SEO, so if adding a video doesn’t increase either of those things it’s not worth the time and effort.
As a final tip, when adding a video to a blog, always include it at the top of the page right below the title. This allows it to grab the attention of the viewer/reader.
Related: How To Create Effective Thumbnails for Your Video Content