What is video content marketing?

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Question: After Google, what’s the world’s biggest search engine?

Question: After Google, what’s the world’s biggest search engine?

Answer: YouTube.

Which might seem strange, considering YouTube isn’t usually considered a search engine. But when you look at the stats for online video consumption, it soon becomes clear why YouTube is second only to Google in the search stakes.

Video currently accounts for 75% of consumer internet traffic – a figure that will hit 82% by 2021. Which means that every single second a million minutes’ worth of video content will cross the world’s networks. And, of course, such huge supply means there’s equally huge demand: in the US, adults watch video for six hours a day.

Video’s not just popular, it holds attention, too. According to HubSpot research, 55% of users consume video content thoroughly instead of just skimming it, making it the most stickable medium around. Maybe that’s why 72% of businesses who use video say it’s improved their website conversion rate.

Which all goes to show that video content marketing should be a cornerstone of any marketing toolkit.

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But what actually is video content marketing?

Well, let’s start with explaining content marketing, which is the creation of relevant, unique and (hopefully) engaging material that is disseminated across various media, from blogs to social channels, emails to – yes – video. Its purpose is to attract and affect your target audience in certain ways, depending on where they are in the customer journey. Essentially, content marketing exists to get people in – and push them down – the marketing funnel.

Let’s play make-believe for a second: You’re a property developer (hey, like these guys we work with) and you want to attract interest from potential house buyers. So, as part of your ongoing marketing strategy, you identify your target audience and build buyer personas so you can create interesting, useful content focused around their needs and wants. And then you send that content out into the big wide world.

And, as we’ve seen above, one of the most powerful ways to get your message across is through video content marketing.

This might be snackable 50-second shorts that educate how certain Yorkshire-based award-winning agencies (that’s us, just in case you weren’t sure) can really enhance your video content marketing, like this:

Or a brand-building blockbuster ad, like this:

(Out of interest, Dollar Shave Club’s ad cost just £4,000, yet in the first three months it racked up nearly 5 million YouTube views and paved the way for it becoming a billion-dollar business. Now how’s that for showcasing the power of video?)

Types of video content marketing

So, if video is the way forward, you’re going to want to grab your clapperboard, get behind the camera and shout ‘action!’ as soon as possible. But hold your horses, Kubrick. First, you need to determine the types of video content you want to create.

Brand videos

These usually form part of a larger advertising or awareness-building campaign, and aim to acquaint your audience with your brand values, vision statements and company mission. It’s the soul of your brand in a 2-minute segment. It’s a chance to convey your brand’s overarching story in a way that’s unsuitable to any other form of video content.

Perfect for: Top-of-the-funnel messaging and brand-building.

Make yours as good as this:

Product videos

These showcase how your products or services work, explaining their facets and benefits to the audience. It’s a good idea to put your products to the test – either via a demonstration or third-party testimonial – so the audience can see the benefits with their own eyes or hear about them from an independent source.

Perfect for: Explaining what your products have to offer.

Make yours as good as this:

Interview videos

Want to build trust with your audience? Then get your thought leaders, industry experts and those with a different take on things in front of the camera. Seeing the people behind the brand adds to your credibility and lets your passion shine through. Make sure they include actual insight and opinion rather than just trotting out the same old same old.

Perfect for: Building trust and establishing yourself as an industry authority.

Make yours as good as this:

Vlogs

Vlogs give your audience a more personal insight into the people behind the brand, humanising your business and making you more relatable. They’re more raw and cheaper to produce than the high-gloss, highly produced content used by so many, and so provide you with an opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

Perfect for: Projecting your ‘real’ self to your audience.

Make yours as good as this:

Company culture videos

These are a little like vlogs in that they get behind the scenes, show what your business is about and help humanise you to your audience. But they should be more employee-focused and reveal the nature, the driving visions and even the idiosyncrasies of your company. It’s an opportunity to tell your behind-the-scenes brand story and give people an insight into why you do what you do.

Perfect for: Showing the human side of your business.

Make yours as good as this:

Testimonial videos

Testimonials offer two main benefits: first, they build trust and put your customers’ minds at ease because they show an independent party waxing lyrical about you. And second, they can be intersected with visuals showing your product features and benefits, much like a product video. Two birds, one stone? Don’t mind if I do…

Perfect for: Building credibility through independent endorsements

Makes your as good as this:

Due to its popularity and propensity to stick in the viewer’s mind, video content marketing should be an integral tool of your content marketing strategy. And there are so many different varieties of video content marketing that, no matter your experience or budget, there will be a type of video that can work for you. So that the only real barrier to entry is the time it takes to write your script and shoot the content.

Is time not on your side? Then get in touch today, and our team of writers and editors will turn your branding into box office gold.