I’ve been creating video content as part of my marketing strategy for years and know firsthand how powerful it can be – when done right.
Creating video content for your brand can seem like a daunting task, but it can have a significant ROI on your company’s bottom line if done correctly.
The key is knowing where to focus your efforts to get the most out of them. If you are looking to create high-quality video content, then this guide should help you understand all aspects of developing a great content strategy.
What is video content creation?
Video content creation is creating a video for marketing, lead generation, or sales.
In the context of digital marketing, it’s used to promote products and services, engage customers on a deeper level, and drive sales through the showcasing of products and services.
Video content creation is becoming an ever-increasingly important part of any marketing strategy. As video is one of the highest impact forms of communication, most consumers say they’re more likely to purchase from a business with videos posted on social media or online.
In short, video can increase your conversion rates.
How do you plan video content?
If there are many moving parts when it comes to creating a video, then it’s best to make sure you have a plan for what type of video you want to create, who you should be creating it for, what are the goals of the video, and how will you measure its success.
Here’s how to plan your video:
1) Know your end goal – what is your purpose? To increase brand awareness? Do you want to generate leads? Make more sales? Increase social media shares?
You need to know your end goal and what you want to achieve by making a video.
2) Choose an appropriate type of video – this is key when it comes to content creation, but there are many types of videos that can be created for any business model or industry.
For example, if you run a blog about healthy eating habits, then product placement videos could work well, whereas if you’re in the blogosphere as part of your marketing strategy, then information-based videos are better.
3) Create the script – after choosing which type of video works best for your business needs, it’s time to create a script. If you are creating a video to teach or demonstrate, then your script is essentially a narrative structure.
However, if you’re making a product-based video, then it becomes more challenging to determine what will best help sell the item in question: do you want to demonstrate how to use the product expertly? Explain its benefits? Or aim more at emotions and leave viewers wanting more information?
Think about why people buy products; are you looking to take on an educational approach to inform your viewers that it does what they need and want it to do, or are you going for a soft sell emotional approach focusing on feelings over facts (what people don’t know they want) which suggests that by purchasing this
How to structure your video in 3 steps
Your video needs to follow a specific structure to lead viewers towards taking the action you want them to. This is a crucial aspect of content marketing.
Here’s how to structure your video in 3 steps:
1) Hook – Grab your audience’s attention with an attention-grabbing hook that will make them want to continue watching (but don’t lie – if you do, it can backfire).
2) Story / Educate – this is the main part of your video; it should be a succinct message or meaning that leaves viewers feeling like they’ve been told something useful and helpful.
3) Call to action (CTA) – it’s not enough for your target audience to watch a video. You need to give them a reason to act on what they learned in your video by making a CTA at the end, giving them something like a link to buy the product or service you were promoting or something else which can help them take action.
A call to action is absolutely crucial to the success of any video you make, as it gives viewers something they can do with the information they learned from your video. This is why video content creation is such an important aspect of any marketing strategy.
How to optimize videos for better views
Optimizing your content is an important element of video marketing.
Suppose you create and publish a video but don’t do anything else to build your online presence or increase exposure. In that case, you are wasting valuable time and effort – this goes back to knowing why you want people to watch the video in the first place.
Youtube is the world’s second-biggest search engine. Your Youtube channel and all your video content should be optimized to attract surfers.
Here’s how to optimize videos for better viewership:
1) Choose the right keywords – if you want to rank highly in search engines when people perform queries related to your video content, then it’s important that you choose the right keywords for optimizing. These should match the interests of your buyer persona.
2) Add tags – tags help your videos on sites like YouTube, so they get better rankings and more exposure. It also helps with SEO because of the additional keywords in the tags.
So, make sure to add relevant tags to your videos for better rankings. The number of tags makes no difference; just add what seems relevant and professional to you as long as it doesn’t go beyond 10-15 (you can repeat some words).
3) Include a transcript – you can add a text version of your video to help with SEO. It is also helpful for people who would like to read the content of your video instead of listening to it if they have problems hearing audio or understand English as a second language.
4) Include keywords in the description – this helps when creating videos on Youtube, so viewers will easily find what they want in both search engines and the site itself (for YouTube).
5) Get social – share your videos with friends on social networks for better exposure and more views.
What gear do you need?
Any digital camera will do, and if you’ve got a smartphone, then that can work too – it’s only the quality of the footage which is important.
If you don’t want to use your phone or another camera, then consider getting a good DSLR camera, though an action film like GoPro might be better if you’re shooting out and about.
There are many free programs out there, including Windows Movie Maker and iMovie for Macs. But for features like voiceovers and music accompaniment, you will need to get a premium software program such as Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier.
It’s a good idea to record the video and audio separately. This produces better results overall.
For this, you will need to get a good microphone or a voice recorder like the Zoom H4N Handy Recorder, Blu Yeti, or Rode ProCaster.
However, don’t worry about investing in equipment until you know you’re going to stick with video creation.
Lighting your videos
If you’re shooting indoors, you’re going to need lighting.
You can get away with using regular lamps with daylight bulbs, or you can go for a more elaborate lighting system.
In some of my videos, I use a three-point lighting system.
What is a three-point lighting system?
It’s a set of lights arranged in three different positions and angles.
Hollywood developed it as the go-to method for shooting movies, and today it is used for video content created by professionals.
This setup uses two spots as key lights, one for the main subject and another on the opposite side to illuminate hair and shoulders. The third light is usually placed above or below to fill in shadows created by the others.
However, most of the time, I just use small LED lights, and they work fine.
My video set up
My cameras:
- Canon Rebel 5i DSLR
- Logitech C920 HD webcam
- iPhone
My microphones:
- Rode ProCaster
- Blu Yeti
- Zoom HN4
My lights:
- Three-point lighting softboxes
- 2 LED lights
My editing software:
- ScreenFlow (Mac)
- Camtasia (PC)
- Adobe After Effects
You absolutely do not need all of this equipment. Yes, a smartphone can shoot video content just fine.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you now understand the creation process. And shooting video doesn’t have to be costly.
By approaching video creation the right way, you can save money and still create high-quality content that will rank well in search engines, generate leads, and help you make more sales.
Every content marketing strategy needs a solid video content creation plan.