There’s a reason 81% of businesses are using video in their marketing strategy. Video is an ideal medium to quickly engage and educate prospective users and current customers. Because video offers comparatively high engagement rates and can easily be shared and promoted across social channels, many startups are integrating video into their content marketing strategies.
Video is effective across all stages of the buyer’s journey. It’s easy to share top-of-funnel content like tips and how-tos, but it’s equally effective for sharing customer stories and product tutorials. There’s a caveat to using video, however — video production can get expensive fast. You need to know what types of videos are affordable to create and have a process for producing them efficiently. Here’s what you need to know about video content marketing for startups.
The Value of Video for Startups
Video allows marketers to do several important things that contribute to its success. Let’s look at the five of the top benefits of using video to attract and retain customers.
Specific Targeting
Using video as a marketing medium enables you to target your audience very specifically. You can create a video series for each user type of marketing persona, delivering highly-relevant messages based on the intended audience and marketing channel. You can display videos on your website or landing page, YouTube channel, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.
Engagement
Video allows you to establish and build a connection with your target audience. It’s a perfect medium for telling a story about why you do what you do and how you help customers. You can easily humanize your business by having your founder share what goes on behind-the-scenes. Being able to see and hear someone relate these stories helps customers to feel more connected to a business.
Educational Content
Whether you’re trying to educate potential investors or your target market, video can help you convey complex ideas in an easy-to-digest format. Leverage the highly visual aspects of video to share information while making it interesting and engaging. In addition to helpful how-to content, video can act as a powerful supplement to pitch decks and promotional materials.
Customer Testimonials
One of the most effective uses of video is to feature customers speaking about how your company or product helped them to solve problems and reach goals. Video testimonials are especially believable because viewers can easily see and verify their authenticity.
Tutorials
Videos are also excellent for tutorials. You can demonstrate how easy your product is to use and walk prospective users and customers through each feature, showing them how to accomplish various tasks.
Types of Video Best Suited for Startups
You don’t need a high-budget Hollywood-style short film to create effective videos for your startup — in fact, aiming too high is likely to result in failure since your budget will be blown and you won’t have the funds for other types of content. Instead, focus on videos that are cost-effective to create.
- Pitch Video — A pitch video is a great way to attract investors for funding your startup. These are typically slideshare presentations that include content that would be in your pitch deck like market opportunity, your UVP, information about your product, and how it will solve the user problem.
- Market Awareness Video — Building awareness can be a challenge when you’re an unknown. A video promoted on social media helps raise awareness and educate in a short, shareable format.
- Mission Video — When you’re a new startup seeking to generate excitement around your brand, create a video that shares your mission. This type of video helps prospective users understand what you’re passionate about and how you want to change the world, and it makes them feel like part of something bigger.
- How-To and Tutorial Videos — Top-of-funnel videos that share tips and tricks are highly shareable and will help spread awareness. And bottom-of-funnel product tutorial videos will help prospective users see how your product works and will also help retain customers.
- Testimonial Video — Let your satisfied customers do the talking about your company and your products. Peer recommendations are typically trusted over brand content to establish credibility and they help prospective buyers establish and build trust.
- Social Videos — Videos tend to get high engagement across social platforms. You can share any of the types of videos described above on your social accounts and promote them to improve their reach.
Video Marketing Tips
When it comes to making great videos, the old adage “don’t work harder — work smarter” will really pay dividends. Here are five tips that will help you make the most of your videos.
- Establish a Plan — Define your goals and budget with a solid understanding of your potential customers, messages and topics, and ideal outcomes as well as your timeline to reach your goals. Decide what types of videos you will create.
- Include Stories — Storytelling is a powerful tool for building a connection with people. Your videos should share stories that will resonate with your target audience while demonstrating value. [link to storytelling post]
- Determine Where to Share Your Video — Decide which social media channels you’ll target, your social advertising or pay-per-click strategy, where you’ll include videos on your website, and how you’ll leverage your email list. [link to content marketing post]
- Invite Attention from Search Engines — Create a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy using keyword research. Include those keywords in the video title and description to make sure they’re able to be found in organic search results.
- Monitor and Adapt — You’ll want to keep an eye on all of your marketing activities, including video placements and sharing. Analyze your campaign results from all sources and adjust as needed. Reviewing performance statistics helps to better understand what’s working, what’s not, and what you need to do to improve results.
Video Platforms to Consider
There are a number of options for hosting videos. Of course, YouTube is one of the best known and most popular, though there are others. Vimeo is a popular alternative with social sharing and ad-free uploads, even with the free version. Dailymotion offers unlimited bandwidth and some nice customization options. Vidyard, Wistia, and Jetpack are other alternatives. Once hosted, videos can be shared out on websites, landing pages, and social media channels.
Video content marketing is trending and it shows no signs of slowing down. Many startups find video to be a powerful tactic, so you’ll want to consider including it as part of your content marketing strategy.
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