Video marketing involves the creation, distribution, promotion and measurement of videos published by your brand. These videos are designed to slot into your sales funnel to empower customers and influence buying decisions.

Video content includes live and pre-recorded videos. Popular formats include reviews, recipes, presentations, live action, tutorials, tips and tricks, demos, promos, sales videos, corporate videos, animations, motion graphics and screencasts.

Videos are the best way to create a personal connection with your audience because they are intimate. People love watching videos, so much so that YouTube (owned by Google) is the second biggest search engine in the world behind Google.

An explainer video is a short video that introduces a topic to an audience. Explainer videos are used on landing pages to reduce friction, address barriers to purchase and help customers understand the ‘what, who and why’ of products.

Explainer videos could explain how a product or service works, address a specific feature within a product or service, discuss how to order/buy, or anything else that would benefit the viewer and help them make an informed buying decision.

The correct length for an explainer video is 60-120 seconds. This is enough to cover lots concisely. The longer explainer videos are, the less effective they are as they are less likely to be watched. Shorter videos also increase message retention.

A promo video is a business video that promotes a specific marketing initiative, like products, services, events and special offers.

Promo videos are mostly used on social media through paid ads (YouTube and Facebook are good examples) and TV. The aim of promo videos is to promote marketing initiatives, so they have clearly defined KPIs and are measured against these.

The correct length for a promo video is 30-60 seconds. Most promos are 30 seconds or under because very few promotions need more than this to get the word out. Videos can use footage, animations, effects and anything else to grab attention.

Corporate video includes all videos used for internal and external corporate messaging, from investor presentation videos to recruitment videos.

Corporate videos are filmed in the company’s HQ/premises/offices and are produced for corporate updates and internal messaging. They are mainly used to raise awareness of a company’s brand as a whole but can also be used for training, recruitment, presentations, conferences, branding initiatives and teambuilding.

The correct length for a corporate video is around 3 minutes while corporate overview videos can be as short as 90 seconds. Some corporate videos run for as long as 10 minutes for training videos and other in-depth formats.

With the exception of internal videos, success with video marketing depends on distributing and promoting videos where your audience resides.

Social media is the best place for your videos, but not all social media platforms target the same demographics and audience. You can start by choosing from these popular platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter and Reddit.

Aside from social media, the best place for your videos is your website, specifically the landing pages where you can reduce friction with video content. If you can reduce friction and lift purchasing barriers with videos you will increase conversions.

The aim of video marketing is to improve your sales funnel or benefit your customer’s journey (or both). These two marketing objectives will define the types of video you produce and who you produce them for.

Here’s how to create a simple video marketing strategy:

• Set your marketing objectives
• Determine what platforms your audience uses
• Determine what types of video your audience enjoys
• Research the competition
• Create your videos
• Optimise your videos for search
• Monitor engagement with analytics