Follow These Nine Video Marketing Tips To Increase Your Sales

You want to take the leap and embark on a video marketing project because you know how profitable it can be. Unfortunately, you don’t know where to start.

After all, video production is a vast field with many layers. It’s not a simple matter of recording something and publishing it. There’s nuance and strategy involved if you want to be successful with such an endeavor.

Don’t worry, though. VidShip has you covered with the nine helpful video marketing tips below to increase your sales. Read on, and garner insights that will help you generate video marketing-based returns that allow your company to soar to the next stratosphere.

1. Establish Your Goals

A video needs a purpose before you create it. You must define its goal and establish a clear picture of a successful result.

Aspiring to an objective or benchmark determines the content of your video, the audience you’re targeting, the publishing platform, and the type of video you make. Thus, establishing a goal is an integral first step because it offers a jumping-off point.

You’ll be well served by understanding how your video slots into your marketing funnel.

So–ask yourself, first, does it belong in the awareness stage of the marketing funnel?

If so, your aim is to bring your products, service, or brand to a broader audience. This vaster reach means you’ll increase brand awareness and generate interest in what you’re doing. (For the record, VidShip has expertise in all these facets).

Your video might also be meant for the consideration stage of the marketing funnel.

Then, you’re informing potential clients and customers about the features and benefits offered by your product or service. You’re giving them a helpful push towards a sale or proving your expertise in the sector. It also could prove fruitful for you to film product demos, how-to videos, or deep-dive explainers in this stage.

Lastly, your video marketing could be dedicated to the decision stage of the funnel.

In this instance, you’re convincing people on the fence to take that final step toward a purchase. Your video production should revolve around testimonial videos, social proof, case studies, and personalized videos.

Like video production in the awareness stage, VidShip excels in the consideration and decision stages. Check out some of our success stories to get the complete picture.

2. Know Your Target Audience Like The Back Of Your Hand

In the first section, you’ve defined “why.”

Here, you’re moving on to “who.” Specifically, you need to define your target. Understanding the people you’re speaking to with your video for social media (or other channels) is as crucial as the content itself.

Start by defining the following:

Interests
Age
Gender
Profession

You can dive deeper–but those four categories offer an ideal place to begin. Once you’ve defined these elements, you must determine these individuals’ problems and pain points. Then, you must figure out the solutions they desire that your brand–with its product or service–can offer.

Creating a persona for your video is highly helpful. It’s a semi-fictional depiction of your target buyer/audience to ensure each video speaks directly to them to yield the desired results. (Click this link to learn how to create your target buyer persona).

Familiarizing yourself with your audience’s pain points helps you understand what they want from your products and services. From there, you have a more streamlined message for your video production process, driving engagement and conversions.

3. Select The Most Viable Video Marketing Channel/Platform

Video marketing optimization relies significantly on your ability to publish on the most appropriate channel.

Your chosen channel will dictate much of your video editing and production process. It will also help you with your script before beginning with content creation. Keeping the publishing platform in mind throughout will ensure the most meaningful impact with the desired audience.

Now for some examples:

Suppose you’re producing a testimonial video on your homepage or landing page.

Here, you should lean into brevity and make something short. Such a video should be under two minutes, conveying necessary details while keeping the target audience’s attention. You don’t want them to bounce off your page with something too long and dense.

This suggestion ties in with the previous section because your channel of choice depends on where your audience spends their time.

So, a target audience active on Facebook (but not on TikTok) will respond better to marketing content and video ads published on Facebook.

The channel also dictates the type of content.

For instance, detailed explainer and tutorial videos fit best on YouTube. Conversely, if you’re to post a video directly to Facebook, you’re better off producing a listicle video. The same can be said for Instagram.

4. Define Your Budget Before You Start

Successful video production and video editing projects require that you budget accordingly. Pie-in-the-sky notions can get you dreaming too big for your budget. Then, reality can deliver you a crushing blow: a non-existent return on your investment.

Planning your budget ensures you don’t blow your profits on video production, maximizing your ROI long-term.

In short, throwing a whole boatload of cash at a video won’t solidify your success.

On the other end of the spectrum, being too cost-averse won’t produce high-quality videos to draw and hold your audience’s attention. You need captivating visuals and audio. So, you either need to purchase proper equipment and pay for actors, or you can work with an expert like VidShip to ensure the job gets done right.

Ask yourself these questions when defining your budget:

What style and type of video are you creating? Be mindful that a talking-head video is more cost-efficient and easier to edit than animated productions.
Will you be working with an influencer?
Is the project an internal video production, or are you working with a production company?
Are you getting your internal team to appear on camera, or will you work with actors or other creators?
Where’s your filming location (e.g., studio, home, office)?

Well-defined answers to these questions will give you a grasp of what needs you can meet on your own. It’ll also give you a clear idea of what you’ll need to outsource. These are core components of a successful budgetary foundation.

5. Pain Points Must Be A Core Focus

At its most effective, video marketing revolves around topics that speak directly to your target audience. Otherwise, you’ll be talking to a blank space and will achieve results that reflect such a misstep.

Keyword research is your best friend here. Tools like Ahrefs and Ubersuggest help you define questions and topics most frequently across your industry.

Ahrefs will tell you the keywords most often searched on Youtube and Google (with video intent). Specifically, Ahrefs’ Google keyword research informs you of keywords people use when they want to watch videos instead of reading about them.

Another valuable tool for ideating YouTube video topics is Morning Fame. The tool directs towards subjects, ranking opportunities, channel relevance, monthly views, and a currently ranked video list. It gives you a visual snapshot of what’s effective and what your target viewers wish to see.

Surveying your current customers is another excellent research tip. Design your questions around the challenges these individuals face and what drove them to your brand. The answers will provide you with relevant, engaging video topics.

Provided you write a blog, we suggest examining those topics to see which generates the most traffic. Doing so will tell you what your target audience wants to learn.

Additionally, investigate your competitor’s content and what type of traffic they generate. Peruse their website and social media channels to analyze how they use video marketing.

6. Embrace Your Inner Story Teller

You need to strike a balance with your video production.

Yes, video marketing is an act of brand promotion that needs to shine through in some shape or form. However, you can’t be ham-fisted and beat people over the head with it–or else viewers will stop the video almost before it starts. They’ll also have negative associations with your company.

Conversely, developing a captivating story around your products or services will engage viewers and keep them glued to your video content.

The objective here is to show target audience members how your products or services mesh with their day-to-day routine. They need to see what your brand can do for them and how it will soothe their pain points.

How-tos and other educational videos make storytelling quite challenging and are best kept to the point. However, ads and brand videos are exponentially more captivating when you tell a meaningful, engaging story about what your business brings to the table. This way, you won’t appear to be overtly hocking products or services.

Don’t just run through your product’s/service’s features like you’re reading a list. Instead, revolve those product/service features around various scenarios where they fit into someone’s life. This piece of video marketing from Grammarly is a perfect example to offer some inspiration.

7. Scripting Is Your Best Friend

Leave improvising to the theatre students at Juilliard.

Of course, testimonial videos and behind-the-scenes productions can be unscripted. Otherwise, you must write a script to ensure your video production process runs smoothly.

A script prevents tangents and helps you focus on the most valuable points that drive sales. You’ll cut out the chaff and cultivate the wheat in a much more efficient, time-friendly manner. You won’t have to shoot tons of takes, and editing will be much simpler because the script kept everyone on point.

You don’t need a to-the-letter script. Instead, bullet points with basic ideas will help you grasp the flow of the video and keep everyone’s eyes on the prize. Still, a more detailed script will ensure your video marketing project is streamlined and to the point.

These suggestions will help you write a successful video marketing script:

Advertising 101 dictates writing how you talk and creating conversational dialogue so the players involved don’t struggle with lines. Furthermore, avoid using complex words, jargon, or stilted sentence structure because it will alienate your audience.
Focus on an economy of words. Don’t say “blah blah blah” when “blah” will do. Short, sweet, and straightforward wins the day because your message won’t get lost in a sea of unnecessary dialogue.
Use “you” to address your audience directly. This technique makes the video more direct and personalized.
Address a problem or pain point in the first few seconds of a video to capture your audience’s attention immediately.
Ensure your script flows seamlessly by reading it aloud to smooth any rough dialogue.
Lastly, consider adding B-Roll, music, sound effects, and transitions to your script to give you an idea of your video’s style and feel.

8. Lean Into Humor (When It Fits)

Humor is another delicate balancing act that pays off when you use it well. After all, it shows your brand has a personality and doesn’t take itself too seriously–consumers relate to that.

Yet, you can undercut your broader marketing messaging and brand image if you aren’t careful. Thus, your success with humor will rest on how well you strategize and how subtle you are in lightening the mood.

Here’s an ad from Dollar Shave Club that strikes the right chord. It’s not overly goofy, gets across the benefits of the product/service, makes you chuckle, and remains on brand.

9. Work With A Video Editing, Influencing, And Production Expert

There’s only so much time in a day. And you already have your core functions as an entrepreneur to worry about. While you need to be part of the video production process, doing it all alone is too tall of a task if you want to create impactful content.

So, where are you to turn? How can you create a video for social media and other marketing channels that generate the substantial ROI your brand deserves?

Working with a video marketing expert like VidShip will save you time and ensure a superior end product. Schedule an appointment with our sales team today to find out more! Or, you can sign up for our Influencer Masterclass!

You can get started with VIDSHIP today.
Let us help you take your video marketing to the next level.