7 Easy Steps to Affordable Video Marketing

Would you do more video marketing if it were easier to produce?

We’ve all heard that video marketing is key to gaining traction online, be it more sales, conversions or brand recognition. Cisco predicts that over 80% of all internet traffic (both business and consumer) will be video soon. Many reports, like this handy guide from Buffer, provide research that video converts better than other marketing content.
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With hard evidence that video is the leading content to use for all types of marketing communications, there are still numerous hurdles keeping many businesses from joining the video playing field. It’s considered too costly, too time consuming and requiring specific skills most people don’t want to learn.

What if there was an easier roadmap to producing great video content? Directions with do-it-yourself tools and access to professional video editing when needed? You could finally create attention-grabbing videos for your website, Facebook page, marketing emails and other social media accounts. Using skills you already have, you can fine tune your message and use video to reach ever larger audiences online.

The hardest part might be to narrow your focus because you have multiple messages to promote, but there are tools to help you set your goals. Whether you are a business owner, entrepreneur, consultant or sales professional, you only need first to determine your message goal to get started.
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Where to Start?

Answer the following questions to help you start and complete your next video:

1. Who is the audience for your video?

Putting first things first, you need to decide who you wish to reach with your video message. Deciding who your audience is helps answer the follow up questions of how to reach your target and what you wish to say. Keep your audience in mind during each step of creating your video.

2. What is the objective of your video?

Some of the possibilities:

• Do you want to send people to your website?
• Introduce a product or service?
• Increase conversions/sales on your website?
• Retain repeat clients?
• Become an authority or resource in your industry?
• Strengthen brand recognition on social media?

Determine your objective and you’ll find the “script” to your video already bouncing around in your head in the conversations and answered questions you‘ve already fielded off line.

3. What is the message you want to deliver?

 The less words you can use to describe your message, the better. Albert Einstein nailed the concept of communication when he said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

• Storytelling is the most effective style in marketing communications. Storytelling resonates with customers and prospects when conveying your brand’s personality and message. Put yourself in the audience’s shoes, and avoid technical jargon, product features and other boring facts and numbers. Appeal to an emotional tie with your audience, but be genuine and honest. Tell a story that is real or based on a real story and use it in your message. The message should provide an answer to how this product or service “will benefit me” - the customer. Help the audience see themselves reaping rewards from your “solution”. The clearer the rewards, the more effectively your call-to-action will work.
• A concise title is important as it draws the viewer in to continue watching a video they could otherwise scroll past in social media feeds.
• It is important to use some text in any video that will be used in social media. News feeds on Facebook and Twitter will automatically play videos when you scroll past (with audio muted until you click on it.) Your video should include enough text to portray your message without audio.​​​​

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​4. Is your message clear and succinct?

Once you’ve written the script for your message, do some ninja editing and slash mercilessly. Think short and shorter as you are editing, then shorten one more time! If you plan to videotape yourself speaking the script, decide how much can be communicated with photos and video and leave the shortest, fewest words as screen text to emphasize key points in your video. You don’t want a “talking head” video, so plan to shoot additional visual content so you can cut away to other footage while using your voice over for a more visually interesting result.

5. What is your call-to-action going to be? 

An effective call-to-action is one of the most important components of any marketing material. Use action words to help guide your viewers, like - start, build, join, learn, discover. Some possibilities:

• Sign up for a free trial
• Subscribe to a newsletter
• Purchase a product/service
• Download a guide
• Call for information

6. What visuals can you shoot?

Visual content is the fun stuff! It has never been easier to shoot video and photos than with the availability of current smartphones. As long as you have adequate lighting inside or natural light outside, you can do this yourself with just your smartphone and a tripod or get a friend to help. If using a digital camera, shoot then transfer the footage/photos to your computer to organize. Shoot in landscape mode to fill the typical horizontal video screen.

Suggestions for footage:

• Video yourself giving an introduction to your business.
• Ask a satisfied client to video their own testimonial, they can shoot it themselves and send it to you via a smartphone.
• Take some photos of your product or service in action, or a behind the scenes look at your business.
• Take screenshots for a how-to tutorial.
• Use an online service like VideoBlocks for great stock videography that’s affordable and royalty-free.

​7. Have any video editing skills?

If you’ve made it this far in the list and you have video editing experience, you're ready to produce your video.  If you don’t have editing skills, now is the time to hand over the video editing to someone qualified. You’ve completed the hardest part by gathering content and defining your message.

There are many freelance video editors available online and you can easily compare prices to a service like Edit Dash to keep your DIY budget really low.

Request a quick quote.

REASONS to use a professional video editor:

• Expert editing can clarify the message.
• Edit out any “ums”, “ahs” and unwanted pauses for smoother sounding audio.
• Add text and branding logos where needed.
• Access to royalty-free background music, a necessity with music to avoid copyright infringement online.
• Production and formatting to match file size restrictions and file format compatibility of different online platforms.

A professional editor will be able to polish the content you’ve provided into a sharp looking and sounding video that you can use on multiple platforms. 

With this guide, using skills you already have and a little editing help, you can shorten the video creation time, drastically reduce your production budget and spread your message faster than ever before.

​Have you produced your own videos for marketing? Leave a comment if so, I'd love to hear any tips or hacks that make it easier for you.