Back in the mid-1960s, social critic Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the message” when talking about video. And it’s even more true today! Rather than just being a container for your marketing content, video is a way of communicating a culture, an attitude, a style. As an entrepreneur, you probably already know that video boosts business. If you’re not aware of this yet, you really need to add video to your website and your messaging ASAP. But where do you start?
1. Your company needs a video marketing culture
Companies all over Europe are using video every day for multiple purposes. Internal and external communication, training, marketing, recruitment…the list goes on. If you can think of it, you can use it. The Sales Lion is an example of a company that’s helping integrate video into the corporate environment.
Or take a look at our blog post Video is HR’s secret weapon! We’ll bet many people haven’t yet thought of all the ways that video can help take your company’s HR efforts to the next level — candidate search and recruitment, employer branding, onboarding, even employee communications. It’s pretty impressive and helps explain why more and more companies are hiring Chief Video Officers.
2. Video is not meant for just marketing, but can — and should — be used by all company departments to optimize touch points
Sure, you can use video for marketing. But why stop there? Video is as informative, immediate and persuasive wherever it’s used. Innovative, proactive companies are utilizing it in ALL departments – from sales, to marketing, to finance and even legal.
Think of all the instances in your company where:
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personal connections need to be made or strengthened
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information needs to be shared
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decisions need to be made
All these touch points can be improved by using video in a smart way!
In HR, for example, video is a perfect medium to strengthen that personal connection with job seekers, leading to a faster and more efficient recruitment process. When McDonald’s wanted to hire 2,000 new students, they turned to the power of video to extend the reach of their recruitment.
3. Marketers need to start from a “video first” perspective
Video plays a vital role in all stages of the customer journey. It has proven successful and gets watched more often than other content formats. It’s also proven to get the best conversion. So there’s simply no excuse for not integrating video when you’re creating your next marketing plan!
So marketers, it’s up to you to compose your marketing plan from a “video first” perspective. Just starting with a plan and randomly adding video as an option won’t work anymore. You need to look into which video strategy works best for the goals you need to reach the coming year.
4. The right tools will help you get started with video
Getting started with video doesn’t have to be hard or scary. As a company, you can do much of it yourself. For basic video production, tools like Moovly, Soapbox, Wistia and of course YouTube are there to make it easier for you to implement video in your company.
As you get comfortable with video, you will probably find more and more uses for it. Or, you’ll want to try more complex projects. At that point, you may want to free up your own people and start using video in a strategic way. A strategy sprint is a great way to kick off your video plan !
5. It’s more than just creating a video
Anybody can create a decent video, but planning your video campaign is something else. Compare it with building a website: everyone can create one, but a website that converts is not an easy game.
And secondly, let’s not forget about data! Google knows what is shown in your video. For example, if a customer searches for ‘Ferrari’, Google will show all the Ferrari related videos without the keyword having to be mentioned in the title. You can learn all about optimizing your videos for different channels in our Distribution Ebook. Happy learning!
* This article was originally published here