If you’re looking to maximize your marketing efforts in 2019 and beyond, making video content has to be on your radar. It has been proven as the most effective type of content on social media.  Also, it’s predicted that video content will be the driving force behind search traffic in the foreseeable future.  No other type of content is as effective at capturing and holding the attention of today’s online searchers and that includes industrial businesses.

Thankfully, video content has also become easier to make.

Here are some tips for integrating video into your current marketing strategy:

Step 1 – Integrate Video into Your Content Strategy

Think about the different places video is used for marketing today. The three main channels are typically your blog, social media, and other website content. By breaking it into those three categories at the start, you can begin to brainstorm what types of videos would be most effective for the audiences in each space.

Blog Videos

Look at your current content calendar (and even previously published posts) to find a few articles that could be enhanced with a visual aid. “How to” posts are often a great fit for video because you can create a visual walkthrough for readers to follow along using the tips you’ve already written about. Other videos, like those explaining and simplifying a complex process or an interview with a subject matter expert, are also effective.

Website Videos

Think of the different pages on your website, how many could benefit from a short video being placed on the page? For industrial manufacturers, video can make a huge difference on product pages. Showing prospects the unique intricacies of custom equipment orders or a close-up look at large scale projects. When you consider how much a prospect will potentially spend on your equipment, seeing a video can provide assurance when deciding to make that investment.  Much more convincing than seeing a few pictures and reading the specs.

Here is an example of a testimonial and demo video:

For service providers, an explainer video describing your services may be more effective than a few pages of text.  A video featuring your team members and some background information on your company can be added to your “About Us” page.  This helps make your company feel more “real.”

Social Videos

Put this last on your list.  It is the least important.   Eventually, you will want to maximize the reach of your blog videos by sharing them with your audience on social media. This will also help attract more engagement on your social posts in comparison to just sharing a link.  This, in turn, will help your posts be seen more regularly in newsfeeds. If you plan to hire a full-time video specialist,  you can consider creating videos strictly for social.  Just remember, the main focus is to prioritize videos that can help maximize conversions and user experience on your website.

Step 2 – Set Your Budget

One of the biggest misconceptions with video today is that it costs a fortune to make. In order to get started with video, however, you don’t need to make a huge investment. A good baseline for getting started with video is approximately one video per month or three videos per quarter. This should give you an adequate sample size to see what types of videos are most effective with your audience and give you plenty of marketing ammunition throughout the year. For those just getting started with video, it will also give you plenty of time to plan and produce each project.

At this frequency, it should also be reasonable to fit video into your marketing budget. Shorter videos with less production will ultimately cost less to make; those with more planning, scripting, editing, and post-production will cost more, but they’ll likely provide much more value to viewers.

If you are new to this, I would start with what you have.  The video on your phone is of decent quality. You can at least use it to test the responsiveness of your audience with video before spending additional money.

Step 3 – Determine Your Scope

Review your marketing budget and the frequency you wish to publish videos. The next step for getting started with is to determine how it’s going to get done. If the one-video-per-month aligns with what you’re looking to do, you can do it in-house or work with a freelancer.   A freelancer will help ensure all your videos have proper lighting, audio, good camera angles, and professional production.

If your video plans are more like one video per week, you’re going to want to hire an in-house video specialist. It’s the best way to meet your frequency needs and will be less expensive than outsourcing 50+ projects each year. Working with your company on a regular basis, they’ll also be more familiar with your brand.

Step 4 – Create Videos

The last step to integrating videos into your marketing plans is actually making the videos themselves. There’s much more to this process than simply grabbing a camera and filming something.

We have covered the how-tos in previous posts.  If you’re working with an agency or freelancer, make sure you’re willing to help provide direction on any videos you’re working on together. If you have a specific vision for a video, for example, let them know so they can include it into the storyboarding process.

Be prepared to spend more time planning and editing the video than actually filming it. In the end.

Plain and simple, video is the best-performing marketing content you can create.  The tips above can help kick start your video marketing efforts for your industrial business.

Other Posts of Interest

Industrial Marketing Using Facebook Video

Industrial Social Media Marketing 2019

Why Use Video for the Industrial Business?