Producing video marketing content takes company time, energy, and resources, which is all the more reason to ensure that you reach your intended audience. In the most general, the more successful distribution strategies bring content to consumers as opposed to waiting for them to find it, as well as maximize platforms already built to disseminate information.
Deliver Content Before Your Audience Finds It
Imagine the online journey of a potential customer who would be a perfect candidate for your services, but doesn’t yet know your company exists. Where would they naturally begin their search? After a quick Google search, they may land on your company website. Not only does including videos push your website closer to the top of search engine results—but it’s also a sure way to increase the amount of time spent during an average visit to your site, which in turn further improves placement on search engine result pages.
As you may have suspected, one company’s potential consumer base is reachable through different online platforms than others. If you’re targeting a wide demographic range, you can reach disparate audiences without having to launch separate advertising campaigns. This could look like: bringing younger audiences likelier to encounter your product on an Instagram video to your company Facebook page by linking posts between the two; including videos and posts found on your website in your Facebook feed; and the ability to share or access video content to social media via your website. Posting videos through multiple channels can help create overlap between consumers who otherwise wouldn’t view your carefully curated social media content.
Maximize Outreach on Platforms You’re Already Using
Earlier, we pointed towards posting video content on your website as the first way to take the offensive in distribution methods. That website is an optimal avenue to invite visitors to sign up to receive more information on a recurring basis through email. As this database of email contacts grows, you’ll be able to leverage the fact, according to a Syndacast study, that simply “using the word ‘video’ in an email subject line increases open rates by 19% [and] click-through rates by 65%.”[1] Including videos in email marketing campaigns goes beyond embedding your content in a newsletter—capitalize on and reward a reader’s short attention span by: using GIFs that autoplay; condensing your video as a ‘call to action’ that invites people to, for example, fill out a short online interest form; and having your employees include short videos as part of their email signatures.
You might be wondering how the sheer presence of a video on any of these distribution channels—website, email, social media platform, newsletter—helps create traffic around your company, if posting video content requires that people are able to find it at all. Though search engines haven’t reached the level of analyzing audiovisual content that translates into advertising keywords, you are in control of “metadata,”[2] or the text that gives your video its title, description, tags (where applicable), and context on the surrounding page. Once you’ve perfected the video itself, then you have agency in giving your audience signals as to why they should watch: not only will their questions about your product be answered, but they’ll know how to seek additional information if needed.
[1] Hayes, Adam. “The State of Video Marketing in 2019.” Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-video-marketing-new-data (retrieved 6 May 2019).
[2] “Chapter Five: Video Distribution and Channels.” Vidyard. https://www.vidyard.com/video-marketing-strategy-guide/video-distribution-channels/ (retrieved 6 May 2019). c