Video Marketing: A Conclusive Guide for 2024

Introduction

If you want a solid way to bring more attention to your brand and build stronger relationships with consumers -start learning video marketing.

Yes; you still totally should pay attention to your blog articles, social media efforts, online course creation, and the like.

But note this!

Video marketing can no longer be lumped under the “optional” category anymore. It might not be the newest kid on the block, but it certainly is one of the most important and successful ways to improve brand presence on a multichannel basis.

So if you’re not already churning out regular videos – there’s a big fat chance your competitors are going to overtake you real soon.

We totally understand the initial hesitation. However, video marketing sounds much more daunting than it is.

In fact, now might be the best (and cheapest!) time in the world to start making videos.

Your smartphone can record 4K video resolution, there are tons of cost-effective program editing software out there, so on and so forth.

However, viral videos don’t happen overnight! Even though it’s not as difficult as people may make it seem -the video creation process does involve a substantial amount of planning, filming and post-production to come up with a really good one that’s going to resonate with your target audience.

This guideline wants to give you the best possible way to do all of that. So why is video marketing so important in 2019?

How can venturing down this marketing path bring your brand the positive recognition it needs to finally kick-off from the ground?

Here are some video marketing statistics and benefits to help make your mind up for you!

Skyrocketed conversions

Ao.com supports this by citing that customers are 120.5% more likely to buy their products after watching a video review. On top of that – they are even more willing to shell out an extra 9.1% on an order! This works exceptionally well if you’ve got a rather complicated product or service you’re advertising, and explainer videos would do the best job here.

Better brand awareness and perception

73% of consumers admit to being influenced by social media presence before making a purchase decision. In this context, we’re not just talking about Instagram and Facebook – YouTube too is a major social media video marketing tool that you can use to your advantage here. Intrinsically, your brand looks extra professional when it’s got high-quality videos and a decent subscriber count on YouTube.

Video is quickly becoming more memorable than text

Okay, so this is not a reason to abandon your blog posts. You still need detailed, written content to lead your viewers back to. However, there’s no denying the fact that people are just generally more receptive to visuals than text. According to a study by Forbes, 95% of viewers are inclined to remember a call-to-action (CTA) in a video compared to text. Just remember that it’s usually a combo of great, engaging copy AND video to drive a purchase!

Higher rankings

Oh, but there’s better news yet. Besides SEO copywriting to increase your website’s rankings -videos are super search engine friendly!

Having a couple of videos on your website lets search engines know that your page contains useful + enriching content that would benefit a search. You know what happens next. Your website automatically gets bumped up ranks. Score!

All caught up?

So if you’re still wondering whether or not it’s worth the effort; we hope you have your answer! Without a doubt -the success of video marketing will continue to thrive for a long time.

More and more marketers are delving deep into the vast world of video marketing -and it’s no surprise at all. But when you have no idea where to cover; we admit it seems terrifying even to start.

Plus, if you want to execute a successful video -you’ll probably want as much help as you can.

Word of advice -this article guide is a little long! We’re covering the complete essentials of video marketing, from its very rough concept to releasing a full-length video for your brand.

Feel free to bookmark this page so you get to revisit these tips over and over again.

A Guide on How To Make a Marketing Video​

1. Start planning

Before you go out on a whim and start shooting your first video -there is one very important step that you cannot skip.

The planning stage of your video (and how it’s carried out) could very well be the deciding make or break factor for it all.

Start with what you want your video to achieve. After this is set, every decision will be centered around achieving your video’s very purpose; along with how you hope your audience would react to it.

Skipping this step will almost guarantee you having to constantly re-shoot, re-script, and get caught up in confusion. No one wants to do this – especially if you’re on a tight budget.

But it’s quite simple, really!

Just keep a few of these aspects in mind:

DESIRED GOALS

Narrow down what you want your audience to do right after the video. It could be more clicks on your landing page, or more followers on your social media. Whatever it is -be very clear about it! Use this as a way to measure the metrics of your success during the analysis stage.

Pro Tip: Tools like Social Warfare and Buffer go the extra mile with measuring social media engagement. Everything from likes, shares, reposts, views, etc are calculated here and presented to you; so you can see the rewards of your labor after each social media marketing video campaign.

YOUR TARGET AUDIENCES

We’ll discuss a little more on growing your subscriber/viewer base with platforms like YouTube -but to do that, you’ll have to understand that you’re simply not going to appeal to everyone!

Figure out demographics like gender, age groups, ethnicity, social background, etc. If you opt for an even more precise video creation process; create a customer avatar and make sure everyone on the team gets acquainted with them. Hone down on that group of people based on their habits and lifestyle, and market away.

THE BUDGET

You don’t need millions of big advertising bucks to produce a solid video. Remember this ad from the Dollar Shave Club? Its total budget was a humble $4,500. The end result? 4.75 million views in the first 90 days and 12,000 new customers in the first 48 hours. Not too shabby!

WHICH PLATFORM?

Decide on where your video is going to be shared. Via short Instagram story clips? A full-length Facebook video? Or maybe even as a YouTube ad! Your answer will determine things like duration, theme, CTA, and also target audiences.

ANY EXTERNAL NEEDS

Think about the other factors you need to make your video an outstanding one. Graphic designers, videographers, editors, and creative art directors are all essential people involved in this process -so make sure you get these bunch right! You could even affordably source the best of freelance creative minds through platforms like Upwork and Fiverr.

2. Decide on the style of video you want

Now, let’s get to the fun part!

There are so many types of marketing videos you can experiment with. No one expects videos to be boring, stuffy corporate videos anymore.

So which video style is going to work for your brand?

This goes back to just how you answered the questions in Step #1.

Does your target audience live mostly on Instagram, with short attention spans?

Is the goal to drive more web visitors to your site, increase sales for an online course or just to plain and simple build a stronger brand relationship?

Think about all these things before the actual video creation process.

Done? Cool!

Let’s get straight into the various types of marketing videos you can start conceptualizing.

a) How-To (Educational) Videos

Otherwise known as instructional or demo videos, it’s a short + sweet way to teach your audience the skills they’d need to use whatever you’re selling, which works excellently especially for product ads.

If you’re promoting a packaged product -unboxing videos are one of the hottest video marketing techniques around now. There are about 90k people who just search for “unboxing videos” on YouTube every month! Here’s how to execute this killer trend with finesse.

b) Animated Videos

What’s great about animated videos is the fact that you can use it to explain just about anything. It’s an abstract concept, and visual-heavy style is an amazing way to get your message across in a way that’s easily remembered long after!

We recommend Viddyoze as a full-stack animated video editing software. It’s also 100% cloud and online-based and simple to learn! Viddyoze comes with an arsenal of transitions, filters, studio-grade intros, and other live effects that would usually cost thousands of $$ to produce.

Note that it’s probably a good idea to get someone already well-versed with the video creation process to do this. If you’re missing this person (or not fully confident in yourself!), it’s probably just easier to hire a professional for this.

c) Testimonial Videos

Whoever you’re selling wants to know that they’ll be getting their money’s worth. One of the most easy yet effective way to do this than to get satisfied customers to vouch for you. Feature positive reviews, feedbacks, and other forms of customer feedback in this type of marketing video. In return, offer them a free product, a huge discount voucher off their next purchase or anything of similar value.

d) Industry-Expert Interview Videos

Talk to those leading the game at your niche. Although you don’t have to gun for Warren Buffet or Jeff Bezos; you’d be surprised at how many influential leaders are willing to sit down with you for this. A good place to source for experts is LinkedIn. Search for relevant hashtags, (#ecommerce, #startups, #moneymanagement, etc), and you’d be able to see the prominent people joining its discussions.

e) Virtual Reality Videos

Welcome to the future! Virtual reality ads let viewers remember up to 86% of the whole ad, is less intrusive than the average digital advertising and provides for strong engagement right after.

Of course, this requires a little more knowledge than a 2D video shooting. Here’s how to record a modern, sophisticated VR video to stand out from what everyone else is doing!

3. Getting the right equipment for the job

If you’re the type that’s left in the dark about cameras, lighting, and all the other “toys” needed for a video shoot -don’t fret.

More often than not, the decision to choose perfection would lead you to ultimately running away from video marketing altogether!

Truth be told – it doesn’t have to be that overwhelming.

Let’s take a look at the essentials first of all. You’ll need things like:

Camera

For Beginners:

More and more videographers are starting to churn out high-quality videos with even their iPhones!

That’s right. This has become especially common practice ever since Apple announced that their new breed of iPhones all come equipped with 4K camera resolution.

Before you go ahead and do this, however, make sure your iPhone is prepped and ready.

Do you have enough storage?

For instance, lower-spec iPhones (32GB ones) are not entirely practical here. They’d likely stop mid-recording -and you’ll have to go back to square one. 128GB is a safe bet!

Regardless, your iPhone is the perfect route to start with if you’re just initially dipping your toes into the world of video marketing.

Also, it’s a much better option if what you’re focusing on at the moment is social media video marketing.

This counts for smaller stuff like Instagram stories, short vlogs, etc. There’s no need to dump all of your budget on a pricey camera if you’re starting out.

For Intermediate Video Marketers:

iPhones are cool to experiment with as a beginner, but once you find yourself dealing with more heavy-duty stuff; it’s time to bust out the DSLR.
You’d have a field day picking these out. There are just tons of options to choose from!

You want to focus on the manual settings of the camera, like whether or not they suit low light situations, memory space, types of lens, built-in ports, face detection sensors, etc.

HUSTLR Recommends:

Nikon D7200 ($570). Super for entry-level enthusiasts and easy to learn.

Canon EOS 7D Mark II ($1,079). Weather-resistant, fast-focus which makes it perfect for shooting sports, wildlife, and other outdoor visuals.

Nikon D5300 ($280). Flip LCD screen, full HD video recording on a budget!

Tripods

Never underestimate the power of a tripod!

This is very important if you’re in charge of dealing with expensive equipment. Shaky shots are one thing – but accidentally having your thousand dollar camera or iPhone slip from your grip is another thing.

Depending on your requirements, tripods vary significantly with their prices.

HUSTLR Recommends:

– If you’re shooting with an iPhone: Think table mounts! Vastar Universal Tripod Mount or the GripTight One does the job.

– If you’ve got a DSLR: The Manfrotto brand is a trusty sidekick for the DSLR-type body tripods. Visiting their site will present you with an array of options, but you can’t go wrong with their bestselling Twin Carbon Tripod or BeFree series.

Microphones

It’s alright to rely on your iPhone/camera’s audio recording capabilities.

However, when your video shoot would be conducted outdoors, or in an uncontrolled setting, this might expose your video to too much background noise.

If your budget allows it -a microphone is an excellent investment.

So which one should you be looking at?

HUSTLR Recommends:

– Shotgun mics: One of the most popular mics out there. These are the ones that come bullet-shaped, which you can easily plug into your DSLR and use with a boom pole.

A good option here is either the Sennheiser ME66 or the Rode VideoMic Pro. Both are good places to start, plus super affordable.

– Lavalier mics: If the type of marketing video you’re creating involves a whole lot of interviews, vox-pops, or vlogging -get a lavalier mic. Lavaliers are the kind you see attached under the collar of a talent.

They mainly come with the same functions. We suggest probably starting with the Rode smartLav or the Audio Technica ATR3350 though. The latter is only $29!

Lighting

High resolution, excellent quality videos require more than just great specs on a camera.

You need the proper lighting to match!

Like the mics stated above, your lighting comes in various budgets according to your needs.

It’s advisable, however, to get lighting equipment that comes ready with an adjustable stand. Then, you’d want to arrange these lights in the traditional setup of three-point lighting to avoid shadows being cast on the object/person.

HUSTLR Recommends:

Instead of purchasing them separately – why not just get the complete kit? For much cheaper, too!

You can take a look at some great three-point lighting options on Amazon right here.

Some kits like the LimoStudio Chromakey even comes equipped with the green screen backdrop to match, which is a pretty good deal.

4. Using the right talent

There’s no denying that the stars of your video are super important to its success as well.

You want the most amount of buzz possible after the release of your video.

Featuring someone influential or with a ton of followers is the best way to do this -since you’re already leveraging off this person’s existing audience to get your views and exposure up!

Of course, if you’re going this route – you have to set aside proper compensation in exchange for someone’s time, right?

We’re not exactly talking about million-dollar celebrity endorsements, though.

The ancient advertising practice of “only big brands getting to use pop stars, models, and athletes in their ads” became irrelevant a lifetime ago. A whole lot has changed since then – mainly due to the rise of influencer marketing.

But is influencer video marketing your best bet?

The short answer is -yes! Influencer marketing is to date one of the biggest, yet inexpensive trends to use as a video marketer in the modern age.

If you’re aiming for a millennial audience, the good news keeps getting better. Approximately 70% of millennials trust the words of an influencer much more than the traditional celebrity.

That’s not all. On average, this type of marketing campaign can even rake in a $6.50 ROI on every dollar spent.

Are you liking the odds so far?

Then it’s time to go ahead and break new ground if you haven’t already.

There are two popular ways you can gauge the right talent for your video. First, with ye old traditional social media analysis (scour Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.) or rely on the help of a search platform to do this for you.

We love both Social Bakers and Influence.co for the latter! Both platforms are powerful, provide a large number of influencers, and are designed to protect your confidentiality and security.

Always triple to check to see if your influencer’s followers are within your target audience demographics!

Once you’ve done that, here are the 4 types of video marketing angles you can play around with:

a) Giveaways​

Honestly, who doesn’t love a good giveaway? When done right, influencer giveaways can positively boost your brand’s engagement by far! Again by leveraging off an influencer’s fame and fans; he/she has to drive followers to like, comment, share or somehow interact with your social media pages and provide evidence to qualify for the competition.

Shoot these types of videos as short, upbeat clips and put it up on their Instagram story right away -since giveaways rely on urgency to be delivered effectively.

b) Full Reviews

Although this doesn’t have to be hosted on your direct channel, it’s still one of the most famous social media video marketing techniques out there! Basically, you compensate a particular influencer in your niche to generate a video of their own -but with reviewing your product.

Just make sure whatever you send them is top of the line, good quality stuff. The last thing you need is a negative review living on the Internet forever.

c) Brand Ambassadors

This is essentially the drawn-out, more sophisticated version of a product review. If you’re lucky enough to spot an influencer that embodies the lifestyle of your perfect target audience, has tons of followers and is decent enough to deal with; why not make them your official brand ambassador?

It works by having them promote your brand, raise awareness on social media, link back to your website, etc for a period of time. Keep in mind that the budget for this would have to be more than other techniques -since you’re probably keeping said influencer from signing deals with competitors for a while!

d) Product Placement

The subtle sister of all other types of video marketing; you can never really go wrong with this. Look for an influencer that’s willing to receive free goodies (and who isn’t?) to feature it in their next video or social media story.

They don’t even need to fill the video up with high sung praise, just put it out there for their fans to see and link back to your brand in a caption!

5. Start optimizing your video's SEO

Without a doubt, the superpowers of search engine optimization (SEO) is going to work wonders for your video.

SEO is the icing on the cake in this story. How? By boosting your video’s chances of getting found on search engines, of course!

Ever search for something on Google and find video results on the top?

This is the product of successful SEO. Filling out something as simple as a YouTube description box can stand to make this happen!

Let’s say your video doesn’t live on a social sharing platform.

In that case, the landing page where it’s embedded has to be optimized for search engines to pick up on your efforts.

Speaking of, Unbounce is hands down our favorite SEO-friendly landing page builder! Try them out through our affiliate link and get a whopping 20% off the next 3 months.

By not using this downright simple tactic -you’re not only skipping free exposure but most likely dooming your video to be booted below each and all of your competitors’.

Similar rules apply to SEO-type video marketing as it does for regular copywriting.

Avoid keyword stuffing, use industry-relevant words in your caption (try BuzzSumo to find some of these) and make sure there are no broken links/errors to what you’re leading said audience to.

6. Video editing

Once the planning and filming are done – you can finally start editing!

The best part about video editing tools in 2019 has to be how straightforward it is.

So you don’t need to be a sworn-in editing extraordinaire to understand it’s the interface. With proper software especially; everything you release could look like big-budget, sophisticated productions.

But where do you start? Of course, if most of your content is aimed at just social media video marketing, you could always opt for simple editing apps available on iOS or the Play Store.

Good options for shorter social media clips are:

  • Quik – Brought to you by the makers of GoPro! Lots of automatic editing and transition options, perfect for quick edits.
  • InShot – Perfect for adding music and doubles as an image editor too.
  • WeVideo – Free 10GB of cloud-based storage and the ability to save in 4K video resolution.

Of course, you want to invest in a full-stack, more powerful editing software for other more professional forms of video promotion.

For this, HUSTLR recommends either Adobe Premiere Pro CC or Final Cut Pro.

Price: $20.99 (Single app)
System: Both Windows and Mac

From the pros to absolute beginners; Premiere Pro is used widely throughout the creative industry. You’ll most likely never find a videographer that’s not at least once had this installed on their computer before!

So that’s why we’ve included this as a top option.

The footage you can edit here can range from 8K quality, VR-type clips and the like. So it makes sense that this is the stuff used by Hollywood pros to edit TV series and even feature films!

Remember Gone Girl and Deadpool? Both were edited on Premiere Pro! Pretty cool stuff.

Premiere Pro can handle an unlimited number of videos, essentially from any format and camera, you can imagine. All of their other tools, like the automatic audio tweaking, infographic templates, and color grading options are guaranteed to set your video apart from the rest of the competition.

Price: $299 (One-time fee)
System: Mac only

Apple users, listen up! If you’ve got a Mac, the Final Cut Pro editing program is no doubt what you should be on.

With it being an exclusively Apple product (only to be used on Mac devices) -you can probably expect the price to be a little steep. It’s almost $300 bucks, which is a huge hike from the Premiere Pro.

So, is the price tag justified? HUSTLR votes yes!

This is considering the plethora of features and extras that come with the FCP. For one, it’s quality and high dynamic range (HDR) video options are relatively unchallenged. The resolution is stunning; allowing you to grade, edit and tweak videos without sacrificing the sharpness and clarity of whatever footage you have.

Performance wise -FCP absolutely kills the game. It’s dramatically faster than other video editing software, which makes the little tasks like rendering, exporting, and other elements in the background work effortlessly.

7. Hosting your videos

Editing is done and dusted with.

Let’s move on to finally getting your videos live and online -and hopefully successful enough for your audiences to eat right up!

To kick things off, you’re going to want to do some homework as to where your videos are going to be hosted.

We know this is placed at the bottom of the guide. But remember how we mentioned planning out your ideal viewer avatar in Step #1?

This is precisely how you’re going to want to choose your video hosting platform.

You’re going to be reaching different target audiences on each separate platform. Given the fact, let’s delve right into the 3 most popular ones that you can immediately start with!

You knew this was going to be on the list.

It might seem like a no-brainer that YouTube is on this list, but the way that you use it matters as well! For instance, starting a channel requires more than just throwing out videos and hoping something sticks.

Many budding YouTubers think they’re going to make a quick buck of just one day of going viral.

In all seriousness, though? Viral content rarely happens by chance -but more deliberate planning and proper targeting.

First off, growing your audience involves you knowing the total A-Z’s of the platform. So before you upload your video, catch up on YouTube’s guidelines and tutorials over their free resource website – Creator Academy.

External tools like TubeBuddy is also a free browser extension that can help launch your channel off the ground. It integrates seamlessly with YouTube itself, giving you total access to which videos work best, the ability to schedule videos and update descriptions in bulk whenever you may need.

Every creator that has delved into social media marketing probably knows this, but let’s reiterate.

Your YouTube thumbnail is extremely important when it comes to getting clicks!

We recommend using something like Pixlr to edit all your graphics. They’re used extensively by YouTubers and creatives alike, with over 130 million downloads to date.

Vimeo has -in the past- received unfair attention as “a YouTube wannabe.” But seriously though; this is the furthest thing from the truth.

Any videographer would explain to you how Vimeo has shifted the way many people look at how to use video marketing! They’re YouTube’s closest competitor, the second biggest video hosting platform and are used by over 42 million people in the US alone.

Not too shabby, right?

If you head over to their site -you’ll notice they do things a little differently though.

Instead of freely allowing you to upload hours of content with no charge, Vimeo urges you to sign up for their “premium plan packages.” Prices range up from $7 to $75, depending on the bandwidth needed, privacy settings, distribution, analytics, etc.

All in all, this makes it a video hosting platform that’s not as oversaturated as YouTube. Vimeo has since managed to brand themselves as a “video community for the creative person” with its appealing and artistic flair over the years!

It’s also a powerful live-streaming platform if you ever want to experiment with this type of marketing video.

Vidyard provides a fresh outlook on business analytics meets social media video marketing platform. It tackles the problems marketers face when trying to keep track of video engagement and management from all sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc) -and provides a powerhouse solution to this.

Vidyard gives marketers the ability to track everything from one central location. This includes precisely which social media platform is doing the most in terms of conversions, keeping tabs on revenue generated and more.

They hit the nail on the head with their interactive, personalized videos though.

Hosting your videos with Vidyard gives you the chance to work with their personalization team to insert the names of customers, brands, and other details into your video. In return, clickthrough rates soar!

Give it a try right here to see what they mean.

More tips and tricks to market your videos

A rock-solid, memorable CTA

Ever get to end of an Ellen DeGeneres or Jimmy Kimmel video? If you have, notice exactly how they dedicate an entire 10 seconds or so just for the reason of asking their viewers to subscribe, hit the like button, etc. There’s not just a random pop-up box that viewers can close -but a catchy, funny one-liner that’s easy to remember. Additionally, you can also drive them to related videos you’ve done in the past.

Run some YouTube ads

Reach out to the audiences that matter, fast! To avoid wasted exposure and budget, YouTube has also made their ad program in a way that you are only charged when someone watches at least 30 seconds of your ad.

Accurate targeting options are also available. So let’s say if you’re a budding digital graphic designer -you can choose audiences that share the same YouTube habits as you. Like searching for topics such as “design,” “art,” “photography,” are involved with other competitors, etc.

Start setting up here!

Add YouTube transcripts

Do you know those little subtitles to each and every video? It’s a little known fact -but adding these transcripts manually to a video can significantly improve your SEO efforts!

Of course, you can let the tool do its job; but it very often just churns out nonsensical phrases. Since you probably don’t want to devote too much time to this, however, consider a transcription service like GoTranscript.

Conclusion

With everything said in this guide, we hoped we answered the question as to why video marketing is so important right now!

Understand that this marketing technique is no longer just reserved for “the greats.” You don’t need a disgusting amount of advertising money, a full-fledged studio, or the best equipment in the market.

The success of your video boils down to accurately positioning your audiences, disciplined planning, and an overall keen eye for what works in the future. That’s it!

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