Speaker Feature

  The mere thought of a need to create a “video campaign” scares even the savviest of marketers. “Someone spare me if I had to be featured in a video!” or “I have no idea how to film videos nice enough for marketing campaigns!” they think. According to Vidyard, “The play button is the most compelling call to action on the web.” The video marketing pioneer just may be right—even I myself am more likely to click and watch a video than just read a bunch of text. Also, wouldn’t YOU want someone to hang out on your website for the duration of a full one- to two-minute video? 55% of visitors spend fewer than 15 seconds on your website. Think about what you can show someone in a video in two minutes versus what they could read in 15 seconds. The difference is staggering.

     Creating videos to promote your brand doesn’t have to be scary! 2015 has been said to be the “year of video marketing”, so you are right on trend if you start planning now. Think about all of your marketing goals for this year. Where can you incorporate video marketing? Planning is the first step to success. If you don’t actively plan to include videos when appropriate, it will always be a “tomorrow” project.. Incorporate video marketing in to your strategies you already have in place. Use a calendar, and set goal dates for your videos to launch.

     Also, make sure to incorporate videos in to your social media plan. Have you noticed lately on Facebook, how videos automatically play when you scroll by on the newsfeed? Make sure your first few seconds are super compelling since your customers are somewhat forced to watch that part as they are browsing. If the first few seconds of your video are interesting enough, people will stop scrolling long enough to watch the rest.

     Once you have posted videos to your social media, make sure to go back and post them on your website too. Your website is where you earn revenue—so make sure to place videos near buying opportunities. If you sell tickets to an event on your website, make sure someone can watch a video about that event, that’s really close in proximity to the buy button. If you are trying to get facility rentals, place videos of your facilities near the rental form. If you’re selling a destination, place videos near the bed and breakfast links or attraction tickets buttons. People who watch a video on your website are up to 12 times more likely to make a purchase or complete another call to action, such as signing up for your email list, so make it easy for your customers to make the transition from videos to dollars in your pocket!

     Finally, don’t get stuck on the length of your videos. If you end up with promo spots that only last 15-30 seconds, it’s totally fine! Remember, people have a really short attention span on the web, and if your videos are long, you may not actually get viewers to watch to the end. Think about Vine—an entire social media network (with 40 million users) comprised of videos that last a maximum of six seconds. 1.5 billion of these six-second videos are watched daily as of this January.

A video marketer doesn’t have to be a professional videographer. We all are almost always carrying a video camera—our smart phones! Think about small ways you can start incorporating video marketing in to your strategy, and watch your plans lead to “ACTION!”

Be sure to check out Cassie Robert's speaker session, "Online Resources to Improve Your Marketing & Your Life", at the 2015 FFEA Convention and Tradeshow, August 5-7th.