7 Steps to Creating a Successful Video Campaign

Here is what I know about video marketing, from experience, without having to conduct detailed research:

Every day, more and more people are making and consuming videos.

People like videos because they like stories, and a video is easier to digest than reading a lot of words.

Companies like using videos in their marketing.

Companies producing videos without strategy, might as well light their money on fire.

Sometimes you need a single, one-time video to fill a specific need, event or promotion. It’s produced, sent out to the people who need to see it, mission accomplished and you’re done. Those are pretty rare instances. Most of the time, the video you need falls somewhere in the funnel of awareness, consideration, conversion and loyalty; and possibly in each level. If you are going to invest the dollars, resources and time into creating a video, you should maximize your use of the video content. To help you, through my experience in video and marketing, I have devised a list of seven steps to a successful video campaign, with examples for each step.

Step 1: Have a Plan. Don't Waste Everyone's Time.

Why go to all the trouble to do something unless you have a plan? Do you have a lot of time to kill or money to burn? We can have a goal and objectives, but if there is no plan of action to achieve the goal, it’s still just a goal. The same goes for video. Your video strategy should clearly define all the necessary steps to create the results you want of the campaign. Let’s walk through some additional steps using a sample objective.

Sample Objective- Use video to increase email subscriptions by 10% in 2017.

Step 2: Analyze Existing Data

If it’s a new objective and you are trying a new tactic, you may not have existing data to measure. However, if you DO have existing data from the last campaign you tried, review the reports and see how they can help you moving forward. Using our email subscription goal example, these are good questions to ask yourself:

- What was your previous strategy?

- How many email subscribers have you added over the previous year, quarter or month?

- What worked and what didn't?

- What can you learn from it?

- What did readers click on in the email?

- If we are growing the subscription base by 10% what does that actually mean?

- How many new subscribers would that be? 10, 100, 250, 1000?

Step 3: Define The Audience, Get Specific and Do The Research

The more you define your target audience the clearer your vision is going to be on who and how to market to them. Get specific! 

·      General- Moms with babies

·      Specific- Mothers between the ages of 25 to 35 with at least one infant and a house hold income of over $80,000 annually. 

·      Research- Always do the research to better understand your audience. Here's a great article on How to market to Moms and How Mom's use Youtube! 

Step 4: Align The Creative To Your Audience

Creativity really is the X factor for a video campaign but understanding the types of videos your audience consumes is the first step in the creative process. 

Our research tells us:

·      Millennial Moms like their video messaging to be simple, powerful and authentic

·      Millennial Moms are searching for How To, Product and DIY videos

·      Millennial Moms are busy and prefer to watch shorter videos. No longer than 60 seconds

·      Millennial Moms are not technophobes and prefer their videos delivered to multiple devices.

After doing our research and understanding our audience, we know that the creative must align with three specific factors:- 1) type of messaging, 2) length of video and 3) how the video is being distributed.

Step 5: Distribution

Again, your distribution is going to be defined by where you audience lives online and what types of messaging you are trying to convey. Here are some great statistics from 2016 that can provide some additional insights. 

At Vital, we use shorter length videos (15 and 30 seconds) for advertorial content, building interest, driving traffic and calls to action. I would recommend distributing those types of video using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. 

We use longer form videos (60 to 90 seconds) for branding, explaining and storytelling. I would recommend distributing those types of video on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. It's always a good idea to have a mix of earned and paid media for every video campaign if the budget allows. We have had great success boosting videos on Facebook and YouTube. This is what I would recommend for our Mom example:

·      Earned Media Distribution- Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest

·      Paid Media Distribution- Facebook Ad boosts and YouTube preroll

Step 6: Measure, Analyze, Show Return

This is where your video ROI comes into play. The biggest advantage of digital distribution is the ability to measure and get analytical information. Most distribution channels can provide you with valuable video analytics to track results. Certain channels are more detailed than others and every channel is a bit different in how and what they will provide. Here is a good article that will walk you through some of the key analytics for a variety of well known applications.

Step 7: Cut The Fat and Feed the Honey Hole!

First, see step six. If you defined how you were measuring your results you should have a pretty good idea about the results. How many leads, how many likes, how many subscribers, how many views, how much in sales, how many new clients? What worked and what didn't? Did you achieve your objective? Marketing is a moving target not a perfect science. We either improve what didn't work or cut the fat out of the plan all together. The same goes for our successes, when we see it working keep feeding the honey hole and improving the strategy. 

Jason Clayton

Chief Marketing Officer / Founding Partner

jclayton@vitalcompanies.com