A video-first content strategy is a necessity for marketing professionals. Consumers prefer video content and find it more engaging than other forms of content. It helps to retain them and improve conversion rates. Search engines also prioritize websites with engaging video content so it is easier to find them in the search results.
Videos also align with mobile-first strategies and are scalable and versatile. To make full use of this requires using the right video hosting platform. To scale video marketing, the platform must be able to support this and allow you to distribute videos through many channels.
Planning video content around key goals (awareness, conversion, retention)
It takes time and resources to create videos, but you don’t need to start with the best equipment or a wealth of expertise. A tried-and-tested method is to start putting out content and monitoring the response. Once you know how an audience responds to your videos, you can start tweaking them and making them better.
If you plan your video content marketing strategy, you have a map to follow that helps you to optimize your time and resources. Your plan will include deciding what content to create and how to distribute it.
When using video-first content strategies, you can address audience needs at all stages of the video marketing funnel. If you want to create more brand awareness, you need to use engaging videos such as explainer videos or behind-the-scenes content. If you want to drive inbound leads, bottom-of-the-funnel type of content is necessary. This type of content is usually longer and more detailed.
Repurposing strategy: Turn one video into 10+ content pieces
With some creativity and a few tweaks, you can easily turn one video into at least 10 pieces of content. You want to start off with a quality piece of content for content repurposing.
- Start by creating a long-form video. It must deliver value and have a clear message. If you’re creating brand content a tutorial or demo video is a good place to start.
- You can take your main video and pull out some key moments. This could be a tip or trick, or a powerful quote. You can use these short clips on Instagram Reels or TikTok. Adding close captions to them ensures they will reach more viewers, such as non-English speakers and viewers who watch videos without sound.
- Use short clips to throw up as Stories. They disappear after 24 hours, so people are more likely to engage with them. Add some personality with stickers or overlays.
- Post a short teaser clip on Twitter/X with a link to the full video. A short teaser clip helps to drive interest and build hype.
- Put all your short clips together into a highlight reel. It can tease all the best bits of a video and make viewers want to see the original. The reel can be a stand-alone post or YouTube video.
- Summarize the video’s message into a series of text slides for an Instagram carousel.
- Repurpose the long video into a blog post for your website. Use the script and key takeaways to create a detailed post with in-depth information. This means you not only target users who like to watch but also those who like to read text.
- Create a webinar by using the same content you used in your original video. You can go a little more in-depth in a webinar. When you’re live streaming your webinar, you have the opportunity to interact with viewers and answer their questions. On the Cincopa video hosting platform, you can save the live stream. You can edit it to add interactive features and turn it into video-on-demand (VOD) so viewers can continue to have access to it.
- Create a podcast by downloading the audio from your original video. Edit it into the right format and add an introduction and conclusion. Upload it to a podcast hosting platform.
- Repurpose your original video into an email series. Take snippets from the video and create an email drip campaign. Each one could highlight a different aspect of the content.
Distribution plan
How you choose to distribute your videos will depend on your plans for them. A video can live on many different channels, all of which have varying strengths. By selecting various channels, you diversify your efforts. If one channel isn’t working for you but another is working well, you can drop that channel and spend more effort on the latter. You may want to localize e-learning videos to reflect the cultural norms and languages of global audiences so you can increase your viewer base.
Your website
Your website is one of the main places where you will embed your videos. This is where viewers go to see what your company and products are all about. For example, you can have a product explainer video on the home page. If you have a new website, you have a much better chance of ranking a video than a website article.
Social media
Social media platforms can expose your videos to huge audiences. Posting a video on YouTube can create more brand awareness. When posting videos on YouTube, make sure you include a clear Call to Action (CTA) in the video or description. There are many distracting videos on YouTube, so you need to direct viewers to download an ebook from your website or take another action that benefits your brand.
Using an email newsletter sign-up form at the end of the blog post could get you new subscribers. Your CRM tool stores the details for you so you can set up email campaigns to nurture them. This would help to drive leads down the funnel and eventually turn them into buying customers.
Rather than just asking a subscriber to watch a video in an email, get them to click on a thumbnail that leads them to your website. Once they’re on your page, you can nurture them further. Video messaging can help to ensure two-way communication with potential and current customers.
When it comes to video distribution, it’s all about testing and monitoring so you can identify your target audience, see how it responds, and continue to share content that helps with conversion. This can help you to come up with the best mix of distribution for your videos.
Tools and platforms to streamline creation and management
You probably already use a number of marketing tools and you want a platform that integrates with software you use, like your LMS, CRM, or email marketing automation platform. Interactive features are important as they help to turn passive viewers into active participants. These include clickable elements, like hotspots, within videos, calls to action, and quizzes. Screen recording tools help with creating tutorials and demo videos.
Cincopa supports a video-first strategy with powerful tools for organizing your content and creating playlists. It offers customization, interactive features, and a screen recording tool.
When you choose video hosting platform Cincopa, it enhances the loading speed of your videos, search engine ranking, and your branding capabilities. A customizable video player gives you control over presentation. The platform also has advanced analytics so you can understand how viewers interact with video content. The data insights you receive from graphs and heatmaps can help you to make informed decisions to improve video performance.
Conclusion: How to scale smarter, not harder, with video
A video-first content strategy is essential today and a platform like Cincopa supports it and helps you to scale. It offers you some powerful tools to create and manage your video content. You can distribute them on multiple channels and use advanced analytics to assess performance and make improvements. Sign up for a free trial and explore what it has to offer.
