Improve Your Content Marketing with Online Video

Encouraged by new data from Forrester Research, the online video specialists at Brightcove created a video explaining how brand marketers can better their efforts with online video. Hosted by Steve Rotter, vice president of digital marketing solutions at Brightcove, the video highlighted growth in online video and told how to get the most from it.

There are three methods brands use to promote a brand or service, Rotter said: paid media (advertising), earned media (when others talk up a brand's efforts), and owned media (when a brand creates content themselves). Recent findings from Forrester show online video growth in all there of these areas. In fact, there was a 25 percent growth in online video in the last quarter alone.

Video is the most popular way for customers to consume and share information about a brand or service, Rotter noted. The top two ways for audiences to interact with a brand are through paid or owned video.

"For marketers, the message is clear: video can be one of the most powerful ways that you can engage your audience and it's one of the fastest growing ways companies are thinking about their overall content strategy," said Rotter.

Since video is so successful for brands, how can marketers harness it and get those benefits for their own businesses? The Forrester data presents a framework for thinking about strategy.

Try to create video for every stage of the consumer lifecycle, then spread those videos across your entire brand ecosystem.

Videos can:

• Improve awareness


• Improve engagement


• Drive conversion


• Build customer loyalty

To show how videos can be effective, Rotter showed two examples from Kohler and Citrix. Both companies created branded channels on their sites where viewers can watch videos.

"This creates a very sticky place on the site, a place where people can consume lots of video content and really spend some time learning about a product or service," said Rotter.

One Brightcove client, Cars.com, improved the time the average visitor spent on the site from 30 seconds to six minutes thanks to video. Rotter also told how clothier Marks & Spencer improved sales for some items by 90 percent with video.

Before you start creating, think about your company's unique buyers, Rotter advises. Create custom content to reach them at every stage, such as educational videos for new customers and deep ROI content for those farther along in their buying decisions.

Once you've got content, the difficulty is to spread it around to different channels. Start by putting your videos on your site and making it a hub. Use that base to drive content to different areas, such as social networking accounts. Remember to create a mobile and social strategy for your videos.

"This is a real challenge for marketers today," said Rotter.

Consider a blended distribution strategy, as well, where companies send out useful informational videos to other channels. These videos then drive viewers back to the main site, where the brand controls the experience.

For more from Brightcove and Forrester, watch the video below. You can also download the white paper for free, although registration is required.

 

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net