If you’re here, you must already know the rising importance of video marketing.
That’s why I had Emma Bates from AmplifiedNOW talk about video marketing in our earlier Expert Sessions. She really broke it down for us the barrier of creating video and convinced us that video should be the way forward when creating content.
Today, we’re going to cover some main points here about why content marketing is so important, how video for content is going to save you time, what it means to repurpose content and how to create high-quality video content.
P.S. If you want to catch earlier sessions of our Expert Sessions covering all things email marketing, storytelling, branding and more, you can do so in our Skyrocket Blog Traffic group.
Benefits of Video Marketing for small business owners
Video marketing is cost-effective and generates more leads than traditional marketing. Video content is definitely the way content marketing is going for the future.
Every platform now has a mini video thing, even YouTube, called Shorts. Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook… Everybody’s got some sort of stories type of thing now.
Video content will make your business more relevant in the online marketplace. More and more people are looking at video before they jump into working with a company or buying something from a company.
And really, the pandemic has just made this process quicker than it was going before. So it’s definitely something you need to be keeping an eye on.
You’ll be able to create consistent content that can be published on every platform if you start with a video. You’ll be able to see how, when you start with video, it makes the rest of your content creation so much easier. And then it allows for more control over your message.
I know a lot of people can’t keep up with all the content creation. They’ll outsource to a ghostwriter or people who can contribute content in different ways and that can be great, but a lot of times ghostwriters can’t really get your voice. They don’t make the same points you’d make, and you end up doing more editing than you might’ve done if you’ve done it yourself.
Content Marketing
So what’s content marketing?
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing value relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience and ultimately to drive profitable customer interaction.”
Content Marketing Institute
Anything you create and share online is content. A lot of times, people think of content as blog posts. But content can be pretty much anything. It can be your website or blog. It can be your social media profile and groups. It can be email newsletters, videos, graphics; all of that’s content.
You want each piece of content you put out into the world to be purposeful in bringing your ideal customer to you. It shouldn’t be content for content’s sake, but a way to attract the right people to your offer.
What does it mean to repurpose content?
“Content repurposing requires altering a piece of content to make it fresh by changing the angle or switching up the format. Integrating repurposing into your marketing strategy can lower costs, advance production, expand audience reach and provide myriad additional benefits.”
Content Marketing Institute
This post will focus on ways to make content creation easy through repurposing. We start with video, then use that video to create long and short-form videos, blog posts, email newsletters and more.
Why should small businesses use Content Marketing?
Content marketing costs 62% less and generates 3X more leads than traditional marketing.
In fact, Coca-Cola invests more money in content marketing than they do in television advertisements. Think about that for a minute. If I think of Coca-Cola, I think big production ads they do, but they’re actually spending more money on content marketing.
But creating consistent content is a never-ending chore, which is why it’s important to make the most of every piece of content you create.
That’s why we believe in a video-first approach. Video gives you the most bang for your buck. By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic, 15 times higher than in 2017.
The pandemic has accelerated this process. 93% of people doing business say they’ve landed a new customer, thanks to a video on social media.
47% of B2B decision-makers consumed between 3 and 5 pieces of content before they talk to a salesperson, 80% of executives and business owners prefer learning about a business from content rather than an advertisement, but only 25% of companies publish videos every week.
If you’re not in that 25%, you’re falling behind.
The thing is, it’s not the best product, service, or business that wins. It’s the best marketing.
How do you use Video Marketing across platforms?
So how do you create high-quality video content that can be shared on multiple platforms in multiple formats?
Starting your content marketing first is the fastest and easiest way to create consistent content and reach a wider audience. You can repurpose your content so many times just from one video!
So here’s how it works. You start with the video. That video gets edited and it turns into 1 long 5- to 10-minute video about a single topic.
This is the video that gets uploaded to YouTube. Since YouTube is now owned by Google, it becomes part of the larger search platform out there which are also prioritizing video.
The video then gets broken down into 1-minute snippets, 30-second snippets, 15-second snippets.
The long video is transcribed, turned into a blog post, an email newsletter and social media copy, and then you can make all your different graphics to go with it.
Your featured image for your blog posts and Instagram quote graphic can be quotes from the video.
Your blog posts and YouTube cover photos should be horizontal images; while your IGTV and Pinterest pins should be tall images.
So you’re starting with this one video and you’re getting all of this content to go with it. By creating a video-first approach, you control the voice and tone, which means that all the following content will be consistent. It’ll be your voice, your words, your meaning that goes out into the world, leading to content with a consistent message.
Tech – Hardware
Let’s talk tech. People get scared. It does not take that much to make good videos.
Video recorder
You’re going to need a smartphone. Honestly, at this point, smartphones have such good cameras that you don’t need to invest in anything else. It’s going to be better than the camera on your computer. It’s not going to be worth it to buy a $4,000 camera with a video option.
Your smartphone in most cases is going to be 4K if you’ve bought it in the last 3 years.
Microphone
You’re going to need some sort of mic. Emma uses this cute little lapel mic that plugs right into her iPhone for around USD11 on Amazon. I use this exact BOYA mic. It’s not that big of an investment.
Lighting
Then you’re going to need some sort of lighting equipment. Emma’s using a ring light. You can also use a Lume Cube. There’s a lot of different light equipment out there, but you just want to make sure you’ve got a good light that’s in front of you so that people can see your face.
Tech – Software
Intro & Outro graphics
For the software, Emma actually uses Keynote to make the Intro and Outro graphics for videos. It sounds crazy, but you can do it really easily in anything like Keynote, PowerPoint, Canva.
Photo
If we need stock photos, she grabs them from Unsplash and then we use something called Vecteezy if they need any B-roll stock video.
Audio
For stock audio, we’ve used 123rf, Stock Unlimited and Audio Jungle. There’s a ton of sites. Some of them have free options. Some of them you pay $3 or $5. But you know, you just need one little jingle for your own videos, something to play over it. Just pick something that talks to you that makes it feel like your brand.
Video editing software
And then a video editor. There are a lot of really good video editors Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, Filmora.
Emma’s using DaVinci Resolve now, which you can download for free. It’s software used for motion picture films, but they’ve made a version that can be downloaded for free that just doesn’t have all this sort of super high-end stuff. It’s really good. You’ll learn. She highly recommends it.
I’m personally using Descript to edit my videos. Not only does it transcribe your audio speech into text, you can also easily edit the videos by editing the transcription directly, which is waaaay easier than listening to the audio multiple times to find the correct millisecond to cut out. Also, you can include captions directly in this software using the transcription without having to go to a secondary tool.
And then you’ll need some sort of transcription software. Emma uses Otter.ai because it learns what you’re saying and so you’re not for example, constantly correcting everybody’s names.
Now, we’ve covered the fundamentals of why you should start hopping on video and how to do that! If you want the breakdown on how to create a solid video marketing strategy, don’t miss this next post on How To Repurpose 1 Video Into 61 Pieces Of Reusable Content!
