Video marketing has long been on the horizon, daunting many of us for about 2-3 years, but it’s time to embrace the Zoom age, and utilise your newfound comfort for video meetings, by adding video marketing to your strategy.
It is daunting, but in 2021 it’s arguably less so than ever before, we’ve all been forced into a natural acceptance for video meetings and all of the technology woes are now easily laughed off by us all, I mean who hasn’t forgotten to unmute (or mute) their mic at some point in the last twelve months?
One of the key ways to build on the ‘learning curve’ that was last year, is to adopt video marketing as a newfound tool for your martech strategy. Already embraced it? Yay! But there’s probably still room for improvement.
Below we’ve outlined three of the big ways we see video marketing solidifying itself as a key tool for all marketing and sales efforts in the coming twelve months, why not try one out for yourself (if it aligns with your wider marketing and sales strategy, of course)?
Video prospecting
This is just going to boom in 2021, no question. Why? We are all feeling a bit lost without the usual sales meetings and proposing business without face-to-face meetings is almost unbearable. Email, phone, and Zoom meetings all work, but they don’t quite translate well for onboarding new customers - agreed? One of the ways we revolutionised our own internal sales methods was adopting video prospecting in 2020, and we are now encouraging all customers to adopt it.
How does it work? When you send a prospect a reach-out or follow-up email, including a video snippet, we love Vidyard for this, which just gives a personal touch, replacing that feeling for human interaction we can all admit is lacking in the pandemic-overtaken world we all currently live in.
Use it sparingly, use it when you deem appropriate, and get someone in your team to run through a script with you and review your first effort. It needs to be natural, engaging and to-the-point, but once you’ve mastered video prospecting you won’t go back to that lengthy email format, we promise.
Repositioning your company on social media
Video has long been an increasing part of corporate social media presences. Again, depending on your industry and your goals, social media may not be a key tool, but then again, it might be, and audiences expect video now. If your audience skews younger they absolutely expect a lively social media presence and one that should include Instagram and Facebook Stories, with a few ‘Lives’ scattered in-between.
If you’re asking yourself what’s a Story and what’s a Live, don’t panic yet. Instead, review your martech strategy – do you need to be on social media, and if yes, have you got the in-house knowledge to deliver a modern-day social media presence? Remember the social media landscape changes fast, and skillsets from five years ago are unlikely to be relevant today.
Vlogging, podcasting and webinars
You don’t have to ‘go live’ or land in people’s inboxes to make video marketing work for your company in 2021. There is a way to ease yourself, or your employees, in by adopting a video content marketing first approach instead. Rather than writing blogs, or creating lengthy documents, record simple, snappy videos for product reviews, how-tos and industry insights. This is a great way to open the door to launching online webinars and exclusive video content that requires customer buy-in (or sign-up).
By focusing on pre-recorded content you get the teams to buy in with the assurance they can have a few attempts until they get it right, without the pressure that live video on social media, for instance, can come with.
Are you looking to reinvent your company’s marketing and sales strategies, or the tools you use to bring your strategy to life in 2021? We can offer advice and guidance to UK and international businesses of all sizes, in all industries; with a variety of web, marketing and design solutions should you require them. Speak to our team today using Live Chat (during office hours), via social, emailing hello@thriveability.co.uk, or by calling our Director, Johnny Woods, on 01325 778 786.
