No matter how incredible your videos are, they’re only as valuable to your business as the strategy you used to create them. With the demand for video continuing to climb, many companies are starting to invest in a video marketing strategy to help drive sales, brand awareness, and more. But in today’s economy, most marketers have to do more with less — and that includes video. Which is exactly why we asked expert video marketers and producers to share their best video strategy tips for our latest guide, “How to create a contemporary video strategy.”
Expert advice for creating a video strategy
“How to create a contemporary video strategy” offers expert advice and step-by-step tips for creating an effective video marketing strategy that you can apply to even the leanest of budgets. We spoke to our own team of in-house video production and marketing professionals at Storyblocks, along with top leaders from our enterprise partners, HubSpot and Descript. This expert line-up included:
- Kyle Denhoff, Director of Marketing, HubSpot
- Lara Unnerstall, Video Producer, Descript
- Ryan Vig, Marketing Leader, Descript
- Lauren Zoltick, Director of Performance Marketing, Storyblocks
- Kaitlyn Rossi, Senior Producer, Storyblocks
Download the free guide today to learn contemporary video marketing strategies from top marketing and video production pros.
They shared so much valuable advice, we couldn’t fit it all into the guide, so we created a series of article to dive even deeper into the guide’s 7 video strategy categories. This final article of the series rounds up the top 8 video strategy tips these experts shared, all in one place.
Video strategy tip #1: Don’t start filming without a plan for success.
“I need to know what the goals are, who we’re marketing this product to right now, or who is our primary audience. All this kind of stuff that allows me to then decide how we’re going to achieve that through video.”
–Lara Unnerstall, Video Producer, Descript
The first of our 8 video strategy tips is all about planning. When you’re creating videos, it’s essential to have a solid plan before you start — especially when you need to get the most out of your marketing dollars. And that includes setting specific goals for how you measure success. Storyblocks and many other businesses use the SMART framework for goal-setting. Having goals set from the start will save you a ton of production time, keep projects on track, and give you a baseline to compare a video’s success to.
Video strategy tip #2: Learn where your audience spends time online, then meet them there.
“If you’re creating content for TikTok, versus YouTube versus LinkedIn, your content is probably going to be pretty different, because people are going on those channels for different things and they have different expectations.”
–Lauren Zoltick, Director of Performance Marketing, Storyblocks.
Audiences gravitate to certain platforms because they provide the kind of videos they’re most interested in watching. To reach your target audience successfully, you need an understanding of the style, format, and content types various platforms are best known for. Once you know that, you can optimize your videos for various content channels. Or you can laser-focus on the channel your audience uses most. Also, it’s important to take into account other creators your audience watches on those channels and how to set yourself apart from the competition.
Video strategy tip #3: Tap into the creativity of team members in unexpected places.
“People get actually excited and happy about the chance to work on content like this, especially if their job is, you know, a little less in the creative realm. They’ll actually want an opportunity to try their hand at this stuff,”
–Lara Unnerstall, Video Producer, Descript
Part of doing more with less means getting as much productivity out of your team as possible. Many experts we talked to have empowered team members outside of the core video staff to lend a hand, even those whose jobs have nothing to do with video. Don’t limit your search to video-adjacent team members like lifestyle marketers or social media managers, however. You never know when a customer support team member or an engineer will have a meaningful creative contribution to make.
Video strategy tip #4: Don’t dilute your message by trying to reach everybody at once.
“In general, it’s better to focus on a specific target audience rather than trying to appeal to everyone. It’s certainly tempting to try to reach as many people as you can with your videos. But that leads to a lack of focus, and probably a lack of efficiency, effectiveness, and resonance of your messaging.”
–Ryan Vig, Marketing Leader, Descript
Sometimes in trying to appeal to everyone, you wind up appealing to no one. Many budget-conscious video marketers are taking a quality over quantity approach these days when it comes to distribution. This means focusing more on their target audiences rather than risk casting too wide a net. Your message will resonate more strongly if it’s precision-targeted at the exact viewers you’re trying to reach.
Video strategy tip #5: Approach your testing process like a scientist.
“The likelihood of [a randomly chosen variable] being a reason why someone’s converting is very small versus a change in value proposition, the copy, or the way the video starts. To me, those are the more meaty ways of why people are engaging with your content.”
–Kaitlyn Rossi, Senior Producer, Storyblocks
Testing and iteration is an important phase in the video production process, and doing it efficiently is especially important under tighter budgets. The whole point of testing is to glean actionable insights that help you improve your videos. But you probably won’t get a lot of usable information from just testing random things like fonts or backdrop colors. Instead, focus on changing something that fundamentally transforms some key aspect of the video. Then record the results and make the changes in your next edit.
Video strategy tip #6: Different stakeholders have different ways of measuring success.
“You can’t measure success without an agreed-upon definition of success.”
–Ryan Vig, Marketing Leader, Descript
Budget constraints means video marketers are more frequently being asked to demonstrate how their videos directly tie in to broader business goals. But different stakeholders will likely have different definitions of success. To avoid miscommunication, be sure to make time to meet with stakeholders throughout production to align on your video’s goals. During those meetings, be prepared to articulate the specific strategy objectives you’re trying to achieve with your video. And be sure to know how to highlight the metrics that best illustrate your success depending on who’s looking.
Video strategy tip #7: When efficiency is the goal, less is more.
“Three people who are working off the same brief and have a clear vision of what they’re trying to accomplish can create incredible videos in a very short amount of time.”
–Kyle Denhoff, Director of Marketing, HubSpot
It can be a great time saver to include more of your team in your video production, but too many cooks in the kitchen can slow you down. When enlisting help for your production, don’t just throw every available warm body at the effort. Instead, focus on getting the right people into place. Where could you use the most help? How much help do you need? Who has the free time and availability to pitch in?
Finally, video strategy tip #8: Take advantage of free resources to improve your video strategy.
“How to create a contemporary video strategy” is completely free to download, and is the most up-to-date guide you’ll find for creating a successful video strategy. This guide walks you through the steps of creating a solid strategy, guided by expert advice from video marketing professionals. Also, it acknowledges the tough economy that marketers are working with right now, between reduced budgets and leaner teams. Even if your team is doing more with less, it doesn’t mean your videos have to suffer. It just means getting creative with the resources you have available to hit your goals.
