Hey everybody and welcome to the #trending in video blog brought to you by Best Made Videos®. This is our weekly video marketing blog, where we keep you up to date on all the latest tips and tricks in the world of videography and beyond. We are a Seattle-based wedding videography and live event videography company and we use this blog to hopefully keep you up to date on some new trending topics that you can apply to your own video production strategy. Today we are looking at two articles today, the first is from forbes.com and the second is from Practical eCommerce.
The first video marketing article we are looking from forbes.com is talking about 16 growth marketing trends that every business leader should watch. And the article begins that growth video marketing has seen a significant rise over the last couple of years, especially when you look at social media where audience reach is wider than it ever has been before. Rather than taking the time to focus on short term success, true growth video marketing works across the entire customer life cycle from engaged follower to customer to brand champion. As different industry leaders, the members of the Forbes business council understand how important video digital marketing is, especially during difficult times, and they are sharing 16 trends that should be on your radar as a business leader.
The first is the virtual upskilling market. Nowadays, particularly with everything that's going on the world more and more businesses are pivoting from business presence to an online video business. More and more consumers are finding experts that are going to help them learn lots of new ways to acquire products, services, and skills, and they will pay for upskilling from those who can help virtually through video conferencing while keeping the safe distance.
Number two is people connections, you have to get online, and you have to be able to put your message out there through video, to successfully market your business. But don't forget what doing this means. When you get on your social media page to talk to your customers, you really need to communicate with them. You could certainly use video or short educational videos as a way to do that as well. Number three is global expansion. The COVID crisis has brought the world closer to than it ever has been before. Everything is be built on remote video teleconferencing operations, and the world is now the canvas. There are no longer any barriers to who you can reach with your video message and those who capitalize the most on the wider reach are going to gain the the most in the longterm.
Number four is focusing on client experience improvements. Client experience should be on the radar of any video marketing business that wants to grow sustained. Differentiation is nearly impossible at the level of the base product. Similarly, while you want to have excellent service be your standout service has also become more of a ticket to play and less of a true differentiator. Video businesses that can differentiate by intentionally improving the experience of their client will be more valuable and more memorable in the long run.
Number six is niche social networks, and they begin that you don't necessarily have to be on every social media video platform, you need to find your group and build your community. You can find just as much value out of posting the video on Facebook as you can on Reddit. The important thing is to find the focus and the people that are going to share your interests and go deep over the next few years as niche social networks begin to open doing so is going to be even more important.
Number six, there's personalizing direct mail, specifically that is looking for alternative communication channels. Digital video marketing has become really noisy and there is an opportunity for direct mail to make a, especially if it is thoughtful and personalized. We've also talked about incorporating videos into direct emails, as well as a way to increase customer interest.
Number seven is micro influencers and the rise of micro influencers in the world of video. Customers want to feel the authenticity of someone on video promoting a product. They've found that on a smaller scale, micro-influencers have the most powerful impact on video. They use their video influence to work with brands that they believe in, and that allows them to create a more authentic relationship with their video audience. They earn trust by promoting products on video that they would use regardless of the sponsorship.
They also talk about micro moments and micro moments occur when customers instinctively reach for a smart device and act on a particular need, whether that's to discover, learn, or to buy. As video leaders, we need to be ready to predict our target consumer's path to purchase, and to capture them exactly when they need something. You only have a seconds to capture the audience's attention and can be a clear and concise and relevant message on video. Number 10 is authenticity in today's world. Everybody is their own walking network, and it said that it's vital to be as authentic as possible in all aspects of marketing, especially on video. The millennial generation has taught us that engagement is everything and that through information, regardless if it is accurate or not is going to travel faster than ever before. However, if we want to appeal to generation Z, you need to be focused on transparent messaging in your video information that appeals to a targeted demographic.
Number 11 is cross-department cultural alignment and they note that at large organizations, particularly those in a traditional industry, it departments are charged with the mission of digital transformation. They often find themselves at odds with the daily activities of the core operational departments. Companies that take the time to design client facing digital video solutions that implement cultural alignment across the entire department and employee similar video marketing will find success.
Number 12 is specifically talking about video marketing because of social media, having good video content has become a critical marketing tool for all sorts of business leaders. Video marketing is going to allow you to target your clients as well as be resources for your company. Videos provide you with the ability to demonstrate the particular branding of your company for your customers, and also to demonstrate the culture of your organization for people that would like to work for your organization.
13, we've talked about this before on the #trending in video blog, and that's our official intelligence and machine learning. Whether you're looking at chat bots on websites that will automatically engage with your customers to algorithms that are serving specifically targeted video ads to users, artificial intelligence and machine learning are the common denominators. The vast amount of big data on the internet is gradually being put to use by powerful and smart algorithms that are crunching through the data and using it to analyze and present to customers with a personalized proposal that they can make use of. 14 is targeted experimental video marketing, customers are looking for a great customer engagement experience and specifically there are technologies that are available that automate a good portion of this by leveraging the data an organization already has in house through artificial intelligence. If a customer on your site recently placed a purchase with your organization and they are calling you, your system could proactively ask them if the customer is calling about an item, they recently ordered.
Number 15 is conversational marketing, conversational marketing is changing the inbound dynamic from a traditional sales pitch to a two way conversation. It's about making yourself available to be able to talk through your customer's problems on their own terms, as opposed to simply throwing solutions at them. This is going back to the roots of one on one sales and savvy video. Marketers are harnessing artificial intelligence tools to use individual approaches for a longterm customer engagements.
And finally, number 16 is touchless interactions, they note in times of crisis, it's imperative to reinvent new models. Increased awareness of touchless interactions are going to fast track the adoption of digital and social media video marketing. Inventions are going to focus on voice enabled services like using transcriptions to search videos through voice, automated payments, video production, and distribution. What was previously nice to have is going to become the new normal.
This one is quite the list of growth video marketing trends. There are certainly some tips here that we can apply to our own Seattle based videography company. I hope you found some useful information as well.
The second article where we are looking at is a four step plan for video marketing success and this is from Practical eCommerce. The article begins videos are a potent way for an eCommerce business to build a lasting and profitable customer relationship. They note that YouTube reaches more viewers on mobile devices with their videos alone than the total USA audience of any television network. In 2020 more than 2 billion logged in users visit YouTube each month, according to the recent press release released by the company. If you want to add YouTube's exponential video growth to other video platforms like Instagram and Facebook, you certainly realize the importance of a quality video content creation strategy as a video marketer.
They list a four step plan for video marketing success, the first one is to set goals with your video. Content marketing offers a lot of room for creativity, but it is not shooting fun videos with friends or trying to be an amateur filmmaker. Content video marketing is the act of promoting the business, encouraging sales and generating profits. Your content, video marketing, and should have a defined goal, including key performance indicators. For example, maybe you want your videos to develop an audience on YouTube as more subscribers to your videos could mean more shoppers. You really want to make sure with your video content that you are setting reasonable goals, that you are able to look at and track the metrics as you go. So, you know, if the video content you are producing is worthwhile or not.
The second step is understand your video audience and they note that understanding your video audience is especially important with content, video marketing. This goes along with a lot of the authenticity talk that we've spoken about recently on the video blog and that is not trying to do a one size fits all with your video marketing approach, but rather to target your video content to the demographics that you are trying to reach as well as the content that you are wanting to create.
The third step is identifying video topics. Once you know your video audience, you need to start identifying, engaging topics for your videos. You can do keyword research, which is a foundational tactic for search engine optimization. It's also incredibly helpful for understanding what your video audience searches for when you are trying to convey content topics in your videos. You can also use your intuition. If your eCommerce store specializes in a certain item, you'll probably want to make more videos related to the industry that you are servicing. You should focus your videos on your products, and sometimes these products can spark compelling content, video marketing ideas as well.
Number four is to create an editorial calendar to promote your videos. They talk about utilizing a calendar, to pinpoint. When you want to release your videos on a regular basis, you could either schedule your video releases once a week on a certain day of the week, or you can record several videos at a time and then stagger out the video releases over several weeks so you're getting more bang for your buck with the video budget that you have set.
This was a pretty straightforward four step plan brought to us by Practical eCommerce about some video content creation strategies and this has been another issue of the #trending in video blog brought to you by Best Made Videos®. Hopefully we here in the Seattle market can incorporate some of these videography trends into our own video creation strategies and hopefully you can as well. Thanks again, and stay safe.