Category: Video Marketing

Why You Should Implement Video Into Your Marketing Strategy

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Let’s be honest, it’s not the year 2005 anymore. Fifteen years ago if you were looking for video marketing implementation, you’d likely find it in TV advertising or on a web browser. Today, however, video is available everywhere: on our phones, laptops, TVs, tablets, and even on our fridges! If you’re not using video as a part of your marketing strategy you’re missing out. Below are a few ways to begin implementing video right away:

Branding

In the ever-changing and tumultuous environment created by social media and COVID-19, video marketing presents a clear outlet to establish and maintain relevance for your brand while respecting safety guidelines. Regardless of whether you’re on a B2B or B2C platform, video marketing is generally agreed to have a great ROI. Video allows you to be much more personal than other mediums. Presenting your product or service over video allows you to build brand awareness, build loyalty and is an excellent avenue for presenting value proposition. Think: why is YOUR brand better than your competitors? Videos are an excellent opportunity for your company to shine through, for you to distinguish yourself, and to separate yourself from the pack. 

One of the simplest ways to promote your company is to include clips of employees or satisfied customers talking about your business. Remember with branding to tell a story and to aim for the heart. If people can put a face to the company then they will much more easily connect with what you’re doing.

Advertising

When it comes to paid advertising, video is an easy way to present your product or service. In particular, tailoring your video to platforms like YouTube which has over 2 billion active users a month, gets your company before a huge audience quickly. Most social media platforms include paid opportunities to promote a business via videos. These include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Vimeo, Reddit, and TikTok. Before choosing a platform to promote on, make sure you’re familiar with what will be best suited for your needs. Our guide on picking between Facebook and Instagram is a helpful resource. 

More traditional television advertising is also a great way to promote yourself too, but you certainly need to take cost-efficiency into account before going that route. Social media can be a simpler and much cheaper alternative.

Events

For events, videos are an excellent option as well. Before an event include clips from a previous event, you can also show location and venue. These will preview the audience to what they will experience when they attend. It can help with other things too. One of the most useful benefits of video is it can help your website with SEO. If you’re having trouble getting your event to show up on search engines, embedding a video could be just the trick to get you at the top of the page.

When the event is over make sure to follow up. Give a recap of what happened; interview attendees. Make sure to maximize the event to its full potential. Make sure you’re collecting new leads, creating a newsletter, and offering sponsorships. An after-the-event video can be a great opportunity to generate future leads for those who were unable to attend. 

Product Demos

Product demos can be one of the most effective ways to market yourself. HubSpot recently noted that 73 percent of all US adults are more likely to buy a product after viewing a product video.

These videos can be simple and silly! Some great ideas include filming a live video showing off the latest inventory, or filming someone on your phone and posting to your feeds. Obviously, product demos can be highly produced affairs, but they don’t have to be! Get creative with your presentation.

Lastly: Go for it!

We know making the step into video marketing can be a scary thing. Many people don’t ever do it for fear of producing something of poor quality, or for fear of failure. If you need help getting your plan off the ground the team at King + Columbus would love to help. K+C has some of the top professionals in the industry and is well equipped to help your business grow wherever in the process you might be. No need to wait, go ahead and start implementing video today!

 

The Value of Repurposing Content

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Reusing old content has become more valuable than ever in 2020. On top of that, there’s no better time to revitalize old posts than during the holidays. Between the stresses of dealing with COVID-19 as a business and planning time away from work, pulling content out of the vault can lift many burdens.

Depending on what your business produces to market itself, there will be different ways to repurpose it. But the core idea remains the same; take valuable content that has been buried under newer things, add a new spin on it, and push it back to the top of your feed.

Why reuse old content?

Before diving into your past catalog and simply re-posting everything you have, let’s dissect why this is important to do. Understanding the value of repurposed content will help you to decide which pieces to revitalize and how to do it.

Save time/money

The most obvious reason to go about this, is that you’ll save time and possibly money. Repurposing old content can often take a fraction of the time and effort it would take to create something new.

If you’re working with a third party such as an agency, you probably are conscious of both time and money. Your agency can help identify good content to reuse, based on how well it performed. The agency can then transform that at a faster pace and a cheaper cost than producing something original.

The process can even be automated. If you have timeless content, meaning it wouldn’t need any rewriting or additions, you can set up a system to automatically republish content. This is great for the holiday season once you start to take time off. This can be done through something as simple as using social media to post links to your content. Or on a deeper level, set up your website to push old, but relevant blogs to the top of the page.

Boost SEO

Your content can only truly boost the overall SEO of your website if people are visiting and spending time viewing your content. So don’t let your old content go to waste by hiding it in the past.

Giving people a fresh reason to visit your page will add to the existing SEO power that it built up originally. Whether you decide to update your existing content’s page, or copy the contents to create a new, fresh page, the SEO benefits will be great. You can attribute your new content back to the old post. More pages on your site means stronger search engine value. 

Reach new audiences

This boost in SEO is also one way that your repurposed content will attract new audiences. Perhaps your content didn’t’ achieve its full potential the first time. Giving it a second chance will do nothing but positive things for your brand’s reach. 

Times have changed dramatically in 2020. People are living their lives in ways we never saw coming, due to quarantines and social distancing. Chances are high that your business can play on these life changes in some way. Take a look back at your history of content marketing. You might just find something that is now relevant to a wider audience.

Just be sure not to overdo it by rehashing the same topics week after week. You don’t want people to see you as a brand with nothing new to say.

How should you reuse content?

Content marketing comes in many forms, and they cannot all be treated equally when it comes to repurposing. Once you’ve identified what’s worth reusing, you have to find the right approach to doing so.

Blogs

Blogs often rely on data to back up points, which builds up your brand’s expertise on a subject. One straight-forward approach to reusing old blogs is to update them with newer data. Add new links to externals sources, or even new backlinks to pages on your site that didn’t exist before. This all adds to SEO and brand image.

You don’t even have to keep the blog in written form to reuse it. Consider ways to turn your writing into podcasts or videos. Come up with new ways for audiences to digest your content. Not everyone engages with content in the same way.

Once you have a solid backlog of blog content, you can compile related blogs into a single collection. This can even take the form of a physically published book. 

The purpose of blogs in content marketing is mainly to build up the brand image by showing your expertise. Reminding people that they can engage with your content in different ways gives them more chances to see that you’re an expert.

Videos

Video content does not need to be reshot in order to be repurposed. Graphics, text, and animations can be added to transform your video.

Are you proud of a recent award or achievement your business achieved? Commercials or other video marketing pieces are a great place to insert graphics announcing your success.

If you have the time, recording new voice-over narration and adding new music is a great way to reuse videos. You won’t have to bother reshooting footage, and the content will still feel fresh. This is a great way to make new announcements for your business or share anything that has changed since the original video.

This is an important thing to remember even when shooting footage for entirely new videos. Always incorporate some level of timelessness. You can always cut things out, but try to get enough evergreen footage in your content that it can be trimmed and reused. 

Social Media

Social media is made for throwbacks. We’ve even dedicated a whole day of each week to it. Engage in the Throwback Thursday trend to reshare old posts with your followers. 

Hopefully, your follower count is always growing, so there should always be new eyes to share your content with. This can be done through stories, so you don’t have to clutter up your feed with duplicate content.

The cycle of reusing content can involve every channel. So if you’re refreshed an old blog for 2021, share that out on social media. You can do something as easy as taking the original image you used to post about the blog the first time, and add an “updated for 2021” text stamp on it. 

One important thing to remember when updating content that has been shared on social, is to make sure links still work. If you’ve gone back to edit an old blog, or have published a new version of a blog, make sure your posts link out to the new content. And always make sure no posts are linking to a page that no longer exists. Set up redirects to solve this issue.

SEO marketing

10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to building your brand and growing your business in 2020. As the use of technology has significantly increased over the last decade, so has the use of Google’s search engine. According to Statista, in April 2020, online search engine Bing accounted for 6.25% of the global search market, while Google had a market share of 86.02%. Additionally, in 2017 Google was responsible for driving 35% of all website traffic. 

SEO best practices are constantly evolving, as is Google’s algorithm. It is essential to not only continually monitor your website SEO conversions, but also continually optimize. There are a lot of intricacies surrounding search engine optimization, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed with what best practices to use. Today, lets discuss common SEO mistakes and how to avoid them.

 

1. Not meeting search intent 

It is important that the reader achieves what they’re looking for when visiting your page. If their needs are not met, your SEO ranking will be negatively affected.  Google ranks your site based on trust & value. This trust is established by behavior that shows your visitors find what they are looking for.

 

2. Writing at a high reading level

This is something that I personally struggle with every time I write a blog. As a writer, it is easy to forget that not everyone loves long, intricately structured sentences with fancy words like you. Not everyone, meaning Google.  Ideally, Google wants to see that your page is readable to anyone who visits it. This means keeping sentences short, and using words that everyone understands.

 

3. Outdated SEO techniques 

If you’re familiar with search engine optimization already, you know just how quickly the techniques can change. Google’s algorithm is constantly changing. It is important to understand the important SEO insights as they actively change. Here is a good list of 9 SEO insights you must follow right now.

 

4. Unclear SEO goals

Just as any marketing practice, without a strategy there is no way to measure your success or reach your goals. You should establish an overall SEO strategy, as well as a strategy for individual campaign initiatives. If you’re new to building an SEO strategy, I highly recommend checking out this article by marketing expert Drew Fortin.

 

5. Ignoring conversion data

Measuring the success of your SEO is extremely important. The primary goal of your search engine is to drive traffic to your company website. More specifically, the goal is to target relevant customers. Someone who is already interested in a product or service your company provides is more likely to convert. Without measuring your conversions, you have zero ability to measure the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. Here are some helpful tools to audit and monitor your SEO.

 

6. Using only text content

If you’re new to SEO optimization, text-only content is dead. It is more important than ever to include imagery and/or video in blogs, emails, and other means of content. According to comscore, adding video to your website can increase the chance of a front page Google result (SERP) by 53 times. Video increases customer attention, therefore leading to higher engagement. This Vidyard article is a great example of the benefits of video marketing.

 

7. Not good for mobile

Over 50% of users use their phones to view websites and open emails. Google search ranking practices Mobile-first indexing, meaning that Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.  Because of the shift in web traffic being driven by mobile users, new websites (built since 2019) are indexed mobile first. Keep this in mind when building your landing pages and blogs!

 

8. Not enough attention to your headings

Headings and subheadings are important because they make your page or article easier to read; thus, increasing your SEO value. The reader should be able to find what they’re looking for quickly. Otherwise, they will leave your page. Making minor changes to the text in your headings won’t directly affect your SEO value. Rather, it is the effect on the overall structure of the page. Use headings as signposts, and the text below to describe what they’re about. Applying structure and making the page easy to read for customers will help Google understand your page better, too. 

 

9. Writing for Google & not your audience

It is easy to lose sight of the purpose of the blog article or landing page you are building and cater specifically to SEO rankings.  As important as it is to keep search engine ranking top of mind, it is essential that you write for your audience and not Google. If you’re using a platform like WordPress, I highly recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin. Once you’ve begun utilizing Yoast, write FIRST for your audience and THEN integrate the SEO optimization. Yoast will provide a detailed list of SEO suggestions, and rank your blog or landing page accordingly. Ultimately, real people are who you are trying to reach and convert into revenue, not Google (sorry, Google).

 

10. Helpful content

This is one of the strongest marketing trends for 2020. With the current state of the world and the economy, it is more important than ever to produce helpful, educational content. If you are producing something to sell to your clients, you’re going to turn away potential clients before they can even decide if they want to buy with you. Your communication should come from an empathetic and honest place. However, don’t ignore the elephant in the room. Try new + creative email campaigns geared towards providing your clients with helpful resources.

 

 

 

 

Vlog

Making a Vlog Series: Just Do It

Posted on | by Post and Courier Staff

Vlog Series for Content Marketing

Rather than serving as a trendy bonus component of a company’s digital presence, it’s become a necessity for brands to incorporate video into their content marketing strategy. Because 65% of people are more likely to retain information that they see, video is a strong solution for helping businesses quickly establish thought leadership in the digital age.  After all, it’s anticipated that video will account for 80% of all internet traffic in 2019.

The video marketing industry currently has a $135 billion value and there’s no better time than now to claim your piece of it.

What’s the first step?

Three words: Vlog It Up. Otherwise known as a “video blog”, a vlog or video blog is an excellent way to show your customers how and why they should use your product or services. Use a more down-to-earth approach. Take a step back from hard advertising methods that interrupt users and think about fitting in to their experience more naturally. Create a more personal relationship with your customers so they develop a desire for your brand. You can integrate vlogs into your website, social media pages, email campaigns – you name it. It’s a great way to frame and distribute valuable content to internet users.

Why start now?

The future of marketing is visual.

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Therefore, the best time to share your video content is now. Even by simply knowing what a vlog is and the benefits it brings your customers, you’re already showcasing your business as one that’s focused on the future of communication.

Quickly establish your business as a thought leader in your respective industry.

You are telling people about your company, and even more, you’re showing them what exactly you do. 42% of consumers say that video is their preferred way of learning about a product or service. You have the ability to share your knowledge in creative, meaningful ways through how-tos, simple branding videos, and more. For example, the real estate industry is certainly seeing the benefits of vlogging. 44% of homebuyers end up purchasing a property they found through a real estate video.

Gain the ability to reach unlimited share potential.

With the help of easy access social media share buttons and more sharing platforms than ever, videos have the potential to go viral quickly. 92% of users share online videos with their personal and professional networks. Therefore, if you have content worth sharing, prepare for a significant increase in overall following and brand awareness as a result of your vlog campaign.

Add face value to your growing business.

Let people see and hear from the experts themselves. Above all, vlogging creates a trustworthy personal relationship within a business relationship. People are more likely to work with a business that they feel personally tied to and trust as opposed to one that appears to only care about the business transaction. The healthcare industry specifically relies heavily on video to connect with their customers on a more personal level. It’s an excellent way to provide custom answers to important questions such as common procedure specifics, protective measures to combat flu season, and vaccination preparation.

Not sure where to start with topic selection? Here are our suggestions:

Customer testimonials

Company introduction

Team introduction

New product or service announcement

Q&A sessions

Trending topics in your specific industry

 

We want to help you see what vlogging can do for your business. Contact us to get started!