How to Develop a Video Content Strategy for Your Business

Contrary to the belief of many businesses ready to jump on the video marketing bandwagon, kickstarting a video marketing campaign is not as simple as publishing a video. Like other forms of marketing, there has to be a strategic approach if you want to use your time and money wisely and actually get a return-on-your-investment.

Your video content strategy can be thought of as a blueprint. A plan to outline why you are creating your campaign, where you plan to go with it, and how you’re going to measure your success. It doesn’t really have to be a super detailed plan, but it should give you a good starting point of how you’re going to align your video content with your company’s goals.

1. Determine The Goal

What is your video content going to accomplish, and who for? You should come up with a mission statement of sorts for your video content strategy. Just a one-line statement that sums up what type of content you’re going to make (practical, entertaining, informative, or all of the above) and who your target audience is going to be. You should ask questions like, what will your video help your audience accomplish? What value will the video content add to their day?

2. Outline Your Plan

What sort of video topics and types of videos will you be creating? If you are looking to implement video content at multiple points of contact across your business’ online presence, you’ll want to outline the scope of this implementation. Look at where you’ll be implementing video content, what stories you’re going to present, and what format you’re going to use. Some options include how-to videos, recorded webinars, customer testimonials, case studies, and more.

3. Who’s Going To Create It?

Your budget and quality goals will determine who is going to be responsible for creating your video content. Some businesses take on some simple production internally to start. Others look for outside help. The reality is, if you start to see some returns on your video content strategy efforts, you’re likely going to end up outsourcing to a video marketing agency. You need to ensure that the people behind each video know what they’re doing and that their technique and equipment make the video content really stand out. Assess your resources and see what scope of video creation your company needs and can afford.

4. Where’s The Content Going To Go?

The next step is determining where exactly your video content is going to call “home”. Maybe you’ll be creating how-to videos, filming behind-the-scenes interviews, or reusing your old webinar content. No matter what, you need to figure out where you’ll be placing this content on video distribution channels like, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

You should also intend to embed your outside-hosted video anywhere possible on your website, like inside of articles, pages, and even the homepage section when applicable and relevant.

5. How Will You Measure Performance?

You need to have the right tools to measure the performance of every video you publish. You then need to be able to look through the metrics provided to you and analyze them effectively. Including how long people are watching your video, and the average percent of people who stick around to the end, and the click-through rate associated with each video. How many videos does each lead watch in a day, week, or month? All of these are excellent questions that you should be able to answer.

YouTube provides plenty of metrics to help you analyze the performance of the videos you publish to YouTube, but those hosted on your own website require a tool so that you can examine their performance.

If your end-game is YouTube you may be interested in how much you can get paid on the platform.

Do you need more help developing your video content strategy? Download the Video Marketing Strategy Blueprint (PDF). It is a quick, actionable guide to get you on the right path.