Planning For a Video First Marketing Strategy

Did you know viewers remember more from videos compared to reading? That’s because videos bring more, from tone and energy to visual and narrated information. Video is even better than looking at single images with all the same info and for the same amount of time. From this comes the idea of Video First Marketing.

Whether creating an advertisement showing the product in use for your website and social media, or a fun interview with the new team member for internal distribution only, consider video first. Live streaming your public events can easily be turned into other forms, such as screenshots and memes, or cut into other videos. Companies from every industry can now create short video series with an overarching story and lore.

Video First Marketing is the growing acceptance that the best form of audience engagement comes from video, and the decision to use video before other mediums. This does not mean only using video, but that video should be the first option considered.

Barriers To Video First Marketing

Not long ago, Video First Marketing would have been difficult. This strategy is really only possible because creating videos has gotten cheaper, easier and simpler. More talented experts have arrived to promote the medium, especially among the rising generation of production teams.

Unfortunately, marketing agencies don’t always have people in charge who think about video first. Someone in the organization surely does, but they need to be in the position to make those decisions.

Production teams also need plans for how video can be used, in the same way a traditional marketing agency has templates for advertising, blogs or press releases. These teams need assets and resources like any marketing group – Not just the tools and equipment to do the job, but also locations, props and style guides.

Planning A Video First Strategy

Look ahead at the calendar year and consider which marketing could be done with video. Start small if needed, even just one if before you had none. Create one or two specific goals for this project so the team knows what they need to do and what can be left on the cutting room floor. When that project is in production, ask the team to note what works and doesn’t work. What could be done to make future production cheaper and easier? Where did they have the most difficulty?

What style of video suits your business best? Educational content on how to use your product or service? Emotional and informative customer videos showing their love for your brand? Interviews in the style of a podcast with influencers and celebrities? Pure entertainment that simply uses your brand in the background? Videos that dive into a workday at your company?

Let your clients and customers tell you what they would want to watch from you, and then start creating videos that work cohesively to explain larger topics or create an ongoing narrative. The audience for these videos can grow over time, especially for content that is fun and informative.

Focus on shorter videos at first, especially those under a minute and with only one goal, because they will have less ways to fail and more to be learned from each problem. Complex, long videos should only be attempted after testing out the basic principles and procedures with many simpler videos.

Video First Marketing works at every stage of the marketing funnel. Are you trying to build brand awareness? Videos can be so fun they don’t even feel like marketing, and a good series quickly forms loyal fans. Do you want to convert customers? Let them consider and evaluate your product or service in action, and in some interesting way so they’ll share the video with others and advocate for you.

Lessons From Production Agencies

Full time video teams know this medium is created over several steps, starting with pre-production planning, then ending with post-production processing, scheduled promotion and results analysis. In the middle is production, which includes actor preparation, securing a location, script changes and filming. But don’t neglect pre- or post-production which can take up half or more of the total time.

One method of trying a video first approach is to hire an outside production team who already has the experience and resources. As they work with you to create the videos you want, your team can learn from them how production works, where to upload the various types of videos for maximum promotion, and the best way to draw attention to the new video content.

Or you can only have an outside team do some of the steps, such as hiring them to do the filming after you do all the pre-production, or getting the guidance of a production team on all the pre-production before you do all the filming. Either works, so long as at least someone on your side knows the essential workings and capabilities of film.

Professional video production companies like AJI Media in Philadelphia provide Video First strategy, production and distribution. They have experience in many formats and styles, from live video to animation and more. Get in touch to learn how we do Video First!