The New Video Marketing Landscape: What you need to know to grow your business and get more clients
Video marketing has long been touted as one of the most powerful online marketing methods.
Even with fitness marketing gurus shouting “increase your SEO!” from the rooftops, many small business owners are still not taking advantage of this effective and lucrative marketing method.
If you’re one of them, or if you’re looking for even more ways to optimize the videos you already have, your timing couldn’t be better.
Thanks to new developments in video marketing, NOW is the perfect time to jump on the video bandwagon, increase your search engine optimization, help new customers find you, and watch your profits and client base grow.
Need-to-Know Video Marketing Opportunities
Cards
If you use a YouTube channel as your main platform for fitness video marketing, you may already be using TrueView in-stream advertising to monetize your content.
These types of ads appear at the very beginning of your video and allow the viewer to skip to your content after a few seconds.
In the spring of 2015, YouTube announced a new TrueView advertising feature called “Cards.”
Cards allow advertisers to add a Call to Action (CTA) to video advertisements in the form of a small text ‘card’ that appears on the right side of the video screen (or below the screen on mobile devices).
Whether you have a paid YouTube channel or are investing in paid video marketing advertisements on YouTube, this change has big implications for you.
Cards create much more opportunity for engagement thanks to their positioning, the CTA language used, and the new payment structure that’s been rolled out by YouTube.
Instead of getting charged whenever someone decides not to skip an ad, advertisers now get charged whenever someone clicks a card.
This means more visibility for the advertiser across multiple video platforms, which in turn increases your chances at monetization with video marketing.
Facebook Dominates YouTube But It’s Always Changing
What if you could adopt the same video marketing strategy used by huge marketing firms and some of the biggest companies in the world?
You can. Just follow this simple formula for better video marketing: choose Facebook BEFORE Youtube, for your next video marketing campaign. (Technically, you should have tour videos on both platforms.)
Now I’m not saying Youtube is dead – far from it! But Facebook is coming up fast as a top choice of big businesses looking to make a splash.
In fact, a recent survey of over 100 industry leaders found that 87% percent of them have Facebook video marketing campaigns in the works, while only 81% were sticking exclusively to YouTube (source: Global Newswire).
There are two important lessons to take away from this: first, Facebook is a video marketing force to be reckoned with – consider using video for any Facebook ad campaigns you may be running in the future.
Second, whether Facebook or Youtube, a huge majority (80%++!!) of thought leaders and successful businesses are using video marketing to increase brand awareness.
These companies have millions to spend on marketing research each year, so why not follow in their footsteps and embrace their strategy for your own business and brand?
Livestream Video Reigns Supreme
As a coach, personal trainer, or solopreneur, video lets you engage your audience on a whole new level.
By connecting with your face and voice, clients and prospective customers can get a sense of what it’d be like to work with you while vetting your industry expertise.
Now take all of those benefits and amplify them tenfold with the growing popularity of live video streaming.
Real-time video applications like Meerkat and Periscope are giving social users and brands the ability to connect in real-time.
- Personal trainers and fitness experts can live-stream their training sessions with current clients
- Life coaches can livestream talks, podcast recordings, and interviews
- Wellness experts can livestream Q&A sessions with clients and give new customers a no-risk way to ‘try on’ their brand for free (and in real time)
Are people really looking for live-streamed videos? Wouldn’t it be better to spend time and money creating a more polished, pre-recorded video for your brand?
The data says no.
If video marketing is powerful, then live video marketing is positively almighty.
Whether you promote your videos with Cards, Facebook marketing, or live-streaming videos, it’s clear that video marketing is not just here to stay – it remains one of the most, if not the most, effective ways to engage users, increase your authority, and make it easy for new clients to find you online.
Of course, things evolve so quickly. TikTok has taken over. And we are always on the lookout for new and evolving technologies such as AI generated video content.
