To kick off our series on how to rock video as part of your content marketing strategy, we’re going to talk about how to get your video assets to complement and feed into your biggest online asset: your website. I’ll be sharing tips, tricks, and industry secrets to drive more business with video, so watch this space for future installments.
Branding videos can serve as the flagship of your marketing strategy and campaign, if you execute the right way. Your branding video is your handshake–it’s your opportunity to introduce your brand, company, and services to prospective customers, and you have to make a good first impression if you want a second meeting. All other aspects of your marketing strategy should tie into this essential piece. A successful brand video will put a face to your business and help potential clients relate to you and your unique identity. Here, we’ll provide some useful tips to effectively use a brand video on your website and optimize that “hello” to turn your audience into customers.
Positioning Your Video on Your Website
You need to strategically place your brand video so that it draws the eye of the visitor on your page. You want to make sure that the video is placed above the fold on your homepage so that visitors don’t have to scroll down or click a link to another page in order to view it. Accessibility can be a determining factor in whether or not someone actually views the piece, so you want to make sure that it’s as easy as possible for your audience to reach. Remember, your viewers won’t search around for your content–you have to deliver it with a bow on top. Respect your site visitors’ time, and make it easy for them to find.
Avoid Autoplay
While Autoplay has changed the game on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, it’s a big unwelcome distraction when used on your website. If your brand video is your hello, then using Autoplay is like breaking into someone’s house instead of knocking on the door.
When you visit a new site and you hear noise in the background, your first inclination is to immediately find the source and stop it from playing. This feature intrudes on the experience of your visitors and greatly decreases the chances of them engaging with your content. They need to make the decision to click the play button of their own volition, and forcing them to interact with the video when they first enter your page is a poor strategy (and, to some, an offputting one.)
Choose Your Video Thumbnail with Care; Avoid the Default
Since you shouldn’t force viewers to watch your video, you need to entice them into doing it. Choosing the right thumbnail is vital to achieving that. A thumbnail, as the name implies, is the small still image that you see on a video before you hit play. This image is the first entry point for potential viewers, and if your thumbnail looks uninteresting, there’s a much lower chance of them actually playing your brand video.
You need to take care in selecting the still image, and not just use YouTube’s default. Choosing an image of a person in mid-speech, for example, is much less appealing than an up-close shot of a product or demonstration. You want your thumbnail to be as eye-catching as possible, so take the time to evaluate whether or not your image is sending the right message and get feedback from others (like a video professional).
Should You Use a YouTube Link or Embed to Your Website?
Deciding on whether or not to upload a YouTube link of your brand video to your website or embed it directly depends entirely on your goals and business needs. Embedding the video onto your site has an increased impact on SEO rankings, whereas a YouTube link is much easier to upload and provides viewers with an avenue to explore other video content on your channel.
Include a Short Description Next to Your Video
Including a short description next to your brand video is another marketing tactic you can use. This provides the visitor with some insights regarding the content they’ll be viewing and might make them more inclined to click the play button. Alternatively, you can also provide a brief description of your company or simply a list of services. Any text you can add can help with your SEO, as well.
Stay tuned for more video hacks and marketing strategies, and give me a call if you’d like to talk about how to execute this advice for your own website.
Include the link to the post on embedding videos here.