Embedding a video on your blog or any landing page on your website is simple to do and can generate great results for your business. With some strategic planning, this type of content can lower bounce rates, increase engagement, and even boost conversions by 86%.
But here’s the caveat: It’s not enough to find any old video, include it in a blog post, and call it a day. The videos that you integrate across your blog have to add value to your site visitors’ on-page experience in some way.
Maybe they land on your blog via organic search or a shared social media post. Or maybe they’re long-time customers who read all of your blog posts as soon as they are published.
Whether someone is coming across your blog (and business) for the first or hundredth time, it’s up to your content team to write copy and use media that incentivizes site visitors to stay engaged.
And given that most consumers (90%) would rather engage with videos than text, it makes sense that you’d want to be more intentional about using video content across your brand’s blog.
This guide will outline a few key methods that you can leverage different types of video to your business’s advantage.
Build A Better Video Content Strategy For Your Blog
There are several things to consider when deciding which types of videos to add to your blog posts. And that’s true whether you’re producing the videos yourself, working with a third-party production expert, or outsourcing content elsewhere.
As you adapt your content strategy to include more video media, it’s important that you do the following:
- Understand visitor intent
- Focus on content variety
- Make it engaging
Understand Visitor Intent
Blog content isn’t always conversion-driven. Oftentimes, businesses create and optimize blog posts to attract top-funnel prospects who don’t have purchase intent but want to learn more about a specific topic.
In this case, you’re creating quality content that your target audience can access for free while also boosting brand awareness. It’s a win-win for your brand and your site visitors.
However, blogs can also be written for a mid-funnel or bottom-funnel audience who 1) already knows about your company and 2) has some purchase intent.
Whether you’re adding a video to a new or existing blog post, the first thing that you need to consider is where the average reader falls on the sales funnel spectrum.
Would someone reading this blog post want to learn more about the topic but not take any action beyond that (i.e., top-funnel intent)? Create an explainer video for the blog that breaks down all the most important takeaways.
Does the reader have purchase intent but is still comparing your business with a competitor (i.e., mid-funnel intent)? Find a YouTube video from someone who has tested the products from your business and the competitor and add it to the post.
Is there a good chance that the reader is on the cusp of converting? Use testimonial videos or demonstration videos to really emphasize your business’s value proposition in the post.
The videos that you integrate across your blog should naturally fit into the post itself. If site visitors are confused about why you included this video in this blog, that’s a sign that you need to re-think your approach.
Focus On Content Variety
“Variety is the spice of life,” or so the old saying goes.
When it comes to video content, there are many different types of videos that you can create and share on your blog. While explainer videos are some of the most common, you could also make customer tutorials, social media videos, etc.
And the good news is that, by working with a third-party expert like Kasra Design, you can produce these videos for your blog even if your team doesn’t have much video production experience.
Not only can you produce your own videos, but you can also diversify the video content on your blog even more by outsourcing the following:
1. User-Generated Videos
Did you know that user-generated videos are 29% more effective at boosting conversions?
Embedding videos that have been created by people outside of your organization — think current and former customers — is an easy but effective way to give site visitors a positive impression of your business.
Whether it’s a product review video or a customer story video, including this type of content on your blog and other landing pages reinforces your business’s value — especially to mid-funnel and bottom-funnel site visitors.
2. Co-Marketing Partner Videos
Forming and maintaining brand partnerships has been a top priority for most companies (74%) for quite some time now. And co-marketing success stories aren’t in short supply.
For example, a partnership between Coors Light and National Geographic led to a 6.8% improvement in brand favorability and a 3.9% improvement in loyalty. Not to mention, the video ads produced reached an audience of 10.5 million people.
This case study and others like it demonstrate just how impactful co-marketing content — specifically video — can be for brands.
So if you’re working with another brand on an upcoming product launch or campaign, consider whether that brand produces and shares videos that are relevant to your audience. Be it on YouTube or another platform.
You could embed one of their existing videos in your blog post or create new videos as part of the partnership. As long as the content is relevant and would add more value to the blog, by all means go for it.
3. Influencer Partner Videos
Whether you want to increase brand awareness, brand trust, or conversions, partnerships with social media influencers can help you achieve these types of goals sooner than later. (That’s a big reason why influencer marketing is slated to reach $15 billion by 2022.)
For context, let’s say you’ve partnered with a micro influencer who has a great track record of high engagement on platforms like YouTube and Instagram.
When this influencer creates and shares videos promoting your brand, the odds are stacked in your favor that their followers 1) will trust the influencer’s recommendations and 2) take action to learn about and/or buy from your brand.
In fact, it’s been reported that an influencer recommendation has directly influenced a consumer purchase for 80% of people.
Not only can this type of content partnership be successful on social media, it can also improve blog and website engagement when you embed an influencer-produced video on a blog post, landing page, etc.
Like user-generated content, you don’t have to lift a finger when it comes to video production (the influencer has this covered), and you still reap all the benefits once the content is shared.
Make It Engaging
You could have a strong understanding of visitor intent and embed a variety of videos on your blog, but if the content itself isn’t engaging, you probably won’t get the engagement results you’re looking for.
Keep in mind that the site visitors that land on your blog have a low attention span. To put “low” into perspective, it takes only 30 seconds for 33% of the people watching a video to lose interest and stop watching. That’s very short, I know!
The above video is an example of turning a rather boring topic into an engaging video using the power of 2D animation. It’s critical that every video on your blog hooks your audience’s attention from the start and holds their interest for the duration of the video.
Final Thoughts
Regardless of your business’s size or industry, integrating more video into your content strategy is strategic both on and off the blog.
Whether you plan on producing videos in-house or working with an experienced third-party, what ultimately matters is that your content engages the intended target audience and enhances their on-site experience.
About the Author:
Mackenzie is a copywriter at Soundstripe, a stock music company that provides filmmakers, creators, and advertisers with royalty free background music and royalty free folk music (among other genres) for video.