If you haven’t done a lot of video marketing, it might seem like a daunting undertaking.

via GIPHY

But you don’t have to spend a ton of money and time to get a lot of value out of producing videos.

Kate Skavish, the chief visionary officer at Wave.video, provides a fantastic rundown of everything you need to know about video marketing.

Want more advice on how to get the best content marketing ROI? Sign up for our monthly podcast newsletter to get exclusive access to bonus interview content and resources!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• • Why you should consider video as part of your content strategy
  • How video can help you at every stage of the funnel
  • What makes a video “good”
  • Tips on how to more productively promote your videos

Transcription:

Amanda: On this show, we talk often about content in general. But this week, I’m excited to zoom into a specific type of content, which is video. And on the show, to have this discussion is Kate Skavish, the chief visionary officer at “Wave Video”. Welcome to the showcase.

Kate: Hi, Amanda, thank you for the introduction. Hi, everyone, I’m really excited to be on the show. I really like the quality of everything.

Amanda: Oh, thank you. That’s very nice of you to say, I’ve been wanting to do an episode like this for a while, because like I mentioned, we can talk generally about content. But obviously, when you talk about specific types, things get a little different, the strategy gets a little different, the way you promote it gets a little different. So, I’m really looking forward to hearing your insights on this. So, I always start with a top level question. And the question at this time is going to be, what is the importance of video in a content strategy?

Kate: Well, video brings better results. So, the better results you want from your content, the more you need to introduce video into it. Another thing, usually you want traffic from your content, right? You want people to come to your website or your channel, and video helps with that. And lately, you can see that Google video content above even some ads and way more above written content that brings more emphasis on including video into your blog, into everything. And even little video snippets can bring traffic to your blog up significantly.

Amanda: Yeah. So, when you say that video just makes it better and gives you better results, do you think it’s constantly driving more traffic? What do you think is so successful about it? 

Kate: Well, of course, the content itself matters. What you put in the video matters more. But when you think of engagement, definitely video drives more engagement. So, on our platform we mainly focus on videos, which make people do something, if you want to sign up for a newsletter. And people are more likely to watch videos than read an article, then you can see more return on investment if you use video as a compound. And return on investment, you can see more click through rate, you can see more signups for newsletter, if you want people to buy or educate them about something, that also helps to provide them content in the form of video. Of course, people vary, and some people would like to read their blog and move through content with their own speed. But for them, there are some techniques when you can repurpose video into blog and vice versa. You can create video and educational videos out of your high performing blog posts or stuff like that. So, sometimes it’s complimentary to your already best working content. And interestingly enough, I talked to S.E.M rush, it’s a search engine optimization tool. And they told me that written content exists on the web for like 40 years, but amount of video content is catching up. Which means that everyone noticed that video works and people create more and more videos lately. And that’s something to pay attention to. If Google shows video content above written content and the amount of both if not. Basically, you want to pay attention to creating more content, otherwise you risk to be just buried under this new videos and new engaging content.

Amanda: That’s impressive stuff. I did not know that that video is catching up to standard text content, that’s pretty wild. So, now that there’s so much video content out there, like you said, people are recognizing that it can really work for them. Wave video helps make videos easier, right? I think that there’s a lot of reservation when people decide to make a video because it’s a higher cost, it’s a higher production value, it takes more resources. What do you think are some of those major roadblocks? Do you think that’s like the main reason people haven’t done it yet? Or are there other things that might be holding people back?

Kate: Well, of course everything new takes time to be widely adopted, but I’m in the know that the people see that those marketers who already exercise videos are getting better results. And I think the majority is just catching up with that. And of course in general if you think about video, such a broad term, if you think about it as something that high quality and you need to achieve and expensive equipment to produce it, then yes, but if you are a marketer and just want to bring people from the top of your funnel down to the sale, the top of your marketing funnel, then you probably can try to use an expensive type of video, for example, live video on Facebook, it’s pretty inexpensive, you can educate your audience, you can bring them to your webinars, which initially, yes, it’s a hustle to produce them, but then you can replay them again. And that’s already free of your effort, you can automate it in our database. And with the video, we have 200 million video clips, and you can mix and match, your content is professionally done with our clips. That type of content works very well on Instagram, because they favor professionally done videos and they focus on objects individually. So, it’s all depends on your marketing channel. If you market on social, of course, your crowd, your audience want to see your face, to get to know you. If you recommend some certain products, of course, you can show them the video. And thinking, just for me, I’m more likely to buy in terms of stats, people are 64% more likely to buy a product if they see it on video, which if you think might be worth a little bit more effort and more time into producing video, it depends of course on the cost of your products and how often you change them, your inventory. But I personally, rarely buy let’s say a new shoe, if I don’t see video with them, how they actually look on people, or other stuff. So, for me, video is important, for me as a consumer of course.

Amanda: Well, it’s got to be a huge factor and trust building, right? Because really the reason people want to see a video for a product is to make sure it’s exactly what it’s being advertised in the text. It’s almost evidence that backs up what else is being said. Is it similar? I was actually going to ask you kind of touched on this, like when do you need actual people in the video as opposed to something that’s animated or along those lines?

Kate: It’s not necessarily that you need to have something animated, again in our database, you can choose models who can produce effects that you want, can show like gym or exercise, but hidden a person as a speaking person, it all depend where you place your video content, if you want more clicks on YouTube, or if you want more clicks on Facebook, having a person as a thumbnail, there are some who say a few words prior to showing a product or explaining something always helps, and it’s not necessarily that it should be a marketer, it could be just a person, it could be an actor, you can order some scripts, it could be all sorts of, and it’s really getting broadly used and inexpensive. For example, you can order voiceover and at the same ease, you can order video recording now, like talking head, that’s what we call it. When a person just talks about something, you can give a script to an actor, and they can say it. So, it’s getting more and more affordable to produce these professionally done videos. But on social sometimes people even prefer those unscripted and slightly and often professional look leaders, because it’s more natural, that sort of leaders build even more trust with the audience on platforms like Facebook, for example.

Amanda: And there seems to be even more tolerance now, just because after COVID, everyone’s working from home, everything’s different, and people are a little bit more lenient. And these kind of authentic things like you’re talking about, like it’s my duty to have the most produced video of all time, well still as long as it’s useful, right? So, there’s so many different ways to use video, is there a better part of the customer journey it’s suited for?

Kate: For now, majority of marketers use it as a brand awareness, first step, but it works effectively on every step of the funnel. I believe that this time people just will address the steps not only top this video, and if you think about videos, and the goals, you set for KPI’s, and so on, a first step of course, brand recognition, that’s easy to measure. But the next steps, like education about product building trust, engaging with customers, it also brings amazing result as a video. So, I just think it will take some companies slightly longer time to address all the steps of the funnel. And of course, the top is always more visible for us, because the rest could be under passwords hidden somewhere and the top is a more visible way to buy deals. I think it’s widely used on all steps of the funnel now.

Amanda: Can you give examples of the types of videos that would be useful at every stage of the funnel?

Kate: Sure, of course. So, obviously in the awareness stage is number one, social media ads, video maker, some templates for that you can find in our database. Next step would be engagement and blog post promotions, something that people can see on social media, then interesting next journey stage, video emails, you can send email video in emails, if people already signed up to your email list, your newsletter, here, you can send some educational videos. And again, on our platform, we support integration MailChimp, and you can embed videos in MailChimp. And for each video created on our platform, we have corresponding landing page, which makes it easier to click on thumbnail in email and watch the video and a video landing page of course, it’s also interest or people already interested in your product, you can set up pages with webinars, and other content recorded or live, it’s up to you. And on the stage of conversion, it’s mostly already website, video or branded video, some video which closes the deal and make final decision if you talk about costs, packaged software or products that can be bought online. And for more advanced products, it’s already final stages sales representative. But what I’ve heard from people who widely use videos, that crowd who comes to final step in sales is already so much more educated, and so much better understands what they want. So, the time salespersons spend with those people who have already watched a bunch of videos, and then show this video funnel of the code, it’s much shorter and clients are more satisfied. So, it helps.

Amanda: That kind of leads into another question I wanted to ask, which is about measuring the impact of these different videos. So, obviously, like the top level for awareness, views are a big one, how long they actually watch the video. But what are some other things you can look for especially in the middle and bottom of the funnel to indicate that you are getting the return on investment for creating the videos?

Kate: No, of course, every company who has a marketing funnel can keep their eyes on each step. And you can see how the KPI”s change with the various videos. Of course, you can test videos against text or other type of content that you consider for this particular part of the funnel. And I am kind of a big fan of final KPI’s. If people do some of which certain videos, and they end up buying this content works, right. So, how long they’ve watched this video, it’s not always necessarily reflected in final touches. But you also can see how many times they’ve watched certain parts as an individual. And that gives you a better idea either about quality of video, maybe some parts of it or not so clearly understood, and you need to work to simplify them for people. Or maybe that’s something that people pay attention to in your service the most. And again, you can test it and see which one needs to be addressed. So, just keep an eye, that helps of course.

Amanda: And is there a difference when you’re publishing on different platforms in terms of how you should set up your video or style your video, you mentioned earlier that having actual people is good for social. So, is there a difference between putting on social rather than on your website or rather than on YouTube or Vimeo?

Kate: Absolutely a huge difference. First of all, even between social platforms, there is a big difference. People who come to social platform, let’s say Facebook, they expect to see certain stuff in the original awareness, for example those features are supposed to grab their attention and make them stop and watch, right. So, you definitely want to see some friendly face on the video, it could be an animal, it could be a person and you need to see some text because often people look through the video and the sound is off. So, you want people to stop on this video, to watch it a little bit, to turn the sound on, put captions and take some video which will give them the hook why they should watch this video, why they should only pay attention to your content. That’s something which is very important. And of course, people on Facebook they don’t expect to watch this video, you don’t expect them to watch this video for more than a couple of minutes. Usually it’s less. So, the shorter the video is, the more likely people go and check your content out if you hook them right, if it’s the right audience for your promotion. And if you think about YouTube, it’s a very different tactic. The idea is the same, there should be something to make people stop and click. And usually it’s a text. And it’s not more than three words, so people can briefly read it while they are scrolling through the content. And that should be catchy enough to make them watch. 

If you think about Pinterest, videos work very different from Pinterest. And Pinterest usually have different algorithm, it’s visual algorithms, they want to see an object. For example, if I put my photo on Pinterest, they start to suggest some glasses, or some clauses, that’s what they see, only similar items. So, they don’t necessarily recognize me as an individual, but they recognize my style, and suggest stuff like that. And for them, it’s very important. For Pinterest, it’s very important to have congruent name on the video and content on thumbnail. So, that’s something if you are in the glasses, you need to talk about glasses, I guess. If you talk about different products, you’d better show it. So, Pinterest will understand that this is an object you will be talking about on your video.

Amanda: That’s interesting. You said that video in general is more engaging. What can you do to make your video more engaging in the competition now? What are some tactics that kind of get people sucked in? You’re talking a little bit about that, in terms of the social platforms, right? But what in general makes a video good?

Kate: If you think about videos that captivates us for hours, let’s say you watch some TV show, right? And you cannot stop. It incorporates changing of summary all the time, even people who have a better look, you probably don’t pay attention to it, but you filmed them from different angles, you are the operator, and this visual enrichment, which happens naturally keeps us stick to TV. It’s actually hardwired in us, when something is moving we pay attention to it, because it’s a survival mechanism. We don’t want some alligator to attack us. 

Amanda: Wow, it’s that wild?

Kate: Yeah, it’s from a gathering and hunting times. And we do pay attention to something that’s changing around us, especially when it’s landscape or scenery, which is going on. So, those things keep us captivating, and of course story. So, the best way to captivate people’s attention is to have the story which evolves in front of them, if you add this change of scenery into it, that just hooks us. 

Amanda: That’s so interesting. I’ve never heard that before.

Kate: And it is also something that’s engraved in us, hardwired, if a story has a beginning, we have certain expectations, right, and middle, and then we also remember better. So, that’s why when people talk about content they refer to storytelling so often, because it’s just the way our brains are wired to memorize better. And of course, as a marketer, you want people to memorize your brand, your content, your product does better. So, stories as the best.

Amanda: Yeah, that makes total sense. Do you think that there are any particularly unique challenges to video marketing that other types of marketing don’t have?

Kate: Of course, the technical aspect of it. And we all sort of go uneasy with this technology and think that sometimes the best results we see in somebody else’s content is because of the technology. But in fact, our phones are getting so advanced, all you actually need is a good mic, because it matters, and sound quality always matters in video the most. Because if the sound is off, people tend to turn to the video more often than if something wrong with a visual part. That’s interesting. So first, you catch them with visuals, but then you keep them on the sound. So, nice background music helps a lot.

Amanda: That’s good to know.

Kate: Yeah. And I think it’s the stereotypes that people are afraid of being on video. 

Amanda: Well, yes.

Kate: They think they’re not going to look nice. But the good part is that people see you for a couple of minutes, the most a few seconds. And then they really tune into what you’re telling them in your storytelling. And that’s kind of encouraging, because you don’t have to pay so much attention. I mean, it’s so important, of course, it also contributes to the success of the video, but the storytelling is the most important part of it, I believe.

Amanda: And you believe that helps?

Kate: Yes.

Amanda: What you’re wearing or what your hair looks like?

Kate: Yes.

Amanda: I bet that is encouraging for people who get self-conscious on video. But you’re right, it’s like, people aren’t thinking about it as much as you are nine times out of 10. What about video promotion? What are some strategies there? Obviously, there’s just the publishing on social, it has its own form of promotion. But what are some other ways to get more traction?

Kate: Of course, if you have email list, it’s always a good idea to promote your videos via email. And I just a couple of hours ago, was on a session called, “To budget”, it’s analytic for YouTube, they have a million followers channel, and they talk about each video that they publish, they promote via email, this short teaser, where they’re just trying to build anticipation for days before they publish a video on YouTube, they promoted in email, for example, that’s really smart, I think. And they give their customers just enough to want to see more. And then when people come and watch the whole video on the channel and of course, like any regular promotion. So, what we noticed the best results are achieved when people do both, promote the seizure to build anticipation before release the video and do after the show promotions, when they also take the best part of the show and trying to hook people this way. So, this type of promotion helps.

Amanda: Yeah, sounds like that can be incorporated into more repackaging, like you were talking about earlier too, you can take those best pieces and even like a blog post, or something or like, you know, across multiple videos. 

Kate: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s a part of the strategy. So, you just set up strategy, how you want to promote stuff, what should be routine. And when you have a strategy, it’s super easy to create templates. And when you have templates, it takes so much less energy to actually follow your path and promote everything in certain ways that you decided before. And yeah, that become too this idea of strategy and how important it is, it saves so much time if you really have to promote your content. So, of course for videos too.

Amanda: So, if somebody wants to get by and to do more videos, is the strategy there to kind of lay out what the projected budget is? So, in this case, it sounds like audio is important. So, if you don’t have a good mic, that would definitely be something, decent camera. But what else is there to consider when you’re going to make that pitch to really sell this?

Kate: I think mic is very important. Some on table light, which could be like $20. And I think cell phone on a tripod. So, it’s important that whatever you film with is not shaky, because nothing is worse for people’s eyes than shaky images on media. But other than that, I think technology itself shouldn’t be something that stops you. And I believe it’s important to have a habit. So, if you decide that I do videos, like once a week on Friday, stick to this habit and start with like a two minutes video or 30 seconds video, but do it consistently. So, I don’t believe that technical part is a starter for people, I think habits are. So, just building up the right habits and doing videoing regularly, that gives so much more results in the end as the time passes. So, just being there and showing up. That’s the most important part, I believe.

Amanda: It’s interesting you say that though, like you can start with a shorter video and then build up to something bigger, you don’t have to start with the perfect iteration of what you want to do. Right?

Kate: Right, because you never started this way. Think about it. Everything that you master must have over time. And you need to start with baby steps. And consistency is way more important that quality in the beginning. But then if you do something consistently, you just naturally understand how you can improve, and you just naturally improve. But consistency is something that is the key. You cannot do anything professionally without consistency.

Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. So, Kate, knowing the objective of the show, who would you recommend being future guests on the program?

Kate: Probably somebody from social media, like Mari Smith, she does absolutely amazing, high quality content on the fly. She does like live videos, and it’s always perfect. It’s somebody who does it for a lot of time, over a long period of time and she’s really amazing. 

Amanda: Awesome.

Kate: Yeah, we are on Facebook.

Amanda: I’ve seen one of those live videos. It was very impressive, her setup and then the way it looked, and she has so many fans. It really does pay off. 

Kate: And that is the reason why she has these fans, because she’s always perfect. I don’t know how she does it, but it’s amazing. It is really a social dance in there, really advanced technical stuff. And as always, it’s professionals, it looks so easy and so effortless. They can introduce you.

Amanda: Yeah, that’d be fantastic. Well, thank you so much Kate for coming on the show and sharing your video tips with us. I appreciate you taking the time.

Kate: It was my pleasure. Thank you, Amanda.