In the world of video marketing (or any type of marketing for that matter) your content isn’t going to mean a darn thing, unless you promote it.
As our good friend Rand Fishkin so rightly said:
“People don’t find content by mistake, or by accident. Every content plan needs a complementary promotion plan that combines paid, owned, and earned media.”
Aside from the fact that you owe it to yourself for all the effort you put into creating your content in the first place, if you don’t promote your video, you could be losing out on some serious sales.
The stats don’t lie:
An impressive 89% of people say watching a video has convinced them to buy a product or service!
But after you’ve exhausted your social channels with a link to the content, what else can you do?
These 17 powerful video marketing tactics will help you promote your video the right way…
1. Tease your audience
So when it comes to video marketing promotion strategies, you’d logically start right at the very beginning — when your content is live and kicking and ready to go.
And normally I’d agree…
However, I recently watched a Ted talk with JJ Abrams and he says that some of the most powerful stories in history are those that spark mystery amongst the audience. The reason that a mystery works so well, Abrams says, is because it intrigues the audience, and more importantly, keeps them tuned in to what the revelation will be.
Which got me thinking about marketing, and how if you tease your audience with clips or snips from your video before it’s even live; getting them involved from the offset — they’ll be far more likely to stick around and see what you’re going to release.
So for your upcoming video, rather than giving away everything all at once, create a buzz, maintain a bit of mystery, and get people excited for your launch.
2. Optimise your landing page
Optimising the landing page of your video is important if you want your audience to find it. The number one rule is to make sure you’re including the keywords of your video within the content on the landing page.
We’d suggest to include your keywords in the landing page title, within the alt tags, meta description, and sprinkled throughout the copy on the page. You don’t need to worry that you’ll be over-stuffing your content with keywords, it should flow naturally from the topic of your video.
Once you’ve done this and you’re still finding that traffic is slow moving, it might be worth tweaking your title and meta description to make it more enticing for the reader.
We recently tested this ourselves and managed to increase organic traffic by 53%! All it took was a few tweaks, so next time you create a landing page, test it out for the best results to suit your audience.
Related reading: How we increased organic blog traffic by 53% (in 5 minutes).
3. Include an enticing thumbnail in your email newsletter
Emailing your current database with your brand new video is a great place to start the promotion ball rolling.
Unfortunately, inserting a video into an email doesn’t always work, which means you’ll likely have to link to your video from the email instead.
We’d recommend using the most enticing thumbnail that you can to help encourage more clicks to your content.
For example, this thumbnail from Moz is perfect because it’s so intriguing as to what Rand is up to, AND it also details the subject of the video on his whiteboard behind. By blasting out an email with a thumbnail like this that’s targeted to the receiver, you’re far more likely to get them to play it.
4. Use the word “video” in your subject line
Did you know that by using the word “video” in your email subject line, you’ll boost open rates by 19%, click through rates by 65%, and reduce unsubscribes by 26%?
Could it be that:
- 69% of users would rather watch a video to learn about a product, than read text on a page?
- Maybe it’s because 70% of consumers like to share video content with their social media followers?
- Or perhaps it’s the fact that video is pretty much the future of marketing?
It’s open to debate, but we’re certainly not complaining.
When it comes to your subject line, it would be foolish to put all your eggs in one basket. Make sure you a/b test your copy to find the most preferred one for your audience.
5. Post in communities
There are plenty of communities out there that will be relevant to your video content, all you need to do is find them!
So for example, you could check out relevant groups or forums such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Inbound.org, and post a link to your video there.
6. Mix up the snippets on social
When it come to social media, don’t just post it once and expect all of your audience to see it — they won’t.
Some of our favourite video marketing tips for social media include adding an enticing thumbnail, discussed earlier, and post variations of your snippets so that you encourage more people to view the video.
For example, to promote our video marketing 2016 survey results, we posted it various times across social media, using different snippets each time.
We created a mini series out of our video, and pulled out different stats each week:
Included an enticing thumbnail and linked back to the video:
And even created a Twitter poll to encourage more people to watch the video and create a buzz across social media:
7. Pin it to your Twitter feed
Pinning your video to your to Twitter feed can help grab a little extra exposure that you may not have thought about before.
Pinning a Tweet is super easy:
First, create your Tweet and include the link to your video. Then, all it takes is a simple click and you can select to ‘Pin it to your profile page’:
And this will then appear at the top of your feed, which means that whenever anyone searches for you, your video will be the first thing that they come across:
8. Link back from your most successful content
This underused tactic is ideal for leveraging your best performing content and its significant traffic, to promote new and related content.
Check out Google Analytics to find out which landing pages are the most visited ones on your site. If you need to, tweak the content so that it’s relevant to your video, rather than placing a random link in there that nobody will follow.
Top tip: To make your content stand out even more, create a call-to-action banner that will lead your readers to view your video.
9. Add share buttons to the bottom of the video
Did you know that 63% of consumers have shared branded content to their social media followers?
This may sound like such a simple tactic, but it’s surprising how many companies don’t take advantage of it. By included sharing buttons within your video, you’ll encourage the viewer to pass it on to other people, as all it takes it one quick click!
You should be able to activate this very easily with your video host provider. For example, on Wistia, you’ll find a customise section so that you can add the option for the viewer to share it on social media, or via email.
As you can see below, the options will pop up in the corner of the video so that the viewer can easily push share if they so wish.
Sharing is caring after all!
10. Mention influencers when you post
Have you mentioned any influencers within your video? Perhaps you’ve cited a tool, platform or brand? This is another great tactic that can help build exposure to the video that you want to promote.
By mentioning these sources when you post videos on social media, they’ll be far more likely to share it with their followers too, as you’re essentially stroking their ego by creating content that centres around them.
11. Get involved with Twitter chats
Getting involved in a Twitter chat is another great technique for getting more eye-balls on your video. We wouldn’t advise to spam the chat with a link to your video, but rather build up a rapport with the people in the chat first.
If you find a window that’s relevant to mentioning your video, then feel free to drop a link, but make sure that you contribute to the topics discussed within the chat too.
There are plenty of Twitter chats happening all week, so you’re bound to find one that’s relevant to you and your audience. This Twitter chat schedule will be helpful when searching for one that suits you.
12. Weekly roundups
A weekly roundup is a great way to get a link back to your video, and more often than not, bloggers will be happy to include you so long as your content is relevant.
So how do you do it?
Just type in the “keyword” of your video and “+ weekly round-up” into Google, and you’ll be able to find a list of bloggers that offer roundups relevant to your niche.
For this example, I’ve used SEO + Weekly roundup:
I can then use these blogs as a basis to contact the authors and ask if they would link to my video.
13. Find people who have shared similar content
Chances are, if someone has been sharing similar content across social media, then they’ll be interested in sharing your video.
But how do you find them?
This is where the Twitter search bar comes in handy. Type in any keyword and you’ll be able to find a stream of related content that people have shared.
So for this example, I’ve used the keyword “video marketing”, and now have a list of people available for me to send a quick Tweet and ask them to check out my video:
14. Get chatty with commenter marketing
Have you heard of commenter marketing? The idea is that you comment on other blogs, and link back to the content that you want to promote within that.
Check out BuzzSumo to find highly shared articles within your industry, or another great option would be to set up a Google Alert using the keyword of your video:
That way, whenever your keyword is mentioned in the news or on a blog, you’ll be alerted so that you can visit the site and leave a comment.
Make sure you don’t spam the post of course. Leave a relevant message that provokes thought amongst the other readers, ask questions, and push the envelope so that you can get more people involved in your thread, and direct them to your video.
15. Undercut your competitors
Ahrefs is one of my favourite SEO tools because it has an awesome feature called: Link Intersect.
The idea is simple:
You enter a few of your competitor domains into the platform, and it’ll show you which websites are linking to them, but not to you.
It may be that these sites feature a list of tools, recommendations, or even content that’s relevant to you, but they just don’t know about your business so they haven’t included you.
Once you have these websites to hand, import them all into a spreadsheet, and drop the owner a message to let them know about your awesome video and how it’s highly relevant to the content on their site.
16. Write a guest blog
A guest post is one of the oldest tricks in the book — but that’s because it really does work!
There are many bloggers out there with thousands of readers, and an authoritative domain. All you need to do is pitch across a topic to write about, and if they say yes, you can place a link back to your video within the post.
This is highly valuable for two reasons:
- You’re directing a link to your site from a highly trusted website
- You’re directing a huge amount of traffic to your video content
Some of the best places to create guest posts include:
Entrepreneur
Inc
Business Insider
Social Media Examiner
Jeff Bullas
Business.com
Business2community
Marketing Profs
Top tip: Download the MozBar and you’ll be able to analyse whether the website you are viewing has a good domain authority (DA). The higher the DA, the more valuable the link will be back to your site.
17. Put together a relationship-builder strategy
You’ve probably noticed that many of the above tactics involve you contacting bloggers or influencers to ask if they’ll link to, or share your video.
So how can you guarantee that they’ll see yes?
Well, you can’t.
But, you can put together a relationship-builder strategy that’ll increase your chances of them agreeing to your request.
We’d always recommend building up a rapport first. Sure it takes time, but the results will be worth it.
We’d suggest to take the following steps:
1. Follow the person you want to contact across social.
2. Like, comment, and share their content.
3. Tell them that you love their content and would they mind you asking a question about it.
4. Send them an email asking if they would mind sharing your video as you think it would be really useful to their readers.
Takeaway
So there you have it, 17 powerful tactics to promote your video. Video marketing really is the future, but it’s important that you promote your content to make sure you’re reaping the benefits that it will bring your business.
Have you tried any of the tactics above? I’d love to know if they worked for you, or if you have any others!
