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Content Marketing with Video is a topic I’ve been writing about for most of the year….and will continue to write about it for a while yet.

This post came about as an answer to a question that a visitor to the web site asked me.  In the email I was asked to sketch out the foundational principles of Content Marketing With Video for someone who was thinking about using video for his website.

You won’t be surprised to learn that I sketched out 5 such principles….and I call those principles the Five Cs.  Here they are.

Principle #1: Content

The first principle is Content.

If you are going to succeed with video you have to provide content that is both high quality and resonates with your target audience.

Something to note: the more that you do the second (i.e. make invaluable videos for your target audience) the less you have to focus on the first.  That shouldn’t make you lazy – there’s no excuse for poor, hissy audio for example – but your target audience will put up with sub-standard production values IF your content solves a pressing need for them.

If you can combine content that your audience finds invaluable with good production values then you WILL attract traffic and leads.  The success of content marketing with video starts with relevant content.

Principle #2: (Sales) Cycle

Yeah, so I cheated slightly by putting the ‘Sales’ in brackets so that we get a ‘C’ at the start of Cycle.  But to maximise the effectiveness of your video marketing you have to know whereabouts in the Sales Cycle your video occurs.  Is your video an attraction video?  Or a conversion video?  Or a consumption video?

Each of these videos has different requirements – and what kind of video you are making has an impact on the next principle…

Principle #3: Call To Action

Every video needs a Call To Action.  And the Call To Action varies depending on whether you are making an attraction video, a conversion video or a consumption video.

I’ve written about Calls To Action on Da Spoon at length already….but each video should have ONE Call To Action, and that Call To Action should contain these elements:

• Tell the viewer what action to take
• Tell the viewer how to take the action
• Tell the viewer what they’ll get when they take the action

Once you’ve made your video – and ensured you’ve adhered to the first three principles – it’s time for the fourth principle…

Principle #4: Compelling Title

A good video with engaging content and a clear call to action will have its effectiveness drastically reduced by giving that video a bad title when you upload it.

The titles of your video should be treated with the same attention that you should treat the titles of blog posts – the title is equally important.

I’m going to write at length about this shortly, but a compelling title does the following:

• ‘attracts’ potential viewers to click on your video when it’s returned in a search result by promising an answer to a question they are asking
• contains a ‘keyword goal’ to tell the search engines what your video is about

And that’s it.

Principle #5: Consistency

When you’ve done all these things for ONE video, then you have to repeat this.  And not just once.

But multiple times.

You need to set a publishing schedule – once every two weeks, weekly, twice a week, five times a week, whatever works for you – and stick to it.  Your audience will come to expect it – and the search engines will reward you for it.

And each video you make can then send you traffic and leads for as long as you leave it published.

Summary

If you are going to do content marketing with video – and whatever type of business you have I’m a firm believer that you should be using video – if you embrace these 5 principles you are going to increase the effectiveness of your video marketing efforts.

To recap the principles:

1. Quality Content
2. Knowing where your video comes in the sales cycle
3. Have a great call to action (and one only)
4. Give your video a compelling title
5. Be consistent.

And that’s it.  I’ll be writing about some of these topics in more depth in the upcoming weeks – as well as continuing with the Content Marketing With Video Tips series.

Questions

If you have any questions….shout up in the comments below.

Related posts:

1. Content Marketing With Video Tip 10 – The Call To Action Part 1
2. Content Marketing With Video Tip 8 – Know Your Video’s Purpose
3. Content Marketing With Video 19 – More About Video Responses
4. Content Marketing With Video Tip 13 – The Call To Action Part 3

Tagged as: call to action, consistency, content marketing with video, publishing schedule, sales cycle, video creation