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In the past 30 days, more video content has been uploaded online than the major U.S. television networks have created in 30 years.
Let that sink in for a minute.
It’s no secret that video is a powerful force that’s been growing in usage year over year. What has changed is how important video has become on every platform and channel across your entire business.
Thanks to the rise of technology, video is used more widely as an inbound strategy across marketing, sales, and service teams. When done correctly, a video marketing strategy is an effective way to attract, engage, and delight your audience in a human and helpful way. In fact, more than 50% of consumers want to see videos from brands — that’s more than any other type of content.
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If you’re looking to get started or improve your video marketing skills, it’s helpful to know what goes into creating effective online video content. We’ll run through several of my favorite video marketing examples from the Fortune 500 company, Lowe’s, below.
5 video marketing lessons from Lowe’s
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Customize your YouTube channel
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Produce educational video content
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Incorporate video on your website
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Get creative with your Instagram stories
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Upload videos directly to Facebook
1. Customize your YouTube channel
Not only is YouTube the most powerful video-sharing service, but it’s also the world’s second-largest search engine (behind Google). In fact, over five billion YouTube videos are watched every day.
People love to binge video content. The average YouTube viewing session is 40 minutes (up 50% from 2017).
To make the best impression on your audience (and make it easy for people to find and consume your content), take the time to customize your YouTube channel.
Notice how Lowes’ YouTube channel:
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Has a branded header with links to their other social channels
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Features a channel trailer near the top that auto-plays when you arrive
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Offers playlists by bucketing together like-themed videos
To learn how to create and optimize your YouTube channel, check out this free course.
2. Produce Educational Video Content
The best way to keep people tuned in to your video content is to either educate or entertain them (or both at the same time). In order to do this well, you need to take the time to identify your audience. What are their goals, challenges, fears, and so on?
Lowe’s knows their audience is primarily made up of do-it-yourselfers, which is why they offer multiple playlists targeted towards home renovation projects. For example, notice how the “Popular How-to Projects” playlist is chock full of educational videos that their audience might be searching for to guide them through a home renovation project.
It’s important to keep your audience’s search habits in mind when creating and optimizing your YouTube video content.
Why?
Because it’s likely your audience doesn’t only search for content on YouTube. Additionally, Google owns YouTube and showcases video content often above the coveted number one non-paid website listing. Let’s say, for example, you want to build an in-ground fire pit so you go to Google to do some research. This is what you’d find.
At the top, you’ll see Lowe’s claims Google’s featured clip. These are videos pulled from YouTube that appear in the Featured Snippet “zero position” spot above the top 10 website listings. Unlike the traditional YouTube video carousel, a Featured Clip auto-starts and stops at the exact section of the video that answers the searcher’s query.
And speaking of the video carousel, Lowes’ video shows up as the first video to watch.
3. Incorporate video on your website
Adding a video to your website can increase the chance of a front-page Google result by 53 times. This is especially helpful if you include a video near the top of your educational website pages.
Why?
Because if people take the time to watch your video, then it’ll reduce bounce rate. Your website’s bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on one of your website pages, then leave quickly without clicking on anything. Having a low bounce rate is a strong indicator to Google that people find value in your content. And if Google thinks your content provides value, that can lead to first page rankings for the topics you want to show up for.
Let’s go back to the search result for “how to build an in-ground fire pit.” As you scroll down the page you’ll see Lowe’s claims the first non-paid website listing. Notice how this page features the embedded YouTube video at the top of the page with more step-by-step instructions below it.
4. Get creative with your Instagram stories
Similar to YouTube, Instagram is a visual social media channel — every post must include a video or an image.
Within the world of social media marketing, and especially within the world of Instagram, customizing your highlighted Instagram Stories provides a unique opportunity to tell a compelling narrative that benefits your business. These highlighted stories won’t disappear after 24 hours like typical stories.
Notice how Lowe’s offers various highlighted Instagram Stories by store department. When going through one of their Instagram Stories, you’ll notice that they link to a relevant page on their website to learn more or purchase the product.
And there you have it — four video marketing examples from Lowe’s to help get your creative juices flowing. Consider how you can apply one (or several) of these examples to your business to strengthen your video production efforts.
And lastly, a lot of video content is constantly being published online. In the time that you read this article, over 216 hours of video content was uploaded to YouTube. Let’s be honest. Do you really think the world needs another piece of mediocre content? I don’t think so.
To get started with your business’s video marketing strategy, access our free checklist
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Author Bio: Justin Champion is the author of Inbound Content, Principal Content Professor for HubSpot, Adjunct Lecturer for the University of Florida, and one half of Wild We Wander. Justin created HubSpot Academy’s free Content Marketing Course, which has awarded over 40,000 certifications to professionals across the globe since November 2016. Connect with Justin: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website
* This article was originally published here