Marketers like content marketing, but they are yet to fall in love with it. Content ages too fast. What is hit and viral today, becomes obsolete tomorrow. Content marketing plateaus too quickly. This is in sharp contrast to video marketing. Videos have an engagement factor that compels you to watch the same meaningless cat video again and again. Many people save video links to watch later. We have more “watchers” than readers. It is the truth of today’s world. In 2017, video marketing strategies are healthier than a content marketing strategy.
Let’s first find out if your content strategy is working
Content strategy is ages old. People have already done whatever they could and innovated it every way possible. Here are a few things you are surely doing as a digital marketer –
- Standard content with fresh introduction of long-form
- Reliable lead-gated PDFs
- Time-tested CTAs
- Too much focus on product publicity
- Limited content variation
- Little attention to user experience and landing page
These are bound to flatten out your growth curve after a couple of months. People have already seen all these have to offer. They have now found something new – video content.
Ever since Facebook Live came online, people have been going crazy over live video content. People are watching it, enjoying it and sharing it. This shows how fast any market can change. You need to be agile, and your strategy must adapt to recent customer demands.
What is the snag in your plan?
First things first, find out what is responsible for the downfall of your sales curve. You can check that will the help of any reliable SEO management tool like Google Analytics. Check for the following –
- What’s your bounce rate?
Bounce rate should be below 40% for any modern website. If you are running an e-commerce platform, your bounce rate is a direct signifier of your sales.
- What’s your dwell time?
Your viewer might leave a page to go back to the search result list for two reasons – either he did not find what he was looking for, or he found it at one go. To understand this behavior, you need to monitor their dwell time on each page. If a page has a small dwell time but a high bounce rate, that page content is the culprit.
- Are you getting new users?
You can measure new users by CTAs and a combination of other methods. New users are necessary for reaching out to new markets. Each new reader/user is a potential customer. Use relevant keywords and proper meta descriptions to usher in new customers to your site.
What are these metrics telling you?
If your sales curve shows a definite decline, although your website metrics remain considerably healthy, it might be a bit more complicated than a sales problem. At this stage, you can be sure that your content marketing strategy is plateauing off and you need a current form of marketing that will do the deed for you. Your website can be facing two kinds of problems –
- There are no new visitors.
- There are new visitors, but they are not buying anything.
There are no new visitors
This happens when your content is not engaging enough to attract new people. You not only need to change the subject of your content, but you also need to start experimenting with the form of content as well. Video content is the key to instant popularity. Thousands of tutorials online can teach you how to create viral content for Facebook or YouTube.
If you worried about technicalities, try simple recording tools on your phone. This is particularly the case for live video streams that take taking over the digital marketing world. Your audience will be easier to please. They will not expect a 1080p HD quality video. They will watch your video for a catchy headline, an interesting or fun subject, and the sheer entertainment value. You should capitalize on the live video trend while it lasts.
If you do not have the confidence of going live yet, just make sure that your video plays on all devices. You can upload your video to free modern platforms like Vimeo and YouTube from your official channels. You should keep a commenting system open for your viewers. In fact, you should actively interact with the commenters. People should be able to share your video. Share your video content uniformly through all your social media accounts. It will help you with your SEO marketing as well.
There are new visitors, but they are not buying anything
You may be reaching out to the wrong audience. If you want to market lingerie, you should not upload animated videos that engage kids. You should upload content that appeals to your target groups only. For example – Facebook has an option where it allows the marketers to choose which age group, gender, and location you want to market your products or content. This will help you minimize the investment of resources and maximize the output. You should set up parameters to filter out false positives. Show your video content to the ones who are genuinely interested in your brand, product, and services.
You may be reaching to the right customers, but your website navigation is so complex that it is ousting them within a couple of seconds. A user-friendly navigation helps to create an improved user experience for your potential buyers. Most economically successful websites use delicate guidance systems including a touch of brighter colors and images to help users make a buying decision. It is the responsibility of the designer to create an interactive UI. This will facilitate a smooth transition from the top of the sales funnel to the very bottom and improve website sales.
Marketing is a milieu of some factors. Sometimes, it is all about sales tactics and marketing tools. While at other times, it is about creativity. Video marketing is taking over content marketing with panache. It is time you started harnessing the potential of video marketing to power your brand marketing and sales.
